All news in category “Incidents and Data Breaches”

🛡️The FBI, with the Indonesian National Police, dismantled the infrastructure of the W3LL phishing network, detained the alleged developer identified as G.L., and seized key domains used to harvest credentials. The off‑the‑shelf W3LL toolkit—marketed for about $500—enabled adversary‑in‑the‑middle attacks that bypassed MFA and targeted primarily Microsoft 365 accounts. Authorities say the operation attempted more than $20 million in fraud and was linked to tens of thousands of compromised accounts.

📱 A newly identified Android banking trojan called Mirax is spreading across Europe, combining remote-access features with residential proxy capabilities to expand its criminal utility. Researchers at Cleafy report campaigns reached more than 200,000 accounts by leveraging social media advertisements and fake streaming apps. Mirax runs as a restricted Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS), enabling real-time device control, dynamic overlay injection for credential theft, continuous keylogging, and the conversion of infected phones into proxy nodes to help bypass fraud controls.

⚠️ A new infostealer dubbed Storm surfaced on underground marketplaces in early 2026, offering subscription-based credential and session theft for under $1,000 per month. Storm harvests browser passwords, session cookies, crypto wallets, autofill data, and app tokens, then uploads encrypted artifacts and performs server-side decryption to evade endpoint detection. The platform also automates cookie restoration using supplied Google refresh tokens and geographically matched SOCKS5 proxies, enabling silent session hijacking and persistent access to web services.

🔔 Emergency updates address a critical PDF zero‑day in Adobe Acrobat Reader (CVE-2026-34621, CVSS 8.6) that executes malicious JavaScript when specially crafted documents are opened. The report also highlights Anthropic's Mythos being used as an exploit-generation engine, state-linked interference with infrastructure, and research showing telecom optical fibers can be abused for acoustic eavesdropping. Prioritize patching, credential hygiene, and detection for fileless and AI-driven attacks.

🛡️ The FBI Atlanta field office, together with US and Indonesian authorities, dismantled a large-scale phishing operation built around the W3LL phishing kit. The kit, sold via a members-only marketplace called W3LL Store, enabled attackers to clone login pages and harvest credentials for as little as $500. Investigators seized the w3ll.store domain, identified an alleged developer known as 'G.L.', and say the toolkit may have been used against over 17,000 victims worldwide between 2023 and 2025.

🔒 North Korea–linked APT37 has been observed using Facebook friend requests and Messenger to build trust with targets before moving conversations to Telegram and distributing a ZIP archive containing a trojanized Wondershare PDFelement. The tampered installer executes encrypted shellcode that contacts a compromised legitimate site, japanroom[.]com, to fetch a seemingly benign JPG which stages the RokRAT payload. The malware then leverages Zoho WorkDrive for command-and-control, enabling screenshots, remote command execution via cmd.exe, host reconnaissance, and evasion of security products.

🔒 Operation Atlantic, led by the UK's National Crime Agency with US and Canadian partners, froze $12m and disrupted multiple fraud networks after a week-long probe. The operation focused on approval phishing, a technique that tricks victims into granting full access to cryptocurrency wallets via fake alerts or popups. Investigators, supported by private-sector firms including Binance, Coinbase, Tether, and analytics vendors, identified over 20,000 compromised wallets across 30+ countries and contacted 3,000 victims. Authorities also disrupted more than 120 scam domains and flagged an additional $33m believed stolen in related crypto fraud.

🔒 OpenAI disclosed that a GitHub Actions workflow used to sign its macOS apps downloaded a malicious version of Axios on March 31, though the company says it found no evidence of user-data access or broader system compromise. The workflow had access to a signing certificate and notarization materials for ChatGPT Desktop, Codex, Codex CLI, and Atlas. OpenAI is treating the certificate as compromised, revoking and rotating it, and warns older macOS app builds will be blocked by default starting May 8, 2026 to protect users.

🛡️Kaspersky and analysts observed unknown actors briefly compromise CPUID, swapping legitimate download links for trojanized installers of CPU‑Z and HWMonitor for under 24 hours. The malicious packages contained a signed executable alongside a malicious CRYPTBASE.dll that leveraged DLL side‑loading, performed anti‑sandbox checks and fetched additional payloads. The campaign deployed STX RAT, a feature‑rich RAT with HVNC and extensive infostealer and remote‑control capabilities, impacting individuals and organizations in multiple sectors.

🔒 An international law enforcement action led by the U.K.'s National Crime Agency, dubbed Operation Atlantic, identified over 20,000 victims of cryptocurrency fraud across Canada, the UK, and the US. The weeklong operation brought together the NCA, U.S. Secret Service, Ontario authorities and private-sector partners to share real-time intelligence and conduct coordinated victim outreach. Investigators froze more than $12 million in suspected criminal proceeds tied to approval phishing and traced over $45 million in stolen cryptocurrency, and they will continue analyzing intelligence to pursue further criminal activity.

🔍 A Citizen Lab report details how law enforcement agencies worldwide used an ad-based geolocation platform to monitor up to 500 million mobile devices. The system, developed by Cobwebs Technologies and later sold by Penlink, aggregates device identifiers, coordinates, and profile data harvested from apps and advertising. Researchers warn the tool enables long-term, warrantless tracking and identification of individuals, raising legal and human-rights concerns.

