All news with #ransomware gang tag

🔒 Harvard University is investigating a data breach after the Clop ransomware gang listed the school on its data leak site and attributed the incident to a recently disclosed Oracle E-Business Suite zero-day (CVE-2025-61882). A Harvard IT spokesperson said the issue affected a limited number of parties within a small administrative unit and that a patch from Oracle was applied upon receipt. The university reports no evidence of broader compromise while it continues monitoring.

🔒 Threat actors are abusing Velociraptor, an open-source DFIR tool, to support ransomware operations attributed to Storm-2603. Attackers exploited on-premises SharePoint ToolShell flaws to deploy an outdated Velociraptor build (0.73.4.0) vulnerable to CVE-2025-6264, enabling privilege escalation and remote command execution. After lateral movement and creation of domain admin accounts, the group tampered with GPOs, disabled real‑time protection, and staged exfiltration before deploying Warlock, LockBit, and Babuk. Vendors caution that legitimate collection and orchestration capabilities can be repurposed by adversaries.

🔒 Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, with core actors such as Bling Libra, claim responsibility for large-scale theft of Salesforce customer data and launched a public data leak site in early October 2025. The group operates an extortion-as-a-service model, recruiting affiliates to send targeted executive extortion messages and taking revenue shares from payments. Recent activity included a Clearnet domain seizure by law enforcement and threatening deadlines for victim disclosures. Retail and hospitality organizations face heightened risks of identity theft, account takeover, returns and loyalty fraud; Unit 42 recommends secrets scanning, zero trust controls, least privilege and participation in industry ISACs.

🔒 The FBI, US Department of Justice and French authorities seized the BreachForums domain and parts of its backend on Oct. 9, disrupting infrastructure tied to an alliance of threat actors including ShinyHunters, Scattered Spider and LAPSUS$. The action followed threats to publish alleged Salesforce customer data unless a ransom was paid by Oct. 10. Although the primary forum domain now displays a takedown notice, a separate leak site remains active and the extortion campaign appears to be continuing. Experts advise organizations to audit Salesforce configurations, enable OAuth app governance, and enforce token and session hygiene immediately.

🚨 Law enforcement in the United States and France have seized domains tied to the BreachForums hacking forum, and the seized site now displays an official takedown banner pointing victims to an IC3 subdomain. Observers caution the action may be largely symbolic because a dark‑web instance remains active and no public arrests of administrators were confirmed. A collective calling itself Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters says it will still release one billion records allegedly taken from Salesforce customers on 10 October 2025, while Salesforce has reportedly told clients it will not pay a ransom.

🔒 Three major ransomware groups — LockBit, Qilin, and DragonForce — have announced a strategic alliance aimed at sharing techniques, infrastructure, affiliates, and operational resources to amplify extortion campaigns worldwide. The announcement follows LockBit's resurgence and the unveiling of LockBit 5.0, which is advertised to target Windows, Linux, and ESXi systems. Security firms warn the partnership could rebuild affiliate trust, increase attacks on critical infrastructure and diversify threats across multiple industry sectors.

🔓 A cybercrime collective known as ShinyHunters has launched a public extortion blog threatening to publish data stolen from dozens of major companies if ransoms are not paid. The group claims to have harvested Salesforce customer records via a May voice-phishing campaign, and also says it exfiltrated terabytes of files from a Red Hat GitLab server and Discord user data tied to a third-party provider. Security firms and affected vendors including Salesforce, Red Hat and Discord are investigating, while Google and other investigators link the activity to several related UNC clusters and warn of additional token thefts tied to Salesloft. Victim shaming, published exploit scripts for an Oracle E-Business Suite zero-day, and malware-laced threats have amplified the incident’s severity.

📧 An individual or group claiming to work with the Clop ransomware gang has been sending extortion emails to executives at multiple organizations since September 29, according to Google. Researchers at Mandiant and the Google Threat Intelligence Group are investigating and report a high-volume campaign launched from hundreds of compromised accounts, with at least one account previously linked to FIN11. The messages include contact information that matches addresses on the Clop data leak site, suggesting the actor may be leveraging Clop's brand; however, investigators emphasize this does not prove direct Clop involvement and advise targeted organizations to search for indicators of compromise.

💰 British authorities have seized £5.5 billion (about $7.39 billion) in cryptocurrency — approximately 61,000 Bitcoin — from the London home of Zhimin Qian (aka Yadi Zhang), who pleaded guilty to acquiring and possessing criminal property. The Metropolitan Police say the seizure, uncovered after a probe opened in 2018, is believed to be the largest such confiscation worldwide. Qian is accused of running a large-scale fraud in China from 2014–2017 that targeted more than 128,000 mostly older victims and converted proceeds into Bitcoin before fleeing to the U.K. A co-conspirator, Jian Wen, was previously jailed and ordered to repay millions.

🚨 The Metropolitan Police secured a conviction in what is believed to be the world's largest cryptocurrency seizure after Zhimin Qian (aka Yadi Zhang) pleaded guilty to acquiring and possessing criminal property under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Investigators say Qian ran a multibillion-yuan fraud in China that targeted over 128,000 victims and raised roughly 40 billion yuan before converting proceeds to Bitcoin. The Met seized 61,000 BTC, now valued at approximately £5.5 billion, following a cross-border probe and cooperation with Chinese authorities. An associate involved in laundering attempts was previously sentenced for their role.

