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Cifas reports UK fraud cases reached a record high in 2026, driven by account takeover and identity fraud.
Cifas data shows UK fraud cases hit a record high in 2026. Account takeover and identity fraud are the main drivers of the surge. The figures indicate rising fraud pressure on UK consumers and financial institutions.
Huntress published an educational guide explaining account takeover (ATO) fraud, how attackers steal credentials, and steps to detect and prevent it.
Huntress released a comprehensive guide on account takeover fraud, which occurs when attackers steal login credentials to gain access to victim accounts. The article is educational rather than incident reporting, covering detection signals and prevention measures such as credential protection. No specific breach, actor, or vulnerability is described.
Researchers present a privacy-preserving fraud detection method combining unsupervised filtering and supervised classification on anonymized transaction embeddings for low-latency triage.
The paper describes fraud detection performed entirely on topologically anonymized transaction embeddings. It iterates unsupervised filtering followed by supervised classification ('sniping') to flag suspicious activity. The goal is ultra-low-latency, privacy-preserving triage for institutions without exposing personally identifiable information.
DoppelCart, the largest documented fake-shop network, runs 119,000 domains impersonating 44,182 brands to steal payment card details via WebSocket-connected checkout pages.
German cybersecurity startup Nebty discovered DoppelCart, a network of more than 119,000 fake e-commerce domains, mostly in the .SHOP TLD, that harvest payment card details through fraudulent checkout pages. Over 105,000 shops remain active, impersonating 44,182 brands with discounts of up to 65%, and 96% of confirmed shops share identical build files resolving to 27 commerce backends. Checkout code exfiltrates card numbers, expiration dates, CVVs, cardholder names, contact details, and even bank one-time codes to attacker C2 over WebSockets in real time, potentially bypassing bank security controls. The network surpasses BogusBazaar, the previously largest documented fake-shop cluster with 75,000 sites and an estimated 850,000 fraudulent transactions.
Experian's 2026 report finds AI-generated scams, deepfakes and synthetic identities spreading across digital channels, pushing businesses toward adaptive identity verification and 'Know Your Agent' checks.
Experian's 2026 US Identity & Fraud Report, based on consumer and business surveys, found 60% of consumers aware of AI-generated image/video scams, 53% of AI phishing, and 47% of deepfake voice impersonation. 80% of US businesses already use machine learning or generative AI in fraud management, while AI chatbot account openings rose from 16% in 2025 to 27%. The report highlights adaptive authentication, behavioral biometrics, and emerging 'Know Your Agent' controls as AI agents begin acting on behalf of customers.
Ukrainian national Oleksii Lytvynenko sentenced to four years for wire fraud conspiracy deploying Conti ransomware that infected over 1,000 computers.
Oleksii Oleksiyovych Lytvynenko, 44, a Ukrainian national, was sentenced to four years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud related to deploying the Conti ransomware variant. The US Department of Justice said the conspiracy infected the computers of more than 1,000 victims. The sentencing is an update to a previously reported case.
Akamai reports AI-powered brand abuse is driving financial fraud against banks and promotes its Brand Guardian defense.
Akamai describes AI-powered brand abuse as a growing driver of financial fraud against banks. The post outlines the threats and the business impact for financial institutions. It also promotes Akamai Brand Guardian as a mitigation for financial institutions.
Rapid7 analyzes how fraud marketplaces are fragmenting into specialized shops after larger marketplaces were dismantled, aided by new MITRE F3 framework
Rapid7 reports a shift from large known fraud marketplaces to a fragmented environment of smaller specialized storefronts such as Xleet, Blackpass, Infodig, and Styx, operating across dark web channels, Telegram, and P2P options. These Fraud-as-a-Service shops sell stolen accounts, PII, synthetic identity generation, infrastructure, and money laundering support, supporting schemes like business email compromise. MITRE's Fraud Fighting Framework (F3), introduced in early 2026, aims to help security teams prioritize monitoring of fraud TTPs, particularly account takeover techniques. Fraud damages are anticipated to approach hundreds of billions of USD.