🔒 A joint U.S. federal advisory warns that Iranian state-backed hackers have been targeting Rockwell Automation/Allen‑Bradley PLCs since March 2026, extracting project files and manipulating HMI/SCADA displays. Researcher Censys found 5,219 EtherNet/IP hosts exposed online globally, with 3,891 (74.6%) in the United States and a notable share on cellular carrier ASNs. Agencies urge disconnecting or firewalling PLCs, enforcing MFA, applying updates, disabling unused services, and monitoring OT ports and logs for suspicious overseas traffic.

🔍 German authorities have identified the operator of the notorious GandCrab ransomware as Danii Shchukin, who used the aliases UNKN and Unknown and is believed to have led the GandCrab/Revi group. Europol has added Shchukin and an associate, Anatoly Kravchuk, to its most-wanted list amid allegations of organized and commercial extortion dating to 2019. German police say Shchukin is accused in 130 cases, with €1.9 million paid in 25 incidents and total economic damage estimated at €35.4 million; both suspects are believed to be in Russia but could be operating in other countries.

🐛 A new phase of the GlassWorm campaign uses a Zig-compiled native Node addon embedded in a malicious Open VSX extension named specstudio.code-wakatime-activity-tracker, impersonating WakaTime, to gain OS-level access and stealthily install additional payloads. The addon (installed as win.node on Windows and mac.node on macOS) runs outside the JavaScript sandbox, locates IDEs that support VS Code extensions, downloads a malicious VSIX from an attacker-controlled GitHub account, and silently installs it across detected editors. The second-stage extension then reads commands from the Solana blockchain to obtain its C2, exfiltrates sensitive data, and deploys a RAT that ultimately installs an information-stealing Chrome extension; affected users should assume compromise and rotate secrets.

🔐An analysis by Bellingcat found passwords for almost 800 Hungarian government email accounts circulating online, many tied to national-security roles. The exposure affected 12 of 13 government departments and involved weak, easily guessed credentials such as variations of "Password", sequences like "1234567", and simple surnames. The leaks reflect poor email hygiene rather than a sophisticated intrusion, and experts urge stronger credential practices including password managers and passkeys. Security teams are urged to deploy enterprise controls and regular training to prevent similar exposures.

⚠️ Hackers altered an API on the CPUID website and replaced official download links to serve trojanized installers for CPU-Z and HWMonitor, distributing a malicious file labeled HWiNFO_Monitor_Setup. The package launches a Russian installer wrapped with Inno Setup and was delivered via Cloudflare R2, while original signed binaries appear intact. Security researchers report a multi-stage, mostly in-memory loader that uses proxying of NTDLL calls from a .NET assembly to evade EDR/AV detection. CPUID says the secondary API was compromised for roughly six hours (April 9–10) and that the breach has been fixed.

🔒 Microsoft says financially motivated group Storm-2755 is stealing Canadian employees' salary payments by hijacking Microsoft 365 accounts using malicious sign-in pages and AiTM tactics that capture authentication tokens and session cookies. Attackers used malvertising and SEO poisoning to promote fake Microsoft 365 sign-in forms, allowing them to bypass legacy MFA. They create inbox rules to hide payroll messages and either social engineer HR to change direct deposit details or directly update payroll platforms such as Workday using stolen sessions.

🔒 A compromised update for Smart Slider 3 Pro (v3.5.1.35) was delivered through the plugin’s official update channel on April 7, 2026, and remained accessible for roughly six hours before detection. Security firm Patchstack and maintainer Nextend confirmed unauthorized access to Nextend’s update infrastructure and a fully attacker-authored build was distributed. The trojanized update installs a multi-stage backdoor that provides pre-authenticated RCE, hidden administrative accounts, multi-location persistence, and automatic data exfiltration to a command-and-control domain; operators should update to v3.5.1.36 and audit affected sites. The free Smart Slider edition is not impacted.

🛡️ Cisco Talos has identified a new Lua-based backdoor called LucidRook used in October 2025 spear-phishing operations targeting NGOs and universities in Taiwan. Attackers delivered payloads via password-protected archives and deployed either an LNK shortcut chain that dropped a loader named LucidPawn or a fake antivirus EXE. LucidPawn sideloads a malicious DLL (DismCore.dll) and embeds a Lua interpreter to fetch obfuscated bytecode, enabling modular updates while reducing forensic visibility. Collected reconnaissance is RSA-encrypted and exfiltrated via FTP; a related tool, LucidKnight, was observed abusing Gmail GMTP for data exfiltration.

🔒 Abnormal researchers disclosed a targeted phishing-as-a-service called VENOM that has been active since at least last November and focuses on stealing C-suite Microsoft credentials. The campaign uses personalized SharePoint-style emails, injected fake threads, and Unicode QR codes to move victims to mobile-based landing pages while evading scanners. VENOM hides target addresses using double Base64 in URL fragments and filters out researchers before presenting an AiTM proxy or device-code flow that captures passwords, MFA codes, and session tokens. Researchers recommend FIDO2, disabling unused device-code flows, and tighter conditional access to mitigate token abuse.