CySecurity News - Latest Information Security and Hacking Incidents: Threat Intelligence

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Fix SOC Blind Spots: Real-Time Industry & Country Threat Visibility

Modern SOCs are now grappling with a massive visibility problem, essentially “driving through fog” but now with their headlights dimming rapidly. The playbook for many teams is still looking back: analysts wait for an alert to fire, investigate the incident, and then try to respond.

While understandable due to the high volume of noise and alert fatigue, this reactive attitude leaves the organization exposed. It induces a clouded vision from structural level, where teams cannot observe threat actors conducting attack preparations, they do not predict campaign sequences aimed at their own sector, and are not capable of modifying the defense until after an attack has been launched.

Operational costs of delay

Remaining in a reactive state imposes severe penalties on security teams in terms of time, budget, and risk profile.

Investigation latency: Without broader context, analysts are forced to research every suspicious object from scratch, significantly slowing down response times.
Resource drain: Teams often waste cycles chasing false positives or threats that are irrelevant to their geography or vertical because they lack the intelligence to filter them out.
Increased breach risk: Attackers frequently reuse infrastructure and target specific industries; failing to spot these patterns early hands the advantage to the adversary.

According to security analysts, the only way out is the transition from the current reactive SOC model to an active SOC model powered by Threat Intelligence (TI). Tools like the ANY.RUN Threat Intelligence Lookup serve as a "tactical magnifying glass," converting raw data into operational assets .The use of TI helps the SOC understand the threats currently present in their environment and which alerts must be escalated immediately.

Rise of hybrid threats

One of the major reasons for this imperative change is the increased pace of change in attack infrastructure, specifically hybrid threats. The use of multiple attacks together has now been brought to the fore by recent investigations by the researchers, including Tycoon 2FA and Salty attack kits combining together as one kill chain attack. In these scenarios, one kit may handle the initial lure and reverse proxy, while another manages session hijacking. These combinations effectively break existing detection rules and confuse traditional defense strategies.

To address this challenge, IT professionals need behavioral patterns and attack logic visibility in real time, as opposed to only focusing on signatures. Finally, proactive protection based on industry and geo context enables SOC managers to understand the threats that matter to them more effectively while predicting attacks rather than reacting to them.

CyberVolk Ransomware Fails to Gain Traction After Encryption Misstep

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VolkLocker

Cryptographic Vulnerability Cyber Attacks Cyber Extortion CyberVolk Pro Russian Hacktivists Ransomware Ransomware As A Service Telegram Command And Control Threat Intelligence VolkLocker

CyberVolk Ransomware Fails to Gain Traction After Encryption Misstep

CyberVolk, a pro-Russian hacktivist collective, has intensified its campaign of ransomware-driven intimidation against entities perceived as hostile to Moscow in the past year, marking a notable change in both scale and presentation, marking a notable shift in its operations.

In addition to its attacks, the group has become increasingly adept at constructing carefully constructed visual branding, including the release of stylized ransomware imagery to publicize successful intrusions in addition to attacking. It seems that these visuals, which were enhanced by deliberately inflammatory language and threatening tone, were not intended simply to announce breaches, but rather to amplify psychological pressure for victims and broader audiences alike.

In October 2024, CyberVolk appeared to have a clear strategy in the ransoming of several Japanese organizations, including the Japan Oceanographic Data Center and the Japan Meteorological Agency, in which they claimed responsibility for the ransoming. CyberVolk has reportedly altered the desktop wallpapers of several victims prior to starting the encryption process, using the act itself as a signal of control and coercion to control and coerce them.

CyberVolk's plans to venture into the ransomware-as-a-service ecosystem, however, seem to have been undermined by fundamental technical lapses that were clearly underhand. As part of its strategy to attract affiliates, this group has recently launched a new ransomware strain called VolkLocker, positioning it as a RaaS offering designed to expand its operational reach and attract affiliates.

A SentinelOne research team has found that the malware has severe cryptographic and implementation weaknesses that greatly reduce its effectiveness, according to a study conducted by researchers. It is worth noting that the encryptor is specifically hardcoded directly into the ransomware binary as well as written in plaintext to a hidden file on compromised systems, compounding the error.

VolkLocker's credibility and viability within the cybercrime market is severely undermined by the vulnerability of extracting and reusing the exposed key, which could possibly allow organizations to recover their data without having to pay a ransom. As a consequence, affected organizations could potentially recover their data without paying a ransom.

It was last year when the Infosec Shop and other researchers first started documenting CyberVolk's activities that it caught the attention of the security community, and when it became known that the hacktivist collective was pro-Russian. CyberVolk appears to be operating in the same ideological space as outfits such as CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn and NoName057(16) — both of which have been linked to the Russian military intelligence apparatus and President Vladimir Putin by US authorities.

However, CyberVolk has yet to be proven to maintain direct ties with the Russian governing authorities. Additionally, CyberVolk has a distinctive operational difference from many of its peers. Compared to comparable hacktivist teams, which tend to focus their efforts on disruption but low-impact distributed denial-of-service attacks, CyberVolk has consistently utilized ransomware as part of its campaigns.

Researchers have noted that after repeated bans from Telegram in 2025, the group almost disappeared from public view for the first half of 2025, only to resurface in August with a revamped ransomware service based on VolkLocker. In analyzing the operations, it is evident that an uneven scaling attempt has taken place, combining fairly polished Telegram automation with malware payloads that retain signs of testing and incomplete hardening.

VolkLocker is written in Go and designed to work across both Windows and Linux environments. In addition to enabling user communication, Telegram-based command-and-control functionality, it also handles system reconnaissance, decryption requests, and the decryption of sensitive data. In order to configure new payloads, affiliates must provide operational details such as Bitcoin payment addresses, Telegram bot credentials, encryption deadlines, file extensions, and self-destruct parameters.

Among the backbones of this ecosystem is Telegram, which is responsible for providing communication, tool distribution, and customer support services. However, some operators have reported extending the default C2 framework to include keylogging and remote access capabilities. As of November, the group was advertising standalone remote access trojans and keyloggers in addition to its RaaS offerings, and these packages included tiered pricing options.

The ransomware is capable of escalating privileges, bypassing Windows User Account Control, selectively encrypting files based on pre-defined exclusion rules, and applying AES-256 encryption in GCM mode, which emphasizes CyberVolk's ongoing attempts to mix ideological messaging with the increasingly commercialized nature of cybercrime.

In the course of further technical analysis of VolkLocker, it has been revealed that the ransomware has been shaped by an aggressive design choice and critical implementation errors. One of the most notable features of the program is its integration of a timer function written in Go that can be configured to initiate a destructive wipe upon expiration of the countdown or upon entering an incorrect password into the ransom note in HTML.

Upon activation, the routine targets the most common user directories, such as Documents, Downloads, Pictures, and the Desktop, making the users vulnerable to permanent data loss. In order to access CyberVolk's ransomware-as-a-service platform, one must pay approximately $800 to $1,100 for an operating system that supports just one operating system, or $1,600 to $2,200 for a build that supports both Windows and Linux operating systems.

In the early days of the group, affiliates obtained the malware by using Telegram-based builder bots that were able to customize encryption parameters and create customized payloads, indicating that the group relied heavily on Telegram as a delivery and coordination platform.

As of November 2025, the same operators have expanded their commercial offerings, advertising standalone remote access trojans and keyloggers for $500 each, further signaling a desire to diversify their offerings from merely ransomware to a wide range of security technologies. Nevertheless, VolkLocker’s operations have a serious cryptographic weakness at the core of their operation that makes it difficult for them to be effective.

