A reader comment (by ResearcherZero) on a Schneier on Security squid-blogging post alleges that an agent working for the Russian GRU carried out repeated "Havana Syndrome"-style attacks with an energy-emitting device against civilians in Perth, Western Australia, from the second half of the 1980s until 1992. The commenter claims the attac…
On October 8, the U.K. imposed economic sanctions on Cryptomus (formerly Certa Payments and Xeltox Enterprises, rebranded as Heleket) for processing payments that benefit the Russian government and its financial institutions. The sanctions also cover the virtual payment platforms VexPay, TokenSpot and Tsunami Payments. Experts describe Cr…
A Russian influence operation is reportedly targeting Latin America, with schools in Peru and Ecuador among the targets. According to Dark Reading, the operation used AI to support its activity. Its tactics included spoofed emails, fake government documents, and the creation of a local organization to give the campaign a domestic presence…
A 28-year-old Russian man, identified by German media only as "Vladimir K", has been arrested in Germany on suspicion of being a key member of the Qilin ransomware gang. He was first detained in Japan in May while on holiday and was extradited to Germany earlier this month. German investigators are examining possible links between him and…
GreyNoise reports that a single malicious cyber actor, tracked since 7 May 2026, is a suspected Chinese speaker working in UTC+8 and is the same as or related to Red Heron (reported by Acronis), based on the shared C2 domain, malware family, Gitea exploitation and other TTPs. The actor exploited the wp2shell WordPress chain (CVE-2026-6303…
A multinational advisory (CISA, NSA, FBI, AIVD, MIVD, NCSC-UK and others) warns that the Russian state-supported APT LAUNDRY BEAR (aka Void Blizzard, TA488) has compromised Western government, defense industrial base and NGO organizations running Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) since at least July 2025. The campaign uses a view-based XSS…
Kaspersky ICS CERT reports that in Q2 2026 malicious objects were blocked on 19.15% of ICS computers, the lowest level since 2022. Regional rates ranged from 8.1% in Northern Europe to 27.9% in Africa. East Asia saw the largest increase (+2.0 pp). The biometrics sector (26.44%) again led all industries. Kaspersky products blocked malware …
A reader comment (ResearcherZero) on Schneier on Security's squid-blogging post discusses Havana Syndrome (anomalous health incidents, AHI). It cites a 60 Minutes/CBS report that the U.S. government acquired a directed-energy weapon from a Russian criminal network and has tested it, reportedly on animals. The commenter claims that inciden…
X said it removed more than 13,000 accounts involved in three suspected foreign influence operations targeting US political debate ahead of the 3 November 2026 US midterm elections. The platform linked the operations to Iran, Russia and China. It said the networks used inauthentic accounts to post and amplify political content aimed at ca…
Qilin and Settra ransomware groups are actively exploiting CVE-2026-0257, an authentication bypass in PAN-OS GlobalProtect and Prisma Access disclosed in May 2026, according to ReliaQuest. Because access arrives through the victim's own VPN, it can resemble legitimate remote work and go unnoticed until credential theft, lateral movement, …
Symantec reports that the Russia-linked APT28 (aka Swallowtail, Fancy Bear, Forest Blizzard, BlueDelta), which the U.S. government links to the GRU, targeted organizations in two NATO member states. Victims were a naval shipbuilder, a manufacturer of military aircraft engines and a law enforcement agency (thehackernews.com, cyberscoop.com…
F5 Labs published research on SparkRAT, a freely available, Go-based open-source Remote Access Trojan with a C2 server and builds for Windows, Linux and macOS. Public reporting since January 2023 shows use by a widening set of actors: Chinese-speaking groups, Winnti (APT41), Patchwork, TAG-100, suspected UAC-0194 against Ukraine, and Cybe…
The FBI has publicly called on remaining ShinyHunters members to surrender. Cyber division assistant director Brett Leatherman released a video thanking Dutch police for arresting a 24-year-old in Amsterdam. The FBI calls him "one of the alleged leaders" of the group, while Dutch police say only that he played a role. He is also suspected…
This Foreign Affairs essay, co-written by Bruce Schneier and Seva Gunitsky, argues that AI offers autocrats two things: real-time monitoring of subordinates and replacement of human intermediaries. Examples include RT's AI-generated anchors, China's Zero Trust AI system and smart city oversight, Russia's Oculus censorship system and Melio…
TrendAI™ (Trend Micro) published its H1 2026 APT Activity Roundup on July 29, 2026. It finds nation-state actors used AI in more stages of the intrusion lifecycle than in any prior half-year the company has tracked. China-aligned actors used generative AI to refine exploits and iteratively build malware through "vibe coding", and one AI a…
Recorded Future's Insikt Group reports on TAG-193, a cluster that ran a sustained intelligence-collection campaign against government bodies from early 2025 through May 2026. Targets include diplomacy, economic development, agriculture and environmental agencies in Russia, Tajikistan, Belarus, Armenia and Uzbekistan. Lure documents and im…
A New Jersey court has ordered radaris.com and 13 other domains in the Radaris family of people-search sites transferred to Atlas Data Privacy Corp. The ruling came after the defendants repeatedly failed to appear and defend a suit alleging violations of Daniel's Law, which requires data brokers to remove personal information of law enfor…
Silent Lynx, tracked as UAT-6275 by Cisco Talos and TAG-193 by Recorded Future Insikt Group, has been linked to a new set of attacks on government organizations across the Commonwealth of Independent States. The activity ran from June 2025 through August 2026 and used four infection chains to deploy custom reverse shells (FoalShell, Chvos…
Kaspersky identified MovieReaper, a previously unknown modular, multi-stage crimeware framework distributed since mid-August 2026 through movie-themed torrents, including fake "The Odyssey (2026)" releases. Rather than compromising individual trackers, the actor modified the public torrent file repository itorrents.org, so trackers relyin…