All news in category “Incidents and Data Breaches”

⚠️ FortiGuard Labs observed a Mirai-derived botnet named ShadowV2 actively exploiting multiple known IoT firmware vulnerabilities to deliver a downloader and ELF payloads that enable remote takeover and DDoS operations. The activity, detected during a late‑October global AWS connectivity disruption, targeted a wide range of devices including D-Link, TP‑Link, DD‑WRT variants and DVR systems. ShadowV2 decodes a XOR-encoded configuration (key 0x22), contacts a hardcoded C2 (silverpath.shadowstresser.info / 81.88.18.108), and supports UDP, TCP and HTTP flood methods. Fortinet provides AV detections, IPS signatures for the exploited CVEs, and recommends firmware updates, network hardening, and continuous monitoring.

🔒Gainsight has confirmed the cyber‑attack tied to Salesforce affected more customers than initially reported, though the vendor says the number remains limited and affected customers were notified. As a precaution Gainsight temporarily disabled Salesforce read/write access for several products, including Customer Success (CS), Community (CC), Northpass (CE), Skilljar (SJ) and Staircase (ST). Other vendors such as Gong.io, Zendesk and HubSpot have also disabled their connectors. Gainsight engaged Mandiant for an independent forensic investigation and is advising customers to rotate credentials and S3 keys, reset NXT passwords where appropriate, re-authorize integrations, and follow proactive hardening guidance while the investigation continues.

🛡️ A malicious Chrome extension named Crypto Copilot was found injecting covert Solana transfers into Raydium swap transactions, diverting funds to an attacker-controlled wallet. Published by "sjclark76" on May 7, 2024, the add-on remains available on the Chrome Web Store with 12 installs. The extension appends a hidden SystemProgram.transfer to each swap before signature, charging a minimum of 0.0013 SOL (and applying a 2.6 SOL/0.05% rule) while obfuscating its code to evade detection. It also contacts backend domains to register wallets and report activity, giving a false veneer of legitimacy.

⚠️ Unit 42 documents a renewed campaign by the Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters (SLSH) that combines a supply-chain driven data theft affecting Gainsight/Salesforce integrations with the emergence of a new Windows-focused ransomware-as-a-service, ShinySp1d3r. The actors publicly threatened mass ransomware deployment and set a leak deadline while also actively recruiting insiders and claiming hundreds of additional victim accesses. Organizations should prioritize rotating exposed tokens, enforcing strong insider controls, and engaging incident response if they suspect compromise.

⚠️ Multiple London local authorities, including the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and Westminster City Council, are responding to a serious cybersecurity incident identified on Monday. Both councils have informed the ICO and are working with the NCSC while invoking business continuity and emergency plans to protect critical services. A number of systems, including phone lines and shared IT services, are affected across boroughs. RBKC reports successful mitigations are in place and recovery work is continuing.

🔒 Arctic Wolf Labs reports that a RomCom payload was delivered via a JavaScript loader known as SocGholish to a U.S.-based civil engineering company, marking the first observed use of this distribution method. The chain relied on fake browser update prompts to run a loader that established a reverse shell, dropped a custom Python backdoor called VIPERTUNNEL, and installed a RomCom DLL loader that launched the Mythic Agent. Attribution to GRU Unit 29155 is assessed at medium-to-high confidence, and the intrusion was blocked before it could progress further.

🔴 A seasonal surge and new alliances between ransomware groups drove a 41% month-on-month jump in attacks from September to October, NCC Group reports. Qilin was the most active actor, blamed for 170 of 594 incidents (29%), followed by Sinobi and Akira. The rise coincides with LockBit 5.0 realigning with DragonForce and Qilin, and the emergence of newcomers such as The Gentlemen. Organisations are urged to reinforce monitoring, staff awareness, and secure backups ahead of the peak threat season.

🚨 Crisis24 confirmed its CodeRED emergency-notification platform was breached, disrupting alerts for state and local governments, police, and fire agencies nationwide. The company decommissioned the legacy environment and is rebuilding from a March 31, 2025 backup, so recent accounts may be missing. Crisis24 says the incident was contained to CodeRED, but names, addresses, emails, phone numbers and passwords were stolen; no public posting has been confirmed.

🔒 Security researchers at watchTowr discovered that two popular code utility sites — JSON Formatter and Code Beautify — inadvertently exposed thousands of developer submissions containing sensitive secrets and credentials. By querying a public API and the sites’ “Recent Links” listings, the team extracted over 80,000 submissions spanning years, including API keys, private keys, database and cloud credentials, JWTs, and PII. The exposure remained until the sites disabled the save feature; watchTowr also confirmed active scraping by third parties and reported limited response from affected organizations.

⚠️ The FBI warns that cybercriminals impersonating bank and payroll support teams have stolen over $262 million in account takeover (ATO) fraud since January 2025, with more than 5,100 complaints reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. Attackers use calls, texts, phishing sites and SEO‑poisoned search results to harvest credentials and MFA/OTP codes, then quickly wire funds to crypto wallets and lock owners out. The FBI advises monitoring accounts, using unique complex passwords, enabling MFA, bookmarking official banking sites, contacting financial institutions immediately to request recalls and indemnification, and filing detailed complaints with IC3.