Rapid7 exposed infrastructure behind a cryptocurrency fraud pipeline using phishing panels, voice-dialing scripts, fake wallets, and AI coding assistants.
Rapid7 researchers identified an exposed web directory on infrastructure used to support a cryptocurrency fraud operation tracked as Operation ASTERIX. The server contained raw phone-number datasets, account-validation tools, enriched lead records, phishing panels, voice-dialing scripts, fake wallet applications, persistence mechanisms, and Telegram exfiltration code. Recovered prompts, shell history, and project files show the operator relied on AI coding assistants to package Electron applications, obfuscate code, troubleshoot builds, and modify phishing infrastructure.
US DOJ and Treasury disrupt Xinbi Guarantee Telegram scam marketplace, sanctioning it and freezing $52.8M in USDT across 52 wallets.
The DOJ seized Xinbi Guarantee's Telegram channels and cryptocurrency wallets while OFAC sanctioned the marketplace, freezing $52.8 million in USDT from 52 wallets and bringing the Scam Center Strike Force's total restrained funds to roughly $938 million. Elliptic, which worked with the Secret Service, estimates Xinbi has processed $30 billion in transactions since around 2022, serving pig-butchering scam operators and links to North Korean hackers, Jin Bei Group, and Prince Group TCO. The strike force dismantled 13 scam compounds in Madagascar, seizing over 3,200 devices and interviewing roughly 400 arrestees, with about 30 Chinese compound leaders repatriated to China. After Tether froze funds, Xinbi began converting remaining USDT into the USDD stablecoin.
ThreatMark's 2026 benchmark finds 55% of banks see social engineering in most fraud, pushing behavioral intelligence and earlier detection during customer sessions.
ThreatMark's Fraud Readiness Benchmark 2026 reports social engineering is involved in most fraud at 55% of surveyed banks, with criminals impersonating trusted people to make customers authorize payments using legitimate credentials. The report highlights behavioral intelligence as underused (18% adoption, 83% rating it effective), expects authorized push payment reimbursement regulation in North America within two years, and notes 91% agreement that AI can shorten fraud investigations. It also finds 81% of fraud professionals now carry cybersecurity responsibilities.
Cisco Talos tracks a ClickFix crypto-theft campaign using Google Sheets as C2 to swap deposit addresses in Chrome.
Cisco Talos uncovered a cryptocurrency theft campaign that abuses Google Sheets and the Google Visualization API as a covert C2 channel, delivering obfuscated JavaScript into victims' Chrome browser sessions via ClickFix-style social engineering. Victims are lured with a fake "API Logic Flaw" report promising 25-38% bonuses on SimpleSwap and SwapZone swaps; the injected payload acts as a browser-based web skimmer that replaces deposit addresses, overrides the fetch API, and hijacks the clipboard. Later variants use the legitimate Tampermonkey extension with a user script for persistence without OS-level compromise. Talos identified 49 Bitcoin wallets, with 24 reused addresses receiving about 0.159 BTC (~$10,000) before mixing through more than 3,000 addresses.
Revolut handed over KYC documents, selfies, and Bitcoin transaction histories to attackers after a fraudulent email from a genuine government domain passed authentication checks.
Revolut confirmed on September 12, 2026 that it disclosed sensitive customer KYC data to an unauthorized third party after a fraudulent information request was sent from an email account operating inside a real government agency's domain, carrying valid domain authentication credentials. The exposed data included identity documents (passports, driver's licenses), verification selfies, birth dates, contact details, IBANs, account statements, and full transaction histories including Bitcoin. Revolut discovered the fraud only after independently verifying with the agency, blocked the sender, and notified law enforcement and financial regulators, but did not disclose the number of affected customers or the agency involved. Researcher ZachXBT assessed the operation was targeted at high-net-worth users, useful for fraud, impersonation, or extortion.
