www.wired.com

Scammers are now using “SMS blasters” to send out up to 100,000 texts per hour to phones that are tricked into thinking the devices are cell towers. Your wireless carrier is powerless to stop them.

Cybercriminals have a new way of sending millions of scam text messages to people. Typically when fraudsters send waves of phishing messages to phones—such as toll or delivery scams—they may use a huge list of phone numbers and automate the sending of messages. But as phone companies and telecom services have rolled out more tools to detect scams in texts, criminals have started driving around cities with fake cell phone towers that send messages directly to nearby phones.
Over the last year, there has been a marked uptick in the use of so-called “SMS blasters” by scammers, with cops in multiple countries detecting and arresting people using the equipment. SMS blasters are small devices, which have been found in the back of criminals’ cars and sometimes backpacks, that impersonate cell phone towers and force phones into using insecure connections. They then push the scam messages, which contain links to fraudulent websites, to the connected phones.
While not a new type of technology, the use of SMS blasters in scamming was originally detected in Southeast Asian countries and has increasingly spread to Europe and South America—just last week, Switzerland’s National Cybersecurity Centre issued a warning about SMS blasters. The devices are capable of sending huge volumes of scam texts indiscriminately. The Swiss agency said some blasters are able to send messages to all phones in a radius of 1,000 meters, while reports about an incident in Bangkok say a blaster was used to send around 100,000 SMS messages per hour.

“This is essentially the first time that we have seen large-scale use of mobile radio-transmitting devices by criminal groups,” says Cathal Mc Daid, VP of technology at telecommunication and cybersecurity firm Enea, who has been tracking the use of SMS blasters. “While some technical expertise would help in using these devices, those actually running the devices don’t need to be experts. This has been shown by reports of arrests of people who have been basically paid to drive around areas with SMS blasters in cars or vans.”
SMS blasters act as illegitimate phone masts, often known as cell-site simulators (CSS). The blasters are not dissimilar to so-called IMSI catchers, or “Stingrays,” which law enforcement officials have used to scoop up people’s phone data. But instead of being used for surveillance, they broadcast false signals to targeted devices.
Phones near a blaster can be forced to connect to its illegitimate 4G signals, before the blaster pushes devices to downgrade to the less secure 2G signal. “The 2G fake base station is then used to send (blast) malicious SMSes to the mobile phones initially captured by the 4G false base station,” Mc Daid says. “The whole process—4G capture, downgrade to 2G, sending of SMS and release—can take less than 10 seconds,” Mc Daid explains. It’s something people who receive the messages may not even notice.
The growth of SMS blasters comes at a time when scams are rampant. In recent years, technology firms and mobile network operators have increasingly rolled out greater protections against fraudulent text messages—from better filtering and detection of possible scam messages to blocking tens of millions of messages per month. This month, UK telecom Virgin Media O2 said it has blocked more than 600 million scam text messages during 2025, which is more than its combined totals for the last two years. Still, millions of scam messages get through, and cybercriminals are quick to try to evade detection systems.

...

By Reuters
September 22, 20251:38 AM GMT+2

Stellantis (STLAM.MI), opens new tab detected unauthorized access to a third-party service provider's platform that supports its North American customer service operations, the company said in a statement on Sunday.
The automaker said the incident, which is under investigation, exposed only basic contact information and did not involve financial details or sensitive personal data. Stellantis did not specify how many customers were affected.
"Upon discovery, we immediately activated our incident response protocols ... and are directly informing affected customers," the Chrysler parent said in the statement.
It said it had notified authorities and urged customers to be alert to possible phishing attempts.
Automakers worldwide have reported a spate of cyber and data breaches in recent months, as increasingly sophisticated threat actors disrupt operations and compromise sensitive data.
Earlier this month, British luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover said that its retail and production activities were "severely disrupted" following a cybersecurity incident, opens new tab, forcing its factories to stay shut until September 24.
Reporting by Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Kim Coghill

The Guardian
Lauren Almeida
Mon 22 Sep 2025 13.19 CEST
First published on Mon 22 Sep 2025 10.03 CEST

Software provider Collins Aerospace completing updates after Heathrow, Brussels and Berlin hit by problems

Flight delays continue across Europe after weekend cyber-attack
Software provider Collins Aerospace completing updates after Heathrow, Brussels and Berlin hit by problems

Passengers are facing another day of flight delays across Europe, as big airports continue to grapple with the aftermath of a cyber-attack on the company behind the software used for check-in and boarding.

Several of the largest airports in Europe, including London Heathrow, have been trying to restore normal operations over the past few days after an attack on Friday disrupted automatic check-in and boarding software.

The problem stemmed from Collins Aerospace, a software provider that works with several airlines across the world.

The company, which is a subsidiary of the US aerospace and defence company RTX, said on Monday that it was working with four affected airports and airline customers, and was in the final stages of completing the updates needed to restore full functionality.

The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity said on Monday that Collins had suffered a ransomware attack. This is a type of cyber-attack where hackers in effect lock up the target’s data and systems in an attempt to secure a ransom.

Airports in Brussels, Dublin and Berlin have also experienced delays. While kiosks and bag-drop machines have been offline, airline staff have instead relied on manual processing.

The government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, said it was possible state-sponsored hackers could be behind the attack.

When asked if a state such as Russia could have been responsible, Hall told Times Radio “anything is possible”.

He added that while people thought, “understandably, about states deciding to do things it is also possible for very, very powerful and sophisticated private entities to do things as well”.

A spokesperson for Brussels airport said Collins Aerospace had not yet confirmed the system was secure again. On Monday, 40 of its 277 departing flights and 23 of its 277 arriving services were cancelled.

A Heathrow spokesperson said the “vast majority of flights at Heathrow are operating as normal, although check-in and boarding for some flights may take slightly longer than usual”.

They added: “This system is not owned or operated by Heathrow, so while we cannot resolve the IT issue directly, we are supporting airlines and have additional colleagues in the terminals to assist passengers.”

therecord.media Alexander Martin
September 17th, 2025

Shares in a British automaker supplier plummeted 55% Wednesday as it warned that a cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) was impacting its business, adding to concerns that the incident is sending a “shockwave” through the country’s industrial sector, according to a senior politician.

Shares in Autins, a company providing specialist insulation components for Jaguar vehicles, opened 55% below its Tuesday closing price on the AIM exchange for smaller companies. As of publication the price recovered slightly to a 40% drop.

In a trading update the company acknowledged that JLR stopping all production since the cyberattack on September 1 was having a material effect on its own operations. Its chief executive, Andy Bloomer, told investors the attack was “concerning not just for Autins, but the wider automotive supply chain.”

Bloomer added the true impact of the disruption “will not be known for some time,” but that Autins was “doing everything possible to protect our business now and ensure we are ready to benefit as we come out the other side.”

These protective measures have included using banked hours for employees, delaying and cancelling raw material orders, as well as pausing discretionary spend across the business. Autins employed 148 people and recorded revenues of just over £31 million last year, according to its annual results.

It comes as Liam Byrne, a Labour MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North — one of the United Kingdom’s parliamentary constituencies in a region dominated by automotive manufacturing — warned the JLR disruption was “a cyber shockwave ripping through our industrial heartlands.”

“If government stands back, that shockwave is going to destroy jobs, businesses, and pay packets across Britain. Ministers must step up fast with emergency support to stop this digital siege at JLR spreading economic havoc through the supply chain,” stated Byrne.

It follows JLR announcing on Tuesday that its global operations would remain shuttered until at least the middle of next week. Thousands of JLR employees have been told not to report for work due to the standstill.

Reports suggest that thousands more workers at supply-chain businesses are also being temporarily laid off due to the shutdown. The Unite union has called on the government to provide a furlough scheme to support impacted workers.

The extended disruption is increasing the costs of the incident for JLR, which is one of Britain’s most significant industrial producers — accounting for roughly 4% of goods exports last year — and risks damaging the British economy as a whole.

Lucas Kello, the director of the University of Oxford's Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research, told Recorded Future News last week: “This is more than a company outage — it’s an economic security incident.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Business and Trade did not respond to a request for comment. The Prime Minister's official spokesman previously stated there were "no discussions around taxpayers' money" being used to help JLR suppliers.

cyberscoop.com

By
Matt Kapko

September 17, 2025

SonicWall said it confirmed an attack on its MySonicWall.com platform that exposed customers’ firewall configuration files.

