All news with #ransomware incident tag

🔒 IDCF Cloud, operated by IDC Frontier (a SoftBank subsidiary), suffered a ransomware attack on October 7 that forced the shutdown of East Japan Region 1 and disrupted services for 495 corporate and government customers. The company isolated affected systems, disabled customer management console access across regions, and is investigating the intrusion route and full scope. Threat actor screenshots claim extensive encryption and deletion of databases, hypervisors, VM disks, and snapshots, while investigations continue.

🔒 An international law enforcement operation called Operation KillSwitch dismantled the KillSec ransomware gang, seizing its data leak site and servers and making three provisional arrests. Authorities from multiple countries, coordinated by Europol and Eurojust with assistance from cybersecurity firms Bitdefender and Group-IB, identified a 16-year-old as the suspected main operator. Investigators seized at least 110 TB of stolen data, shut down five servers, and conducted eight searches across several countries while probing around 1,000 suspected attacks. The investigation began in 2025 and uncovered the group's use of AI and exploitation of vulnerable edge devices to steal and extort victims.

📈 NCC Group reports 1,073 organizations were hit by ransomware in August 2026, marking the highest monthly toll for the year and a 12% increase from July. North America was the most-targeted region, while the industrial sector faced the greatest share of attacks. Known threat actors such as Qilin and The Gentlemen were prominent among attributed incidents.

🔒 An Armenian man received a 24-month prison term and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to participating in Ryuk ransomware attacks that targeted multiple U.S. organizations between 2019 and 2020. Extradited from Kyiv, the 35-year-old admitted to gaining initial access to corporate networks and deploying ransomware that led to substantial ransom payments and operational disruption. Prosecutors attributed over 1,600 bitcoins in ransom proceeds to the group during the campaign.

🔒 Berlin’s city administration has confirmed a Rhysida ransomware incident after the gang listed the city on its leak site. The attack, discovered in mid‑August and publicly claimed on August 28, reportedly exfiltrated 5.79 TB across about 1.44 million files. Investigations involve the State Criminal Police Office, public prosecutor and federal agencies; officials say they will not pay the extortion demand. Authorities disconnected affected Senate departments and report no evidence that election systems were compromised.

📈 Comparitech's July analysis found ransomware attacks rose 19% month-on-month, with 799 claimed incidents making July the second busiest month of 2026. Finance, technology, healthcare and education saw the largest increases, and US-targeted attacks jumped 31% from June. The Gentlemen and Qilin groups accounted for a third of attacks, while notable incidents included disruptions to a US healthcare provider and Romania's land registry.

🔒 A federal judge sentenced Maksim Silnikau to 16 years in prison on August 5 for creating and running Ransom Cartel, a ransomware-as-a-service operation active from 2021 to 2023. The group attacked at least 18 companies across the U.S. and abroad, using stolen credentials from initial access brokers, a hidden affiliate panel, and cryptocurrency mixers to process ransoms. The sentence follows an indictment unsealed in 2024 and a separate unresolved prosecution in New Jersey.

📰 Coca‑Cola disclosed a ransomware incident affecting its Fairlife dairy subsidiary that led to temporary suspension of U.S. production. The company reported unauthorized access to production-related systems, activated incident response and engaged outside cybersecurity advisors while notifying law enforcement. Product safety remains unaffected and Canadian operations are not impacted. An investigation is ongoing and no claim of data theft or extortion has been confirmed.

🔍 The Dutch Police announced arrests tied to an international investment fraud operation that ran multiple call centers and posed as financial advisers. Authorities say the organization generated over €100 million per month at its peak, targeted victims with fake trading dashboards, and persuaded them to transfer cryptocurrencies. The main suspect, a 46-year-old Israeli-Polish national with an alleged history of hacking, was arrested in Poland and extradited to the Netherlands. Additional arrests took place in Cyprus, Greece, and Belgium as investigations continue.

🔒 Mount Royal University in Calgary reported a cyberattack on June 17 that disrupted online services and internal systems, and led to theft and deletion of files from university storage drives. External cybersecurity experts have been engaged to investigate and assist recovery efforts. The attackers claimed responsibility as CMD Organization, posted samples of stolen documents, and demanded a 30 BTC ransom. MRU is notifying affected individuals and offering credit monitoring for certain employees.

🔒 Report Fraud received 323 ransomware reports from UK organisations between April 2025 and March 2026, with SMEs accounting for over half of victims. Financial losses rose about 50% year-on-year to approximately £270,000 per incident, though police warned this likely understates the true cost. Authorities and experts urge firms to adopt proactive measures like regular backups and strong access controls to reduce risk and impact.

