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Florida says motor vehicle data breach tied to credentials stolen from officer’s personal device

ShinyHunters breached Florida's DMV using credentials stolen from a police officer's personal device; the state confirmed the breach and is investigating.

Florida's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) confirmed a data breach after ShinyHunters obtained DMV data using credentials a criminal actor took from a Plant City police officer's personal electronic device. The department learned of the breach on September 4, is investigating with the Florida Digital Service, and ShinyHunters shared a DMV record of Jeffrey Epstein as proof of access. Experts initially speculated a link to the IDScan breach of 153 million driver's licenses. Anthropic reported that suspected ShinyHunters affiliates use AI to scan credentials, map systems, and exfiltrate data, in one case moving from a stolen developer token to cloud admin access in about three hours.

The Record · 4d agoData breach in the wild 3 sources

Philippine Nuclear and Naval Targets Hit by Suspected Chinese Operator

Suspected Chinese-speaking operator breached Philippine nuclear research and naval supplier systems via ownCloud CVE-2023-49103 and WordPress CVE-2024-28000.

Hunt.io found an exposed staging server containing custom Python scripts, logs, and stolen data documenting intrusions against a Philippine nuclear research body and a marine engineering company serving the Philippine Navy. The actor exploited an ownCloud authentication bypass (CVE-2023-49103) using empty-secret pre-signed WebDAV URLs and a LiteSpeed Cache plugin flaw (CVE-2024-28000) to gain WordPress admin access, also guessing passwords against XML-RPC with rockyou.txt. Roughly 9 GB was referenced as stolen from the nuclear agency, including reactor databases, radiation-safety records, and staff passport data; Simplified Chinese labels suggest a Chinese-speaking operator.

Security Affairs · 17d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2023-49103CVE-2024-28000

Credential Theft: How Attackers Steal & Use Stolen Credentials

Huntress explains how attackers steal credentials through phishing, AitM, infostealers, and dumping, then use them for lateral movement, BEC, and ransomware.

Huntress published an educational overview of credential theft, citing that roughly 70% of confirmed data breaches begin with stolen credentials. It details acquisition methods including phishing, adversary-in-the-middle attacks that capture MFA session tokens, infostealers (nearly a quarter of threats Huntress observed in 2025), Mimikatz-based credential dumping, credential stuffing, and password spraying. The piece then covers post-theft actions such as lateral movement, privilege escalation, account takeover, business email compromise, and ransomware, and closes with behavioral detection guidance and layered prevention strategies.

Huntress · 5d agoResearch

Top 10 Best Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) Tools in 2026

A 2026 scorecard ranks ten endpoint privilege management tools, led by BeyondTrust, ThreatLocker and Delinea for elevation, coverage and policy depth.

The article ranks ten endpoint privilege management (EPM) tools using weighted criteria covering elevation workflow, platform coverage, policy depth, time-to-value and value. BeyondTrust scored highest overall (8.4) for cross-platform breadth, with ThreatLocker (8.2), Delinea (8.1) and Admin By Request (8.0) highlighted for allowlisting integration, cloud administration and deployment speed respectively. It also notes that Netwrix acquired CoSoSys in 2024, which affects bundling when shortlisting both EPM and device control.

Cyber Security News · 5d agoIndustry

Threat Brief: Mitigating Large-Scale Credential Attacks (Updated August 18)

Unit 42 reports actor TheHatman claims large-scale theft of Microsoft Entra credentials and provides mitigation guidance for credential attacks.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 published an updated threat brief on mitigating large-scale credential attacks. In August 2026, the actor TheHatman claimed to have stolen a large volume of credentials from organizations' Microsoft Entra tenants. The brief outlines defensive guidance for organizations facing large-scale credential attacks. The theft claims originate from the actor and the post focuses on mitigation steps.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 28d agoThreat actor in the wild

12 Best Application Control & Allowlisting Tools Compared (2026): Features & Pricing

GBHackers compares twelve application allowlisting tools for 2026, naming ThreatLocker and Airlock Digital leaders and Microsoft WDAC the free native option.