The company confirmed to CyberScoop that an unidentified cybercriminal accessed SonicWall’s customer portal through a series of brute-force attacks.

SonicWall said it confirmed an attack on its MySonicWall.com platform that exposed customers’ firewall configuration files — the latest in a steady stream of security weaknesses impacting the besieged vendor and its customers.

The company’s security teams began investigating suspicious activity and validated the attack “in the past few days,” Bret Fitzgerald, senior director of global communications at SonicWall, told CyberScoop. “Our investigation determined that less than 5% of our firewall install base had backup firewall preference files stored in the cloud for these devices accessed by threat actors.”

While SonicWall customers have been repeatedly bombarded by actively exploited vulnerabilities in SonicWall devices, this attack marks a new pressure point — an attack on a customer-facing system the company controls.

This distinction is significant because it indicates systemic security shortcomings exist throughout SonicWall’s product lines, internal infrastructure and practices.

“Incidents like this underscore the importance of security vendors — not just SonicWall — to hold themselves to the same or higher standards that they expect of their customers,” Mauricio Sanchez, senior director of enterprise security and networking research at Dell’Oro Group, told CyberScoop.

“When the compromise occurs in a vendor-operated system rather than a customer-deployed product, the consequences can be particularly damaging because trust in the vendor’s broader ecosystem is at stake,” he added.

SonicWall acknowledged the potential downstream risk for customers is severe. “While the files contained encrypted passwords, they also included information that could make it easier for attackers to potentially exploit firewalls,” Fitzgerald said.

“This was not a ransomware or similar event for SonicWall, rather this was a series of account-by-account brute force attacks aimed at gaining access to the preference files stored in backup for potential further use by threat actors,” he added.

SonicWall did not identify or name those responsible for the attack, adding that it hasn’t seen evidence of any online leaks of the stolen files. The company said it disabled access to the backup feature, took steps across infrastructure and processes to bolster the security of its systems and initiated an investigation with assistance from an incident response and consulting firm.

Sanchez described the breach as a serious issue. “These files often contain detailed network architecture, rules, and policies that could provide attackers with a roadmap to exploit weaknesses more efficiently,” he said. “While resetting credentials is a necessary first step, it does not address the potential long-term risks tied to the information already in adversaries’ hands.”

SonicWall said it has notified law enforcement, impacted customers and partners. Customers can check if impacted serial numbers are listed in their MySonicWall account, and those determined to be at risk are advised to reset credentials, contain, remediate and monitor logs for unusual activity.

Many vendors allow customers to store configuration data in cloud-managed portals, a practice that introduces inherent risks, Sanchez said.

“Vendors must continuously weigh the convenience provided against the potential consequences of compromise, and customers should hold them accountable to strong transparency and remediation practices when incidents occur,” he added.

Organizations using SonicWall firewalls have confronted persistent attack sprees for years, as evidenced by the vendor’s 14 appearances on CISA’s known exploited vulnerabilities catalog since late 2021. Nine of those defects are known to be used in ransomware campaigns, according to CISA, including a recent wave of about 40 Akira ransomware attacks.

Fitzgerald said SonicWall is committed to full transparency and the company will share updates as its investigation continues.

https://www.sonicwall.com/support/
Updated
September 22, 2025

Description

SonicWall’s security teams recently detected suspicious activity targeting the cloud backup service for firewalls, which we confirmed as a security incident in the past few days.

Our investigation found that threat actors accessed backup firewall preference files stored in the cloud for fewer than 5% of our firewall install base. While credentials within the files were encrypted, the files also included information that could make it easier for attackers to potentially exploit the related firewall.

We are not presently aware of these files being leaked online by threat actors. This was not a ransomware or similar event for SonicWall, rather this was a series of brute force attacks aimed at gaining access to the preference files stored in backup for potential further use by threat actors.

TIP: Learn more by watching this helpful video guide here
Affected Products:

SonicWall Firewalls with preference files backed up in MySonicWall.com

Due to the sensitivity of the configuration files, we highly encourage customers to take the following steps immediately:

Log in to your MySonicWall.com account and verify if cloud backups exist for your registered firewalls: 
    If fields are blank (Figure 1): You are NOT at risk.
    A screenshot of a computer AI-generated content may be incorrect.
    Figure 1 – Does Not Contain Backup

    If fields contain backup details (Figure 2): Please continue reading.
    Image
    Figure 2 – Contains Backups

Verify whether impacted serial numbers are listed in your account. Upon login, navigate to Product Management | Issue List, the affected serial numbers will be flagged with information such as Friendly Name, Last Download Date and Known Impacted Services.
Image

    If Serial Numbers are shown: the listed firewalls are at risk and should follow the containment and remediation guidelines: Essential Credential Reset
    NOTE: Impacted Services should be used for general guidance only.  The services listed were identified as being enabled and should be immediately reviewed.  ALL SERVICES WITH CREDENTIALS THAT WERE ENABLED AT, OR BEFORE, THE TIME OF BACKUP SHOULD BE REVIEWED FOR EACH SERIAL NUMBER LISTED. 
    If you have used the Cloud Backup feature but no Serial Numbers are shown or only some of your registered Serial Numbers: 
            SonicWall will provide additional guidance in coming days to determine if your backup files were impacted.
            Please check back on this page for this additional information: MySonicWall Cloud Backup File Incident

Technical Containment and Mitigation Documentation can be found at:

Essential Credential Reset
Remediation Playbook

NOTE: Use the SonicWall Online Tool to identify services that require remediation. Follow the on-screen instructions to proceed. (UPE Mode is not supported.)

We have a dedicated support service team available to help you with any of these changes. If you need any assistance, please login to your MySonicWall account and open a case with our Support team. You can access your account at: https://www.mysonicwall.com/muir/login.
Change Log:

2025-9-17 4:40 AM PDT: Initial publish.
2025-9-17 2:45 PM PDT: Minor formatting update.
2025-9-17 8:45 PM PDT: Revised incident disclosure text to clarify scope (<5% of firewalls), encrypted credentials, no known leaks, and brute-force (not ransomware) attack.
2025-9-18  5:38 AM PDT: Changed formatting and provided detailed steps with screenshots.
2025-9-18  9:19 AM PDT: Updated guidance steps, navigation screenshots, and note clarifying review of impacted services.
2025-9-18 4:30 PM PDT: Updated KB text and image to clarify affected products, provide step-by-step backup verification instructions, and replace figures showing when backups are or are not present.
2025-9-19 1:15 PM PDT: No updates at this time.
2025-9-20 9:15 AM PDT: Added a Tip with a video guide and a Note linking to the SonicWall online tool for firewall configuration analysis and remediation guidance.
2025-9-22 8:20 AM PDT: No updates at this time.

PUBLISHED ON 18 SEP 2025
recordedfuture.com
Insikt Group®

Executive Summary
Since March 2025, Insikt Group has observed CopyCop (also known as Storm-1516), a Russian covert influence network, creating at least 200 new fictional media websites targeting the United States (US), France, and Canada, in addition to websites impersonating media brands and political parties and movements in France, Canada, and Armenia. CopyCop has also established a regionalized network of websites posing as a fictional fact-checking organization publishing content in Turkish, Ukrainian, and Swahili, languages never featured by the network before. Including the 94 websites targeting Germany reported by Insikt Group in February 2025, this amounts to over 300 websites established by CopyCop’s operators in the year to date, marking a significant expansion from our initial reporting on the network in 2024, and with many yet to be publicly documented.

These websites are very likely operated by John Mark Dougan with support from the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE) and the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU). CopyCop uses these websites as infrastructure to disseminate influence content targeting pro-Western leadership and publish artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content with pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian themes in support of Russia’s offensive operations in the global information environment.

While the network’s scope in terms of target languages and countries has expanded, its primary objectives almost certainly remain unchanged: undermining support for Ukraine and exacerbating political fragmentation in Western countries backing Ukraine. Insikt Group has also observed CopyCop engaging in additional secondary objectives like advancing Russia’s geopolitical objectives in its broader sphere of influence, such as Armenia and Moldova. CopyCop’s narratives and content in support of these objectives are routinely amplified by an ecosystem of social media influencers in addition to other Russian influence networks like Portal Kombat and InfoDefense.

