Risky Bulletin: Two TeamPCP members arrested in Australia
Australian Federal Police arrested two alleged TeamPCP members behind supply-chain worm attacks that stole over 500,000 credentials from compromised open-source libraries.
The AFP arrested alleged TeamPCP leader Ruben Thomson, 21, and Louis Gaebler, 23, near Perth; both were charged and remain in custody. The group inserted a self-spreading credential-stealing worm into open-source projects including Trivy, KICS, LiteLLM, and Telnyx, harvesting more than 500,000 credentials used for network access, ransomware, extortion, and sales. About 78,000 tokens and secrets from nearly 2,200 organizations leaked online last month, and the FBI supported the investigation that began in April.
Two alleged TeamPCP members arrested and charged after months of software supply
Australian Federal Police, with FBI support, arrested two alleged TeamPCP members behind supply-chain attacks that compromised over 1,000 organizations.
The AFP charged two Western Australian men, identified by media as Ruben Ian Thomson (21) and Louis Michael Gaebler (23), with 14 combined offences including unauthorized data modification and dealing in criminal proceeds. TeamPCP is blamed for poisoning open-source software releases including Trivy, LiteLLM, and the mini Shai-Hulud worm campaign, exposing over 500,000 credentials and at least 300 GB of data. Victims included the European Commission and GitHub, with remediation costs estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Researchers from Flare traced one suspect through leaked passwords, a GitHub alias, and a Steam profile.
Two alleged TeamPCP hackers arrested over global supply chain attacks
AFP and FBI arrested two alleged TeamPCP hackers behind open-source supply chain attacks that stole 500,000+ credentials from 1,000+ organizations.
Australian Federal Police, working with the FBI and Western Australia Police, arrested a 21-year-old from Cottesloe and a 23-year-old from Mandurah on August 26, 2026, over alleged membership in the TeamPCP cybercrime group. The group allegedly planted malicious code in open-source packages, harvesting credentials, authentication tokens and at least 300 GB of data from over 1,000 organizations, with remediation costs estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. TeamPCP has been linked to supply chain attacks on GitHub, Telnyx, LiteLLM, Aqua Trivy, Checkmarx KICS, TanStack, MistralAI and Red Hat using a cloned self-replicating worm dubbed Shai-Hulud. Researchers note TeamPCP cloned the Shai-Hulud worm but was not behind the original 2025 attacks.
Australia charges two men for TeamPCP supply
Australia charged two Perth men over TeamPCP supply-chain attacks compromising 1,000+ organizations and exposing 500,000+ credentials.
The AFP charged two Perth-based men with a combined 14 offences for their alleged roles in TeamPCP, with payments in cryptocurrency for data intrusion, identity crime, and money laundering. The group's supply-chain attacks targeted developer tools including TanStack, Trivy, and LiteLLM, with downstream victims including the European Commission and GitHub. Investigators estimate the campaign compromised over 1,000 organizations, exposed more than 500,000 credentials, and led to theft of at least 300 GB of data, with remediation costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The men could face a combined 82 years if given maximum sentences, though sentences are typically served concurrently.
Alleged TeamPCP Hackers Charged in Australia Over Major Supply Chain Attacks
Australian Federal Police charges two men with 14 offences over TeamPCP supply chain backdoors in Trivy, Checkmarx KICS, and LiteLLM affecting 1,000+ organizations.
The Australian Federal Police charged two Western Australian men, aged 21 and 23, with 14 offences for their alleged principal roles in TeamPCP's March 2026 supply chain attacks; they appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on August 27, 2026. The group stole publishing credentials from trusted open-source projects and pushed poisoned releases across five ecosystems - GitHub Actions, Docker Hub, npm, PyPI, and OpenVSX - with LiteLLM's unpinned Trivy install enabling token theft and backdoored LiteLLM releases. The FBI said the malicious code potentially compromised more than 1,000 organizations, enabled theft of over 500,000 credentials, and exfiltrated at least 300 GB of data. Oligo Security linked the group's infrastructure to activity back to 2020, previously tracked as TA-NATALSTATUS and IronErn.
Two Alleged ‘TeamPCP’ Hackers Arrested in Australia
Australian Federal Police arrested two alleged TeamPCP members, a data extortion group tied to prolonged software supply chain attacks.
The Australian Federal Police arrested two unnamed suspects from Western Australia, aged 21 and 23, believed to be members of TeamPCP. The group is described as a cybercrime and data extortion syndicate blamed for the longest-running spree of software supply chain attacks, allegedly creating malicious open-source software that hit thousands of global businesses. KrebsOnSecurity had identified the 21-year-old suspect in June and had been in contact with him.
Two Arrests, One Supply-Chain Attack, and a Lot of Stolen Credentials
AFP charges two men over TeamPCP open-source supply-chain attacks that stole 500,000+ credentials from 1,000+ organizations via four malware families.