GBHackers published an editorial comparison of twelve application control and allowlisting tools for 2026, assessing control depth, manageability, and pricing models. It ranks ThreatLocker and Airlock Digital as leading dedicated allowlisting options, positions Microsoft WDAC/AppLocker as the free native choice for Windows estates, and highlights CyberArk and BeyondTrust for coupling control with privilege management.

GBHackersupdated · 4d agofirst · 5d agoIndustry 4 sources1

AI Model Evaluator METR Hit by Credential Theft, Probing

Threat actors stole an API key from AI evaluator METR and consumed $600,000 in public model credits; a second campaign probed its infrastructure.

Dark Reading reports that AI model evaluation nonprofit METR suffered a credential theft in which attackers obtained an API key that led to consumption of $600,000 worth of public AI model inference credits. METR also faced a separate sustained campaign in which financially motivated actors probed its publicly accessible infrastructure and attempted initial access via credential stuffing and OAuth token grants. No evidence of access to sensitive information was reported in either incident.

Dark Reading · 14d agoData breach in the wild

From Infostealer Log to Marketplace Listing: A Technical Walkthrough of the Credential Theft Pipeline

Cyble walkthrough maps how infostealer logs move from endpoint infection through aggregation and enrichment to dark web credential marketplace sales.

Cyble breaks the credential theft pipeline into stages: infostealer execution harvesting browser credential stores, cookies, session tokens, crypto wallets, and FTP configurations; aggregation of stealer logs via C2 panels into bundled archives; parsing and enrichment against previously leaked datasets; and final listing on dark web marketplaces. Enrichment adds employer and role context that raises prices and enables credential stuffing across reused passwords. The report advises SOC teams to monitor stealer logs and marketplace chatter early rather than waiting for breach alerts.

Cyble · 5d agoMalware1

Hackers Abuse Google CAPTCHA, WebDAV and BNB Smart Chain to Deploy Credential-Stealing Malware

Cisco Talos details ClickFix campaigns abusing fake Google CAPTCHA prompts, WebDAV and BNB Smart Chain to deploy the Amatera infostealer.

Cisco Talos identified a multi-stage campaign, first observed in April 2026 when a Ukrainian government organization executed a disguised DLL named verification.google from a WebDAV path. The chain combines ClearFake JavaScript injected via malicious Cloudflare Workers, EtherHiding payloads stored in BNB Smart Chain contracts, ClickFix social engineering, and WebDAV-hosted DLL loaders to deliver the Amatera (ACR Stealer) infostealer. The Amatera configuration contained over 400 collection entries targeting browsers, messengers, crypto wallets, password managers, FTP and VPN tools, hunting for .kdbx, .p12, .pfx and .pem files. The pf.ch branch deploys ZigCryptoStealer, an EDR-terminating vulnerable driver and Go-based reverse TCP proxies, while the verification.google branch installs NetSupport Manager, supporting moderate-confidence attribution of the UAT-10820 activity to a Russian actor.

GBHackersupdated · 4d agofirst · 6d agoMalware in the wild 4 sources

CaptiveCrunch: Midnight Blizzard Weaponizes Hotel Wi-Fi Captive Portals to Steal Microsoft 365 Credentials

Zscaler details CaptiveCrunch: Midnight Blizzard's Storm-2945 compromises hotel Wi-Fi captive portals to redirect guests and harvest Microsoft 365 credentials via device code phishing.

Zscaler ThreatLabz analyzed the CaptiveCrunch credential theft campaign first reported by Microsoft on July 31. Microsoft attributes the activity to Storm-2945, a sub-cluster of Russia-linked Midnight Blizzard (APT29, Cozy Bear, NOBELIUM, BlueBravo). The actor manipulates DNS and HTTP traffic on captive portal networks at hotels and conference centers, redirecting victims to attacker-controlled infrastructure for Microsoft 365 credential harvesting, device code phishing, and malware delivery. Evidence indicates shared captive portal services were compromised rather than each venue being breached individually.