Similar to its objectives, CopyCop’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) remain broadly unchanged, with marginal improvements designed to strengthen the network’s reach, resilience, and credibility. Tactics and techniques used for content dissemination typically include deepfakes, lengthy dossiers intending to embarrass targets, and fake interviews of alleged whistleblowers making claims about political leaders in NATO member states like the US, France, and Germany. Insikt Group also identified new evidence that CopyCop uses self-hosted, uncensored large language models (LLMs) based on Meta’s Llama 3 open-source models to generate AI content rather than relying on Western AI service providers.

Relative to other Russian influence networks, CopyCop’s impact remains significant: targeted influence content promoted by its websites and an ecosystem of pro-Russian social media influencers and so-called “journalists” regularly obtains high rates of organic engagement across multiple social media platforms, and has a precedent for breaking into mainstream political discourse. Persistently identifying and publicly exposing these networks should remain a priority for governments, journalists, and researchers seeking to defend democratic institutions from Russian influence.

Key Findings
To date, in 2025, CopyCop has widened its target languages to include Turkish, Ukrainian, and Swahili, and its geographic scope to include Moldova, Canada, and Armenia while sustaining influence operations targeting the US and France. The network is also leveraging new infrastructure to publish content, marking a significant expansion of its activities targeting new audiences.
CopyCop’s core influence objectives remain eroding public support for Ukraine and undermining democratic processes and political leaders in Western countries supporting Ukraine.
CopyCop’s TTPs are broadly unchanged from previous assessments, with only marginal improvements to increase the network’s reach, resilience, and credibility. Newly observed TTPs include evidence of CopyCop using self-hosted LLMs for content generation, employing subdomains as mirrors, and impersonating media outlets.
Insikt Group has identified two uncensored versions of Meta’s Llama-3-8b model that are likely being used by CopyCop to generate articles.
The network is also increasingly conducting influence operations within Russia’s sphere of influence, including targeting Moldova and Armenia ahead of their parliamentary elections in 2025 and 2026, respectively. This is a broader trend observed across the Russian influence ecosystem.
Background
Insikt Group previously documented CopyCop in May and June 2024, in addition to the network’s attempts at influencing the 2024 French snap elections, 2024 US presidential elections, and 2025 German federal elections. Reporting from other organizations such as Clemson University, VIGINUM, NewsGuard, Microsoft, European External Action Service, and Gnida Project has broadly corroborated our initial assessments of the network’s objectives, targets, and infrastructure, in addition to our attribution of part of the network’s activities to John Mark Dougan, a US citizen based in Moscow. The Washington Post and the US Department of the Treasury have also since established links between Dougan, the CGE, and the GRU. The GRU reportedly helped fund self-hosted LLM infrastructure, while the CGE was likely responsible, with Dougan’s assistance and direction from the GRU, for the creation of deepfakes and inauthentic content targeting political leaders in the US, Ukraine, France, and other countries.

| The Record from Recorded Future News Alexander Martin
September 18th, 2025

Two suspected members of the Scattered Spider cybercrime collective have been arrested and charged in the United Kingdom following an investigation into the hack of Transport for London (TfL) last year.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) announced on Thursday that Thalha Jubair, 19, from East London, and Owen Flowers, 18, from Walsall, had been arrested at their homes at lunchtime on Tuesday.

The Crown Prosecution Service authorized charges against both men on Wednesday night under the Computer Misuse Act, alleging they conspired to commit unauthorized acts against TfL, which was hacked in August 2024. Flowers had initially been arrested over the the transit agency attack in September 2024, but released on bail.

The NCA said its officers also discovered additional potential evidence that Flowers had been involved in attacks against U.S. healthcare companies following his arrest. Flowers faces two additional charges of conspiring with others to infiltrate and damage the networks of SSM Health Care Corporation and attempting to do the same to Sutter Health.

Jubair faces an additional charge for refusing to provide investigators with passcodes to access devices seized from him. The U.S. Department of Justice also unsealed a complaint against Jubair on Thursday, accusing him of computer crimes.

The men are set to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court at 2 p.m. on Thursday. In England and Wales, criminal cases begin with a first hearing in a magistrates’ court where it is decided whether the case will proceed to a Crown Court for a jury trial — required for all cases where the sentence could exceed 12 months.

The specific charges against both men are “conspiracy to commit an unauthorised act in relation to a computer causing / creating risk of serious damage to human welfare/national security,” the maximum sentence for which is life imprisonment.

Magistrates’ courts also decide whether a defendant can be released on bail. Prosecutors are seeking to have both men remanded in custody until they can face trial.

Paul Foster, the head of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said: “Today’s charges are a key step in what has been a lengthy and complex investigation. This attack caused significant disruption and millions in losses to TfL, part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure.”

It follows the NCA warning of an increasing threat from English-speaking cybercriminal groups, including the loose collective tracked as Scattered Spider, which has been associated with a range of attacks in both Britain and the United States.

“The NCA, UK policing and our international partners, including the FBI, are collectively committed to identifying offenders within these networks and ensuring they face justice,” said Foster.

Hannah Von Dadelszen, the CPS’ chief prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings.”

The charges come as the NCA’s cybercrime unit is understood to be busier than ever in investigating a range of cases. These include the hack against TfL, the Legal Aid Agency, two incidents impacting the National Health Service, and attacks on three retailers — Marks & Spencer, the Co-op, and the London-based luxury store Harrods.

Contempt of court laws prohibit prejudicing a jury trial by suggesting suspects' guilt or innocence, publishing details regarding their past convictions, or speculating about the character of the defendants.

bleepingcomputer.com
Microsoft and Cloudflare have disrupted a massive Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) operation, known as RaccoonO365, that helped cybercriminals steal thousands of Microsoft 365 credentials.

In early September 2025, in coordination with Cloudflare's Cloudforce One and Trust and Safety teams, Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) disrupted the cybercrime operation by seizing 338 websites and Worker accounts linked to RaccoonO365.

The cybercrime group behind this service (also tracked by Microsoft as Storm-2246) has stolen at least 5,000 Microsoft credentials from 94 countries since at least July 2024, using RaccoonO365 phishing kits that bundled CAPTCHA pages and anti-bot techniques to appear legitimate and evade analysis.

For instance, a large-scale RaccoonO365 tax-themed phishing campaign targeted over 2,300 organizations in the United States in April 2025, but these phishing kits have also been deployed in attacks against more than 20 U.S. healthcare organizations.

The credentials, cookies, and other data stolen from victims' OneDrive, SharePoint, and email accounts were later employed in financial fraud attempts, extortion attacks, or as initial access to other victims' systems.

"This puts public safety at risk, as RaccoonO365 phishing emails are often a precursor to malware and ransomware, which have severe consequences for hospitals," said Steven Masada, Assistant General Counsel for Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit.

"In these attacks, patient services are delayed, critical care is postponed or canceled, lab results are compromised, and sensitive data is breached, causing major financial losses and directly impacting patients."

RaccoonO365 has been renting subscription-based phishing kits through a private Telegram channel, which had over 840 members as of August 25, 2025. The prices ranged from $355 for a 30-day plan to $999 for a 90-day subscription, all paid in USDT (TRC20, BEP20, Polygon) or Bitcoin (BTC) cryptocurrency.
​Microsoft estimated that the group has received at least $100,000 in cryptocurrency payments so far, suggesting there are approximately 100 to 200 subscriptions; however, the actual number of subscriptions sold is likely much higher.

During its investigation, the Microsoft DCU also found that the leader of RaccoonO365 is Joshua Ogundipe, who lives in Nigeria.

Cloudflare also believes that RaccoonO365 also collaborates with Russian-speaking cybercriminals, given the use of Russian in its Telegram bot's name.

"Based on Microsoft's analysis, Ogundipe has a background in computer programming and is believed to have authored the majority of the code," Masada added.

"An operational security lapse by the threat actors in which they inadvertently revealed a secret cryptocurrency wallet helped the DCU's attribution and understanding of their operations. A criminal referral for Ogundipe has been sent to international law enforcement."