Georgia man Kwamaine Jerell Ford charged with phishing NBA and NFL players' Apple accounts, making over 2,000 fraudulent transactions, and sex trafficking counts.
Kwamaine Jerell Ford, 34, was arrested and pleaded not guilty to dozens of counts including wire fraud, computer fraud, aggravated identity theft, access device fraud, and sex trafficking. He posed as an adult film actress offering explicit videos, then as Apple customer support to harvest usernames, passwords, and MFA codes from professional athletes, gaining access to their credit and debit cards and making more than 2,000 transactions including fund transfers and DoorDash orders. Prosecutors say he ran the scheme while on probation for a similar 2019 phishing offense in which he spent nearly $325,000 of stolen funds, and also coerced a woman into sex with players, filmed encounters without consent, and hacked one athlete's home security cameras. He was held without bail.
US indicts 17 Iranian Mabna Institute hackers who stole 31TB of academic data from universities, companies, and agencies via spearphishing.
The US Department of Justice charged 17 alleged Mabna Institute members, adding eight defendants to the nine charged in 2018, for a 2013-2017 campaign largely conducted for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The group stole over 31TB of academic data and intellectual property from 144 US and 178 foreign universities, at least 42 US companies, and at least five federal and state agencies, compromising about 8,000 of 100,000 spearphished professor email accounts. US universities spent roughly $3.4 billion procuring the stolen data; one defendant also hacked HBO and sought about $6 million in bitcoin ransom. The State Department offers up to $10 million for information on five defendants, none of whom are in US custody.
Ukraine's parliament passed legislation criminalizing fraudulent call centers with 7-12 year prison terms after a bribery scandal implicating prosecutors.
Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada passed legislation making electronic-communications fraud and organizing or working for fraudulent call centers separate crimes punishable by 7-12 years, awaiting President Zelensky's signature. The bill advanced after NABU alleged prosecutors took bribes since mid-2025 to shield scam call centers; five suspects were named and Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, who denies wrongdoing, was dismissed by parliament and presidential decree. Ukrainian authorities previously reported 411 searches and 94 suspected call centers shut down in one week, including a Kyiv operation that stole over $500,000 from dozens of Americans.
Meta announces expanded anti-scam protections in Poland, citing rising fraud across dating apps, crypto platforms, online games and SMS messaging.
Meta says it is investing in new technologies and partnerships to better detect and fight scam content across its platforms in Poland. The company notes scam activity spans social platforms, dating apps, online games, cryptocurrency services and SMS messages. It also claims a recent campaign is distorting the picture of Meta's actions and motivations.
Cyber fraud fighters Erin West and Paul Raffile traveled to Nigeria to identify a scammer, uncovering more than just his identity.
404 Media reports that fraud investigators Erin West and Paul Raffile traveled to Nigeria to track down an online scammer. The on-the-ground investigation revealed more than the scammer's identity, offering a rare look at how scam operations run. The piece is an investigative narrative with no immediate technical risk to defenders.
Gen Digital found infostealers like Amatera and Remus stealing AI coding agent tokens, prompt histories, and MCP configs from infected Windows and macOS machines.
Gen Digital analysts observed Amatera and Remus detections among tens of thousands of protected Windows users over three months, with Amatera targeting Cline and Continue data and Remus targeting Claude, Cursor, and OpenCode. CallbackBeaver added Cursor and Claude to its collection scope with more than 5,000 samples in 30 days, while macOS-focused Djinn Stealer has been associated with Claude, Codex, Gemini, Cline, OpenCode, and Kilo. The stealers harvest access and refresh tokens, prompt histories, and MCP configuration files that can expose source control, ticketing, databases, cloud resources, and sensitive project context for follow-on fraud. Many stealers add targets via remotely managed rules, meaning this is an adaptation of existing infostealers rather than a new vulnerability in the AI tools themselves.