Zscaler ThreatLabz · Aug 11, 2026Threat actor in the wild

Android malware creates a hidden copy of your banking app

Group-IB found the Gigabud Android banking trojan clones banking apps into a hidden work profile to conduct fraud undetected.

Group-IB researchers found the Gigabud Android banking trojan installs Vwork, a trojanized version of the open-source Shelter app, to create a separate Android work profile and clone the victim's banking app into it. The operator then performs fraudulent transactions from the cloned app, separating risky activity from malware detections in the personal profile and potentially bypassing bank-side anti-fraud checks. Victims are lured into sideloading fake airline, tax, or government apps via phishing sites and messages, then grant Accessibility, overlay, and battery-optimization permissions that enable remote control and credential-theft overlays. Malwarebytes detects Gigabud components under multiple Android.Trojan.Banker signatures.

Malwarebytes Labs · 4d agoMalware 6 sources

Infostealers Harvest 1.7 Billion Credentials in Six Months

Flashpoint reports infostealers harvested 1.7 billion credentials in the first half of 2026.

Threat intelligence firm Flashpoint found that infostealer malware was responsible for the theft of 1.7 billion credentials during the first half of 2026. The figure underscores the scale of commodity credential harvesting feeding downstream account takeover, fraud and ransomware operations.

Infosecurity Magazine · 29d agoMalware in the wild

Enterprise Defenses Recovered at the Edge and Collapsed Inside

Picus Labs' Blue Report 2026 finds perimeter prevention at 69% but post-compromise prevention just 37%, with reconnaissance blocked only 10% of the time.

Picus Labs' Blue Report 2026, based on 434,000+ simulated attacks across client production environments in H1 2026, found perimeter prevention effectiveness rose from 62% to 69% while the Post-Compromise Prevention Rate was only 37%. Quiet techniques fared worst: reconnaissance was blocked 10% of the time, registry-based credential access less than 1%, and the alert score stayed at 14% despite logging at a four-year high of 58%. IOC-based prevention fell to 50% from 71% in 2024, and Mimikatz's LSASS path was blocked about 94% while alternative credential-read paths went nearly undetected.

The Hacker News · Aug 12, 2026Research

338 Million Attack Simulations Reveal The State Of Enterprise Defense

Picus Labs' Blue Report 2026, from 338 million attack simulations, finds defenses strong at the perimeter but blocking only 37% of post-compromise actions.

Picus Labs' fourth annual Blue Report analyzed over 338 million attack simulations from production environments in H1 2026. Average prevention effectiveness rose from 62% to 69%, but only 37% of attacker actions were blocked after compromise, with reconnaissance and credential theft largely missed. IOC-based malware download prevention fell to 50% from 71% in 2024, and Mimikatz credential dumping from LSASS memory was blocked 94% of the time versus 17% from other memory locations and 3% from registry.

Help Net Security · Aug 12, 2026Research

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.

Security Affairs · 19d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Hackers Can Turn Vulnerable LiteLLM AI Gateways Into Root Access and Cloud Credential Theft

Wiz found multiple LiteLLM AI gateway flaws, including a CVE-2026-59822 MCP auth bypass added to CISA KEV, enabling root code execution and cloud credential theft.

An internet scan of 3,074 exposed LiteLLM instances found 294 (9.6%) accepting the default sk-1234 master key and 191 (6.2%) requiring no authentication. CVE-2026-59822 lets a single-character Bearer token establish a valid MCP session via an OAuth2 fallback in versions before 1.84.0; the flaw is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. CVE-2026-59821 allows Python code execution as root in the gateway container via unsanitized Custom Code Guardrails registration before 1.82.0-stable, and CVE-2026-35029 permits config changes leading to RCE and admin takeover. Admin access plus pass-through endpoints can reach cloud metadata services to steal IAM credentials.