In May, Microsoft also seized 2,300 domains in a coordinated disruption action targeting the Lumma malware-as-a-service (MaaS) information stealer.

krebsonsecurity.com Brian Krebs September 16, 2025

At least 187 code packages made available through the JavaScript repository NPM have been infected with a self-replicating worm that steals credentials from developers and publishes those secrets on GitHub, experts warn. The malware, which briefly infected multiple code packages from the security vendor CrowdStrike, steals and publishes even more credentials every time an infected package is installed.

The novel malware strain is being dubbed Shai-Hulud — after the name for the giant sandworms in Frank Herbert’s Dune novel series — because it publishes any stolen credentials in a new public GitHub repository that includes the name “Shai-Hulud.”

“When a developer installs a compromised package, the malware will look for a npm token in the environment,” said Charlie Eriksen, a researcher for the Belgian security firm Aikido. “If it finds it, it will modify the 20 most popular packages that the npm token has access to, copying itself into the package, and publishing a new version.”

At the center of this developing maelstrom are code libraries available on NPM (short for “Node Package Manager”), which acts as a central hub for JavaScript development and provides the latest updates to widely-used JavaScript components.

The Shai-Hulud worm emerged just days after unknown attackers launched a broad phishing campaign that spoofed NPM and asked developers to “update” their multi-factor authentication login options. That attack led to malware being inserted into at least two-dozen NPM code packages, but the outbreak was quickly contained and was narrowly focused on siphoning cryptocurrency payments.

In late August, another compromise of an NPM developer resulted in malware being added to “nx,” an open-source code development toolkit with as many as six million weekly downloads. In the nx compromise, the attackers introduced code that scoured the user’s device for authentication tokens from programmer destinations like GitHub and NPM, as well as SSH and API keys. But instead of sending those stolen credentials to a central server controlled by the attackers, the malicious nx code created a new public repository in the victim’s GitHub account, and published the stolen data there for all the world to see and download.

Last month’s attack on nx did not self-propagate like a worm, but this Shai-Hulud malware does and bundles reconnaissance tools to assist in its spread. Namely, it uses the open-source tool TruffleHog to search for exposed credentials and access tokens on the developer’s machine. It then attempts to create new GitHub actions and publish any stolen secrets.

“Once the first person got compromised, there was no stopping it,” Aikido’s Eriksen told KrebsOnSecurity. He said the first NPM package compromised by this worm appears to have been altered on Sept. 14, around 17:58 UTC.

The security-focused code development platform socket.dev reports the Shai-Halud attack briefly compromised at least 25 NPM code packages managed by CrowdStrike. Socket.dev said the affected packages were quickly removed by the NPM registry.

In a written statement shared with KrebsOnSecurity, CrowdStrike said that after detecting several malicious packages in the public NPM registry, the company swiftly removed them and rotated its keys in public registries.

“These packages are not used in the Falcon sensor, the platform is not impacted and customers remain protected,” the statement reads, referring to the company’s widely-used endpoint threat detection service. “We are working with NPM and conducting a thorough investigation.”

A writeup on the attack from StepSecurity found that for cloud-specific operations, the malware enumerates AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform secrets. It also found the entire attack design assumes the victim is working in a Linux or macOS environment, and that it deliberately skips Windows systems.

StepSecurity said Shai-Hulud spreads by using stolen NPM authentication tokens, adding its code to the top 20 packages in the victim’s account.

“This creates a cascading effect where an infected package leads to compromised maintainer credentials, which in turn infects all other packages maintained by that user,” StepSecurity’s Ashish Kurmi wrote.

Eriksen said Shai-Hulud is still propagating, although its spread seems to have waned in recent hours.

“I still see package versions popping up once in a while, but no new packages have been compromised in the last ~6 hours,” Eriksen said. “But that could change now as the east coast starts working. I would think of this attack as a ‘living’ thing almost, like a virus. Because it can lay dormant for a while, and if just one person is suddenly infected by accident, they could restart the spread. Especially if there’s a super-spreader attack.”

For now, it appears that the web address the attackers were using to exfiltrate collected data was disabled due to rate limits, Eriksen said.

Nicholas Weaver is a researcher with the International Computer Science Institute, a nonprofit in Berkeley, Calif. Weaver called the Shai-Hulud worm “a supply chain attack that conducts a supply chain attack.” Weaver said NPM (and all other similar package repositories) need to immediately switch to a publication model that requires explicit human consent for every publication request using a phish-proof 2FA method.

“Anything less means attacks like this are going to continue and become far more common, but switching to a 2FA method would effectively throttle these attacks before they can spread,” Weaver said. “Allowing purely automated processes to update the published packages is now a proven recipe for disaster.”

oag.dc.gov September 8, 2025
Lawsuit Alleges That 93% of Deposits to Athena Bitcoin, Inc. Are From Scams That Target Vulnerable Residents & Seniors & That Athena Profits from Illegal, Hidden Fees

Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb today sued Athena Bitcoin, Inc. (Athena), one of the country’s largest operators of Bitcoin Automated Teller Machines (BTMs), for charging undisclosed fees on deposits that it knows are often the result of scams, and for failing to implement adequate anti-fraud measures. When users discover they have been scammed and seek refunds, Athena imposes a strict “no refunds” policy on their entire transactions—even failing to return the significant undisclosed fees it collects from scam victims.

An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) showed that Athena BTMs appeal to criminals because Athena fails to provide effective oversight, creating an unchecked opportunity for illicit international fraud. Athena BTMs are most frequently used by scammers targeting elderly users who are less familiar with cryptocurrency and less likely to report fraud. According to the company’s own data from its first five months of operations in the District:

93% of all Athena BTM deposits were the direct result of scams;

Nearly half of all deposits were flagged to Athena as the product of fraud;

Victims’ median age was 71; and

The median amount lost per scam transaction was $8,000, with one victim losing a total of $98,000 in nineteen transactions over a period of several days.
“Athena’s bitcoin machines have become a tool for criminals intent on exploiting elderly and vulnerable District residents,” said Attorney General Schwalb. “Athena knows that its machines are being used primarily by scammers yet chooses to look the other way so that it can continue to pocket sizable hidden transaction fees. Today we’re suing to get District residents their hard-earned money back and put a stop to this illegal, predatory conduct before it harms anyone else.”

Athena is one of the country’s largest BTM operators and has maintained seven BTMs in the District. BTMs allow users to purchase cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin with cash and then deposit the cryptocurrency into a digital “wallet.” The wallet should be owned by the consumer purchasing the cryptocurrency, but in the scams conducted with Athena’s machines, exploited users send large sums of money directly to swindlers.

OAG’s lawsuit alleges Athena violates the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act and Abuse, Neglect, and Financial Exploitation of Vulnerable Adults and the Elderly Act by:

Facilitating financial scams. Athena is well aware that the safeguards it has implemented are insufficient to protect customers from fraud. Athena’s own logs show that during its first five months of operation in the District, 48% of all funds deposited in the company’s BTMs resulted in consumers reporting directly to Athena that they had been the victim of a scam.

Illegally profiting from hidden fees. Athena BTMs charge District consumers fees of up to 26% per transaction without clearly disclosing them at any point in the process. Bitcoin purchased through other apps and exchanges typically have fees of 0.24% to 3%. In June 2024, Athena added a confusing and misleading reference to a “Transaction Service Margin” in its lengthy Terms of Service, but the magnitude of the margin is never disclosed, nor is the word “fee” ever mentioned.

Refusing to refund victims of fraud. Athena further deceives users through a refund policy that either outright denies scam victims refunds or arbitrarily caps them, even though Athena could easily return the hidden transaction fees it pockets. Athena also requires fraud victims to sign a release that frees the company of all future liability and blames victims for not sufficiently heeding onscreen BTM warnings.
With this lawsuit, OAG seeks to force Athena to bring Athena’s operations into compliance with District law, secure restitution for victims, and penalties for the District.

A copy of the lawsuit is available here.

This case is being handled by Assistant Attorneys General Anabel Butler and Jason Jones, Investigator Lu Lagravinese, and Civil Rights and Elder Justice Section Chief Alicia M. Lendon.

