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…
The FBI arrested a Canadian cybersecurity executive in Pennsylvania on October 8, 2026, in connection with its investigation into the ShinyHunters extortion group. Court records point to Edward Dubrovsky, a ransomware negotiation specialist formerly of Cypfer and now associated with CyberSteward. He faces charges of conspiracy to threaten…
In August 2026, healthcare and pharmaceutical company McKesson was targeted in a ShinyHunters "pay or leak" extortion campaign. The group published a substantial corpus of data allegedly taken from the company, including 6.4M unique email addresses alongside other personal and corporate attributes. The data relates to marketing campaign r…
Troy Hunt of Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) analysed the leak that ShinyHunters attributed to Carhartt. The leak was claimed to hold more than 50 GB of customer and employee records. The initial extraction showed 24,876,077 unique email addresses. Closer review showed that a large share came from the TPC-DS benchmark dataset (tpcdssf1000) store…
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…
In August 2026, French intellectual property software and services company Questel was targeted in a ShinyHunters "pay or leak" extortion campaign. The group published a large corpus of data it claimed to have taken from the company. The data is largely corporate contact information tied to sales leads, support cases and marketing activit…
In August 2026, the digital health company Sharecare was targeted in a ShinyHunters "pay or leak" extortion campaign. The group subsequently published data it claimed was taken from Sharecare's systems, containing 318k unique email addresses. Most of the data consists of B2B sales and marketing records, including names, physical addresses…
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…
This SentinelOne weekly roundup covers law enforcement wins and two major breaches. A federal court sentenced former U.S. Army soldier Cameron John Wagenius to 70 months for attacks on technology and telecom firms, and former U.S. Air Force members Chijioke Timothy Odimegwu and Harafat Mogaji received a combined 189 months for business em…
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…
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…
Dutch authorities arrested a 24-year-old, reportedly Pepijn van der Stap (alias "Umbreon"), around Sept. 16, 2026 on suspicion of aiding data thefts and extortions by ShinyHunters. Van der Stap was previously convicted in 2023 for data theft and extortion. Days after the arrest, remaining ShinyHunters members escalated, breaching the FBI …