Schneier highlights research into North Korean fake-employment IT-worker scams that embed operatives in remote roles for long-term insider access.
The post discusses research into employment scams in which fabricated remote workers, associated with North Korean IT-worker schemes, embed in organizations for months or years to exfiltrate data or position for financial theft. Researchers used controlled sandbox environments to observe operatives syncing personal accounts and working under false identities. Commenters also note reverse scams targeting desperate job seekers through high-pressure MLM and door-to-door sales schemes.
FBI publishes its first public cybersecurity strategy, a 17-page document with four pillars prioritizing disruption of cybercrime and nation-state hackers.
The FBI released its first-ever public cybersecurity strategy, a 17-page unclassified document outlining four pillars: imposing costs on adversaries, victim support, industry collaboration, and strengthening the bureau's digital capabilities. Cyber Division assistant director Brett Leatherman said the plan builds on the Trump administration's cybersecurity strategy, a recent executive order on countering digital criminals, and a memo enabling private-industry participation in disruptive operations, and promises a faster tempo of sequenced operations after 50 such actions since the start of 2025, including the Lumma malware takedown with Microsoft. No implementation plan or timeline exists yet; threat teams targeting China, Russia, and criminal gangs will develop classified sub-strategies.
Dark web service Nexus sold 153 million US and Canadian driver's licenses, linked to identity verification firm IDScan under FBI investigation.
Krebs On Security reported that a dark web service called Nexus sold access to 153 million US and Canadian driver's licenses, claiming over a year of continuous exfiltration from a major identity verification company, with roughly 400,000 new licences added in a single day. Krebs verified the data as genuine and linked the incident via circumstantial evidence to identity verification firm IDScan, whose licences of senior US officials including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth appeared in the database; the FBI is investigating and IDScan has confirmed a breach inquiry. The article argues the data has national security implications, citing how Chinese APT espionage (Anthem, Equifax, Marriott, OPM) and Bellingcat investigations exploited leaked databases. Class action suits are being prepared, and the piece calls for stricter oversight of identity verification firms.
Mirage2FA phishing-as-a-service campaign hit ~4,500 organizations, mostly US, stealing Microsoft 365 passwords and session cookies to bypass 2FA.
ANY.RUN research links the Mirage2FA phishing-as-a-service toolkit to 4,532 unique organization email domains between 2024 and 2026, with the US accounting for 63.7% of victims. The kit uses adversary-in-the-middle login flows to harvest credentials and session cookies, bypassing MFA on Microsoft 365 accounts. Researchers recorded more than 9,000 potential compromise events and estimated 48% of targeted email addresses were potentially compromised. Hijacked sessions extend to SSO-connected services, enabling impersonation, fraud and further compromise.
Researchers uncovered DoppelCart, a network of roughly 119,000 cloned fake shops that harvest card details and one-time bank codes during checkout.
Researchers at German firm Nebty identified 118,787 .shop domains tied to cloned online stores, representing 2.72% of the TLD population examined and described as the largest publicly documented fake-shop network by domain count. The shops mimic more than 44,000 brands, advertise discounts up to 65%, and 96% of confirmed shops reportedly share identical build files using just 27 ecommerce backends. Fraudulent checkout pages send card numbers, CVVs, billing data and bank one-time confirmation codes to attacker-controlled servers in real time over WebSockets, allowing criminals to complete payments while victims are still checking out.
OpenAI and AARP's OATS launch the Older Adults AI Skills Jam, a free program teaching seniors to use ChatGPT and spot scams.
OpenAI Academy, with Older Adults Technology Services (OATS) from AARP, is hosting in-person AI Skills Jam events in 10 US communities as part of a multi-year Senior Planet program. OpenAI says the share of US ChatGPT messages from people 55+ grew from 6% to nearly 10% in a year. The workshops include scam-awareness training, teaching warning signs like urgent language and suspicious links, and note that users ask ChatGPT tens of millions of times weekly to evaluate suspicious messages.
