The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued reprimands, not fines, to Ogi Networks Limited (ONL) and the Local Government Data Unit – Wales (Data Cymru) over a ransomware attack on 1 November 2024 (theregister.com, infosecurity-magazine.com). The intruder entered Data Cymru's network through a forgotten test account, Test2 (…
Robert Wayne Boling Jr., a 45-year-old US citizen living in Angeles City, Philippines, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, the US Department of Justice announced. Prosecutors call him the principal orchestrator of a scheme that used stolen PII to compromise bank accounts of thousands of US servicemember…
A Semperis survey, covered by HIPAA Journal, finds ransomware groups increasingly threatening victims' employees and their families as the share of victims paying ransoms falls from 78% in 2024 to 69% in 2025 and 59% in 2026. Of the attacks surveyed, 37% involved threats against friends or family of staff, and 41% of respondents said they…
The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued a reprimand and an enforcement notice to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) over governance failures in its use of the third-party Auror retail crime intelligence-sharing platform. Between March 2023 and September 2024, MPS officers and staff used Auror without formal approval, …
The Department of Justice announced 28 arrests across California on Monday under Operation Protect the Vote. The defendants are foreign nationals and permanent green card holders charged with fraudulently registering to vote and making false statements in naturalization applications. Officials say all 28 appear on a list of more than 20,0…
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…
Episode 488 of the Smashing Security podcast, hosted by Graham Cluley with guest Paul Ducklin, covers several recent security stories. The lead item is the arrest by the FBI of an executive at a ransomware negotiation firm, reportedly at a cybersecurity conference, in connection with the investigation into the ShinyHunters gang. The hosts…
A reader comment on Schneier on Security discusses the arrest of a suspect in a case involving the hacking of FBI systems. The comment cites Reuters reporting that the person involved was a contractor working for Accenture, and that the bureau says it has "removed the contractor" and taken steps to protect its workforce. The commenter, Cl…
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…
A Semperis annual ransomware risk report, covered by The Register, finds that 37% of ransomware attacks involved psychological or physical threats against victim staff. The survey covered 1,200 post-ransomware organizations in the first half of 2026. Respondents reported psychological intimidation (23%) and physical threats (17%), aimed a…
Unit 42 analyzed the operational environment of a previously unreported, financially motivated, English-speaking actor using the handle BUGSTER. The actor ran the Hermes Agent framework with DeepSeek V4 as its reasoning engine and the Cursor IDE as a secondary tool, with safety controls disabled in both. With AI-generated scripts and reco…
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), under Secretary Markwayne Mullin, has issued an order under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018 (FASCSA). It directs federal civilian agencies to stop buying and to remove products and services from Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd. and its affiliates. It a…
Rapid7's Q3 2026 threat landscape report finds that high-severity vulnerabilities were exploited an average of three days after disclosure, with 71% exploited within the first seven days. 79% of them are classed as 'holy grail' flaws, meaning remote and needing no credentials or user interaction. Ransomware remains the dominant threat. Th…
A BushidoToken journal entry reviews four 2026 UK prosecutions involving teenage offenders at the intersection of cybercrime and online extremism. In July 2026, Thalha Jubair (20) and Owen Flowers (18), part of the Scattered Spider collective, were each sentenced to five years and six months for the late August 2024 breach of Transport fo…
A 40-year-old Nigerian national, Chukwuemeka Victor Amachukwu, was sentenced to eight years in prison by a US federal court for a 2019-2023 scheme that combined hacking of US tax preparation businesses, filing of fraudulent tax returns and fake investment fraud. He used identities stolen from victim organizations to file false returns wit…
The FBI warns that scammers are likely to exploit the 2026 US Midterm Election to run financial fraud schemes against victims across the United States. The PSA updates alert I-102924-PSA from 29 October 2024. Scammers use candidates' names, images, logos and slogans to solicit fake campaign contributions, sell merchandise that is never de…
ESET's WeLiveSecurity warns that AI and large language models (LLMs) now automate OSINT reconnaissance at machine speed. Profiling that once took a skilled attacker hours or days can be done by low-skill actors, so ordinary internet users are now economically viable fraud targets. Fraudsters can collect public information at scale, includ…
Kenneth Carter, 44, of Portland, Oregon, a former AT&T retail store employee, was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison for acting as the inside man for a SIM-swap gang. According to his plea agreement, the scheme ran from May 2018 to November 2019 and involved at least three co-conspirators. Carter used privileged store access to move…
Authorities in North Macedonia have filed charges against the alleged administrator of OLVX, a cybercrime marketplace that sold stolen personal data, credentials and malicious tools from 2023 to 2025. The suspect is a 20-year-old North Macedonian national, identified only as "E.A.", and is charged with computer fraud, misuse of personal d…
A vehicle belonging to school photography firm Pret-a-Portrait was broken into overnight on 6-7 October, and a camera bag containing SD memory cards was stolen. The cards may hold photographs taken at Priory School in Lewes, UK, plus images of QR code cards showing pupils' names and class names. The same equipment was used for three furth…