An unauthorized party used a compromised login credential to access a file transfer (SFTP) site belonging to Educational Testing Service (ETS) and copy files containing California public school student data, according to the California Department of Education (CDE). ETS supports the state's CAASPP and ELPAC assessment programs. Access occ…
Huntress explains the compliance obligations of Texas law HB 3834, passed in June 2019. It requires state agency and local government employees, and state contractors, to complete a Department of Information Resources (DIR)-certified cybersecurity awareness training every year. Since September 1, 2025, HB 3512 adds a second annual require…
GreyNoise reports that on 31 August 2026 a likely Russian-speaking malicious cyber actor used 45.142.193.132 and AI to develop, test and deploy exploits for PaperCut NG/MF (CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078). Using hundreds of AI agents built on OpenAI's Codex harness, a DeepSeek model and public offensive security tools, the actor compro…
ESET warns that QR-code phishing ("quishing") is a growing way to slip past corporate email security. According to the ESET Threat Report H1 2026, malicious QR codes were embedded in 11% of all phishing emails in the first half of 2026. The codes hide destination URLs from filters that cannot extract and inspect them, and they move the vi…
A supply chain campaign tracked as UNC7017 hijacked the update infrastructure of AOMEI Technology between April and July 2026 to distribute the CROSSROAD downloader and the SHINYROAD backdoor through AOMEI Backupper and AnyViewer update workflows. The attackers tampered with server configurations only briefly, then restored legitimate con…
Between May and July 2026, attackers tracked by Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) as UNC7017 altered files on AOMEI's own update servers for windows of 5 to 10 minutes. Any copy of AOMEI Backupper that checked for updates during a window downloaded and ran a backdoor. GTIG, Mandiant and ManageEngine's Threat Analysis Lab disclosed t…
The US State Department is offering up to US $10 million through Rewards for Justice for information on Zhang Yu, 44, a Chinese national accused of being a key figure in the state-sponsored group Hafnium (also tracked as Silk Typhoon). Zhang is described as a director at Shanghai Firetech Information Science and Technology, working under …
Huntress published an explainer on business email compromise (BEC), a targeted form of phishing in which attackers impersonate or take over trusted email accounts to redirect payments or steal credentials. The article cites roughly $55 billion in worldwide losses and a Huntress survey of 500+ US IT professionals, in which 36% of organizat…
Federal investigators examining ShinyHunters have uncovered potential links between the extortion group and executives at two ransomware negotiation firms, according to a KrebsOnSecurity report published on October 19. An executive at an unnamed U.S. consulting firm (reportedly 1,000+ employees) allegedly helped operate the group's extort…
U.S. federal investigators pursuing ShinyHunters, which recently stole sensitive personnel data from the FBI recruitment site fbijobs.gov, reportedly identified executives at two ransomware negotiation firms with unusually close ties to the group. One U.S. consulting firm executive is suspected of helping operate the now-defunct extortion…
This SentinelOne weekly roundup (Week 39, 2026) covers one law enforcement success and two active threat campaigns. A US court sentenced Armenian national Karen Serobovich Vardanyan ("Maneeken"/"Karl Lagerfeld"), an initial access specialist for Ryuk ransomware, to two years in prison and over $1.2 million in restitution. SentinelLABS ide…