🔒 Security experts warn of a sharp increase in activity from Akira ransomware operators targeting SonicWall SSL VPN appliances, with intrusions traced to late July. Arctic Wolf links initial access to exploitation of CVE-2024-40766 and describes rapid credential harvesting that can enable access even to patched devices. Observed traces include hosting-provider-origin VPN logins, internal scanning, Impacket SMB activity and Active Directory discovery; organizations are advised to monitor hosting-related ASNs, block VPS/anonymizer logins and watch for SMB session patterns consistent with Impacket to detect and disrupt attacks early.

🔐Akira ransomware operators are successfully authenticating to SonicWall SSL VPN accounts even when one-time password (OTP) multi-factor authentication is enabled. Arctic Wolf links the logins to credentials and OTP seeds harvested via an improper access control flaw tracked as CVE-2024-40766, and notes attackers can reuse those secrets after devices are patched. Once inside, actors rapidly scan internal networks, harvest backup server credentials, and use techniques such as BYOVD to sideload vulnerable drivers and disable protections. Administrators are urged to install the latest SonicOS (recommended 7.3.0) and reset all SSL VPN credentials immediately.

🔒 Trend Micro has identified a new LockBit variant, LockBit 5.0, which it calls significantly more dangerous than prior releases and has observed in the wild. The vendor confirmed Windows, Linux, and ESXi binaries featuring faster encryption, removal of infection markers, randomized 16-character extensions and enhanced evasion. The Windows build includes a cleaner affiliate UI with detailed execution options, while the ESXi variant represents a critical escalation by enabling encryption of multiple virtual machines from a single payload. Researchers note substantial code reuse from 4.0, suggesting an evolutionary update rather than a rebrand.

🔒 U.S. prosecutors have charged 19‑year‑old Thalha Jubair as a core member of Scattered Spider, alleging the group extorted at least $115 million from victims. Jubair and an alleged co‑conspirator, 18‑year‑old Owen Flowers, appeared in London court facing accusations tied to high‑profile attacks on retailers, public transit and U.S. healthcare providers. Authorities say the complaint links Jubair to a network of SIM‑swapping, SMS phishing and ransomware operations and to cryptocurrency servers used to launder proceeds.

🔒 UK law enforcement has arrested two teenagers allegedly tied to the Scattered Spider hacking group over an August 2024 cyberattack on Transport for London (TfL). Nineteen-year-old Thalha Jubair and 18-year-old Owen Flowers were detained; authorities say Jubair faces U.S. charges for dozens of intrusions, extortion and money laundering while Flowers faces additional charges linked to U.S. healthcare targets. Prosecutors allege the group extorted at least $115 million in ransoms and that law enforcement previously seized roughly $36 million in cryptocurrency tied to Jubair.

🔎 Researchers at Lumen Technology’s Black Lotus Labs say the SystemBC proxy botnet actively targets commercial VPS instances worldwide to build a high-capacity proxy network. The operation averages about 1,500 bots daily, relies on more than 80 C2 servers, and primarily exploits unpatched systems that often contain dozens of vulnerabilities. Customers and operators exhibit poor operational security, and the service is used by ransomware groups and third-party proxy resellers.

🔒 Researchers have identified CountLoader, a multi‑language malware loader used by Russian ransomware affiliates and initial access brokers to deploy post‑exploit tools such as Cobalt Strike, AdaptixC2 and the commercial PureHVNC RAT. Appearing in .NET, PowerShell and JavaScript flavors, the loader has been observed in PDF phishing campaigns targeting Ukraine and employs LOLBins and multiple download/execution methods to evade detection. The JavaScript variant is most feature‑complete, offering diverse downloaders, execution paths and persistence via a Google‑update‑named scheduled task.

🚓 Law enforcement dismantled a darknet drug shipping operation across the German–Dutch border following an extensive IT-led investigation. Three men, aged 33, 39 and 40, are suspected of selling ecstasy and cocaine on darknet marketplaces and using border-area mailboxes to forward shipments into Germany. Searches of three residences and a boxing studio yielded multi-million-euro quantities of drugs, a firearm, five-figure cash, and numerous electronic devices that will now undergo forensic analysis.

🕵️ Scattered Spider and roughly 15 affiliated ransomware and cybercrime groups posted a joint manifesto on BreachForums claiming to 'go dark' after recent arrests. Experts point to inconsistencies — an unlikely coalition, rapid timing, and no observed money‑movement — and call the announcement a likely smokescreen. They warn organizations not to lower their guard and to assume tactics and infrastructure remain active, taking immediate hardening steps.

🔎 Volodymyr Tymoshchuk, a 28-year-old Ukrainian, has been placed on Europe’s most wanted list over alleged involvement in widespread LockerGoga, MegaCortex and Nefilim ransomware campaigns targeting hundreds of firms between 2018 and 2020. Europol and international partners tied him to high-profile incidents including the 2019 Norsk Hydro attack, which caused major operational disruption. The US has unsealed charges and an $11m reward is being offered for information leading to his arrest or conviction.