Resources for District Residents

Elder financial abuse is all too common and largely underreported. It happens to people across all socioeconomic backgrounds and can be perpetrated by anyone having a connection to the senior resident, whether through a family, personal, or business relationship. Elders or vulnerable adults may be hesitant to report abuse because of fear of retaliation or lack of physical or cognitive ability to report the abuse, or because they do not want to get the alleged abuser in trouble.

Resources to help residents learn how to detect, prevent, and report abuse of the elderly or vulnerable adults are available here.

Google has confirmed that hackers created a fraudulent account in its Law Enforcement Request System (LERS) platform that law enforcement uses to submit official data requests to the company

"We have identified that a fraudulent account was created in our system for law enforcement requests and have disabled the account," Google told BleepingComputer.

"No requests were made with this fraudulent account, and no data was accessed."

The FBI declined to comment on the threat actor's claims.

This statement comes after a group of threat actors calling itself "Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters" claimed on Telegram to have gained access to both Google's LERS portal and the FBI's eCheck background check system.

The group posted screenshots of their alleged access shortly after announcing on Thursday that they were "going dark."

The hackers' claims raised concerns as both LERS and the FBI's eCheck system are used by police and intelligence agencies worldwide to submit subpoenas, court orders, and emergency disclosure requests.

Unauthorized access could allow attackers to impersonate law enforcement and gain access to sensitive user data that should normally be protected.

The "Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters" group, which claims to consist of members linked to the Shiny Hunters, Scattered Spider, and Lapsus$ extortion groups, is behind widespread data theft attacks targeting Salesforce data this year.

The threat actors initially utilized social engineering scams to trick employees into connecting Salesforce's Data Loader tool to corporate Salesforce instances, which was then used to steal data and extort companies.

The threat actors later breached Salesloft's GitHub repository and used Trufflehog to scan for secrets exposed in the private source code. This allowed them to find authentication tokens for Salesloft Drift, which were used to conduct further Salesforce data theft attacks.

These attacks have impacted many companies, including Google, Adidas, Qantas, Allianz Life, Cisco, Kering, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Tiffany & Co, Cloudflare, Zscaler, Elastic, Proofpoint, JFrog, Rubrik, Palo Alto Networks, and many more.

Google Threat Intelligence (Mandiant) has been a thorn in the side of these threat actors, being the first to disclose the Salesforce and Salesloft attacks and warning companies to shore up their defenses.

Since then, the threat actors have been taunting the FBI, Google, Mandiant, and security researchers in posts to various Telegram channels.

Late Thursday night, the group posted a lengthy message to a BreachForums-linked domain causing some to believe the threat actors were retiring.

"This is why we have decided that silence will now be our strength," wrote the threat actors.

"You may see our names in new databreach disclosure reports from the tens of other multi billion dollar companies that have yet to disclose a breach, as well as some governmental agencies, including highly secured ones, that does not mean we are still active."

However, cybersecurity researchers who spoke with BleepingComputer believe the group will continue conducting attacks quietly despite their claims of going dark.

Update 9/15/25: Article title updated as some felt it indicated a breach.

bbc.com 12.09 Theo LeggettBusiness correspondent

The past two weeks have been dreadful for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and the crisis at the car maker shows no sign of coming to an end.

A cyber attack, which first came to light on 1 September, forced the manufacturer to shut down its computer systems and close production lines worldwide.

Its factories in Solihull, Halewood, and Wolverhampton are expected to remain idle until at least Wednesday, as the company continues to assess the damage.

JLR is thought to have lost at least £50m so far as a result of the stoppage. But experts say the most serious damage is being done to its network of suppliers, many of whom are small and medium sized businesses.

The government is now facing calls for a furlough scheme to be set up, to prevent widespread job losses.

David Bailey, professor of business economics at Birmingham Business School, told the BBC: "There's anywhere up to a quarter of a million people in the supply chain for Jaguar Land Rover.

"So if there's a knock-on effect from this closure, we could see companies going under and jobs being lost".

Under normal circumstances, JLR would expect to build more than 1,000 vehicles a day, many of them at its UK plants in Solihull and Halewood. Engines are assembled at its Wolverhampton site. The company also has large car factories in China and Slovakia, as well as a smaller facility in India.

JLR said it closed down its IT networks deliberately in order to protect them from damage. However, because its production and parts supply systems are heavily automated, this meant cars simply could not be built.

Sales were also heavily disrupted, though workarounds have since been put in place to allow dealerships to operate.

Initially, the carmaker seemed relatively confident the issue could be resolved quickly.

Nearly two weeks on, it has become abundantly clear that restarting its computer systems has been a far from simple process. It has already admitted that some data may have been seen or stolen, and it has been working with the National Cyber Security Centre to investigate the incident.

Experts say the cost to JLR itself is likely to be between £5m and £10m per day, meaning it has already lost between £50m and £100m. However, the company made a pre-tax profit of £2.5bn in the year to the end of March, which implies it has the financial muscle to weather a crisis that lasts weeks rather than months.

'Some suppliers will go bust'
JLR sits at the top of a pyramid of suppliers, many of whom are highly dependent on the carmaker because it is their main customer.

They include a large number of small and medium-sized firms, which do not have the resources to cope with an extended interruption to their business.

"Some of them will go bust. I would not be at all surprised to see bankruptcies," says Andy Palmer, a one-time senior executive at Nissan and former boss of Aston Martin.

He believes suppliers will have begun cutting their headcount dramatically in order to keep costs down.

Mr Palmer says: "You hold back in the first week or so of a shutdown. You bear those losses.

"But then, you go into the second week, more information becomes available – then you cut hard. So layoffs are either already happening, or are being planned."

A boss at one smaller JLR supplier, who preferred not to be named, confirmed his firm had already laid off 40 people, nearly half of its workforce.

Meanwhile, other companies are continuing to tell their employees to remain at home with the hours they are not working to be "banked", to be offset against holidays or overtime at a later date.

There seems little expectation of a swift return to work.

One employee at a major supplier based in the West Midlands told the BBC they were not expecting to be back on the shop floor until 29 September. Hundreds of staff, they say, had been told to remain at home.

When automotive firms cut back, temporary workers brought in to cover busy periods are usually the first to go.

There is generally a reluctance to get rid of permanent staff, as they often have skills that are difficult to replace. But if cashflow dries up, they may have little choice.

Labour MP Liam Byrne, who chairs the Commons Business and Trade Committee, says this means government help is needed.

"What began in some online systems is now rippling through the supply chain, threatening a cashflow crunch that could turn a short-term shock into long-term harm", he says.

"We cannot afford to see a cornerstone of our advanced manufacturing base weakened by events beyond its control".

The trade union Unite has called for a furlough system to be set up to help automotive suppliers. This would involve the government subsidising workers' pay packets while they are unable to do their jobs, taking the burden off their employers.

"Thousands of these workers in JLR's supply chain now find their jobs are under an immediate threat because of the cyber attack," says Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham.

"Ministers need to act fast and introduce a furlough scheme to ensure that vital jobs and skills are not lost while JLR and its supply chain get back on track."

Business and Trade Minister Chris Bryant said: "We recognise the significant impact this incident has had on JLR and their suppliers, and I know this is a worrying time for those affected.

"I met with the chief executive of JLR yesterday to discuss the impact of the incident. We are also in daily contact with the company and our cyber experts about resolving this issue."

https://www.international.gc.ca Date modified: 2025-09-12

Summary
Rapid Response Mechanism Canada (RRM Canada) has detected a “hack and leak” operation by Iran-linked hacker group, “Handala Hack Team” (Handala). The operation targeted five Iran International journalists, including one from Canada. RRM Canada assesses that the operation began on July 8, 2025.

The hacked materials ranged from photos of government IDs to intimate content. They were first released via the Handala website, then further amplified via X, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, and Iranian news websites. At the time of assessment, engagement with the hacked materials has varied from low to medium (between 0 to 2,200 interactions and 1 to 225,000 views), depending on the platform. The social media campaign appears to have stopped as of early August.