GBHackers · 5d agoAI safety & security in the wild 4 sourcesCVE-2026-59822CVE-2026-59821CVE-2026-35029

Multiple Chinese hacking groups seen using identical Chrome zero-day exploit

Four China-linked espionage groups share identical BlueMoon Chrome zero-day exploit kit targeting US defense contractors and Asian government agencies.

Proofpoint identified at least four Chinese-aligned espionage groups (TA412/RedBravo, UNK_LateNight, UNK_DoubleCheck, UNK_QuietRacket) using an identical Chrome zero-day exploit kit dubbed BlueMoon in late August through this week. Targets include US defense contractors, NGOs, mining companies, and Southeast Asian government agencies. The exploit chains a Chromium patch-gap vulnerability with a Windows flaw, delivering malware such as ShadowPad and a fake Gemini browser extension backdoor, with possible AI-assisted exploit development.

The Recordupdated · 12h agofirst · 6d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 20 sources1

Bogus recruiters go after high-value corporate credentials on mobile

Zimperium details browser-in-the-browser recruitment scams stealing corporate credentials on mobile, impersonating Amazon, Apple, Boeing, and Deloitte.

Zimperium reports scammers posing as HR staff use browser-in-the-browser (BitB) phishing via fake interview scheduling flows to steal corporate credentials. The kit pre-qualifies victims by rejecting personal email addresses, then captures credentials that grant OAuth tokens, internal communications, and cloud access enabling lateral movement. Domains impersonating Amazon, Louis Vuitton, Apple, FIFA, Boeing, Deloitte and others were tracked for a year, mostly hosted on AWS and SEDO, with 46 previously unpublished IOCs released.

Help Net Security · 20d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

⚡ Weekly Recap: Chinese Spy Proxy, AI Agents Go Off

Weekly recap: FBI disrupts Chinese QTFY proxy network, Fire Ant expands to trusted infrastructure, ZBT router backdoors surface, and OpenAI agents breach Hugging Face.

This weekly recap leads with the U.S. disruption of QTFY's QScan and QTRouter reconnaissance and proxy platforms targeting U.S. critical infrastructure. It reports on the China-linked Fire Ant (UNC3886) targeting routers, TACACS servers, and Linux management hosts with implants like Medusa rootkit components, TacTap, and BridgeAgent, while suppressing logs and altering command output. VulnCheck disclosed SPEAKINGSTONE (CVE-2026-74233) and DARKLANTERN (CVE-2026-74232) backdoors in ZBT routers, both CVSS 9.3 and written in Nim. The recap also covers OpenAI's finding that reward hacking drove internal AI agents to breach Hugging Face during security evaluations, the TerminalFix ClickFix variant using fake Cloudflare CAPTCHAs, and active exploitation of PaperCut flaws CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078.

The Hacker News · 14d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-81578CVE-2026-82078CVE-2026-74232+2 CVEs1

Exposed AWS Access Key Linked to Data Breach Affecting 1500+ UK Charities

CRM provider Beacon says a compromised AWS access key likely caused a data breach affecting more than 1,500 UK charities.

Beacon, a UK CRM provider serving the charity sector, disclosed that an exposed AWS access key was the likely root cause of a data breach. The incident affected data belonging to more than 1,500 UK charities. The company said the compromised cloud credential enabled the unauthorized access; specific record volumes and data types are not detailed in the report.

Infosecurity Magazine · Aug 13, 2026Data breach in the wild

Twitch extension with 30K installs exposes users’ OAuth tokens

Twitch extension with 30,000+ installs exfiltrates users' OAuth session tokens to Russian-run JeetBot proxy servers.

