All news in category “Incidents and Data Breaches”

🛡️ The U.S. Justice Department, with Canadian and German partners, dismantled infrastructure for four major IoT botnets — Aisuru, Kimwolf, JackSkid and Mossad — that compromised more than three million devices and launched hundreds of thousands of DDoS attacks. The action targeted U.S.-registered domains and virtual servers and aimed to stop further infections and future attacks. Law enforcement credited nearly two dozen tech firms for assisting in the operation.

🔒 CISA is urging IT and security leaders to harden endpoint management configurations after pro‑Iranian group Handala reportedly abused Microsoft Intune in a March 11 attack on Stryker that disrupted operations and enabled remote wipes. The guidance emphasizes least‑privilege administrative roles, phishing‑resistant MFA, privileged access hygiene, and multi‑admin approval for destructive actions. Although focused on Intune, CISA says these defensive principles apply to any UEM. Organizations should audit admin access, require multi‑party approvals, and continuously monitor privileged activity.

🔒 Navia Benefit Solutions says an unauthorized actor accessed its systems between December 22, 2025 and January 15, 2026, potentially exposing records for nearly 2.7 million people. The company discovered the activity on January 23, 2026 and launched an investigation, which found the actor acquired names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, plus HRA, FSA and COBRA enrollment details. Navia says claims and financial account information were not exposed. Affected individuals are being offered 12 months of identity protection and credit monitoring through Kroll, and federal law enforcement has been notified; no ransomware group has claimed responsibility.

🔒 Speagle is a newly identified malware that subverts the client and infrastructure of the legitimate document protection product Cobra DocGuard to harvest and exfiltrate sensitive information while masquerading as normal client-server traffic. Researchers at Symantec and Carbon Black (Broadcom) say the 32-bit .NET binary verifies the DocGuard installation, collects system and browser artefacts, and uses a compromised Cobra server for command-and-control and data theft. Tracked as Runningcrab, the activity appears narrowly targeted to environments running the security software and may stem from a supply-chain compromise; attribution remains unknown.

⚠️ Amazon disclosed that the ransomware group Interlock exploited a critical deserialization flaw in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (CVE-2026-20131) as a zero-day beginning January 26, roughly 38 days before Cisco released a patch on March 4. The bug carries a CVSS score of 10 and was addressed in Cisco’s semiannual firewall update alongside a second high-severity FMC issue. Using its MadPot honeypot network, Amazon captured attacker activity, recovered a malicious ELF binary, and traced a full attack chain that leveraged a single poorly secured staging server. The findings underscore the limits of patching alone and the need for layered defenses and urgent log hunting for provided indicators.

🛡️ Bitrefill says a cyberattack in early March was likely carried out by North Korea’s Lazarus/BlueNoroff cluster, citing reused IPs, emails, malware, and on-chain tracing as linking indicators. The company traced the intrusion to a compromised employee laptop and stolen legacy credentials that exposed a snapshot containing production secrets and some cryptocurrency wallets. Bitrefill reports about 18,500 exposed purchase records (including 1,000 with names), believes losses were limited and will be covered from capital, and is strengthening security controls and monitoring.

🔒 The FBI has seized two clearnet domains used by the Iranian-linked hacktivist group Handala after its destructive cyberattack on medical device maker Stryker. A seizure banner cites a Maryland court warrant and says the domains facilitated malicious cyber activities; DNS now points to FBI name servers. Handala acknowledged the seizures and said it will rebuild resilient infrastructure. Microsoft and CISA issued guidance to help organizations secure Intune and Windows domains against similar compromises.

🔍 Group-IB's March 19 report exposes operational details of the Gentlemen ransomware group after an affiliate known as hastalamuerte leaked internal information. The research describes a rapidly evolving RaaS that sprang from a Qilin ecosystem dispute and leverages a dual-extortion model, cross-platform encryption and automated lateral movement to maximize impact. Primary initial access stems from exposed FortiGate VPN devices, while advanced evasion such as BYOVD and aggressive log deletion are used to frustrate defenders and forensic analysis.

🔒 APT28 actors are exploiting a Zimbra Collaboration Suite stored XSS (tracked as CVE-2025-66376) in targeted attacks against Ukrainian government entities. The campaign delivers obfuscated JavaScript in phishing emails that executes when messages are opened in vulnerable Zimbra webmail, enabling remote code execution and server compromise. Researchers report the script harvests credentials, session tokens, 2FA backup codes, and 90 days of mailbox content, exfiltrating data over DNS and HTTPS. CISA has added the flaw to its catalog and ordered federal agencies to remediate affected servers under BOD 22-01.

🔒 ThreatFabric researchers disclosed a new Android banking malware family named Perseus that enables device takeover and financial fraud through dropper apps promoted on phishing and IPTV sideloading sites. Built on code from Cerberus and Phoenix, Perseus leverages Accessibility-based remote sessions to monitor, interact with, and fully control infected devices. It targets users across Turkey, Italy and other European and Middle Eastern markets, and adds note‑scanning to harvest high-value personal data. Operators can issue remote commands, stream screens, run HVNC sessions, and authorize fraudulent transactions via a command-and-control panel.

