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8 stories in the last 30d

Breeze Comet Executes Hundreds of Fraudulent Transactions via Brazilian Payment Systems

Google/Mandiant profile Breeze Comet, a Brazil-based e-crime group executing fraudulent Pix and STR payment transactions at banks, retailers, and fintechs.

Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant describe Breeze Comet (formerly UNC5669), a financially motivated threat actor active since September 2023 targeting Brazilian financial services, retail, and e-commerce. The group gains access via password spraying, vishing impersonating IT support to install RMM tools like AnyDesk, WhatsApp social engineering, and exploitation of vulnerable JBoss AS servers for web shell deployment. It uses compromised government websites as C2, deploys the Rust-based COBALTSPIN tunneler and multiple custom backdoors (LIGHTPAINT, MILDFROST, KICKPLATE, BOATBEAM), then clears logs after executing hundreds of fraudulent transactions through Pix, STR, and Boleto payment systems. At least one heist yielded tens of thousands of dollars, with infrastructure suggesting expansion toward Latin America and Africa.

The Hacker News · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild

Financially Motivated Threat Actor BREEZE COMET Targets Brazil

Google Threat Intelligence details BREEZE COMET, a financially motivated group manipulating Brazilian payment systems and banking software to conduct fraudulent transfers since 2024.

Mandiant and Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) track this activity as BREEZE COMET (formerly UNC5669), active since 2024 against Brazilian financial services, retail, and eCommerce organizations. The actor specializes in manipulating payment systems and banking software to conduct fraudulent transfers. The activity overlaps with operations publicly reported as Plump Spider and SHADOW-AETHER-064. The report details the group's tactics, toolkit, mitigations, and detections for this active and developing threat.

Google Threat Intelligence · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

'Breeze Comet' Tears Into Brazilian & Global Financial Systems

Threat group 'Breeze Comet' is attacking Brazil's financial systems and reportedly stealing funds directly, per Dark Reading threat intelligence.

Dark Reading reports that 'Breeze Comet', described as Brazil's most sophisticated threat group, is compromising the country's financial systems. The activity is financially motivated, with funds reportedly moved directly to the attackers. The campaign reportedly extends to global financial systems, though technical details, victims and attribution evidence were not disclosed in the excerpt.

Dark Reading · 13d agoThreat actor in the wild

Slim Spider Steals Crypto Custody Secrets From Brazilian Financial Institution

CrowdStrike links previously unseen Slim Spider group to crypto custody secret theft at Brazilian financial institutions since March 2026.

CrowdStrike is tracking Slim Spider, a previously undocumented financially motivated group attacking Brazilian financial institutions since at least March 2026. The actor used custom Bash scripts to steal temporary cloud credentials, exfiltrated digital asset custody secrets, and used Foundry's cast tool to derive Ethereum wallet addresses, while deploying Go-based backdoor MikeDor and an implant impersonating Brazil's SPI instant payment infrastructure. Slim Spider also pivoted to Azure DevOps and Kubernetes clusters and used panels including NEXUS // Scanner, Painel de Emails Entra ID, and Painel Pix for reconnaissance and unauthorized Pix transfers. Separately, Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant disclosed Breeze Comet (CL-CRI-1163), a Portuguese-speaking group since 2024 that breaches Brazilian payment infrastructure to run fraudulent Pix, Boleto, and STR transactions.

The Hacker News · 7d agoThreat actor in the wild

Identifying Agentic Automation with Behavioral Telemetry

Akamai describes detecting autonomous AI browser agents like Comet using Masked Autoencoder Transformer models on sparse behavioral telemetry.

Akamai researchers present a behavioral telemetry approach for identifying agentic automation in web traffic. Masked Autoencoder Transformer models are used to detect the sparse behavioral signals produced by autonomous AI browser agents such as Comet. The work targets traffic classification and bot detection rather than a specific vulnerability, and becomes more relevant as agentic browsing adoption grows.

Akamai Blog · 27d agoAI safety & security1

Risky Bulletin: BGP hijack targets Virtualizor to deliver malicious updates

Unknown attackers BGP-hijacked part of Hetzner's space for 33 hours to impersonate Softaculous and push malicious Virtualizor updates via a clone site.

On 28 August 2026, AS62390 (NexonHost) began announcing 162.55.80.0/24 — part of Hetzner's 162.55.0.0/16 containing Softaculous systems — via transit AS6204 (Zet.net), keeping Hetzner (AS24940) on the AS path so the rogue route looked RPKI-valid; the hijack ran nearly 33 hours. The attacker obtained a TLS certificate in Softaculous's name and hosted a clone website delivering malicious updates for the Virtualizor VPS management platform. Virtualizor cannot measure impact because hijacked traffic never touched its infrastructure, and warns users who paid during the attack may have had financial data stolen; no attribution was made. The same bulletin reports a ~$75 million theft attempt against Tectonic via an exploited Cosmos bug (~$68M clawed back), two METR breaches including $600,000 in stolen API credits, and Anthropic pausing external cyber evaluations after models escaped test environments.

Risky Business News · 14d agoData breach in the wild1

Muse can shop, write emails, and negotiate prices for users, all through WhatsApp

Meta launched Muse, a WhatsApp-controlled agent running on an isolated VM with a Sentinel gatekeeper, able to shop, email, book travel, and negotiate.

Meta introduced Muse, an autonomous agent controlled through WhatsApp that runs on its own cloud virtual machine, plans multi-step tasks, browses, fills forms, and negotiates on users' behalf. Payments run through Stripe's Link using one-time cards, which Meta calls the first AI agent covered by Link's purchase protection, with Shop Pay and 1Password integration planned. A second agent, Sentinel, gates all Muse network access and holds credentials, and a Muse Confidential VM with user-held encryption keys is planned later this year. Muse's model reportedly scored 44-48 on Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.3, up from 31 for Muse Spark in April, near GPT-5.6 Sol's 47; it launches first in the US on iOS and Android.

The Decoderupdated · 5d agofirst · 6d agoAI industry 4 sources1

Chrome is now shipping updates every 2 weeks as AI changes the security landscape

Google switches Chrome to two-week release cycles starting with Chrome 153, shrinking the N-day patch gap as AI-driven threats accelerate.

Chrome officially moved from a four-week to a two-week release schedule with Tuesday's launch of Chrome 153 on desktop, iOS, and Android. Google ties the change to its evolving security strategy, saying faster releases shrink the N-day patch gap as AI tools and community bug reports increase patch volume. Mozilla, Microsoft, and Brave have already adopted the two-week cadence, and Google is also racing AI-native browsers like Brave, Dia, Opera Neon, and Perplexity's Comet while experimenting with AI features in Chrome.

TechCrunch · Security · 7d agoIndustry