All news in category “Incidents and Data Breaches”

🛡️ Over 260,000 Google Chrome users downloaded fake AI assistant extensions that delivered malicious functionality capable of harvesting credentials, monitoring Gmail and granting remote access to attackers. Researchers at LayerX identified more than 30 malicious extensions—collectively labeled AiFrame—many of which mimicked ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini and were even featured in the Chrome Web Store, increasing exposure. The campaign used "extension spraying" and a full‑screen iframe that loads remote content to evade detection and exfiltrate data; although many extensions have been removed, affected users remain at risk.

🔒 Researchers uncovered multiple malicious Chrome extensions that exfiltrate sensitive data from business and social media accounts, including a Meta‑focused add‑on named CL Suite that steals TOTP seeds, one‑time codes and Business Manager exports. Other campaigns detailed include a large‑scale VK Styles hijack of VKontakte accounts and the AiFrame cluster of AI‑themed add‑ons that siphon emails and page content. A Q Continuum study also found hundreds of extensions leaking browsing history to data brokers. Experts recommend strict extension controls, frequent audits, and allowlisting to reduce risk.

🛡️ Huntress researchers report a threat actor abusing employee-monitoring software and an RMM platform to gain persistent access, tamper with defenses, and pursue ransomware and cryptocurrency theft. The attackers combined Net Monitor for Employees Professional and SimpleHelp, leveraging Net Monitor’s reverse connections and masquerading plus SimpleHelp’s lightweight agent and common-port operation. Incidents included an attempted Crazy ransomware deployment and targeted searches for crypto-related data; shared infrastructure and tradecraft suggest a single actor.

🔒Conpet S.A., Romania's national oil pipeline operator, confirmed that the Qilin ransomware gang exfiltrated company data following a breach of its corporate IT environment. The company said operational systems remained unaffected and it is cooperating with the Romanian National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC) as investigators assess the incident. Qilin claims nearly 1TB of documents and published a proof sample of 16 images containing internal financial records and passport scans; some files are marked confidential and dated as recently as November 2025. Conpet warned that compromised data may be used for fraud and advised potentially impacted individuals to verify any urgent contact using official channels.

⚠️ Koi Security found that an abandoned Outlook add-in, AgreeTo, was hijacked to run phishing kits that captured roughly 4,000 Microsoft account credentials. The attacker claimed an orphaned Vercel subdomain referenced in the add-in’s XML manifest and replaced live content with a fake sign-in page while retaining mailbox permissions. Microsoft had validated and signed the original manifest but does not re-review hosted content fetched at runtime. Users should remove AgreeTo and reset affected passwords immediately.

🔐 Shannon — a fully autonomous AI penetration testing tool from Keygraph — has raised warnings because it requires access to source code, repository layout, and AI API keys, creating substantial exposure risks. Organizations should evaluate scoping, data retention, and whether findings will be used to improve secure development practices or treated as a quick fix. Vendor responses vary, illustrated by recent detection-focused updates from Anthropic, underscoring the need for careful risk assessment before adopting agentic pentesting tools.

🔐 Odido confirmed a cyberattack that compromised its customer contact system and potentially exposed personal information for about 6.2 million customers. The company said attackers were able to download customer records but that passwords, call logs, location data, invoice details, and scans of identification documents were not accessed. Odido detected the incident on the weekend of February 7, blocked unauthorized access, reported the incident to the Dutch Data Protection Authority, and is notifying affected customers while working with external cybersecurity experts to strengthen controls and increase monitoring.

🔴 ReversingLabs attributes a coordinated supply-chain campaign, codenamed graphalgo, to the North Korea–linked Lazarus Group, active since May 2025. Attackers set up a fake recruiting front (Veltrix Capital), staged GitHub coding assessments in Python and JavaScript, and published dozens of malicious dependencies to npm and PyPI to infect candidates. One npm package, bigmathutils, accrued over 10,000 downloads before a malicious update; the payload delivers a token-based RAT that performs reconnaissance and file operations. Researchers also disclosed separate npm threats — duer-js (Bada Stealer) and the extortionist XPACK ATTACK — and urge auditing dependencies and verifying package provenance.

⚠️ Researchers at LayerX uncovered a campaign of 30 malicious Chrome extensions, installed by more than 300,000 users, that masquerade as AI assistants while exfiltrating credentials, email content, and browsing data. The add-ons render remote content in full-screen iframes from a single domain (tapnetic.pro), letting operators change behavior without store updates. Fifteen extensions specifically inject into Gmail, reading visible thread text (including drafts) and sending it off-device, and several implement voice transcription via the Web Speech API. Users should review LayerX indicators of compromise and reset passwords if they suspect exposure.

🔐 Accenture has uncovered a novel malware named RustyRocket deployed by the World Leaks extortion group to maintain stealthy persistence and proxy exfiltration across Windows and Linux environments. Written in Rust, the tool uses multi-layer encrypted tunnels, heavy obfuscation and a pre-encrypted runtime configuration guardrail that makes activity difficult to detect and monitor. Accenture advises monitoring anomalous outbound transfers and enforcing network segmentation to limit lateral movement.