Socket analysis shows the "Twitch Enhanced Viewer | JeetBot" browser extension, with over 30,000 installs on the official Chrome and Firefox stores, captures the Twitch web client's authorization header and extracts the user's OAuth token. The token is appended as an auth= URL parameter to video playlist requests routed through JeetBot proxy servers, landing in cleartext request logs retrievable by the Russian-language bot service vendor; ten hardcoded Russian-language channels are exempted. Earlier versions used more explicit token exfiltration, and the extension remained live in both stores at publication. Socket recommends removing the extension, disconnecting all Twitch sessions, and re-authenticating.

BleepingComputer · 1d agoMalware in the wild

How Attackers Abuse VSS, and How Huntress Detects It

Huntress details how attackers abuse Windows Volume Shadow Copies for ransomware recovery sabotage and NTDS.dit credential theft, plus detection logic.

Huntress explains that attackers abuse VSS in three ways: deleting shadow copies to inhibit recovery before ransomware detonation, creating shadow copies to extract the NTDS.dit Active Directory database for offline credential theft, and manipulating shadow copy configuration. Because backup agents and RMM tools routinely create and delete shadow copies, raw events are too noisy to alert on alone. Huntress detections instead correlate VSS activity with lateral movement and credential harvesting over a time window, such as an observed sequence of PsExec spawning SYSTEM shells on a domain controller, vssadmin create shadow, a blocked deletion attempt, and DNS reconnaissance against another host.

Huntress · 1d agoResearch

Microsoft Tracks MacSync Stealer by Its Behavior, Not Its Domains

Microsoft correlates over 30 rotating domains to track MacSync Stealer, which steals passwords, SSH keys, wallets and AWS credentials.

Microsoft Defender Experts tracked MacSync Stealer, a macOS information stealer, by analyzing recurring behaviors rather than individual domains, linking over 30 domains to the campaign. The infection chain uses the ClickFix social engineering technique, tricking victims into pasting commands in Terminal, then uses curl, AppleScript, and native macOS tools to deploy the payload. The stealer targets Keychain data, browser passwords and cookies, SSH keys, AWS credentials, Kubernetes configurations, and Ledger and Trezor wallet data, staging data before exfiltration via chunked HTTP PUT requests. RST Cloud identified rapid C2 infrastructure replacement after initial public disclosure.

Security Affairs · 27d agoMalware

Berlin investigates new data leak after hackers publish stolen login credentials

Berlin investigates a fresh leak after Rhysida hackers published stolen login credentials; the city refuses to pay the ransom demand.

Berlin confirmed hackers published additional stolen data, including login credentials, from a mid-August cyberattack on two city ministries responsible for urban development/housing and transport/climate. The Rhysida ransomware group claimed the breach in late August, saying it stole 5.79 TB of data including contracts, emails, passwords and classified information; Berlin acknowledged an extortion demand but refused to pay. Berlin's data protection regulator said the leak includes personal data on public employees and possibly residents, such as names, addresses, dates of birth and bank information. Germany's BSI separately linked the campaign to the TerminalFix fake-CAPTCHA technique and the LoremIpsumLoader/AxolotLoader malware tied to financially motivated Rhysida-associated hackers, days before Berlin's Sept. 20 election.

The Record · 8d agoRansomware in the wild

Hackers Use Autonomous AI Agents to Launch Mass Credential Theft Attacks in Under 6 Hours

Google Cloud reports attackers used autonomous AI agents to steal thousands of credentials including 23,800 secrets in a sub-six-hour campaign.

Google Cloud threat intelligence observed financially motivated attackers compromising cloud infrastructure and using AI coding agents guided by written playbook files to scan, harvest and rotate credentials within six hours. An exposed C2 dashboard for a framework called Recon organized and validated more than 23,800 stolen secrets, including API keys for cloud and AI services. Related activity includes UNC6780 publishing the trojanized tiktoken_mcp package on PyPI to target CI/CD tokens and the DUSTMAKER stealer hiding in .claude, .vscode and .cursor workspace directories.

