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11 stories in the last 30d

Florida water agency latest to confirm cyber incident as feds warn of nation

A ransomware gang hit Florida's St. Johns River Water Management District as CISA warned of IRGC-linked CyberAv3ngers attacks on exposed Unitronics water-sector PLCs.

The St. Johns River Water Management District, which oversees Florida drinking-water supply planning, confirmed suspicious activity in its IT environment and said containment measures were implemented; a ransomware gang claimed the attack and shared samples of stolen data. Separately, CISA, FBI, NSA, EPA and Israel's INCD warned that IRGC-affiliated CyberAv3ngers are actively compromising Israeli-made Unitronics Vision Series PLCs in the water sector using default credentials since at least November 22. The group, motivated by opposition to Israel-linked products, defaces controller interfaces and could cause deeper cyber-physical effects. Shadowserver found at least 539 Unitronics PLC instances still exposed online, and CNN reported fewer than 10 US water facilities faced recent attacks.

The Record · 9d agoRansomware in the wild 3 sources

New pro-Ukraine hacker group targets Russian companies with custom ransomware

F6 links new pro-Ukraine ransomware group VantaCore, likely a Thor rebrand, to seven attacks on Russian firms using custom tooling and multimillion-dollar demands.

Russian cybersecurity firm F6 reports that VantaCore, a ransomware group believed to be a rebrand of pro-Ukrainian group Thor, has targeted at least seven Russian organizations with ransom demands reaching millions of dollars, operating as a ransomware-as-a-service operation with a Tor-based victim chat and a leak site. The group uses custom-built tooling including the VantaCore ransomware that encrypts servers and workstations, VantaCoreLoader for distribution, the VantaCoreRAT backdoor, and SnowKiller, which disables antivirus and security software. Initial access relies on poorly secured VPNs and remote-access tools, flaws in internet-facing applications, and credentials stolen from business partners. F6 notes pro-Ukrainian groups increasingly abandoned stock ransomware like LockBit 3 Black and Babuk in 2025-2026 in favor of custom malware.

The Record · 14d agoRansomware

U.S. Bank says breach claims related to fourth

LockBit claimed data theft from U.S. Bancorp, but the bank attributes it to a fourth-party breach at a contractor's third party, with no impact on its own systems.

LockBit added U.S. Bancorp to its leak site and threatened to release stolen data within two weeks, but the bank investigated and attributed the claims to a fourth-party incident outside its environment. U.S. Bancorp stated there is no evidence its systems, networks, or data repositories were compromised and reported the matter to law enforcement. The bank is the seventh largest in the United States, and LockBit provided no samples to substantiate the claim. The gang, previously subject to a 2024 law enforcement takedown, earned $252.4 million in ransoms through 353 attacks from 2022 to 2024 according to the U.S. Treasury.

The Record · 26d agoRansomware

More than 200 victims of Medusa ransomware identified over the last year, CISA says

CISA and FBI update Medusa ransomware advisory, reporting more than 500 total victims and warning the gang operationalizes newly disclosed exploits within 24 hours.

CISA and the FBI updated their March 2025 advisory, stating Medusa actors had hit more than 500 victims as of April 2026, up from 300 in 2025, with a focus on healthcare and critical infrastructure. The agencies say Medusa rapidly adopts newly announced exploits, sometimes using them up to a week before public vulnerability disclosure, but does not develop its own zero-days, preferring access obtained from unknown sources. The gang moved to an affiliate model in 2023, offers up to $1 million for exclusive initial access brokers, and uses credential stealers plus legitimate remote access tools including AnyDesk, Atera, ConnectWise and Splashtop. No new victims have appeared on its leak site since April, after the shutdown of the University of Mississippi Medical Center drew significant law enforcement attention.

The Record · 29d agoRansomware in the wild1

“Network outage” disrupts Westfield Public Schools in New Jersey as ransomware group posts samples

A ransomware group posted stolen data samples after a districtwide network outage disrupted Westfield Public Schools in New Jersey.

Westfield Public Schools in New Jersey experienced a districtwide network outage during the first week of school, disrupting communications and digital instruction while classrooms stayed open. The district initially attributed the disruption to networking hardware failure across all schools and offices. A ransomware group has since posted data samples, indicating extortion activity tied to the incident.

DataBreaches.net · 8d agoRansomware

Healthcare facilities operator Nutex says patient, employee data stolen in August incident

The Gentlemen ransomware gang claims the theft of patient and employee data from healthcare operator Nutex Health, which disclosed the extortion in SEC filings.