OpenAI disrupted a Cambodia-based ChatGPT-powered scam network running romance, crypto-investment, gambling, and fake law-enforcement fraud campaigns.
OpenAI disrupted a social engineering network operating from Cambodia that used ChatGPT to run multiple scam types simultaneously. Operators built trust with fake dating personas before pitching fraudulent cryptocurrency and spot gold investments, posed as gambling platforms offering fake bonuses, or impersonated law enforcement agencies demanding fine payments. The network also generated images of forged documents including passports, legal notices, stock-purchase confirmations, and gambling platform interfaces.
SecurityWeek weekly roundup covers exploited WordPress Super Forms flaw CVE-2026-14894, a $10M bounty on an Iranian cyber official, InjectEave attacks, and more.
SecurityWeek's weekly roundup aggregates short items across the threat landscape, including Microsoft's report of invisible Unicode tag characters used in financial phishing lures at up to 2.37 million messages per day, and active exploitation of critical WordPress Super Forms plugin flaw CVE-2026-14894 to deploy PHP webshells. Policy items include a $10 million US bounty for IRGC-CEC Cyber Operations Command lead Amir Yaryab, a 16-month prison sentence for ex-AT&T employee Kenneth Carter over SIM swaps with nearly $600,000 in intended losses, and the US arraignment of Russian Sergei Anatolyevich Filimonov over credential harvesting. Technical items include InjectEave electromagnetic side-channel attacks tested on 11 devices, an FBI warning on OAuth consent phishing, and VulnCheck's finding that only 202 of 26,153 Anthropic Project Glasswing findings were fixed.
Suspected breach of ID verification firm IDScan exposed over 150 million US and Canadian driver's licenses and passports, sold via dark web site Nexus.
Independent journalist Brian Krebs reported that a dark web site called Nexus is selling searchable access to more than 150 million driver's licenses and passports belonging to people in the United States and Canada, adding roughly 500,000 documents daily from a 'major identity verification company.' Krebs and researcher Zach Edwards identified Louisiana-based identity verification service IDScan as the likely source; Krebs' own license and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's records appeared in the database. The FBI confirmed it is looking into the incident and IDScan says it is investigating; Nexus went offline shortly after the report went live.
Sophos documented 38 MDR cases where attackers impersonated AI brands like Claude and Perplexity to deliver infostealers and backdoors.
Sophos X-Ops analyzed 12 months of MDR cases and confirmed 38 incidents involving AI. Software impersonation accounted for 30 cases, with Claude impersonated in 26; fake installers used an 'InstallFix' technique delivering mshta commands, in-memory payloads, and process hollowing. Malicious browser extensions posing as AI assistants, including a fake Perplexity extension with 10,000 installs, acted as infostealers. In one case, attackers used a Claude coding agent to develop a Rust remote access trojan communicating over Slack after an SQL injection compromise.
Analysis of 16.9 million SOC alerts finds AI-related alerts at 0.43%, growing 685% since February, with 94.1% noise and 0.02% real attacks.
A review of roughly 16.9 million SOC alerts found about 73,000 (0.43%) were AI-related, a share that grew 685% between February and June 2026. Of AI-related alerts, 94.1% were noise, 5.8% genuine risks, and 0.02% real attacks; 79.8% received benign verdicts, 81.7% were automatically suppressed, and only 5.4% reached a human analyst. The only confirmed attacks were phishing campaigns that weaponized AI brand names as lures, while developer coding agents spawning shells and reading credential stores routinely tripped detections written before AI agents existed.
Five Venezuelan nationals pleaded guilty to failed ATM jackpotting attempts in Kansas as the FBI reports 700+ US incidents in 2025.