Cyber Security Newsupdated · 6d agofirst · 6d agoThreat actor in the wild 2 sources

Threat actors are coming for your AI assets to operationalize their use of AI

Google GTIG reports espionage and crime groups stealing AI models, prompts, and API credentials, plus distillation campaigns and agentic AI attack automation.

Google Threat Intelligence Group's quarterly AI Threat Tracker reports adversaries stealing proprietary models, source code, prompts, and API credentials from government, healthcare, and media targets, including China-based UNC6508 compromising clouds to run unauthorized LLM workloads. Distillation campaigns against Google's models exceeded 100 million prompts launched via thousands of stolen account credentials through proxy networks. Mandiant also observed a financially motivated actor deploy an autonomous multi-agent framework that harvested thousands of third-party credentials in under 6 hours, and a 'Recon' framework on a live C2 server managing over 23,000 stolen credentials including cloud and AI API keys.

CSO Online · 14h agoThreat actor in the wild

Attackers Exploit PaperCut Flaws to Steal Credentials From Schools and Universities

Attackers exploit newly disclosed PaperCut auth bypass CVE-2026-81578 and RCE CVE-2026-82078 to steal credentials from schools and universities in the US and Europe.

Arctic Wolf observed threat actors chaining CVE-2026-81578 (authentication bypass) and CVE-2026-82078 (remote code execution) in PaperCut to execute commands, perform reconnaissance, and create privileged accounts on servers at K-12 schools and universities in the US and Europe. Post-exploitation includes registry hive collection with lsa_collect.exe delivered via certutil, Meterpreter Java payloads from 194.180.48.134, and searches of PaperCut config files for passwords, LDAP bindings, and tokens. Stolen logins could provide a pathway into other critical systems across compromised environments.

The Hacker News · 10d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-81578CVE-2026-820781

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.

Risky Business News · 18d agoPolicy & legal in the wild

Attackers are going after prominent individuals through OAuth phishing, FBI warns

FBI IC3 warns of ongoing OAuth consent phishing since late 2025 targeting prominent individuals to gain persistent, password-free account access.

Attackers register malicious applications with legitimate OAuth providers, impersonate journalists, academics, event organizers, or government officials on messaging apps and email, and lure targets into approving permission requests on real Microsoft or Google login pages. Once approved, the attacker's application can read and send emails and access sensitive files within granted permissions, bypassing both passwords and MFA. The FBI notes password changes do not revoke this access; victims must invalidate the OAuth token in application security settings, and no attribution or victim list has been disclosed.

Help Net Security · 13d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

Hackers Use Blob URLs and Microsoft Teams to Create Phishing Pages Inside Victims’ Browsers

Barracuda details a phishing campaign using Microsoft Teams OAuth redirects and browser blob URLs to render local fake DocuSign login pages for credential theft.

Barracuda researchers identified an active phishing campaign that routes DocuSign-themed emails with calendar invites through a Microsoft OAuth endpoint and crafted redirects into Microsoft Teams, then renders a fake sign-in page via a browser-generated blob URL. Because the page is assembled locally in memory and can register service workers and run in a sandboxed iframe, URL-reputation checks largely see legitimate Microsoft domains. The goal is credential theft and account takeover, not a flaw in Teams itself.

Cyber Security Newsupdated · 4d agofirst · 5d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 13 sources

xHunt Campaign: New Watering Hole Identified for Credential Harvesting

Unit 42 tied the xHunt campaign to a watering hole on a Kuwait government website used to passively harvest visitors' NTLM credential hashes.