🔐 Researchers at ThreatFabric have discovered a new Android malware family called Perseus that scans user note-taking apps to steal passwords, recovery phrases, and financial data. Distributed via sideloaded IPTV-themed apps, Perseus abuses Accessibility Services to gain full remote control, capture screenshots, and deploy overlays and keyloggers. The threat uses a dropper capable of bypassing Android 13+ sideloading restrictions and performs extensive anti-analysis checks before exfiltration. Users are advised to avoid sideloading APKs, keep Play Protect enabled, and install apps only from the Google Play Store.

🚨 In mid-November security researcher Paul McCarty flagged a vast spam campaign in the npm registry that injected tens of thousands of useless modules named after Indonesian dishes. The packages — about 86,000 at discovery — often appeared legitimate, used chains of dependencies, and some contained self-replication to publish more modules and even tied into the TEA blockchain to harvest tokens. The campaign created dependency bloat, reputational risk, and the potential for future supply-chain abuse; Kaspersky recommends developer awareness training and container/dependency scanning with tools such as KASAP and specialized runtime protection.

🔐 In Episode 459 Graham Cluley and Paul Ducklin dissect a near-miss account takeover aimed at WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg that combined MFA prompt fatigue, authentic Apple alerts, a convincing support call and a phishing page. They draw practical lessons on resisting MFA prompt fatigue and social-engineering support scams. The episode also explores UK Biobank re-identification risks and the ethics of sharing lifetime medical data.

🔒 Aura confirmed an unauthorized party accessed nearly 900,000 records containing names and email addresses after a voice‑phishing attack targeted an employee. The company says the data came from an inherited marketing tool tied to a 2021 acquisition and affected roughly 20,000 current and 15,000 former customers, while noting Social Security numbers, account passwords, and financial data were not exposed. Have I Been Pwned added the leak to its database and observed customer service comments and IP addresses among the files. Aura is conducting an internal review with external experts, has notified law enforcement, and plans to send personalized notifications to affected individuals.

🔒 The Interlock ransomware gang exploited a maximum-severity remote code execution flaw in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center as a zero-day beginning January 26, 2026. Cisco released a patch for CVE-2026-20131 on March 4, warning it allowed unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary Java code as root on unpatched devices. Amazon's threat team reported Interlock had been exploiting the vulnerability for 36 days prior to public disclosure.

⚠️ Amazon Threat Intelligence warns of an active Interlock ransomware campaign exploiting a critical Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-20131 (CVSS 10.0). The flaw enables insecure deserialization of a user-supplied Java byte stream, allowing unauthenticated remote code execution as root. Amazon telemetry shows zero-day exploitation since January 26, 2026, and the actor's toolkit includes multi-platform backdoors, reconnaissance scripts, and infrastructure-laundering components.

🔒 Marquis, a Texas-based financial services provider, says a ransomware gang stole data for 672,075 people after compromising a SonicWall firewall on August 14, 2025. The attackers exfiltrated names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security and Taxpayer Identification numbers, and financial account details without security codes. The breach disrupted operations at 74 banks and has prompted lawsuits and numerous consumer class actions.

🔒 Researchers have dismantled the ShieldGuard crypto scam after Okta Threat Intelligence flagged the malicious browser extension in an advisory on March 17. Marketed as a wallet security tool with social promotion and token "airdrop" incentives, the extension instead harvested wallet addresses, scraped full HTML content after logins and tracked users across sessions. It used obfuscation and a custom JavaScript interpreter to evade Chrome protections and supported remote command-and-control execution. Partners removed the extension from the Chrome Web Store, disabled backend infrastructure, took down domains and blocked sign-in functionality; users are advised to limit plugins, verify sources and treat free-token offers with caution.

🔒 Darksword is a newly discovered iOS exploit kit targeting iPhones running iOS 18.4–18.6.2 and used to harvest credentials, photos, messages, and cryptocurrency wallet data. Researchers from Lookout, Google Threat Intelligence Group, and iVerify linked the framework to the actor behind the Coruna chain and say Apple has patched the exploited flaws. Victims should update to iOS 26.3.1 and consider enabling Lockdown Mode if at high risk.

🔒 Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) disclosed a JavaScript full-chain iOS exploit named 'DarkSword,' observed since November 2025, that chains six vulnerabilities to fully compromise devices running iOS 18.4–18.7. Multiple operators — including commercial vendor PARS Defense and suspected state actors (UNC6748, UNC6353) — used DarkSword to deploy implants GHOSTBLADE, GHOSTKNIFE, and GHOSTSABER. Apple has issued patches (culminating in iOS 26.3); GTIG recommends updating immediately or enabling Lockdown Mode if updates are not possible.