🔒 New research from watchTowr Labs found over 80,000 files saved to online code-formatting tools, exposing thousands of passwords, API keys, repository tokens and other sensitive credentials across government, telecoms, finance, healthcare and critical infrastructure. The datasets comprise five years of JSONFormatter content and one year of CodeBeautify content (about 5GB), and both services used predictable, shareable URLs and a Recent Links page that made mass crawling trivial. Researchers uploaded decoy AWS keys that were abused within 48 hours, and both sites have temporarily disabled save functionality while implementing enhanced content-prevention measures.

🧨 Check Point Research details the Shai-Hulud 2.0 campaign, a rapid and extensive npm supply-chain attack observed in November 2025. Between 21–23 November attackers compromised hundreds of npm packages and over 25,000 GitHub repositories by abusing the npm preinstall lifecycle script to execute payloads before installation completed. The report outlines techniques, scale, and practical mitigations to help organizations protect development pipelines.

🦊 Jamf Threat Labs reports a macOS malware chain, named FlexibleFerret, that employs staged scripts, credential‑harvesting decoys and a persistent Go-based backdoor to maintain long-term access. The campaign uses a second-stage shell script that reconstructs download paths and fetches different payloads for arm64 and Intel systems, then unpacks and runs a loader while writing a LaunchAgent for persistence. A decoy app mimics Chrome permission prompts and a Chrome-style password window to steal credentials, which are exfiltrated via the legitimate Dropbox API. The final stage invokes a Golang backdoor, CDrivers, that provides remote command-and-control and extensive data-theft capabilities.

🔓 Researchers at external attack surface management firm watchTowr discovered more than 80,000 JSON snippets saved via JSONFormatter and CodeBeautify's unprotected Recent Links feature, exposing credentials, private keys, tokens, and configuration files. The platforms generated predictable, shareable URLs when users saved snippets and stored them without access controls, allowing anyone to scrape content via the services' APIs. Leaked material spans government, finance, healthcare, telecoms, and other sensitive sectors. watchTowr's Canarytoken test showed attackers accessed planted fake AWS keys after links had expired, indicating active scanning.

🔓 Researchers discovered that the code-formatting services JSONFormatter and CodeBeautify exposed more than 80,000 user-saved JSON pastes totaling over 5GB via an unprotected Recent Links feature. The listings and predictable URLs allowed simple crawlers to enumerate and retrieve sensitive data including credentials, API keys, private keys, and PII. The findings show active scraping and confirmed access attempts after uploads expired.

🔒 Mainz University of Applied Sciences reported a cyberattack on Monday, 24 November, and has shut down all IT systems. The university says most services are unavailable while IT teams and investigative authorities analyse the threat and potential damage. A crisis team was mobilised to maintain essential operations, but restoration timelines remain uncertain. No further details have been released and it is unclear how the attackers gained access.

🛡️ Kaspersky researchers report that the ToddyCat APT has evolved tactics to harvest corporate email and Microsoft 365 access tokens. Operators deployed a C++ utility, TCSectorCopy, to copy Outlook OST files sector-by-sector and then extract messages with XstReader. They also used SharpTokenFinder to enumerate and steal JWTs and, when blocked, relied on ProcDump to obtain Outlook memory dumps. PowerShell variants of TomBerBil were observed stealing browser cookies, credentials and DPAPI keys across network shares.

🛡️ Cybersecurity researchers disclosed a campaign that leverages Blender .blend files hosted on public asset sites to deliver the information stealer StealC V2. Malicious .blend assets contain embedded Python scripts that execute when Blender's Auto Run is enabled, fetching PowerShell code and two ZIP archives — one deploying StealC V2 and the other a secondary Python stealer. Vendors advise keeping Auto Run disabled and verifying asset sources.

🔒 Dartmouth College says threat actors linked to the Clop extortion gang exploited a zero-day in Oracle E-Business Suite to steal files and leak them on a dark web site. The college reported unauthorized access between August 9 and August 12, 2025, and on October 30 identified files containing names and Social Security numbers. A filing with Maine's Attorney General lists 1,494 individuals whose data was found in reviewed files and notes that financial account information was also taken. Dartmouth has not provided details on any ransom demand or the full scope of impacted people.

🐛 Security teams have warned of a rapidly spreading secret-stealing worm, Shai-Hulud, that has resurfaced in the npm ecosystem and already infected hundreds of packages with tens of millions of downloads. First seen in September, attackers hijack developer accounts to publish trojanized packages that exfiltrate AWS keys and GitHub tokens to attacker-controlled repositories. Vendors including Wiz Security and Mondoo report explosive scaling—hundreds of new repos discovered every 30 minutes—and urge urgent dependency audits. Recommended mitigations include rotating credentials, disabling npm postinstall scripts in CI, enforcing MFA, pinning versions, and using tools like Safe-Chain to block malicious packages.