Following the aftermath of the initial “hack and leak” operation, RRM Canada also detected amplification of the leaked information through multiple AI chatbots—ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, and DeepSeek. These platforms all outlined detailed information about the “hack and leak” operation, providing names of the affected individuals, the nature of the leaked information, and links to the released images. RRM Canada notes that some of these chatbots continue to surface the leaked images upon request.

Many sources, including the Atlantic Council, have associated the Handala Hack group with Iran’s intelligence services. Footnote1

Targets and content
Initial “hack and leak” operation
On July 8, 2025, alleged “hacktivist” group “Handala Hack Team” claimed to have accessed the internal communication and server infrastructure of Iran International—a Farsi satellite television channel and internationally-based English, Arabic, and Farsi online news operation.Footnote2 The group released several uncensored photos of government IDs (including passports, permanent resident cards, and driver’s licences) of five Iran International staffers. In some instances, released content included email address passwords, along with intimate photos and videos. (See Annex A)

RRM Canada detected the operation on July 9, 2025, following the release of the information on a Telegram channel associated with Handala. The group claimed to have acquired information of thousands of individuals linked to Iran International, including documents and intimate images of journalists who worked for the news agency.Footnote3

On July 11, 2025, RRM Canada detected further distribution of materials on X and Facebook. The information appears to focus on a Canadian resident employed by Iran International. The leak included several photos of the individual’s ID, including their provincial driver’s licence, permanent resident card, and Iranian passport, and other personal photos and videos. Three other internationally based staff of the news agency were targeted in a similar fashion, with the release of government-issued ID on Handala’s website and then distributed online.

It is believed that more journalists have been affected by the hack, and there are suggestions that the group is also using the hacked intimate images as a source of revenue by implementing pay-for-play access to some images.

Information amplified through AI chatbots
RRM Canada tested six popular AI chatbots—ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, and DeepSeek—to assess whether the platforms would retrieve and share the information leaked by Handala. While the required prompts varied, all tested chatbots outlined detailed information about the operation, providing the names of the individuals implicated in the lead in addition to the nature of information. (See Annex B)

In addition to providing information, links, and, in some cases, images related to the leak, the chatbots provided citations that included links to unreliable or state-linked sources or repeated unverified accusations against Iran International regarding its credibility from Handala.

Tactics, techniques and procedures
“Hack and leak” operations are a type of cyber-enabled influence campaign where malicious actors hack into a target’s systems or accounts to steal sensitive or private information and then leak the information publicly. Operations are often implemented with the intent to damage reputations, influence public opinion, disrupt political processes, and even put personal safety at risk.

These operations are often associated with state-sponsored actors, hacktivist groups, or cybercriminals.

Links to Iranian intelligence
Handala established their web presence in December 2023. The group has limited social media presence, likely resulting from frequent violations of the platforms’ terms of service.

Atlantic Council and several threat intelligence firms (including Recorded Future, Trellix, and others) report that Handala has connections or is affiliated with other Iranian intelligence-linked groups such as Storm-842 (also known as Red Sandstorm, Dune, Void Manticore, or Banished Kitten).Footnote4 Iran International asserts that Handala and Storm-842 are the same group operating as a cyber unit within Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence.Footnote5

Implications
The leak of personal information increases the risk to the personal safety of the affected Iran International staff. The ease of access to the information resulting from search engine algorithms and availability on AI chatbots further increases this risk. Such operations are used as a form of digital transnational repression (DTNR), which is leveraged to coerce, harass, silence, and intimidate those who speak against foreign actors or against their interests.

Annex A: Sample images of leaked information
Image 1
Image 1: Government-issued ID and personal photos of a Canadian resident working for Iran International.

Image 2
Image 2: post likely from Handala Hack Team associates amplifying leaked materials.

Annex B: Large language model outputs
Image 3
Image 3: Web version of ChatGPT producing leaked images.

Image 4
Image 4: Google’s Gemini reproducing images of the leak.

Image 5
Image 5: Grok showing X posts that include leaked information.

Image 6
Image 6: Claude generating responses with a citation linking directly to Handala's website.

Image 7
Image 7: DeepSeek generating responses with a citation linking directly to Handala’s website.

ZATAZ » Darknet: dismantling of the French DFAS platform
Posted On 12 Sep 2025By : Damien Bancal

The Paris prosecutor has announced the shutdown of DFAS, one of the last major French-speaking darknet platforms, after a joint investigation by Cyberdouanes and OFAC.
On September 12, 2025, the Paris prosecutor confirmed the dismantling of the darknet platform “Dark French Anti System” (DFAS), active since 2017. Considered the last major French-speaking darknet marketplace, it facilitated drug sales, personal data trading, and criminal tools. Two men were arrested on September 8: the alleged creator, born in 1997, and an active contributor, born in 1989. More than 6 bitcoins, worth about €600,000, were seized. The investigation, launched by Cyberdouanes in 2023, uncovered over 12,000 members and 110,000 published messages. This operation closes a series of successive dismantlings carried out by French authorities since 2018.

The origins and structure of DFAS
The DFAS platform, short for “Dark French Anti System,” had been operating on the darknet since 2017. It offered various services, including drug sales, tools for fraud and cyberattacks, weapons, and guidance on user anonymization. It stood out as a rare French-speaking hub in a landscape largely dominated by English-language platforms.
One of the two men arrested, born in May 1997, is suspected of having designed and managed the platform. The second, born in April 1989, acted as a tester of its criminal services. Both suspects were brought before a judge for possible indictment.

The investigation began in 2023, led by the French customs intelligence unit DNRED. Cyberdouanes noted a steady growth in activity, despite earlier takedowns of French-speaking marketplaces. DFAS had more than 12,000 active members and over 110,000 messages. The site also served as a refuge for former users of previously dismantled platforms.

On September 8, 2025, law enforcement arrested two individuals linked to DFAS. More than 6 bitcoins, worth around €600,000, were seized. Investigators also secured technical materials documenting the platform’s operations and exchanges. The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) subsequently pursued the financial flows tied to the platform.

The end of a French-speaking darknet cycle
DFAS was the last major French-speaking darknet marketplace still active in 2025. Its shutdown follows a series of high-profile operations: La Main Noire in 2018, French Deep Web in 2021, Le Monde Parallèle that same year, and Cosa Nostra in 2024. Each closure had temporarily displaced users, but DFAS succeeded in capturing a large share of these migrations.

The Paris prosecutor’s announcement thus marks a turning point: the French-speaking darknet is now without a central hub. Criminal exchanges are dispersing across foreign platforms or smaller, harder-to-trace channels, complicating both monitoring and enforcement. [ZATAZ News English version]

| The Record from Recorded Future News Jonathan Greig
September 15th, 2025

Hackers connected to the Scattered Spider and ShinyHunters cybercriminal operations are extorting organizations for exorbitant ransoms after stealing data from Salesforce, the FBI warned.

The agency released a flash notice on Friday with information about an ongoing data theft campaign that has impacted hundreds of businesses this year. The FBI refers to the hackers as both UNC6040 and UNC6395 and by their colloquial names of ShinyHunters and Scattered Spider, respectively.

After months spent breaching some of the largest companies in the world, the hackers are now attempting to extort victim organizations — threatening to leak troves of customer data, business documents and more.

The FBI did not say how many victims have received extortion emails demanding payment in cryptocurrency but they noted that the monetary demands have varied widely and are made at seemingly random times. Some extortion incidents were initiated days after data exfiltration while others took place months later.

The FBI said the campaign began in October 2024 when members of the group gained access to organizations through social engineering attacks that involved contacting call centers and posing as IT employees.

That scheme typically gave the cybercriminals access to employee credentials that were then leveraged to access Salesforce instances holding customer data. In other cases, the hackers used phishing emails or texts to take over employees’ phones or computers.

The hackers evolved their tactics throughout the summer, switching to exploiting third-party applications that organizations linked to their Salesforce instances.

“UNC6040 threat actors have deceived victims into authorizing malicious connected apps to their organization's Salesforce portal,” the FBI said.

“This grants UNC6040 threat actors significant capabilities to access, query, and exfiltrate sensitive information directly from the compromised Salesforce customer environments.”

By August, the hackers began targeting the Salesloft Drift application, an AI chatbot that can be integrated with Salesforce.

