Extortion

AI is not fundamentally changing adversary capabilities but is compressing attack timelines, lowering operational costs, and scaling existing tactics. Breakout times have dropped to an average of 29 minutes, with AI-enabled operations increasing 89% year-on-year. The most significant emerging threats are runtime-LLM malware (PROMPTSTEAL/LAMEHUG, QUIETVAULT) that query language models during execution, and agentic AI operations (GTG-1002) where AI agents conduct multi-stage intrusions with minimal human steering. Defenders face a dual pressure: faster attacks and an expanding attack surface from AI supply-chain dependencies.

2026-07-0111 minCheck Pointhigh

This weekly threat intelligence bulletin highlights multiple active exploitation campaigns targeting network infrastructure (Cisco SD-WAN, Ubiquiti UniFi OS, FortiGate firewalls) and AI platforms (Dify, Langflow), alongside supply chain attacks against Polymarket and AI agent ecosystems. Notable emerging threats include EvilTokens phishing-as-a-service abusing device-code authentication for M365 token theft, the FortiBleed campaign converting 430,000+ firewalls into credential stealers, and Turla's StockStay espionage malware targeting Ukrainian entities. Cloud extortion group FulcrumSec and the DCloud Uni-App fraud framework (236,493+ scam domains) represent additional significant threats requiring defensive attention.

2026-06-126 minMandiantcritical

Mandiant and Google Threat Intelligence Group identified an active extortion campaign by UNC6240 (ShinyHunters) exploiting CVE-2026-35273, a critical zero-day RCE vulnerability in Oracle PeopleSoft. The threat actors targeted the higher education sector, deploying customized MeshCentral agents for C2 and utilizing custom scripts for lateral movement, defacement, and data exfiltration.

2026-06-057 minMandianthigh

The financially motivated threat cluster UNC3753 is conducting a fast-paced data theft and extortion campaign against US legal and professional services. The group leverages vishing and IT helpdesk impersonation to trick targets into installing legitimate RMM and screen-sharing tools, enabling rapid data exfiltration from corporate repositories and VDI environments. Notably, the campaign also involves suspected physical intrusions where actors use USB media to steal data directly from endpoints.

2026-05-266 minHuntresshigh

Cybercriminals are shifting from traditional credential theft to session hijacking using infostealer malware, allowing them to bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA). By harvesting and replaying valid session tokens using automated tools, attackers gain rapid, stealthy access to corporate environments, which is then often monetized by Initial Access Brokers.

Threat actors are executing account takeover campaigns by distributing malware disguised as video games via compromised Discord accounts. Upon gaining initial access to a victim's Google account, attackers abuse the Family Link parental control feature by changing the victim's age to under 13 and assigning a malicious parent account. This allows the attackers to reset the password, bypass 2-Step Verification, lock the legitimate user out completely, and demand a ransom for account recovery.

2026-05-156 minMandianthigh

UNC6671, operating under the BlackFile brand, conducts sophisticated vishing and Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) attacks to bypass MFA and compromise SSO platforms like Microsoft 365 and Okta. Once inside, the group uses automated Python and PowerShell scripts to rapidly exfiltrate sensitive data via APIs, often masking their activity as routine file access events, before launching aggressive extortion campaigns.

2026-05-155 minCrowdStrikehigh

The CrowdStrike 2026 Financial Services Threat Landscape Report highlights a 43% global increase in hands-on-keyboard intrusions against the financial sector. The threat landscape is dominated by eCrime ransomware operations, DPRK-nexus cryptocurrency theft via supply chain compromises, and China-nexus intelligence collection leveraging Operational Relay Box (ORB) networks and DLL search-order hijacking.

2026-05-134 minVaroniscritical

The threat group ShinyHunters compromised Instructure's Canvas learning management system, likely via voice phishing (vishing) targeting their interconnected Salesforce environment. The breach resulted in the theft of 3.65 TB of sensitive data affecting 275 million users, which the actors are now leveraging in an active extortion campaign and which poses a severe downstream phishing risk.

2026-05-134 minCrowdStrikehigh

CORDIAL SPIDER and SNARKY SPIDER are executing rapid, SaaS-centric data theft and extortion campaigns by leveraging vishing and AiTM phishing pages. By capturing session tokens and authentication data, these actors bypass traditional endpoint defenses and pivot directly into SSO-integrated SaaS environments via the organization's Identity Provider (IdP).

2026-05-136 minSocketcritical

The popular PyPI package 'lightning' was compromised in a supply chain attack affecting versions 2.6.2 and 2.6.3. The malicious package executes an obfuscated JavaScript payload via the Bun runtime to harvest cloud and developer credentials, poison GitHub repositories by impersonating Anthropic's Claude Code, and infect local npm packages.

2026-05-134 minMandianthigh

In 2025, Germany became the primary focus for cyber extortion in Europe, experiencing a 92% surge in data leak site victims. The disruption of major ransomware cartels has given rise to agile mid-tier groups like SAFEPAY and Qilin, who are heavily targeting the German Mittelstand (SMEs) and critical supply chain sectors such as manufacturing and professional services.

2026-05-136 minCheck Pointhigh

Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) affiliated threat actors, including Void Manticore and MuddyWater, are increasingly integrating cybercriminal tools, infrastructure, and affiliate models into their operations. This strategic shift, which includes the use of commercial infostealers like Rhadamanthys and RaaS platforms like Qilin, enhances their operational capabilities while complicating attribution efforts.