As part of the encryption process, AES-256 is employed in Galois/Counter Mode and a random 12-byte nonce is generated for each file before it deletes the original and adds extensions such as .locked or .cvolk to the encrypted copies after destroying the original files. Although the system seems to be designed to be quite strong, researchers found that all files on a victim's system are encrypted using a single master key which is derived from a 64-character hexadecimal string embedded directly in the binary files.

Additionally, the same key is stored in plaintext to a file named system_backup.key, which is never removed, compounding the problem. This backup appears to be a testing artifact that was inadvertently left in production builds, and SentinelOne suggests that it might be able to help victims recover their data without paying a ransom for it.

While the flaw offers a rare advantage to those already affected, it is expected that when it is disclosed to the public, the threat actors will take immediate steps to remedy the issue. The majority of security experts advise that, generally, the best way to share such weaknesses with law enforcement and ransomware response specialists while an operation is ongoing, is by utilizing private channels. This is done in order to maximize victim assistance without accelerating adversary adaptation, thus maximizing victim assistance without accelerating adversary adaptation.

The modern cyber-extortion economy is sustained by networks of hackers, affiliates, and facilitators that work together to run these campaigns. In order to understand this landscape effectively, open-source intelligence was gathered from social media activity and media reporting. These activities highlighted the existence of a broad range of actors operating within it.

One such group is the Ukrainian-linked UA25 collective, whose actions retaliate against Russian infrastructure are often accompanied by substantial financial and operational damage, with a claim to responsibility publicly made in the media. In such cases, asymmetrical cyber conflict is being highlighted, where loosely organized non-state actors are able to cause outsized damage to much larger adversaries, underscoring the asymmetrical nature of contemporary cyber conflict.

In this climate, Russian cybercriminal groups are often able to blur the line between ideological alignment and financial opportunism, pushing profit-driven schemes under the banner of political activism in an effort to achieve political goals. CyberVolk is an example of this hybrid model: CyberVolk aims to gain legitimacy through hacktivist rhetoric while also engaging in extortion and tool sales to monetize its ransomware activity.

Security firms and independent researchers have been continuously scrutinizing the situation, which has led, in the past few years, to expose internal operational weaknesses, including flawed cryptographic practices, insecure key handling, which can be leveraged to disrupt campaigns and, in some cases, aid law enforcement and takedown efforts on a broader scale. This has been reported as well by publications such as The Register.

In the near-term, analysts warn that ransomware operations will likely get more sophisticated and destructive - with future strains of ransomware increasingly incorporating elements commonly associated with wiper malware, which encrypts data rather than issuing ransoms. There have been several regulatory actions, sanctions, and government advisories issued throughout 2025 that have laid the foundation for a more coordinated international response to these threats.

However, experts warn that meaningful progress will depend on a sustained cooperation between governments, technology companies, and private sector firms. In the case of CyberVolk, the technical ambition often outweighs the execution, yet even faulty operations demonstrate a persistent threat from Russian-linked actors, who continue to adapt despite mounting pressures from the West.

In the wake of recent sanctions targeting key enablers, some parts of this ecosystem have been disrupted; however, new infrastructure and service providers are likely to fill these gaps as time goes on. Defensers should take note of the following lesson: continued vigilance, proactive threat hunting, as well as adopting advanced detection and response capabilities remain essential for preventing ransomware from spreading, as the broader contest against ransomware increasingly depends on converting adversaries' mistakes into durable security advantages to ensure the success of the attack.

It should be noted that the rise and subsequent missteps of CyberVolk can be considered a timely reminder that the ransomware landscape is evolving in multiple ways, not only in terms of technical sophistication but also in terms of narrative strategy and operational ambition.

Although advocates of groups may work to increase their impact by using political messaging, branding, and service models that are tailored for commercialization, long-term success remains dependent on disciplined engineering and operational security-areas in which even ideologically motivated actors continue to fail.

Organizations should take this episode as an example of the importance of building multilayered defenses that go beyond perimeter security to include credential hygiene, behavioral monitoring, and rapid incident response planning in addition to regular patching, offline backups, and tabletop exercises. This episode emphasizes how vital it is to engage with threat intelligence providers in order to identify emerging patterns before they turn into operational disruptions.

In the eyes of policymakers and industry leaders, the case highlights the benefits of coordinated disclosure practices and cross-border collaboration as means of weakening ransomware ecosystems without inadvertently making them more refined.

Iterating and rebranding ransomware groups can be equally instructive as iterating and rebranding their malware, providing defenders with valuable opportunities to anticipate next moves and close gaps before they are exploited. The ability to survive in an environment characterized by both sides adapting will increasingly depend on turning visibility into action and learning from every flaw that has been exposed.

Emerging Predator Spyware Technique Enables Zero-Click Compromise

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Zero-Day Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Cyber-Espionage Tools Digital Forensics Intellexa Network Mobile Surveillance Predator spyware Spyware Attacks Threat Intelligence Zero-Click Exploits Zero-Day Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Emerging Predator Spyware Technique Enables Zero-Click Compromise

Intellexa is one of the most controversial and persistent players in the shadowy world of commercial cyber-espionage, even though mounting scrutiny, international sanctions, and ongoing investigations have led to increased scrutiny and investigation.

Although it is best known for its flagship surveillance solution, the Predator spyware suite, the consortium has demonstrated that it can operate beyond the scope of regulatory control on a number of occasions. An investigation conducted by more than one party, supported by confidential internal records, leaked sales decks, training materials, and other sensitive corporate documents verified by Amnesty International, shows that Intellexa continues to conduct business at a high level, and has even expanded its activities.

A vendor has been aggressively pursuing government and corporate clients for years, and the findings indicate the vendor is still leveraging a pipeline of high-value vulnerabilities to do so. There is one striking feature of the company: its continued reliance on zero-day exploits targeted at mobile browsers. This is reflected in the recent analysis published by Google's Threat Analysis Group, which recently identified fifteen new zero-day exploits related to Predator deployments.

Intellexa, according to the investigators, routinely purchases unidentified bugs from independent hackers, weaponizes them in covert operations, and throws them away only once the flaws have become widely known and have been fixed. Predator's sophisticated capabilities and the troubling resilience of the spyware market that supports it are both emphasized by this cycle of acquiring, exploiting, and "burning" zero-days.

Moreover, investigators have also discovered a parallel operation, using Aladdin, which uses online advertising to silently distribute spyware, by using online advertising as a delivery mechanism. The Aladdin ads, unlike earlier models that relied on phishing lures or user interaction, are being distributed through mainstream advertising networks and are embedded within seemingly legitimate placements on widely visited websites and mobile applications, instead of relying on phishing lures and user interaction.

When the page is loaded and the selected target is clicked on, it is enough for the compromise to occur. There is no need to click, install, or show any warnings. These attacks are being conducted using an intricate ad delivery infrastructure that is deliberately labyrinthine, as it is routed through multiple layers of front companies and brokers in Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus, the UAE, and Hungary, spread across a multitude of countries.

As a result of the dispersed architecture, the operators' identities are obscurable, and regulators and security teams are unable to detect and block malicious traffic due to the dispersed architecture. As a consequence of these developments, analysts claim that the threat landscape has undergone a decisive shift: spyware operators are moving away from social-engineering tactics towards frictionless, automated exploitation channels that make successful intrusions less likely.

Even though the threat landscape is becoming more complex, experts advise that layering protections — including robust ad-blocking, restrictive script policies, DNS-based filtering tools, and diligent software patching — remain important in order to ensure that these vectors do not penetrate the network.

There is no denying the fact that sanctioned vendors such as Intellexa have continued to operate and the rapid evolution of platforms like Aladdin underscores a sobering reality: the commercial spyware industry is adapting faster than global oversight mechanisms can keep up, leading to an ever-growing mercenary spyware industry.