The tactic allowed them to bypass traditional defenses like multifactor authentication, login monitoring and password resets, the FBI explained. In some cases, the FBI has found that the hackers created malicious applications within Salesforce trial accounts that allowed them to register connected apps without using a legitimate corporate account.

On Monday, Reuters and the BBC confirmed that Kering — the French conglomerate that owns Gucci, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen — was attacked by the same ShinyHunters cybercriminals.

ShinyHunters told the BBC that it stole information connected to 7.4 million unique email addresses. The hackers told another news outlet that they stole the information in late 2024 but only began negotiating a ransom in June 2025.

Last week, a critical government agency in Vietnam confirmed that millions of financial records were stolen in an attack claimed by ShinyHunters. The cybercriminals previously took credit for devastating campaigns targeting giants in the insurance, retail and aviation industries.

The FBI provided indicators of compromise that potential victims can use to see whether they have been affected by the hacking campaigns and urged companies to train call center employees on the tactics used.

The agency also said companies should limit the privileges of almost every employee account, enforce IP-based access restrictions, monitor API usage and more.

Experts said the information provided by the FBI showed how sophisticated the actors are at abusing legitimate tools for nefarious purposes, like Azure cloud infrastructure, virtual servers, Tor exit nodes and proxy services to obfuscate their origin.

Scattered retirement?
The FBI notice came shortly after the group made several posts on Telegram claiming to be retiring. The group blamed a recent string of arrests, law enforcement activity and criminal convictions against members as their reason for ceasing the current operation.

Cybersecurity experts were dubious about the disbanding claims, noting that cybercriminal operations often make similar claims before reconstituting under different names. Some theorized the hackers are likely going to enjoy the spoils of their recent extortion campaigns before returning to cybercriminal activity.

Sam Rubin, a senior official with Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42, said recent arrests may have prompted the group to lay low, but history says such activity is often temporary.

“Groups like this splinter, rebrand, and resurface — much like ShinyHunters. Even if public operations pause, the risks remain: stolen data can resurface, undetected backdoors may persist, and actors may re-emerge under new names,” he said.

“Silence from a threat group does not equal safety.”

databreaches.net Posted on September 15, 2025 by Dissent

On September 11, DataBreaches broke the story that customers of several high-end fashion brands owned by Paris-headquartered Kering had their personal information acquired by ShinyHunters as part of two Salesforce attacks. As we reported, a spokesperson for ShinyHunters claimed to have acquired more than 43 million customer records from Gucci and almost 13 million records from Balenciaga, Brioni, and Alexander McQueen combined.

Kering never responded to emailed inquiries, but ShinyHunters provided DataBreaches with samples from both attacks that appeared legitimate. They also provided chat logs from negotiations they claimed took place with someone presenting themselves as Balenciaga’s safety manager. Those negotiations appeared to go on for more than a month and a half between June 20 and mid-August. According to the logs, it appeared Kering agreed to pay a ransom of 500,000 euros, but then they went silent and never followed through.

Kering Issues a Statement
Although they did not respond to DataBreaches’ questions at the time, Kering issued a statement that they provided to other news sites, including LeMagIT and The Guardian.

Their statement, as reported by LeMagIT, does not answer all of the questions DataBreaches had, but it’s a start. Kering states:

« En juin 2025, nous avons constaté qu’un tiers non autorisé avait temporairement accédé à nos systèmes et consulté des données clients limitées provenant de certaines de nos Maisons », explique le service de presse de Kering dans une déclaration adressée à la rédaction.

Celle-ci ajoute que « nos Maisons ont immédiatement signalé cette intrusion aux autorités compétentes et ont informé les clients conformément aux réglementations locales ».

Et de préciser qu’aucune « information financière, telle que des numéros de compte bancaire ou de carte de crédit, ni aucun numéro d’identification personnelle (numéro de sécurité sociale), n’ont été compromise lors de cet incident ».

Selon le service de presse de Kering « l’intrusion a été rapidement identifiée et des mesures appropriées ont été prises pour sécuriser les systèmes concernés et éviter que de tels incidents ne se reproduisent à l’avenir ».

A machine translation roughly yields:

In June 2025, we found that an unauthorized third party had temporarily accessed our systems and accessed limited customer data from some of our Houses. Our Houses immediately reported this intrusion to the competent authorities and informed the customers in accordance with local regulations….. No financial information, such as bank account or credit card numbers, nor any personal identification number (social security number), was compromised during this incident.

According to Kering’s statement, “the intrusion was quickly identified and appropriate measures were taken to secure the affected systems and prevent such incidents from recurring in the future.”

They do not name the brands affected, they do not disclose the total number of affected individuals, and when asked what countries were affected, Kering reportedly declined to answer Reuter’s question.

An Inconsistent Statement?
It appears that neither Kering nor any of the affected brands detected the breaches on their own, and they only first found out when ShinyHunters contacted them in June. Why they did not discover the breaches by their own means is unknown to DataBreaches.

DataBreaches can confirm that there was no financial information in the samples of records that DataBreaches inspected. However, Kering’s statement to another news outlet contradicts claims made by ShinyHunters to DataBreaches.net in important respects.

As previously reported, ShinyHunters provided this site with chat logs of negotiations between ShinyHunters and someone claiming to be a representative of Balenciaga. But Kering has apparently told the BBC that it did not engage in conversations with the criminal(s), and it didn’t pay any ransom, consistent with long-standing law enforcement advice.

Their denial appears to be factually inaccurate, at least in part.

At the time of our first publication, DataBreaches reported that Balenciaga had made a small test payment in BTC to ShinyHunters. This site did not include specific proof in that article, but ShinyHunters had provided this site with evidence at the time. We are posting that proof now in light of Kering’s denial that they engaged in any conversations or paid any ransom.

The chat log provided to this site showed that Balenciaga was to make a small test payment in BTC to ShinyHunters on or about July 4. The amount mentioned in the chat log was 0,00045 BTC. The chat log also showed the BTC address as bc1qzwpshyadethrqum0yyjh7uxxzhsnjjgapdmr4c. DataBreaches had redacted that address from the published report.

On July 4, Balenciaga’s “user” told ShinyHunters that the test payment had been made:

[en attente] : 2025-07-04
[03:09:08] shinycorp: Bonjour, vous nous aviez promis un paiement hier, mais nous n’avons rien reçu. des nouvelles ?
[04:23:45] Utilisateur: Bonjour
[04:24:05] Utilisateur: nous avons eu du retard pour la création du compte
[04:24:09] Utilisateur: https://blockstream.info/tx/a4d9c24a90fdbcf652f18bafae89740094ad7a555e4e747e7e2602771e9a1d6b
[04:24:18] Utilisateur: ci joint la preuve du paiement test
[04:24:24] Utilisateur: je vous invite à vérifier
[04:52:42] shinycorp: Reçu pour la première fois
[06:17:52] shinycorp: Veuillez diffuser la transaction.
[07: 45: 06] Utilisateur: fichier: / / / C: / Utilisateurs / X / Bureau / flux de blocs.htm
[07:46:28] Utilisateur: https://blockstream.info/tx/a4d9c24a90fdbcf652f18bafae89740094ad7a555e4e747e7e2602771e9a1d6b

DataBreaches had looked up the wallet address and found confirmation of the payment. The following is a screengrab showing the payment.

Btcpaid

Kering’s reported claims about no conversations and no payment appear to be refuted by the chat log and corresponding BTC transaction. ShinyHunters did not claim that Kering paid their ransom demand, but they do claim that there were extensive negotiations and that a small test payment was made, and there seems to be proof of that.

Kering’s statement to other news sites also leaves a lot of other unanswered questions. They told the BBC that they had emailed all affected customers, but that raises other questions. DataBreaches emailed Kering again today to ask for additional details. Specifically, DataBreaches asked them:

Have you notified data protection regulators in all of the countries where your customers reside?
When did you send emails to customers to notify them?
Have you notified store customers by postal mail if the customers did not provide email addresses? If not, how have you notified those without email addresses?
Your statement claims that you did not have any conversations with the attackers. Has your legal department obtained IP addresses from qtox to find out the IP address of the person representing themself as Balenciaga’s negotiator? Are you claiming that ShinyHunters was lying about negotiations, or are you saying something else?
No reply has been received.

