Feds Tie ‘Scattered Spider’ Duo to $115M in Ransoms

U.S. prosecutors last week levied criminal hacking charges against 19-year-old U.K. national Thalha Jubair for allegedly being a core member of Scattered Spider , a prolific cybercrime group blamed for extorting at least $115 million in ransom payments from victims. The charges came as Jubair and...

Generative AI as a Cybercrime Assistant

Anthropic reports on a Claude user: We recently disrupted a sophisticated cybercriminal that used Claude Code to commit large-scale theft and extortion of personal data. The actor targeted at least 17 distinct organizations, including in healthcare, the emergency services, and government and...

Claude AI chatbot abused to launch “cybercrime spree”

Anthropic—the company behind the widely renowned coding chatbot, Claude—says it uncovered a large-scale extortion operation in which cybercriminals abused Claude to automate and orchestrate sophisticated attacks. The company issued a Threat Intelligence report in which it describes several...

U.S. Treasury Sanctions DPRK IT-Worker Scheme, Exposing $600K Crypto Transfers and $1M+ Profits

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC announced a fresh round of sanctions against two individuals and two entities for their role in the North Korean remote information technology IT worker scheme to generate illicit revenue for the regime's weapons of mass...

Storm-0501 Exploits Entra ID to Exfiltrate and Delete Azure Data in Hybrid Cloud Attacks

The financially motivated threat actor known as Storm-0501 has been observed refining its tactics to conduct data exfiltration and extortion attacks targeting cloud environments. "Unlike traditional on-premises ransomware, where the threat actor typically deploys malware to encrypt critical files...

Storm-0501’s evolving techniques lead to cloud-based ransomware

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed financially motivated threat actor Storm-0501 continuously evolving their campaigns to achieve sharpened focus on cloud-based tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs. While the threat actor has been known for targeting hybrid cloud environments, their...

New Ransomware Charon Uses Earth Baxia APT Techniques to Target Enterprises

We uncovered Charon, a new ransomware strainfamily that uses advanced APT-style techniques, including DLL sideloading, process injection, and anti-EDR capabilities, to target organizations with customized ransom demands...

New Ransomware Charon Uses Earth Baxia APT Techniques To Target Enterprises

We uncovered Charon, a new ransomware strainfamily that uses advanced APT-style techniques, including DLL sideloading, process injection, and anti-EDR capabilities, to target organizations with customized ransom demands...

Inside the Ransomware Economy in 2025: Q2 Trends & Key Insights You Need to Know

Building on insights from Rapid7’s Q1 and Q2 2025 ransomware trend reports, it’s clear that the ransomware economy continues to evolve – and not just in volume, but also in business maturity. As threat actors shift tactics, tools, and partnerships, defenders face a complex landscape shaped by...

Anubis Ransomware Encrypts and Wipes Files, Making Recovery Impossible Even After Payment

An emerging ransomware strain has been discovered incorporating capabilities to encrypt files as well as permanently erase them, a development that has been described as a "rare dual-threat." "The ransomware features a 'wipe mode,' which permanently erases files, rendering recovery impossible eve...

Iranian Hacker Pleads Guilty in $19 Million Robbinhood Ransomware Attack on Baltimore

An Iranian national has pleaded guilty in the U.S. over his involvement in an international ransomware and extortion scheme involving the Robbinhood ransomware. Sina Gholinejad aka Sina Ghaaf, 37, and his co-conspirators are said to have breached the computer networks of various organizations in...

FBI Warns of Silent Ransom Group Targeting Law Firms via Scam Calls

FBI warns law firms: Silent Ransom Group uses phishing emails and fake IT calls to steal data, demanding ransom to prevent public leaks. The agency is also urges victims to share ransom evidence...

CVE-2023-31221

Auth. admin+ Stored Cross-Site Scripting XSS vulnerability in Ransom Christofferson PDQ CSV plugin = 1.0.0 versions...

CVE-2023-42449

Hydra is the two-layer scalability solution for Cardano. Prior to version 0.13.0, it is possible for a malicious head initializer to extract one or more PTs for the head they are initializing due to incorrect data validation logic in the head token minting policy which then results in an flawed...

CVE-2019-14686

A DLL hijacking vulnerability exists in the Trend Micro Security's 2019 consumer family of products v15 Folder Shield component and the standalone Trend Micro Ransom Buster 1.0 tool in which, if exploited, would allow an attacker to load a malicious DLL, leading to elevated privileges...

LockBit Leak Shows Affiliates Use Pressure Tactics, Rarely Get Paid

Weeks after LockBit ransomware breach, leaked data reveals how affiliates generate ransomware, set ransom demands, and often walk away unpaid...

LLMs Unlock New Paths to Monetizing Exploits

We argue that Large language models LLMs will soon alter the economics of cyberattacks. Instead of attacking the most commonly used software and monetizing exploits by targeting the lowest common denominator among victims, LLMs enable adversaries to launch tailored attacks on a user-by-user basis...

Xoxo to Prague

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. I haven't been to Prague in a while, which is a pity. It's a wonderful city -- great people, amazing food. I've visited customers there, held team meetings at the local office shoutout to Petr! and spent some memorable summer days of...

Medusa Ransomware Claims NASCAR Breach in Latest Attack

Medusa ransomware hits NASCAR, demands $4M ransom, leaks internal files. Group also claims Bridgebank, McFarland, and Pulse Urgent Care...

VSCode Marketplace Removes Two Extensions Deploying Early-Stage Ransomware

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered two malicious extensions in the Visual Studio Code VSCode Marketplace that are designed to deploy ransomware that's under development to its users. The extensions, named "ahban.shiba" and "ahban.cychelloworld," have since been taken down by the marketplace...