Tajin Group: Guarantee Marketplace Vendor Involved in Phishing and Chinese Money Laundering Group
Recorded Future details Tajin Group, a Chinese-speaking vendor on Telegram guarantee marketplaces running phishing, carding, and money laundering operations targeting Chinese banks.
Insikt Group analyzed Tajin Group, a Chinese-speaking threat actor operating on Telegram-based guarantee marketplaces Dabai Guarantee and, since May 2026, Xinbi Guarantee. The group conducts phishing, payment card theft, and money laundering targeting mainland Chinese citizens and banks, testing stolen cards from twelve countries on platforms like CCAvenue and Geidea. Operators bought and sold at least 100 Telegram usernames and anonymous virtual numbers via Fragment Market to strengthen OPSEC, linking multiple usernames to single Telegram accounts. Recorded Future warns Tajin Group's TTPs are likely to be replicated by other vendors on Chinese-language guarantee marketplaces at global scale.
2,000 Leaked Documents Reveal How Russia Turns Engineering Students Into GRU Cyber Operators
Leaked Bauman Moscow State Technical University files reveal a hidden GRU training pipeline feeding APT28 and Sandworm units.
More than 2,000 leaked Bauman Moscow State Technical University documents show that Department No. 4, a hidden program inside the Military Training Center, trained roughly 250 career and reserve students for GRU cyber and intelligence roles across six academic years. Graduates were linked to Military Unit 26165 (APT28), Unit 74455 (Sandworm/APT44) and Unit 29155, and former Unit 26165 commander Viktor Netyksho was involved in department oversight. Reporting by The Insider, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and other outlets, with independent analysis by DomainTools, estimates 10-15 students annually were selected for GRU-related assignments before graduating.
North Korean Job Fraud Expands Beyond IT Into Healthcare and Sales
North Korea's IT worker scheme (Famous Chollima/PurpleDelta) has expanded from IT into healthcare, sales, and financial services roles worldwide.
Huntress and Recorded Future documented DPRK-linked fraudulent workers landing remote jobs beyond IT, including at an Australian healthcare company, a financial services firm, and a sales hire with a stolen identity. The scheme, tracked as Famous Chollima, Jasper Sleet, Nickel Tapestry, PurpleDelta, UNC5267, and Wagemole, uses forged identity documents, VPNs, proxies, and laptop farms with PiKVM and capture cards to fund Pyongyang's weapons programs. Recorded Future found the PurpleDelta cluster applied to 1,100+ companies between late 2024 and early 2025 with 22 fabricated personas, some AI-generated, using ChatGPT and AI transcription during interviews. Analysts assess the activity is ongoing and likely to expand in scale and sophistication.
INTERPOL crackdown on West African crime rings uncovers troubling new trend
INTERPOL's Operation Jackal IV arrested 58 suspects across 22 countries targeting Black Axe-linked West African fraud networks, flagging a rising trend of sextortion against minors.
Operation Jackal IV (November 2025 to June 2026) coordinated arrests across 22 countries against West African organized crime groups such as Black Axe, which INTERPOL links to a large share of global cyber-enabled fraud. Johannesburg raids on a romance and investment scam syndicate targeting retirees yielded $2.67 million seized, 257 bank accounts frozen and 39 arrests, while Argentina exposed a 196-member Crime-as-a-Service network with 17 arrests. Romanian police dismantled a call-center investment scam with roughly €143 million stolen and laundered, and INTERPOL warned these groups increasingly sextort minors as young as 14 and procure Crime-as-a-Service via the dark web.
xHunt Campaign: Attacks on Kuwait Shipping and Transportation Organizations
xHunt deployed custom backdoors Hisoka, Killua, Gon, and EYE against Kuwait shipping and transportation organizations, using DNS tunneling and email-draft C2 channels.
Unit 42 observed the xHunt campaign targeting Kuwait transportation and shipping organizations between May and June 2019, installing backdoors named after characters from the anime Hunter x Hunter, including Hisoka, Killua, Sakabota, and Netero. The tools use HTTP and DNS tunneling for C2, and Hisoka v0.9 added an unusual email-based C2 channel that abuses Exchange Web Services with stolen credentials to exchange email drafts. The Gon tool provides port scanning, file transfer, screenshots, remote command execution, and RDP session creation, while EYE acts as a cleanup failsafe if a legitimate user logs in. Related activity targeting Kuwait between July and December 2018 was reported by IBM X-Force IRIS, suggesting the campaigns are likely related.
Tracking Elirks Variants in Japan: Similarities to Previous Attacks
Unit 42 links new Elirks backdoor variants attacking Japanese organizations to 2012 Taiwan attacks, delivered via spear-phishing PDFs exploiting Adobe Flash CVE-2011-0611.
Unit 42 analyzed new Elirks backdoor variants found in an attack on a Japanese business, noting strong similarities to 2012 attacks on Taiwanese ministries. The backdoor retrieves its C2 address from attacker-created accounts on Japanese blog and SNS services. Recent deliveries used an airline e-ticket lure named "E-TKT" with a PDF exploiting Adobe Flash CVE-2011-0611. Shared infrastructure and tactics with the Scarlet Mimic campaign suggest possible ongoing cyber espionage across East Asia.