A detailed examination of the ecosystem surrounding Intellexa reveals that Predator itself has evolved into the most sophisticated and elusive mercenary spyware platform ever produced. Since at least 2019, the tool has been active. Although it was originally developed by Cytrox, it seems to be maintained and distributed by a constellation of Intellexa-linked entities, expanding the operation far beyond its original footprint.

Predator's technological design aims to provide stealth above all else: it leaves very little forensic trace, resists conventional analysis, and makes it exceptionally difficult for independent verification to be made. With this spyware, you will have access to sweeping surveillance capabilities, such as real-time access to a device's microphone, camera, files, communications and cloud-synced data, once the spyware has been installed.

In Predator, which is largely built around Python components, a modular architecture allows new capabilities to be added on-the-fly without re-infecting the device, a flexibility that has made it so appealing to governments looking for covert, persistent access to mobile devices.

There is both a traditional "one-click" compromise approach supported by the platform, which involves carefully designed social engineering links, and an even more advanced "zero-click" compromise approach which does not require any interaction from the user, like network injection or proximity-based delivery.

Although no proof has yet been provided that remote, messaging-app zero-click exploits like FORCEEDENTRY or BLASTPASS, or NSO Group's Pegasus exploits, are being used on a scale as large as Pegasus, it is clear from the documentation that Predator operators are still able to make silent access when certain conditions are met.

In the past two years, Recorded Future's Insikt Group has collected information that indicates Predator activity is taking place in more than a dozen countries, ranging from Angola and Armenia to Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Mozambique and Oman, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Trinidad and Tobago. As a result of additional evidence, deployments have been observed in Greece, Sudan, and Vietnam, each of which has varying degrees of involvement from the state.

Greece has shown the greatest impact of the political fallout, with revelations that the Predator was used against journalists, opposition politicians, business leaders, and other public figures, leading to parliamentary inquiries, criminal investigations, as well as an ongoing national scandal referred to as “Predatorgate”. In addition to providing insight into Intellexa's growing arsenal of delivery methods, the leaked material confirms that a little-known vector, codenamed Triton, has been discovered.

Triton is designed to compromise Samsung Exynos chipset-based devices by exploiting vulnerabilities in the baseband, allowing them to be compromised—sometimes forcing them to go down to 2G in order to create the conditions for infection. According to Amnesty International's researchers, it is still unclear whether Triton is still operational. However, there have been references to two other mechanisms that seem to be using radiofrequency manipulation or direct physical access techniques. These mechanisms appear to be known by the names Thor and Oberon.

In spite of the fact that it is still unclear what the exact capabilities of these vectors are, the inclusion of Intellexa's internal materials illustrates the wide range of the group's technological ambitions. It has been reported that Intellexa is also one of the most aggressive commercial actors exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities that Google's Threat Analysis Group has documented since 2021. In 15 of these cases, Intellexa's activities have been attributed.

According to Google's researchers, the company employs both the development of their own exploit chains and the acquisition of additional vulnerabilities from outside brokers to broaden its operational reach, which is a dual approach to exploit chains. The Amnesty International report suggests that Intellexa remains fully operational even after sanctions and a sweeping investigation in Greece, with Predator's tooling becoming increasingly stealthy and resistant to forensic analysis as a result.

A number of security experts have warned that as Predator's techniques advance, users might have to take greater precautions to protect themselves against these rapidly developing mobile exploitation frameworks, including the Advanced Protection features of Android and Apple's Lockdown Mode, in order to mitigate the risk associated with them. In spite of mounting international scrutiny, there is no sign that the overall market for commercial surveillance tools will slow down anytime soon.

A report by analysts indicates that a deep rooted financial incentive exists for the spyware industry to remain viable: governments still need powerful digital monitoring tools, and vendors are eager to satisfy that demand by designing more sophisticated products that will be able to evade the security measures currently in place. A trend of new players entering the market has largely been seen to continue until new players join the game, allowing offensive cyber tools to become more accessible and pushing existing developers to further refine their platforms to meet the demands of the new players.

A number of regulatory efforts have been launched, most notably in the European Union, where ongoing inquiries may lead to tighter oversight over the sale and use of intrusive technologies, but experts warn that a meaningful global coordination process is still missing. Predator, for example, will remain a potential threat until stronger international mechanisms are established.

It is not uncommon for platforms such as Predator to resurface even in the face of sanctions, public revelations, or temporary operational setbacks. This reality has been underscored by recent reports which indicate the Predator infrastructure has reemerged with increased obfuscation, more redundancy, and fewer forensic artifacts that make it harder to attribute and detect the threat.

It is said by security experts that, even though there are no foolproof defensive strategies, an increased awareness, transparent public reporting, and well-enforced regulations can substantially limit the reach of mercenary spyware. They argue that government officials, researchers, and private-sector defense funders must move faster if they are to survive an industry that continues to innovate in the shadows without government influence.

Palo Alto GlobalProtect Portals Face Spike in Suspicious Login Attempts

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Vulnerability and Exploits

Cyber Security Cyber Threat Surge Enterprise security GlobalProtect Security Network Intrusion Palo Alto Networks Remote Access Risks Threat Intelligence VPN Attacks Vulnerability and Exploits

Palo Alto GlobalProtect Portals Face Spike in Suspicious Login Attempts

Among the developments that have disturbed security teams around the world, threat-intelligence analysts have detected a sudden and unusually coordinated wave of probing of Palo Alto Networks' GlobalProtect remote access infrastructure. This activity appears to be influenced by the presence of well-known malicious fingerprints and well-worn attack mechanisms.

It has been revealed in new reports from GreyNoise that the surge began on November 14 and escalated sharply until early December, culminating in more than 7,000 unique IP addresses trying to log into GlobalProtect portals through the firm's Global Observation Grid monitored by GlobalProtect. This influx of hostile activity has grown to the highest level in 90 days and has prompted fresh concerns among those defending the computer system from attempts to hack themselves, who are watching for signs that such reconnaissance is likely to lead to a significant breach of their system.

In general, the activity stems mostly from infrastructure that operates under the name 3xK GmbH (AS200373), which accounts for approximately 2.3 million sessions which were directed to the global-protect/login.esp endpoint used by Palo Alto's PAN-OS and GlobalProtect products. The data was reported by GreyNoise to reveal that 62 percent of the traffic was geolocated in Germany, with 15 percent being traced to Canada.

In parallel, AS208885 contributed a steady stream of probing throughout the entire network. As a result of early analysis, it is clear that this campaign requires continuity with prior malicious campaigns that targeted Palo Alto equipment, showing that recurring TCP patterns were used, repeated JA4T signatures were seen, and that infrastructure associated with known threat actors was reused.

Despite the fact that the scans were conducted mainly in the United States, Mexico, and Pakistan regions, all of them were subjected to a comparable level of pressure, which suggested a broad, opportunistic approach as opposed to a narrowly targeted campaign, and served as a stark reminder of the persistent attention adversaries pay to remote-access technologies that are widely deployed.

There has been a recent increase in the activity of this campaign, which is closely related to the pattern that was first observed between late September and mid-October, when three distinct fingerprints were detected among more than nine million nonspoofable HTTP sessions, primarily directed towards GlobalProtect portals, in an effort to track the attacks.

There is enough technical overlap between four autonomous systems that originate those earlier scans to raise early suspicion, even though they had no prior history of malicious behavior. At the end of November, however, the same signatures resurfaced from 3xK Tech GmbH’s infrastructure in a concentrated burst. This event generated about 2.3 million sessions using identical TCP and JA4t indicators, with the majority of the traffic coming from IP addresses located in Germany.