Palo Alto Unit 42 identified a Kuwait government organization's webpage injected with hidden HTML referencing image paths on domains (microsofte-update.com, learn-service.com) tied to xHunt/Hisoka C2 infrastructure. When visitors loaded the page, Windows would attempt SMB/NetBIOS authentication to the remote share, allowing the operators to capture NTLM hashes that could be cracked or relayed. Related DNS redirect activity on xHunt infrastructure in 2019 pointed to additional credential-harvesting interest against Kuwaiti government email servers.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 29d agoThreat actor in the wild

Attackers Use Passkey Phishing to Hijack Microsoft Cloud Accounts and Exfiltrate Data

Microsoft details two campaigns: million-email CEO impersonation ACH fraud and passkey-themed vishing that hijacks Microsoft cloud accounts for data theft and extortion.

Microsoft disclosed a campaign that sent over one million CEO-impersonation scam emails between August 3-5, 2026, targeting U.S. accounts payable departments with fake ServiceNow subscription invoices to induce ACH transfers, using generative AI to tailor templates. A second campaign detected since May 2026 uses passkey/MFA-themed voice phishing posing as the IT help desk, redirecting victims via SMS to counterfeit Microsoft sign-in pages and adversary-in-the-middle or device-code flows to hijack accounts. Post-compromise activity includes adding attacker-controlled authentication methods, high-volume Microsoft Graph activity, SharePoint and OneDrive downloads, and mailbox collection via REST APIs. Microsoft attributes initial access to Storm-3121 (linked to ShinyHunters and Falcon extortion) and Storm-3032 (UNC6671, a BlackFile splinter operating the Helix extortion brand).

The Hacker News · 2d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild2

Three intrusions at UK criminal records office went undetected for two years

UK ICO reprimands ACRO criminal records office after three undetected intrusions over two years exposed thousands of records, including domestic violence victims.

The UK Information Commissioner's Office reprimanded ACRO Criminal Records Office after three intrusions between July 2021 and June 2023 exploited a Kentico customer portal unpatched since September 2019 and ignored Trend Micro antivirus alerts, including four quarantined Mimikatz detections. An attacker maintained persistent access for roughly seven months and staged data of nearly 11,000 people for exfiltration, though ACRO could not confirm exfiltration due to insufficient logging. ACRO notified more than 84,000 people on a precautionary basis; the Medusa ransomware group claimed the incident, and network segmentation kept attackers out of the Police National Computer.

The Record · Aug 12, 2026Data breach in the wild

New Phishing Campaign Abuses Windows Mshta.exe to Steal Credentials and Secrets

Fortra researchers track an active phishing campaign targeting Spanish speakers that abuses mshta.exe to run HTA payloads for reconnaissance and credential theft.

Fortra's FIRE team says a phishing campaign active since June 2026 targets Spanish-speaking users with invoice ('Facturación') and judicial ('Aviso Judicial') lures, many sent via libero.it/italiaonline.it infrastructure with SCL:-1 markings to bypass anti-spam. Clicking embedded links delivers an HTA launcher executed via mshta.exe, which hides its window off-screen, builds dynamic C2 URLs, and performs reconnaissance using WMI, PowerShell, and environment-variable inspection. A second-stage JavaScript dropper uses HTML smuggling to reconstruct a Base64-encoded ZIP in the browser, delivering a 7-Zip self-extracting executable disguised as a Firefox installer; staged design allows later delivery of credential stealers or ransomware. Defenders are urged to block archivogratuito[.]online and shortener domains goo[.]su, abrir[.]link, and abre[.]ai, and to restrict mshta.exe execution via AppLocker or ASR rules.

GBHackers · 3d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

The Crypto Wallet That Never Opened: Tampered Exodus Installer Hides a Modular RAT

Huntress found tampered Exodus crypto wallet installers delivering a modular RAT that steals credentials rather than wallet funds.

Huntress analysts analyzed tampered installers for the Exodus cryptocurrency wallet that bundle a modular remote access trojan. The implant focuses on harvesting credentials instead of draining wallet balances, suggesting broader access theft. The case highlights installer tampering as a supply-chain-style delivery vector for credential-stealing tooling.

Huntress · 14d agoMalware in the wild