Australian police charged two Western Australian men as principal participants in TeamPCP, which allegedly inserted malicious code into open-source software to steal credentials and sensitive data from government, academia, and private sector organizations worldwide. The campaign compromised more than 1,000 organizations, harvested over 500,000 credentials, and exfiltrated at least 300 GB of data, with remediation costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Four malware families were deployed: CanisterWorm (cloud token harvesting), SANDCLOCK (AWS and Kubernetes credential theft), Mini Shai-Hulud (self-replicating npm/PyPI worm), and Miasma (credential-harvesting worm variant). Trojanized tools included Trivy, KICS, LiteLLM, and the Telnyx Python SDK, with exfiltration via GitHub repositories tpcp-docs and docs-tpcp.
AI Is Giving Lesser-Resourced Attackers Nation-State-Level Reach, Google Warns
Google's Threat Intelligence Group warns AI now gives lesser-resourced criminal and nation-state attackers nation-state-level speed and scale, citing TeamPCP, Basin Castle, APT42, and APT24 usage.
GTIG documented throughout 2026 that adversaries increasingly use AI to automate and scale attacks. TeamPCP (UNC6780) used an AI coding chatbot with agent instructions to plan and execute a mass credential harvesting campaign in under six hours, and has compromised PyPI, npm, and Docker Hub since March 2026 with its Dustmaker credential stealer plus released tools Shai-Hulud and Miasma. PRC-nexus Basin Castle uses LLMs for target profiling, lure drafting, and malware development; APT42 (Calanque Ion) uses Gemini for OSINT and localized lures; APT24 (Ravine Castle) uses Gemini across the full attack lifecycle; and DPRK's Midnight Neptune (UNC1069) integrates AI into cryptocurrency theft. Google responds by disrupting attacker accounts and hardening models against distillation attacks.
Australian cops cuff alleged TeamPCP masterminds
Australian police, with FBI assistance, arrested the alleged masterminds behind the Shai-Hulud worm and related supply chain attacks.
Australian law enforcement, working with the FBI, arrested suspects alleged to be the masterminds behind the Shai-Hulud worm and other software supply chain attacks. The group is referred to as TeamPCP. The report did not specify charges, the number of suspects arrested, or affected victims.
LiteLLM Supply-Chain Attack - Technology, Banking and Healthcare the Most Affected
TeamPCP planted the SANDCLOCK credential stealer in LiteLLM PyPI releases, exposing credentials across 2,038 repositories at 898 organizations including Microsoft and NVIDIA.
Threat actor TeamPCP compromised LiteLLM maintainer credentials and published malicious versions 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 to PyPI around March 2026, creating an exposure window of several months. The SANDCLOCK credential stealer exposed full credential sets across 898 GitHub owners and 2,038 repositories, including Microsoft, Azure, IBM, NVIDIA, PayPal, Deloitte, Bosch, and S&P Global. Stolen material includes GitHub CI/CD identities, AWS/GCP/Firebase credentials, SSH keys, Kubernetes secrets, and OpenAI and Anthropic API keys; Resecurity acquired a 150GB archive with 2,146 credential records. Technology, banking/finance, and healthcare organizations are the most affected sectors, and victims must rotate all exposed credentials.
Malicious LiteLLM Releases Tied to Trivy Hack May Have Exposed 2,100+ Organizations
Malicious LiteLLM 1.82.7/1.82.8 PyPI releases tied to the Trivy TeamPCP campaign harvested cloud, SSH, and database credentials, potentially exposing 2,500+ organizations.
CloudSEK reported that two malicious LiteLLM releases on PyPI (versions 1.82.7 and 1.82.8, live about 40 minutes on March 24) harvested cloud keys, SSH keys, Kubernetes tokens, and database passwords, with captured loot files mapping potential exposure to more than 2,500 organizations including NVIDIA, Cisco, Deloitte, Volkswagen, FedEx, Siemens, and X Corp. The campaign is part of TeamPCP (tracked by Google as UNC6780), linked to the Aqua Security Trivy scanner compromise tracked as CVE-2026-33634 and added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on March 26. The payload used a litellm_init.pth file executed at Python interpreter startup and exfiltrated secrets to models.litellm[.]cloud; the FBI's FLASH-20260702-01 advisory urged rotation of CI/CD, publishing, and cloud credentials.
Extortion crews have their eyes on high-value AI data, Google warns
Google's Mandiant warns extortion crews now steal proprietary AI models, prompts, and research for ransom, while threat actors automate attacks with agentic AI.