In the present, GreyNoise is highly confident that both phases of activity are associated with a single threat actor. It has now been reported that fingerprints of the attackers have reapplied on December 3, this time in probing attempts against SonicWall's SonicOS API, suggesting more than a product-specific reconnaissance campaign, but a more general reconnaissance sweep across widely deployed perimeter technologies. According to security analysts, GlobalProtect remains a high-profile target because of its deep penetration into enterprise networks and its history of high-impact vulnerabilities.

It is important to note, however, that CVE-2024-3400 is still affecting unremedied systems despite being patched in April 2024 with a 9.8 rating due to a critical command-injection flaw, CVE-2024-3400. During recent attacks, malicious actors have used pre-authentication access as a tool for enumerating endpoints, brute-forcing credentials, and deploying malware to persist by exploiting misconfigurations that allow pre-authentication access, such as exposed administrative portals and unchanged default credentials.

They have also developed custom tools modeled on well-known exploitation frameworks. Although researchers caution that no definitive attribution has been established for the current surge of activity, Mandiant has observed the same methods being used by Chinese state-related groups like UNC4841 in operations linked to those groups. A number of indicators of confirmed intrusions have included sudden spikes in UDP traffic to port 4501, followed by HTTP requests to "/global-protect/login.urd," from which attackers have harvested session tokens and gotten deeper into victim environments by harvesting session tokens.

According to a Palo Alto Networks advisory dated December 5, administrators are urged to harden exposed portals with multi-factor authentication, tighten firewall restrictions, and install all outstanding patches, but noted that properly configured deployments remain resilient despite the increased scrutiny. Since then, CISA has made it clear that appropriate indicators have been added to its Catalog of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities and that federal agencies must fix any issues within 72 hours.

The latest surge in malicious attacks represents a stark reminder of how quickly opportunistic reconnaissance can escalate into compromise when foundational controls are neglected, so organizations should prepare for the possibility of follow-on attacks. Security experts have highlighted that these recent incidents serve as a warning to organizations about potential follow-on attacks. A number of security experts advise organizations to adopt a more disciplined hardening strategy rather than rely on reactive patching, which includes monitoring the attack surface continuously, checking identity policies regularly, and segmenting all remote access paths as strictly as possible.

According to analysts, defenders could also benefit from closer alignment between security operations teams and network administrators in order to keep an eye on anomalous traffic spikes or repeated fingerprint patterns and escalate them before they become operationally relevant. Researchers demonstrate the importance of sharing indicators early and widely, particularly among organizations that operate internet-facing VPN frameworks, as attackers have become increasingly adept at recycling infrastructure, tooling, and products across many different product families.

Even though GlobalProtect and similar platforms are generally secure if they are configured correctly, recent scan activity highlights a broader truth that is not obvious. In order to remain resilient to adversaries who are intent on exploiting even the slightest crack in perimeter defenses, sustained vigilance, timely remediation, and a culture of proactive security hygiene remain the most effective barriers.

Balancing Rapid Innovation and Risk in the New Era of SaaS Security

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Threat Intelligence

agentic AI AI Risk Management Cloud Governance Cyber defense Cyber Security Data Resilience Identity Protection SaaS security security automation Threat Intelligence

Balancing Rapid Innovation and Risk in the New Era of SaaS Security

The accelerating pace of technological innovation is leaving a growing number of organizations unwittingly exposing their organization to serious security risks as they expand their reliance on SaaS platforms and experiment with emerging agent-based AI algorithms in an effort to thrive in the age of digital disruption. Businesses are increasingly embracing cloud-based services to deliver enterprise software to their employees at breakneck speed.

With this shift toward cloud-delivered services, it has become necessary for them to adopt new features at breakneck speed-often without pausing to implement, or even evaluate, the basic safeguards necessary to protect sensitive corporate information. There has been an unchecked acceleration of the pace of adoption of SaaS, creating a widening security gap that has renewed the urgent need for action from the Information Security community to those who are responsible for managing SaaS ecosystems.

Despite the fact that frameworks such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) have served as a guide for InfoSec professionals for many years, many SaaS teams are only now beginning to use its rigorously defined functions—Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover—particularly considering that NIST 2.0 emphasizes identity as the cornerstone of cyber defenses in a manner unparalleled to previous versions.

Silverfort's identity-security approach is one of many new approaches emerging to help organizations meet these ever-evolving standards against this backdrop, allowing them to extend MFA to vulnerable systems, monitor lateral movements in real-time, and enforce adaptive controls more accurately. All of these developments are indicative of a critical moment for enterprises in which they need to balance relentless innovation with uncompromising security in a SaaS-driven, AI-driven world that is increasingly moving towards a SaaS-first model.

The enterprise SaaS architecture is evolving into expansive, distributed ecosystems built on a multitenant infrastructure, microservices, and an ever-expanding web of open APIs, keeping up with the sheer scale and fluidity of modern operations is becoming increasingly difficult for traditional security models.

The increasing complexity within an organization has led to enterprises focusing more on intelligent and autonomous security measures, making use of behavioral analytics, anomaly detection, and artificial intelligence-driven monitoring to identify threats much in advance of them becoming active.

As opposed to conventional signature-based tools, advanced systems can detect subtle deviations from user behavior in real-time, neutralize risks that would otherwise remain undetected, and map user behavior in a way that will never be seen in the future. Innovators in the SaaS security space, such as HashRoot, are leading the way by integrating AI into the core of SaaS security workflows.

A combination of predictive analytics and intelligent misconfiguration detection in HashRoot's AI Transformation Services can be used to improve aging infrastructures, enhance security postures, and construct proactive defense mechanisms that can keep up with the evolving threat landscape of 2025 and the unpredictable threats ahead of us.

During the past two years, there has been a rapid growth in the adoption of artificial intelligence within enterprise software, which has drastically transformed the SaaS landscape at a rapid pace. According to new research, 99.7 percent of businesses rely on applications with AI capabilities built into them, which demonstrates how the technology is proven to boost efficiency and speed up decision-making for businesses.

There is a growing awareness that the use of AI-enhanced SaaS tools is becoming increasingly common in the workplace, and that these systems have become increasingly integrated in every aspect of the work process. However, as organizations begin to grapple with the sweeping integration of AI into their businesses, a whole new set of risks emerge.

As one of the most pressing concerns arises, a loss of control of sensitive information and intellectual property is a significant concern, raising complex concerns about confidentiality and governance, as well as long-term competitive exposure, as AI models often consume sensitive data and intellectual property.

Meanwhile, the threat landscape is shifting as malicious actors are deploying sophisticated impersonator applications to mimic legitimate SaaS platforms in an attempt to trick users into granting them access to confidential corporate data through impersonation applications. It is even more challenging because AI-related vulnerabilities are traditionally identified and responded to manually—an approach which requires significant resources as well as slowing down the speed at which fast-evolving threats can be countered.

Due to the growing reliance on cloud-based AI-driven software as a service, there has never been a greater need for automated, intelligent security mechanisms. It is also becoming increasingly apparent to CISOs and IT teams that disciplined SaaS configuration management is a critical priority. This is in line with CSF's Protect function under Platform Security, which has a strong alignment with the CSF's Protect function. In the recent past, organizations were forced to realize that they cannot rely solely on cloud vendors for secure operation.

A significant share of cloud-related incidents can be traced back to preventable misconfigurations. Modern risk governance has become increasingly reliant on establishing clear configuration baselines and ensuring visibility across multiple platforms. While centralized tools can simplify oversight, there are no single solutions that can cover the full spectrum of configuration challenges. As a result of the recent development of multi-SaaS management systems, native platform controls and the judgment of skilled security professionals working within the defense-in-depth model, effective protection has become increasingly important.