Nutex Health said in an 8-K filing that intruders broke into its servers and exfiltrated patient, employee, provider and confidential financial data, and that it is being extorted with threats to publish the information. A Texas class action was filed after the company's August 24 disclosure, and Nutex cannot yet estimate the incident's impact. The Gentlemen ransomware-as-a-service gang, active since September 2025 and believed Russia-based, listed Nutex on its leak site; Dragos ranked it third among groups attacking industrial organizations in Q2 2026 with 125 claimed attacks.

The Record · 15d agoRansomware

AI agents carried out every step of this ransomware attack – then left the victim an 80-page security audit

Unit 42 says a human attacker used AI agents to execute a full ransomware intrusion in under 10 hours, leaving the victim an 80-page security audit.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 incident responders report a human ransomware operator used frontier AI models and agentic attack frameworks to breach an enterprise in under 10 hours, work that normally takes human operators around two weeks. AI agents performed reconnaissance, breached a public API endpoint to tunnel into the network, scraped code repositories for hard-coded tokens and service passwords, then used them to steal master administrative credentials from the secret-management system for root access. Specialist pivot agents validated access to cloud, identity, CI/CD, container and SaaS environments, and the attacker hijacked CI/CD workflows to steal cloud keys and turn the victim's cloud AI services into post-compromise infrastructure. The agents left an 80-page audit detailing dozens of exploited findings.

The Register · Security · 14d agoRansomware in the wild

Rhysida Ransomware Group Targets Berlin Government Ahead of Vote

Rhysida ransomware hit Berlin's state government weeks before the September 20 election, claiming 5.79 TB stolen; officials refused the ransom.

Berlin's government confirmed an August cyberattack on its administrative network, with data exfiltrated between August 7 and August 12 and departments isolated on August 17. The Rhysida group claimed responsibility on August 28, alleging theft of 5.79 TB and 1.44 million files including personal data on 12,076 individuals, payroll files, plaintext credentials, and vulnerability analyses of Berlin's water supply. Officials said election systems were not affected and refused to pay; Rhysida has claimed roughly 280 victims since 2023, entering via VPNs without MFA, Zerologon, or phishing.

Security Affairs · 19d agoRansomware in the wild

Medusa ransomware tallies hundreds of new victims, says updated advisory on group’s tactics

CISA, FBI, and HHS updated their Medusa ransomware advisory, reporting over 500 victims and detailing the gang's access-broker and exploit tactics.

A joint advisory update from CISA, the FBI, and HHS expands the March 2025 Medusa guidance, drawing on a year of FBI investigations. The ransomware-as-a-service group's known victim tally grew from more than 300 to more than 500 between March 2025 and April 2026, with the Healthcare and Public Health sector frequently hit. Medusa pays access brokers $100 to $1 million, has exploited flaws such as Fortra GoAnywhere and BeyondTrust vulnerabilities, and leverages newly announced exploits within 24 hours, sometimes a week before public disclosure. The group uses living-off-the-land techniques, remote monitoring and management software, and RDP for lateral movement, and has been linked to actors including Microsoft-tracked Storm-1175 and North Korean hackers targeting healthcare.

CyberScoop · 29d agoRansomware in the wild

ATF confirms cyberattack hit system containing info on its investigation targets

Qilin ransomware group claimed breaching the ATF, exposing data on investigation targets; the agency says a standalone system was hit with no mission impact.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed a cyberattack on a standalone system holding information about targets of ATF investigations, designated a major incident, with no impact on case management, lab, or eForms systems. Qilin, a Russian-speaking affiliate-based ransomware group, claimed responsibility, though ATF declined to confirm involvement or the root cause. Qilin has claimed hundreds of victims across 60+ countries since 2022 and partners with Scattered Spider and Moonstone Sleet.

CyberScoop · 19d agoRansomware in the wild

Cyberattack encrypts systems at Bavarian municipal utility

Hackers encrypted the central IT network of Bavarian utility Stadtwerke Landsberg, disrupting office systems but not electricity or water services.

Stadtwerke Landsberg said hackers encrypted its central IT network overnight on Sept. 1, prompting disconnection from the internet, crisis-team activation and external forensic support. Essential electricity and water services were unaffected, but staff availability was limited and customer data such as names, addresses and bank details may have been accessed. No ransomware group was named and no extortion demand was confirmed. The attack follows a similar late-June encryption incident at a North Rhine-Westphalia municipal utility, and the BSI consistently ranks ransomware among Germany's most serious cyber threats.

The Record · 9d agoRansomware in the wild