Google's AI Threat Tracker details intrusions in which extortion crews exfiltrated healthcare drug research and a proprietary AI model, and stole an AI media company's source code, prompts, skills, model scripts, and secrets, threatening leaks unless paid. TeamPCP (UNC6780), behind large open-source supply chain attacks on PyPI, npm, and Docker Hub since March, used a malicious GitHub Actions workflow to exfiltrate a company's proprietary AI repository. Mandiant also observed a fully autonomous multi-agent credential-harvesting cloud intrusion completed in under six hours, and a China-linked espionage group using Gemini to build a dynamic automated penetration-testing framework.
Tracking Shai-Hulud: Inside the ChainDrop NPM Worm
ChainDrop, a Mini Shai-Hulud variant tied to TeamPCP, worms through npm via a compromised maintainer account and anchors C2 in an Ethereum smart contract.
On August 4, 2026, the self-propagating ChainDrop worm entered the npm ecosystem through a compromised maintainer account, poisoning packages including keyv, cacheable, and flat-cache. ChainDrop is a variant of Mini Shai-Hulud linked to the actor TeamPCP. It anchors its C2 infrastructure in an Ethereum smart contract, allowing domain rotation with a single blockchain transaction and defeating domain-based blocklists. The compromised keyv maintainer's GitHub account caused the project's own GitHub Actions release pipeline to publish malicious package versions.
GTIG AI Threat Tracker: From Prompting to Autonomy – The Evolution of Adversarial AI
GTIG's Q2 2026 tracker shows adversaries adopting agentic AI workflows, including credential harvesting in under six hours and supply chain attacks by UNC6780.
Google Threat Intelligence Group's Q2 2026 report documents adversaries moving from basic prompting to agentic AI workflows and automation, including a cloud compromise followed by agent-enabled mass credential harvesting executed in under six hours. It tracks financially motivated actor UNC6780 (TeamPCP) conducting large-scale open source supply chain compromises across PyPI, npm, and Docker Hub since March 2026, deploying credential stealers. The report also highlights growing targeting of proprietary AI models, source code, prompts, and API credentials, plus LLMJacking practices where adversaries steal developer credentials or hijack cloud infrastructure to run unauthorized AI workloads.
Autonomous AI Agents Compromise Thousands of Credentials in Under Six Hours
Google's GTIG reports threat actors using autonomous AI agents, credential stealers, and LLMs to steal AI models, API credentials, and harvest thousands of credentials.
Google Threat Intelligence Group says attackers are targeting proprietary AI models across healthcare, government, and media, exfiltrating API credentials, and co-opting victim cloud environments to run unauthorized AI workloads. TeamPCP (Altered Spider/UNC6780) is conducting supply chain compromises of PyPI, npm, and Docker Hub, deploying the SANDCLOCK and DUSTMAKER credential stealers, with DUSTMAKER using AI workspace poisoning and prompt injection for defense evasion. One financially motivated actor used an autonomous multi-agent framework to compromise thousands of third-party credentials in under six hours without human intervention. China-nexus groups UNC6508 and Basin Castle (Mustang Panda) used local open-weight LLMs and commercial LLMs like Gemini, Claude, and Codex for espionage tasks and evading provider monitoring.
Srsly Risky Biz: China's Private Sector Botnets Are Worth Disrupting
DoJ seized domains of Chinese espionage botnet platforms QScan and QTRouter, run by private firm QTFY for MSS and PLA targeting.
The US Department of Justice disrupted QScan, a distributed vulnerability scanning system with nearly a decade of internet scanning data, and QTRouter, a covert communications platform routing traffic through compromised IoT devices, operated by QTFY under Chinese company Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology. FBI and NSA advisories say QTFY customers include China's Ministry of State Security and the People's Liberation Army, targeting federal agencies, the US Senate, hospitals, telecoms and financial institutions. This is the third Chinese state-backed botnet disrupted since December 2023, following the KV botnet (Volt Typhoon) and Raptor Train (Flax Typhoon), and a sister network, JDY, has more than doubled since the KV disruption. Separately, the Qilin ransomware group claimed a breach of the ATF's CALEA system, briefly publishing 6.3 GB of case folders and forensic data.
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.
153GB of stolen credentials surface after LiteLLM supply chain attack
153GB archive from the LiteLLM supply chain attack exposes secrets from about 2,500 companies, including AWS, Samsung, Cisco and Salesforce.
Hudson Rock obtained and analyzed a 153GB archive stolen in the LiteLLM supply chain attack, containing 433,909 files with secrets attributed to 2,488 corporate domains, including AWS, Samsung, Cisco, Salesforce, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Siemens. TeamPCP compromised Trivy on March 19, 2026, stole LiteLLM's PyPI publishing tokens through the build pipeline, and published malicious LiteLLM versions 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 on March 24. CloudSEK separately estimated close to 2,500 exposed organizations, and Kevin Beaumont confirmed the data is legitimate. Hudson Rock is running a global ethical disclosure effort and urges organizations to rotate secrets before the trove leaks publicly.