It is important to recognize that SaaS security is never static, so continuous monitoring is indispensable to protect against persistent threats such as authorized changes, accidental modifications, and gradual drifts from baseline security. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Agentic AI is playing a transformative role here.

By detecting configuration drift at scale, correcting excessive permissions, and maintaining secure settings at a pace that humans alone can never match, it has begun to play a transformative role. In spite of this, configuration and identity controls are not all that it takes to secure an organization. Many organizations continue to rely on what is referred to as an “M&M security model” – a hardened outer shell with a soft, vulnerable center.

Once a valid user credential or API key is compromised, an attacker may be able to pass through perimeter defenses and access sensitive data without getting into the system. A strong SaaS data governance model based on the principles of identifying, protecting, and recovering critical information, including SaaS data governance, is essential to overcoming these challenges. This effort relies on accurate classification of data, which ensures that high-value assets are protected from unauthorised access, field level encryption, and adequate protection when they are copied into environments that are of lower security.

There is now a critical role that automated data masking plays in preventing production data from being leaked into these environments, where security controls are often weak and third parties often have access to the data. In order to ensure compliance with evolving privacy regulations when personal information is used in testing, the same level of oversight is required as it is with production data. This evaluation must also be repeated periodically as policies and administrative practices change in the future.

Within SaaS ecosystems, it is equally important to ensure that data is maintained in a manner that is both accurate and available. Although the NIST CSF emphasizes the need to implement a backup strategy that preserves data, allows precise recovery, and maintains uninterrupted operation, the service provider is responsible for maintaining the reliability of the underlying infrastructure.

Modern SaaS environments require the ability to recover only the affected data without causing a lot of disruption, as opposed to traditional enterprise IT, which often relies on broad rollbacks to previous system states. It is crucial to maintain continuity in an enterprise-like environment by using granular resilience, especially because in order for agentic AI systems to function effectively and securely, they must have accurate, up-to-date information.

Together, these measures demonstrate that safeguarding SaaS environments has evolved into a challenging multidimensional task - one that requires continuous coordination between technology teams, information security leaders, and risk committees in order to ensure that innovation can take place in a secure and scalable manner.

Organizations are increasingly relying on cloud applications to conduct business, which means that SaaS risk management is becoming a significant challenge for security vendors hoping to meet the demands of enterprises. Businesses nowadays need more than simple discovery tools that identify which applications are being used to determine which application is being used.

There is a growing expectation that platforms will be able to classify SaaS tools accurately, assess their security postures, and take into consideration the rapidly growing presence of artificial intelligence assistants, large language model-based applications, which are now able to operate independently across corporate environments, as well as the growing presence of AI assistants. A shift in SaaS intelligence has led to the need for enriched SaaS intelligence, an advanced level of insight that allows vendors to provide services that go beyond basic visibility.

The ability to incorporate detailed application classification, function-level profiling, dynamic risk scoring, and the detection of shadow SaaS and unmanaged AI-driven services can provide security providers with a more comprehensive, relevant and accurate platform that will enable a more accurate assessment of an organization's risks.

Vendors that are able to integrate enriched SaaS application insights into their architectures will be at an advantage in the future. Vendors that are able to do this will be able to gain a competitive edge as they begin to address the next generation of SaaS and AI-related risks. Businesses can close persistent blind spots by using enriched SaaS application insights into their architectures.

In an increasingly artificial intelligence-enabled world, which will essentially become a machine learning-enabled future, it will be the ability of platforms to anticipate emerging vulnerabilities, rather than just responding to them, that will determine which platforms will remain trusted partners in safeguarding enterprise ecosystems in the future.

A company's path forward will ultimately be shaped by its ability to embrace security as a strategic enabler rather than a roadblock to innovation. Using continuous monitoring, identity-centric controls, SaaS-enhanced intelligence, and AI-driven automation as a part of its operational fabric, enterprises are able to modernize at a speed without compromising trust or resilience in their organizations.

It is imperative that companies that invest now, strengthening governance, enforcing data discipline, and demanding greater transparency from vendors, will have the greatest opportunity to take full advantage of SaaS and agentic AI, while also navigating the risks associated with an increasingly volatile digital future.

GlobalLogic Moves to Protect Workforce After Oracle-related Data Theft

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Vulnerability Exploit

Clop Group Cybersecurity Breach Data Breach Enterprise security GlobalLogic Incident response Oracle Zero-Day Ransomware attack SQL Threat Intelligence Vulnerability Exploit

GlobalLogic Moves to Protect Workforce After Oracle-related Data Theft

A new disclosure that underscores the increasing sophistication of enterprise-level cyberattacks underscores the need to take proactive measures against them. GlobalLogic has begun notifying more than ten thousand of its current and former employees that their personal information was compromised as a result of a security breach connected to an Oracle E-Business Suite zero-day flaw.

An engineering services firm headquartered in the United States, owned by Hitachi, announced the breach to regulators after determining that an unknown attacker exploited an unpatched vulnerability in the Oracle platform, the core platform used to manage finance, human resources, and operational processes at the company, so that sensitive data belonging to 10,000 employees was stolen.

The Maine Attorney General's office reported to the Maine State Attorney General that attackers had infiltrated GlobalLogic's environment with an advanced SQL-injection chain mapped to MITRE techniques T1190 and T1040, deploying a persistent backdoor through an Oracle Forms vulnerability, obtaining extensive employee data, including identification, contact information, passport information, tax and salary data, and bank account numbers, as well as extensive employee records.

The signs of compromise point to a coordinated data-extortion campaign in which privilege-escalation events were used to maintain prolonged access to data. Indicators like malicious IP ranges and rogue domains indicate that the attack was coordinated. In the aftermath of Oracle's security patches being released, GlobalLogic announced that an immediate investigation had been conducted, and the company is now urging the rapid implementation of vendor updates, enhanced logging, and temporary hardening measures in order to mitigate further risk.

With Hitachi's acquisition of the company in 2021, it has now served more than 600 enterprise clients around the world, and the company has officially reported the breach to California and Maine regulators, who confirmed that more than 10,500 current and former employees' personal information was exposed in the attack.

During GlobalLogic's investigation, it was discovered that the intrusion was a part of a larger campaign that was coordinated by the Clop ransomware group, which has been exploiting a zero-day flaw in Oracle's E-Business Suite since at least July in order to snare huge amounts of corporate information. There have been reports that several companies have been caught in this wave of attacks, and many are only aware of their compromise after they receive extortion emails from extortionists. Analysts are claiming that dozens of companies have been compromised.

It is reported by GlobalLogic that the company discovered the breach on October 9 but it was later discovered that the attackers gained access to the server on July 10, with the most recent malicious activity occurring on August 20 according to GlobalLogic's filings. Despite the fact that the incident was contained to the Oracle platform, the sheer amount of sensitive and high-level data stolen—from contact information to internal identifiers to passports to tax records to salary information to bank account numbers—does not make it easy for the severity of the attack to be noted.

A spokesperson for the company said that they immediately activated their incident response protocols, notified the law enforcement, and consulted external forensic experts after the zero-day exploit was discovered (CVE-2025-61882) was discovered, and that Oracle's patch for the vulnerability (CVE-2025-61882) was applied once it was released.

Security researchers later confirmed that Clop hacked numerous victims over a period of several months by exploiting multiple vulnerabilities within the same platform, demanding ransoms that often reached eight-figure sums. It has been reported that nearly 30 organizations are currently listed on Clop's website after a breach of their systems was discovered last week. If these organizations do not pay the restitution, they will face public exposure. The kind of information exposed in the GlobalLogic breach highlights how sophisticated the attackers were.

According to the company's disclosure, the stolen data was representative of a wide range of personal information that is typically kept in human resources systems, such as names, home addresses, telephone numbers, addresses for emergency contacts, and identifiers for internal employees.