Furthermore, we still do not know how many unique customers, total, were affected by these attacks on their brands. The BBC reported that it might be less than 7.4 million based on the number of unique email addresses. But the 7.4 million unique email addresses were only for the Balenciaga, Brioni, and Alexander McQueen data. There were more than 43 million records for the Gucci data set, so there would be a significant number of unique email addresses and customers there, too, and not all customers provide an email address.

Although Kering does not seem to be embracing public transparency in its incident response, we may eventually find out more if investors demand accountability or if data protection regulators report on any investigations and findings.

| CyberScoop By
Tim Starks
September 10, 202

Major cyber intrusions by the Chinese hacking groups known as Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon have forced the FBI to change its methods of hunting sophisticated threats, a top FBI cyber official said Wednesday.

U.S. officials, allied governments and threat researchers have identified Salt Typhoon as the group behind the massive telecommunications hack revealed last fall but that could have been ongoing for years. Investigators have pointed at Volt Typhoon as a group that has infiltrated critical infrastructure to cause disruptions in the United States if China invades Taiwan and Americans intervene.

Those hacks were stealthier than in the past, and more patient, said Jason Bilnoski, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division. The Typhoons have focused on persistent access and gotten better at hiding their infiltration by using “living off the land” techniques that involve using legitimate tools within systems to camouflage their efforts, he said. That in turn has complicated FBI efforts to share indicators of compromise (IOCs).

“We’re having to now hunt as if they’re already on the network, and we’re hunting in ways we hadn’t before,” he said at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit. “They’re not dropping tools and malware that we used to see, and perhaps there’s not a lot of IOCs that we’d be able to share in certain situations.”

The hackers used to be “noisy,” with an emphasis on hitting a target quickly, stealing data and then escaping, Bilnoski said. But now for nation-backed attackers, “we’re watching exponential leaps” in tactics, techniques and procedures, he said.

Jermaine Roebuck, associate director for threat hunting at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said his agency is also seeing those kinds of changes in the level of stealth from sophisticated hackers, in addition to “a significant change” in their intentions and targeting.

“We saw a lot of espionage over the last several years, but here lately, there’s been a decided shift into computer network attack, prepositioning or disruption in terms of capabilities,” he said at the same conference.

The targeting has changed as organizations, including government agencies, have shifted to the cloud. “Well, guess what?” he asked. “The actors are going toward the cloud” in response.

They’ve also focused on “edge devices,” like devices that supply virtual private network connections or other services provided by managed service providers, Roebuck said. Organizations have less insight into the attacks those devices and providers are facing than more direct intrusions, he said.

wsj.com By
Robert McMillan
Sept. 15, 2025 7:00 am ET

Botnets, massive networks of hacked devices, are being used for dangerous attacks, one of which recently set a world record

The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently disrupted a network of hacked devices used by criminals in some of the largest online attacks yet seen. Now those devices have been hacked by someone new to build an even bigger weapon.
Law-enforcement agencies and technology companies are waging a war against increasingly powerful networks of hacked devices, called botnets, that can knock websites offline for a fee. They are used for extortion and by disreputable companies to knock rivals offline, federal prosecutors say.

But lately, a new age of dangerous botnets has arrived, and existing internet infrastructure isn’t prepared, some network operators say. These botnets are leveraging new types of internet-connected devices with faster processors and more network bandwidth, offering them immense power.

The criminals controlling the botnets now have the capabilities to move beyond website takedowns to target internet connectivity and disrupt very large swaths of the internet.

“Before the concern was websites; now the concern is countries,” said Craig Labovitz, head of technology with Nokia’s Deepfield division.

In August, federal prosecutors charged a 22-year-old Oregon man with operating a botnet that had shut down the X social-media site earlier this year.

But the FBI’s takedown last month appeared to have an unwanted consequence: freeing up as many as 95,000 devices to be taken over by new botnet overlords. That led to a free-for-all to take over the machines “as fast as possible,” said Damian Menscher, a Google engineer.

The operators of a rival botnet, called Aisuru, seized control of more than one-fourth of them and immediately started launching attacks that are “breaking records,” he said.

On Sept. 1, the network services company Cloudflare said it had measured an attack that clogged up computer networks with 11.5 trillion bits of junk information per second. That is enough to consume the download bandwidth of more than 50,000 consumer internet connections. In a post to X, Cloudflare declared this attack, known as a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, a “world record” in terms of intensity. Some analysts see it almost as an advertisement of the botnet’s capabilities.

It was one of several dozen attacks of a similar size that network operators have witnessed over the past weeks. The attacks were very short in duration—often lasting just seconds—and may be demonstrations of the Aisuru capabilities, likely representing just a fraction of their total available bandwidth, according to Nokia.

With the world’s increasing dependence on computer networks, denial-of-service attacks have become weapons of war. Russia’s intelligence service, the GRU, used DDoS attacks on Ukraine’s financial-services industry as a way to cause disruption ahead of its 2022 invasion, U.K. authorities have said.

Botnets such as Aisuru are made up of a range of internet-connected devices—routers or security cameras, for example—rather than PCs, and often these machines can only join one botnet at a time. Their attacks can typically be fended off by the largest cloud-computing providers.

One massive network that Google disrupted earlier this year had mushroomed from at least 74,000 Android devices in 2023 to more than 10 million devices in two years. That made it the “largest known botnet of internet-connected TV devices,” according to a July Google court filing.

This network was being used to click billions of Google advertisements in an ad fraud scheme, Google said, but the massive network “could be used to commit more dangerous cybercrimes, such as ransomware” or denial-of-service attacks, the Google filing said.

To date, denial-of-service attacks are spawned from networks like Aisuru that typically include tens of thousands of computers, not millions, making them easier to defend against.

In the past year, a very large botnet that has typically been used for fraud began launching online attacks. Called ResHydra, it is made up of tens of millions of devices, according to Nokia.

Res Hydra represents a whole new level of problem, said Chris Formosa, a researcher with the networking company Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs. Harnessing a botnet of that size would “do extreme damage to a country.”

bleepingcomputer.com By Bill Toulas
September 8, 2025

American furniture brand Lovesac is warning that it suffered a data breach impacting an undisclosed number of individuals, stating their personal data was exposed in a cybersecurity incident.

Lovesac is a furniture designer, manufacturer, and retailer, operating 267 showrooms across the United States, and having annual net sales of $750 million.

They are best known for their modular couch systems called 'sactionals,' as well as their bean bags called 'sacs.'
According to the notices sent to impacted individuals, between February 12, 2025, and March 3, 2025, hackers gained unauthorized access to the company's internal systems and stole data hosted on those systems.

Lovesac discovered the breach on February 28, 2025, which means it took them three days to fully remediate the situation and block the threat actor's access to its network.

The data that has been stolen includes full names and other personal information that hasn't been disclosed in the notice sample shared with the Attorney General's offices.

The company has not clarified whether the incident impacts customers, employees, or contractors, and neither has it disclosed the exact number of individuals affected.

Enclosed in the notification letter, recipients will find instructions on enrolling in 24 24-month credit monitoring service through Experian, redeemable until November 28, 2025.

The company noted that it currently has no indication that the stolen information has been misused, but urges impacted individuals to remain vigilant against phishing attempts.

Ransomware gang claimed attack on Lovesac
Although Lovesac does not name the attackers and didn't mention data encryption in the letters, the RansomHub ransomware gang claimed an attack on March 3, 2025.

The threat actors added Lovesac onto their extortion portal, announcing the breach, indicating plans to leak the stolen data if a ransom payment isn't made. We were unable to determine if they followed up with this threat.

The RansomHub ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation emerged in February 2024 and has since amassed a roster of high-profile victims, including staffing firm Manpower, oilfield services giant Halliburton, the Rite Aid pharmacy chain, Kawasaki's European division, the Christie's auction house, U.S. telecom provider Frontier Communications, the Planned Parenthood healthcare nonprofit, and Italy's Bologna Football Club.

The ransomware operation quietly shut down in April 2025, with many of their affiliates moving to DragonForce.

BleepingComputer has contacted Lovesac to learn more about the incident, its impact, and how many customers were impacted, and will update this post if we receive a response.