🔒 Fortinet researchers disclosed a phishing campaign that chains a legacy Microsoft Office vulnerability (CVE-2018-0802) with fileless execution to deliver the commercially available XWorm RAT. The attack begins with business-themed lures and a malicious Excel add-in, then pivots into HTA and PowerShell stages to keep most activity off disk. A memory-resident .NET stage is hollowed into msbuild.exe, and XWorm communicates with AES-encrypted C2 while supporting modular plugins that enable credential theft, data exfiltration, and other operator actions.

🔒 Data leak sites (DLSs) have become the backbone of modern ransomware's double‑extortion strategy, combining data theft with public blackmail to force payment. Attackers publish carefully curated samples, use timers and deadlines, and exploit urgency to magnify reputational, regulatory, and financial harm. Law enforcement agencies and security teams warn that DLS content fuels follow‑on crimes like phishing and identity fraud. Organizations are urged to adopt EDR/XDR, Zero Trust, patched systems, resilient air‑gapped backups, and targeted user training.

🔒 Poland's Central Cybercrime Bureau charged a 29-year-old man over the 2018 Morele.net breach that exposed about 2.5 million customers' personal details. Investigators say they reconstructed the attack vector, traced digital breadcrumbs and obtained an admission of responsibility. The incident leaked names, emails, phone numbers, home addresses and md5crypt-hashed passwords, and around 35,000 records contained highly sensitive personal data. Fraudsters quickly weaponised the published database, using SMS and phishing to steal banking credentials.

⚠️ OpenClaw is a rapidly adopted local agent orchestration tool (formerly Clawdbot/Moltbot) that integrates with chat apps, operating systems, smart-home devices, browsers and productivity platforms and can be configured to use any LLM backend. Its GitHub repo and the Moltbook social layer saw millions of visits and hundreds of thousands of agents and downloads in recent weeks. Security researchers warn the tool is insecure-by-default: exposed instances, authentication bypasses, plaintext credentials and malicious third-party skills create serious enterprise risk. Organizations are advised to block traffic, rotate credentials and restrict experimentation to isolated, managed environments.

🔐 Researchers at Flare Systems uncovered a botnet, dubbed SSHStalker, that brute-forces weak SSH passwords and had compromised an estimated 7,000 Linux servers by the end of January, with roughly half located in the United States. The toolkit combines fileless malware, rootkits, log cleaners and a library of kernel exploits — some dating to 2009 — and can harvest AWS credentials. Flare characterizes it as a "scale-first" operation focused on persistence; observed capabilities include DDoS and cryptomining, though monetization has not yet been seen. Immediate mitigations include disabling SSH password authentication, switching to key-based or short-lived credentials, and restricting and rate-limiting SSH access.

🔒 Unit 42 identified that between June and December 2025 the state-sponsored group Lotus Blossom hijacked the Notepad++ update infrastructure by compromising a shared hosting provider and intercepting WinGUp traffic. Attackers delivered malicious NSIS installers that launched either a Lua-script chain loading Cobalt Strike Beacon or a DLL sideload that deployed the Chrysalis backdoor. Notepad++ released patches, moved hosting, implemented XML signature verification, and Unit 42 published IOCs and hunting guidance for defenders.

🔒 The AgreeTo Outlook add-in was hijacked and turned into a full phishing kit that stole more than 4,000 Microsoft account credentials, researchers at Koi Security report. The module, listed on the Microsoft Office Add-in Store since December 2022, relied on an abandoned Vercel-hosted URL that an attacker claimed and used to serve a fake Microsoft sign-in page inside Outlook’s sidebar. Credentials, credit card details and banking security answers were exfiltrated via a Telegram bot API before victims were redirected to the real login page. Microsoft removed the add-in after the disclosure; users should uninstall AgreeTo and reset affected passwords.

🛡️ Researchers at Huntress found the Crazy ransomware gang abusing legitimate employee-monitoring software alongside the SimpleHelp remote support tool to maintain persistence, evade detection, and prepare ransomware deployment. Attackers installed Net Monitor for Employees Professional via msiexec.exe to view desktops, transfer files, and execute commands, then added SimpleHelp for redundant access. Huntress warns organizations to enforce MFA and monitor for unauthorized remote-management tools.

🔒 The Netherlands Police arrested a 21-year-old man from Dordrecht accused of selling access to the JokerOTP phishing-as-a-service platform that captures one-time passwords to enable account takeover. Investigators say this is the third arrest after a three-year probe that dismantled the operation in April 2025 and previously identified a developer and a co-developer. The seller advertised license keys on Telegram, allowing subscribers to automate calls that tricked victims into revealing OTPs, PINs, and card data, leading to fraud and unauthorized transfers.

🔍 Cybersecurity researchers at Koi Security disclosed the first known malicious Microsoft Outlook add-in, codenamed AgreeToSteal. The attacker claimed an abandoned add-in's domain and used the manifest URL (outlook-one.vercel[.]app) to serve a fake Microsoft sign-in page, harvesting more than 4,000 credentials and exfiltrating them via the Telegram Bot API. The affected add-in, AgreeTo, a calendar/availability tool last updated in December 2022, had requested ReadWriteItem permissions that could have allowed covert mailbox access. Koi recommends domain verification, re-review triggers, delisting stale add-ins, and visible install counts to reduce similar supply-chain abuse.