There were a variety of individuals whose exposure to cyber attacks was far more in-depth and involved email addresses, dates and countries of birth, nationalities, passports, tax and national identification numbers such as Social Security details, salary information, and full banking credentials for their online banking accounts.

A ransomware group known as Clop has been associated with several high-profile Oracle EBS data theft operations, as well as adding major companies to its Tor-based leak site, including Harvard University, Envoy Air, and The Washington Post, whose stolen data is already available via torrent downloads from a number of sources. Despite the fact that GlobalLogic's information has not yet appeared on the leak portal, security analysts have said that the omission may be indicative of ongoing negotiations, or that a ransom has already been paid by the company.

The company spokesperson refused to comment on whether any demands were being addressed, but confirmed Clop has publicly claimed responsibility for the breach. Now that the gang is being questioned more closely by the U.S. authorities after previously exploiting Accellion FTA, GoAnywhere MFT, Cleo, and MOVEit Transfer in mass-scale data breaches, they are under greater scrutiny than ever before.

According to the State Department, there is a reward for intelligence that can be provided tying the group's operations to a foreign government worth up to $10 million. In light of this incident, industry officials are calling for improved patch management, proactive threat hunting, and tighter oversight of third-party platforms supporting critical business operations that are used by critical business units.

According to GlobalLogic's analyst, the company's experience shows just how quickly a single vulnerability can lead to widespread damage when exploited by highly coordinated ransomware groups, particularly if the vulnerability has not yet been patched.

Despite continuing to investigate Clop's broader campaign, experts urge organizations to adopt continuous monitoring, strengthen vendor risk controls, and prepare for the likelihood that they will be the victim of future zero day exploits in the following years, as the modern enterprise threat landscape is now characterized by zero-day threats.

ClickFix: The Silent Cyber Threat Tricking Families Worldwide

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Threat Intelligence

ClickFix Cyber Security Malicious Campaign Social Engineering Threat Intelligence

ClickFix: The Silent Cyber Threat Tricking Families Worldwide

ClickFix has emerged as one of the most pervasive and dangerous cybersecurity threats in 2025, yet remains largely unknown to the average user and even many IT professionals. This social engineering technique manipulates users into executing malicious scripts—often just a single line of code—by tricking them with fake error messages, CAPTCHA prompts, or fraudulent browser update alerts.

The attack exploits the natural human desire to fix technical problems, bypassing most endpoint protections and affecting Windows, macOS, and Linux systems. ClickFix campaign typically begin when a victim encounters a legitimate-looking message urging them to run a script or command, often on compromised or spoofed websites.

Once executed, the script connects the victim’s device to a server controlled by attackers, allowing stealthy installation of malware such as credential stealers (e.g., Lumma Stealer, SnakeStealer), remote access trojans (RATs), ransomware, cryptominers, and even nation-state-aligned malware. The technique is highly effective because it leverages “living off the land” binaries, which are legitimate system tools, making detection difficult for security software.

ClickFix attacks have surged by over 500% in 2025, accounting for nearly 8% of all blocked attacks and ranking as the second most common attack vector after traditional phishing. Threat actors are now selling ClickFix builders to automate the creation of weaponized landing pages, further accelerating the spread of these attacks. Victims are often ordinary users, including families, who may lack the technical knowledge to distinguish legitimate error messages from malicious ones.

The real-world impact of ClickFix is extensive: it enables attackers to steal sensitive information, hijack browser sessions, install malicious extensions, and even execute ransomware attacks. Cybersecurity firms and agencies are urging users to exercise caution with prompts to run scripts and to verify the authenticity of error messages before taking any action. Proactive human risk management and user education are essential to mitigate the threat posed by ClickFix and similar social engineering tactics.

Continuous Incident Response Is Redefining Cybersecurity Strategy

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Threat Intelligence

Cloud Security continuous monitoring Cyber Security Cybersecurity Endpoint Defense Incident response ransomware protection Risk Management SOC Operations Threat Intelligence

Continuous Incident Response Is Redefining Cybersecurity Strategy

With organizations now faced with relentless digital exposure, continuous security monitoring has become an operational necessity instead of a best practice, as organizations navigate an era where digital exposure is ubiquitous. In 2024, cyber-attacks will increase by nearly 30%, with the average enterprise having to deal with over 1,600 attempted intrusions a week, with the financial impact of a data breach regularly rising into six figures.

Even so, the real crisis extends well beyond the rising level of threats. In the past, cybersecurity strategies relied on a familiar formula—detect quickly, respond promptly, recover quickly—but that cadence no longer suffices in an environment that is characterized by adversaries automating reconnaissance, exploiting cloud misconfiguration within minutes, and weaponizing legitimate tools so that they can move laterally far faster than human analysts are able to react.

There has been a growing gap between what organizations can see and the ability to act as the result of successive waves of innovation, from EDR to XDR, as a result of which they have widened visibility across sprawling digital estates. The security operations center is already facing unprecedented complexity. Despite the fact that security operations teams juggle dozens of tools and struggle with floods of alerts that require manual validation, organisations are unable to act as quickly as they should.

A recent accelerated disconnect between risk and security is transforming how security leaders understand risks and forcing them to face a difficult truth: visibility without speed is no longer an effective defence. When examining the threat patterns defining the year 2024, it becomes more apparent why this shift is necessary. According to security firms, attackers are increasingly using stealthy, fileless techniques to steal from their victims, with nearly four out of five detections categorised as malware-free today, with the majority of attacks classified as malware-free.

As a result, ransomware activity has continued to climb steeply upward, rising by more than 80% on a year-over-year basis and striking small and midsized businesses the most disproportionately, accounting for approximately 70% of all recorded incidents. In recent years, phishing campaigns have become increasingly aggressive, with some vectors experiencing unprecedented spikes - some exceeding 1,200% - as adversaries use artificial intelligence to bypass human judgment.

A number of SMBs remain structurally unprepared in spite of these pressures, with the majority acknowledging that they have become preferred targets, but three out of four of them continue to use informal or internally managed security measures. These risks are compounded by human error, which is responsible for an estimated 88% of reported cyber incidents.

There have been staggering financial consequences as well; in the past five years alone, the UK has suffered losses of more than £44 billion, resulting in both immediate disruption and long-term revenue losses. Due to this, the industry’s definition of continuous cybersecurity is now much broader than periodic audits.

It is necessary to maintain continuous threat monitoring, proactive vulnerability and exposure management, disciplined identity governance, sustained employee awareness programs, regularly tested incident response playbooks, and ongoing compliance monitoring—a posture which emphasizes continuous evaluation rather than reactive control as part of an operational strategy. Increasingly complex digital estates are creating unpredictable cyber risks, which are making continuous monitoring an essential part of modern defence strategies.

Continuous monitoring is a real time monitoring system that scans systems, networks, and cloud environments in real time, in order to detect early signs of misconfiguration, compromise, or operational drift. In contrast to periodic checks which operate on a fixed schedule and leave long periods of exposure, continuous monitoring operates in real time.

The approach outlined above aligns closely with the NIST guidance, which urges organizations to set up an adaptive monitoring strategy capable of ingesting a variety of data streams, analysing emerging vulnerabilities, and generating timely alerts for security teams to take action. Using continuous monitoring, organizations can discover latent weaknesses that are contributing to their overall cyber posture.

Continuous monitoring reduces the frequency and severity of incidents, eases the burden on security personnel, and helps them meet increasing regulatory demands. Even so, maintaining such a level of vigilance remains a challenge, especially for small businesses that lack the resources, expertise, and tooling to operate around the clock in order to stay on top of their game.