The five defendants traveled from Indiana to Kansas in December 2025 and tried to install malware on ATMs in Wamego and Manhattan, planning to remotely trigger the machines to dispense cash. Both attempts failed — one triggered an alarm — and the men were arrested days later after surveillance captured the thefts. All five pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank larceny; one has received a nine-month prison sentence. The FBI counted more than 700 jackpotting incidents in 2025 with over $20 million in losses, part of 1,900 incidents since 2020.
Cyberattack on CEVA Logistics disrupted eight European warehouses and exposed customer data of clients including Valve, Ajax, and De Bijenkorf.
CEVA Logistics, part of CMA CGM Group, suffered a July 29 cyberattack that disrupted eight European warehouses and halted shipments of stored goods. Customer data linked to Valve, Ajax, and Dutch retailer De Bijenkorf was exposed, potentially including names, contact details, and online order information; Valve said payment details and passwords were not accessed. No ransomware group has claimed responsibility and the company has not disclosed technical details. A database containing customer lists, shipping records, and banking details was reportedly later offered for sale on a dark web marketplace.
The U.S. State Department offered up to $10 million for information on Amir Yaryab, an IRGC cyber chief linked to critical infrastructure attacks.
The U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program offers up to $10 million for information identifying or locating Amir Yaryab, who allegedly oversees the Cyber Operations Command of Iran's IRGC Cyber-Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC). Officials tie him to units called Shahid Hemmat and Shahid Shushtari conducting cyber and information campaigns against defense, telecommunications, energy, and finance sectors across the US, Europe, and the Middle East, and to groups including CyberAv3ngers and Dadeh Afzar Arman. CyberAv3ngers compromised at least 75 Unitronics Vision Series PLCs, including 34 in US water and wastewater facilities, between November 2023 and January 2024.
F6 uncovered 360+ fake government and news websites scamming Central Asians with bogus state payouts that harvest personal data and install mobile malware.
F6 researchers identified more than 360 fraudulent domains impersonating government portals and regional news outlets in Uzbekistan, Belarus and Tajikistan. Sites promise weekly payments such as 15 million Uzbek sums (about $1,300) to lure victims into submitting names and phone numbers. Scammers then call posing as personal managers, demanding fees, requesting passport scans, or directing victims to install a malicious mobile app that grants device control. The group behind the campaign is unidentified and victim counts are unknown.
IDScan.net confirms a breach after a marketplace advertised over 153 million US and Canadian driver's licenses, possibly exfiltrated continuously for over a year.
The Louisiana identity-verification firm detected unauthorized access on or around September 1, 2026, after the 'Nexus' identity theft service on the Exploit forum began advertising 170M+ people's records, including 153M+ driver's licenses, 10M+ ID cards, 3M+ travel documents, and 579,000 medical cards. Canadian records exceed 1.1 million, and the trove includes commercial licenses, Common Access Cards, and dispensary IDs, with a record for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly included. Nexus operators claim continuous exfiltration for over a year, with the license count growing by nearly 400,000 in 24 hours, suggesting the intrusion may be active. The FBI's New Orleans field office has opened a formal inquiry, and IDScan.net is offering free credit monitoring.
Microsoft tracked a campaign of over one million AI-crafted CEO-impersonation emails seeking ~$50,000 ACH payments with fabricated ServiceNow invoices.
Between August 3 and 5, Microsoft detected a campaign of more than one million fraud emails, 87.7% of them targeting US enterprise users, sent through multiple third-party email delivery service accounts. The actor impersonated CEOs, CFOs, and presidents of targeted companies, urging accounts payable staff to process an ACH payment of nearly $50,000. Lures layered executive impersonation, lookalike domains, a fabricated ServiceNow 'Annual Subscription' invoice personalized to the recipient, and forged forwarded email threads; Microsoft found no evidence ServiceNow or the referenced executives were compromised. Microsoft observed indicators consistent with generative AI-assisted template creation, while leftover inconsistencies such as missing forwarding headers and mismatched display names gave defenders detection cues.
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