🔒 Two British teenagers have pleaded guilty after hacking Transport for London (TfL) between 31 August and 3 September 2024, the National Crime Agency (NCA) reports. Members of the Scattered Spider collective, Thalha Jubair, 20, and Owen Flowers, 18, caused £29m in losses and disruption to TfL systems, including customer refunds and Oyster photocard services. Flowers was arrested early September 2024 with digital evidence linking him to TfL and US healthcare breaches; Jubair faces broader charges alleging dozens of intrusions and extortion schemes. Both admitted guilt at Woolwich Crown Court on 22 June and will be sentenced on 16 July.

🔒 New analysis from Resecurity details a ransomware attack by the Anubis group that targeted the Adriatic Port Authority, operator of Ancona port. The breach, traced to December 11, 2025 and publicly claimed by Anubis in January 2026, reportedly affected about 2% of the authority's data while backups preserved most records. Resecurity says the incident disrupted operations, forced vessel rerouting, and involved a reported $10m Bitcoin ransom demand, with sensitive safety and security plans among the stolen files.

🔒 A former senior IT support specialist for the Saydel Community School District in Iowa was sentenced to 21 months in prison for repeatedly accessing and sabotaging his former employer’s systems after his April 2023 departure. Prosecutors say he deleted the district’s Facebook page, stripped employees of access to educational platforms, and erased Apple School Manager and Gmail accounts, disrupting classes and causing tens of thousands in remediation costs. He pleaded guilty in January 2026 and must pay $59,668.81 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release with monitoring conditions.

🔒 Recent ransomware incidents have shown that schools are year-round targets for cybercriminals. Evanston Township High School closed after an attack disrupted critical systems, while Powys County Council in Wales confirmed student and staff data were accessed at multiple schools. Districts are engaging external experts and notifying authorities, highlighting schools' limited budgets and reliance on networked systems.

🛡️ McAfee researchers report that a large-scale malware campaign named WeedHack has infected more than 116,000 systems by distributing malicious Minecraft mods, clients, cheats, and utilities via YouTube links and SEO poisoning. The operation provides a free, clear-net MaaS dashboard and a paid premium tier that adds remote control, keylogging, and webcam access, targeting session IDs, browsers, wallets, and gaming credentials. Victims are concentrated in the US, Germany, India, and the UK, and the campaign uses hundreds of distribution URLs and thousands of malicious JARs. Players are urged to only download from official sources and use the in-game Marketplace for safety.

🛏️ The Play ransomware group claims to have stolen confidential MyPillow data and threatened a public dump, while CEO Mike Lindell denies any breach and calls the allegations politically motivated. Lindell says MyPillow stores no sensitive data internally and has received no ransom demands, attributing data handling to third parties. The Play group's leak portal set a deadline for release, leaving the truth pending until the deadline passes. The article warns that third-party handling of data still exposes organisations and individuals to meaningful risk.

🔒 Foxconn confirmed a cyberattack affected some of its North American factories and says impacted sites are resuming normal production. The company said its cybersecurity team activated response measures to maintain continuity of operations and deliveries. Nitrogen ransomware operators claimed 8 TB of data and over 11 million documents were stolen, allegedly including files from Apple, Nvidia, Intel and Google. Foxconn has faced prior ransomware incidents.

🔒 A ShinyHunters “pay or leak” extortion campaign has targeted the education sector after the compromise of Instructure, operator of the Canvas LMS. The April 25 breach reportedly exposed around 275 million records and more than 3.65 TB of data via a vulnerability in the Free‑For‑Teacher Canvas version. After an initial ransom demand and a May 8 deadline, the group extended its timeline and began school‑by‑school extortion, defacing roughly 330 institutional login pages. Affected organizations are urged to change Canvas‑related passwords, enable multi‑factor authentication and heighten phishing awareness.

🚨 An emergency update for cPanel and WHM addresses a critical authentication bypass (CVE-2026-41940) that has been actively exploited to access control panels. Security researchers report attackers have breached thousands of servers and deployed a Go-based Linux encryptor tied to the "Sorry" ransomware, which appends the .sorry extension. The encryptor uses ChaCha20 for file encryption with the symmetric key protected by an embedded RSA-2048 public key, and victims receive a README.md ransom note directing contact via a fixed Tox ID. Administrators should install the update and verify backups immediately.