The majority of organizations therefore turn to external service providers in order to achieve the scalability and economic viability of continuous monitoring. Typically, effective continuous monitoring programs include four key components: a monitoring engine, analytics that can be used to identify anomalies and trends on a large scale, a dashboard that shows key risk indicators in real time, and an alerting system to ensure that emerging issues are quickly addressed by the appropriate staff.

With the help of automation, security teams are now able to process a great deal of telemetry in a timely and accurate manner, replacing outdated or incomplete snapshots with live visibility into organisational risk, enabling them to respond successfully in a highly dynamic threat environment.

Continuous monitoring can take on a variety of forms, depending on the asset in focus, including endpoint monitoring, network traffic analysis, application performance tracking, cloud and container observability, etc., all of which provide an important layer of protection against attacks as they spread across every aspect of the digital infrastructure.

It has also been shown that the dissolution of traditional network perimeters is a key contributor to the push toward continuous response. In the current world of cloud-based workloads, SaaS-based ecosystems, and remote endpoints, security architectures mustwork as flexible and modular systems capable of correlating telemetrics between email, DNS, identity, network, and endpoint layers, without necessarily creating new silos within the architecture.

Three operational priorities are usually emphasized by organizations moving in this direction: deep integration to keep unified visibility, automation to handle routine containment at machine speed and validation practices, such as breach simulations and posture tests, to ensure that defence systems behave as they should. It has become increasingly common for managed security services to adopt these principles, and this is why more organizations are adopting them.

909Protect, for instance, is an example of a product that provides rapid, coordinated containment across hybrid environments through the use of automated detection coupled with continuous human oversight. In such platforms, the signals from various security vectors are correlated, and they are layered on top of existing tools with behavioural analysis, posture assessment and identity safeguards in order to ensure that no critical alert goes unnoticed while still maintaining established investments.

In addition to this shift, there is a realignment among the industry as a whole toward systems that are built to be available continuously rather than undergoing episodic interventions. Cybersecurity has gone through countless “next generation” labels, but only those approaches which fundamentally alter the behavior of operations tend to endure, according to veteran analysts in the field. In addressing this underlying failure point, continuous incident response fits perfectly into this trajectory.

Organizations are rarely breached because they have no data, but rather because they do not act on it quickly enough or cohesively. As analysts argue, the path forward will be determined by the ability to combine automation, analytics, and human expertise into a single adaptive workflow that can be used in an organization's entirety.

There is no doubt that the organizations that are most likely to be able to withstand emerging threats in the foreseeable future will be those that approach security as a living, constantly changing system that is not only based on the visible, but also on the ability of the organization to detect, contain, and recover in real time from any threats as they arise.

In the end, the shift toward continuous incident response is a sign that cybersecurity resilience is more than just about speed anymore, but about endurance as well. Investing in unified visibility, disciplined automation, as well as persistent validation will not only ensure that the path from detection to containment is shortened, but that the operations remain stable over the longer term as well.

The advantage will go to those who treat security as an evolving ecosystem—one that is continually refined, coordinated across teams and committed to responding in a continuity similar to the attacks used by adversaries.

Digital Security Threat Escalates with Exposure of 1.3 Billion Passwords

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Zero Trust

Credential Stuffing Cybersecurity Breach Data Leak Digital Risk Malware Logs Password Security Privacy Stolen Credentials Threat Intelligence Zero Trust

Digital Security Threat Escalates with Exposure of 1.3 Billion Passwords

One of the starkest reminders of just how easily and widely digital risks can spread is the discovery of an extensive cache of exposed credentials, underscoring the persistent dangers associated with password reuse and the many breaches that go unnoticed by the public. Having recently clarified the false claims of a large-scale Gmail compromise in the wake of Google’s recent clarification, the cybersecurity community is once again faced with vast, attention-grabbing figures which are likely to create another round of confusion.

Approximately 2 billion emails were included in the newly discovered dataset, along with 1.3 billion unique passwords that were found in the dataset, and 625 million of them were not previously reported to the public breach repository. It has been emphasised that Troy Hunt, the founder of Have I Been Pwned, should not use sensationalism when discussing this discovery, as he stresses the importance of the disclosure.

It is important to note that Hunt noted that he dislikes hyperbolic news headlines about data breaches, but he stressed that in this case, it does not require exaggeration since the data speaks for itself. Initially, the Synthient dataset was interpreted as a breach of Gmail before it was clarified to reveal that it was actually a comprehensive collection gathered from stealer logs and multiple past breaches spanning over 32 million unique email domains, and that it was a comprehensive collection.

There's no wonder why Gmail appears more often than other email providers, as it is the world's largest email service provider. The collection, rather than a single event, represents a very extensive collection of compromised email and password pairs, which is exactly the kind of material that is used to generate credential-stuffing attacks, where criminals use recycled passwords to automate attempts to access their banking, shopping, and other online accounts.

In addition to highlighting the dangers associated with unpublicized or smaller breaches, this new discovery also underscores the danger that even high-profile breaches can pose when billions of exposed credentials are quietly redirected to attackers. This newly discovered cache is not simply the result of a single hack, but is the result of a massive aggregation of credentials gathered from earlier attacks, as well as malware information thieves' logs, which makes credential-based attacks much more effective.

A threat actor who exploits reused passwords will have the ability to move laterally between personal and corporate services, often turning a compromised login into an entry point into an increasingly extensive network. A growing number organisations are still dependent on password-only authentication, which poses a high risk to businesses due to the fact that exposed credentials make it much easier for attackers to target business systems, cloud platforms, and administrative accounts more effectively.

The experts emphasised the importance of adopting stronger access controls as soon as possible, including the generation of unique passwords by trusted managers, the implementation of universal two-factor authentication, and internal checks to identify credentials which have been reused or have previously been compromised.

For attackers to be able to weaponise these massive datasets, enterprises must also enforce zero-trust principles, implement least-privilege access, and deploy automated defences against credential-stuffing attempts. When a single email account is compromised, it can easily cascade into financial, cloud or corporate security breaches as email serves as the central hub for recovering accounts and accessing linked services.

Since billions of credentials are being circulated, it is clear that both individuals and businesses need to take a proactive approach to authentication, modernise security architecture, and treat every login as if it were a potential entry point for attackers. This dataset is also notable for its sheer magnitude, representing the largest collection of data Have I Been Pwned has ever taken on, nearly triple the volume of its previous collection.

As compiled by Synthient, a cybercriminal threat intelligence initiative run by a college student, the collection is drawn from numerous sources where stolen credentials are frequently published by cybercriminals. There are two highly volatile types of compromised data in this program: stealer logs gathered from malware on infected computers and large credential-stuffing lists compiled from earlier breaches, which are then combined, repackaged and traded repeatedly over the underground networks.

In order to process the material, HIBP had to use its Azure SQL Hyperscale environment at full capacity for almost two weeks, running 80 processing cores at full capacity. The integration effort was extremely challenging, as Troy Hunt described it as requiring extensive database optimisation to integrate the new records into a repository containing more than 15 billion credentials while maintaining uninterrupted service for millions of people every day.

In the current era of billions of credential pairs being circulated freely between attackers, researchers are warning that passwords alone do not provide much protection any more than they once did. One of the most striking results of this study was that of HIBP’s 5.9 million subscribers, or those who actively monitor their exposure, nearly 2.9 million appeared in the latest compilation of HIBP credentials. This underscores the widespread impact of credential-stuffing troves. The consequences are especially severe for the healthcare industry.

As IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report indicates, the average financial impact of a healthcare breach has increased to $7.42 million, and a successful credential attack on a medical employee may allow threat actors to access electronic health records, patient information, and systems containing protected health information with consequences that go far beyond financial loss and may have negative economic consequences as well.

There is a growing concern about the threat of credential exposure outpacing traditional security measures, so this study serves as a decisive reminder to modernise digital defences before attackers exploit these growing vulnerabilities. Organisations should be pushing for passwordless authentication, continuous monitoring, and adaptive risk-based access, while individuals should take a proactive approach to maintaining their credentials as an essential rather than an optional task.

Ultimately, one thing is clear: in a world where billions of credentials circulate unchecked, the key to resilience is to anticipate breaches by strengthening the architecture, optimising the authentication process and maintaining security awareness instead of reacting to them after a breach takes place.

Europe struggles with record-breaking spike in ransomware attacks

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Threat Intelligence

Cybercrime Ecosystem Cybersecurity Threats Data Breach European Cybersecurity Malware As A Service Network Security ransomware attacks State-Sponsored Attacks Threat Intelligence

Europe struggles with record-breaking spike in ransomware attacks

Europe is increasingly being targeted by ransomware groups, driving attacks to unprecedented levels as criminal operations become more industrialised and sophisticated. Threat actors have established themselves in this region as a prime hunting ground, and are now relying on a growing ecosystem of underground marketplaces that sell everything from Malware-as-a-Service subscriptions to stolen network access and turnkey phishing kits to Malware-as-a-Service subscriptions.

New findings from CrowdStrike's 2025 European Threat Landscape Report reveal that nearly 22 per cent of all ransomware and extortion incidents that occurred globally this year have involved European organisations. Accordingly, European organizations are more likely than those in Asia-Pacific to be targeted by cybercriminals than those in North America, placing them second only to North America.

According to these statistics, there is a troubling shift affecting Europe's public and private networks. An increasing threat model is being used by cybercriminals on the continent that makes it easier, cheaper, and quicker to attack their victims. This leaves thousands of victims of attacks increasingly sophisticated and financially motivated across the continent.

Throughout CrowdStrike's latest analysis, a clear picture emerges of just how heavily Europeans have been affected by ransomware and extortion attacks, with the continent managing to absorb over 22% of all global extortion and ransomware attacks. As stated in the report, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain are the most frequently targeted nations. It also notes that dedicated leak sites linked to European victims have increased by nearly 13% on an annual basis, a trend driven by groups such as Scattered Spider, a group that has shortened its attack-to-deployment window to a mere 24 hours from when the attack started.

According to the study, companies in the manufacturing, professional services, technology, industrial, engineering and retail industries are still the most heavily pursued sectors, as prominent gangs such as Akira, LockBit, RansomHub, INC, Lynx, and Sinobi continue to dominate the landscape, making big game hunting tactics, aimed at high-value enterprises, remain prevalent and have intensified throughout the continent as well.

It has been suggested in the study that because of the wide and lucrative corporate base of Europe, the complex regulatory and legal structure, and the geopolitical motivations of some threat actors, the region is a target for well-funded e-crime operations that are well-resourced. State-aligned threat activity continues to add an element of volatility to the already troubled cyber landscape of Europe.

In the past two years, Russian operators have intensified their operations against Ukraine, combining credential phishing with intelligence gathering and disrupting attacks targeted at the power grid, the government, the military, the energy grid, the telecommunications grid, the utility grid, and so forth. The North Koreans have, at the same time, expanded their reach to Europe, attacking defence, diplomatic, and financial institutions in operations that fuse classic espionage with cryptocurrency theft to finance their strategic projects.

Moreover, Chinese state-sponsored actors have been extorting valuable intellectual property from industries across eleven nations by exploiting cloud environments and software supply chains to siphon intellectual property from the nation that enables them to expand their footprint.

A number of these operations have demonstrated a sustained commitment to biotechnology and healthcare, while Vixen Panda is now considered one of the most persistent threats to European government and defence organisations, emphasising the degree to which state-backed intrusion campaigns are increasing the region's risk of infection.

There has been a dramatic acceleration in the speed at which ransomware attacks are being carried out in Europe, with CrowdStrike noting that groups such as Scattered Spider have reduced their ransomware deployment cycles to unprecedented levels, which has driven up the levels of infection. Through the group's efforts, the time between an initial intrusion and full encryption has been reduced from 35.5 hours in 2024 to roughly 24 hours by mid-2025, meaning that defenders are likely to have fewer chances to detect or contain intrusions.

Despite being actively under investigation by law enforcement agencies, eCrime actors based in Western countries, like the United States and the United Kingdom, are developing resilient criminal networks despite active scrutiny by law enforcement. The arrest of four individuals recently by the National Crime Agency in connection with attacks on major retailers, as well as the rearrest of the four individuals for involvement in a breach at Transport for London, underscores the persistence of these groups despite coordinated enforcement efforts.

In addition to this rapid operational tempo, cybercrime has also been transformed into a commodity-driven industry as a result of a thriving underground economy. The Russian- and English-speaking forums, together with encrypted messaging platforms, offer threat actors the opportunity to exchange access to tools, access points, and operational support with the efficiency of commercial storefronts.

A total of 260 initial access brokers were seen by investigators during the review period, advertising entry points into more than 1,400 European organizations during the review period. This effectively outsourced the initial stages of a breach to outside sources. Through subscription or affiliate models of malware-as-a-service, companies can offer ready-made loaders, stealers, and financial malware as a service, further lowering the barrier to entry.

It has been noted that even after major disruptions by law enforcement, including the seizure of prominent forums, many operators have continued to trade without interruption, thanks to safe-haven jurisdictions and established networks of trustworthiness. Aside from eCrime, the report highlights an increasingly complex threat environment caused by state-sponsored actors such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

Russian actors are concentrating their efforts on Ukraine, committing credential-phishing attacks, obtaining intelligence, and undertaking destructive activities targeting the military, government, energy, telecommunications, and utility sectors, and simultaneously conducting extensive espionage across NATO member countries.

For the purpose of providing plausible deniability, groups tied to Moscow have conducted extensive phishing campaigns, set up hundreds of spoofed domains, and even recruited "throwaway agents" through Telegram to carry out sabotage operations. As Iranian groups continued to conduct hack-and-leak, phishing, and DDoS attacks, often masking state intent behind hacktivist personas, their hack-and-leak campaigns branched into the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, and they stepped up their efforts.

With these converging nation-state operations, European institutions have been put under increased strategic pressure, adding an element of geopolitical complexity to an already overloaded cyber-defence environment. It is clear from the findings that for Europe to navigate this escalating threat landscape, a more unified and forward-leaning security posture is urgently needed. According to experts, traditional perimeter defences and slow incident response models are no longer adequate to deal with actors operating at an industrial speed, due to the rapid pace of technology.

Companies need to share regional intelligence, invest in continuous monitoring, and adopt AI-driven detection capabilities in order to narrow the attackers' widening advantage. Keeping up with the innovation and sophistication of criminal and state-backed adversaries is a difficult task for any organisation, but for organisations that fail to modernise their defences, they run the risk of being left defenceless in an increasingly unforgiving digital battlefield.

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Fix SOC Blind Spots: Real-Time Industry & Country Threat Visibility

CyberVolk Ransomware Fails to Gain Traction After Encryption Misstep

Emerging Predator Spyware Technique Enables Zero-Click Compromise

Palo Alto GlobalProtect Portals Face Spike in Suspicious Login Attempts

Balancing Rapid Innovation and Risk in the New Era of SaaS Security

GlobalLogic Moves to Protect Workforce After Oracle-related Data Theft

ClickFix: The Silent Cyber Threat Tricking Families Worldwide

Continuous Incident Response Is Redefining Cybersecurity Strategy

Digital Security Threat Escalates with Exposure of 1.3 Billion Passwords

Europe struggles with record-breaking spike in ransomware attacks

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