credential theft22 articles
Hirudo Trojan Swaps Out Your Banking App With a Fake One That Passes Its Own Security Checks
Hirudo is a newly identified Android banking trojan that replaces legitimate banking apps with tampered versions engineered to bypass the apps' own internal security checks, including signature verification, accessibility detection, and Play Integrity. Delivered through dropper apps disguised as shopping, entertainment, or adult video platforms — and promoted via fake Google Play pages advertised on Meta platforms — the malware targets banking users across Indonesia, China, India, Mexico, Morocco, and Thailand. Security firm ThreatFabric warns that Hirudo's approach of moving tampering *inside* target apps means locally generated security signals can no longer be trusted and must be verified server-side.
Meta Hit by GitHub Breach: Stolen Credentials, Leaked Code, and 1,500 People Notified
Hackers used stolen employee credentials to access some of Meta's GitHub repositories, compromising the personal data of approximately 1,500 people, mostly Meta employees. The vast majority of stolen data consisted of business-related software code, with only a small portion being personal data that had been stored on GitHub in violation of company policy. Meta has since shut down the attackers' access, rotated exposed secrets, and implemented additional controls to prevent user data from being stored on GitHub in the future.
FortiBleed Is Still Running: FBI Flags 86,644 Stolen Fortinet Credentials and Counting
The FBI and Secret Service have issued a warning that the FortiBleed campaign remains an active threat, having harvested over 86,644 credentials from Fortinet FortiGate firewalls and VPN gateways across 194 countries by exploiting reused passwords and legacy password storage methods. The five-stage Russian-speaking operation uses credential stuffing, passive traffic interception via a tool called FortigateSniffer, and GPU-accelerated password cracking to gain and maintain persistent access, with stolen credentials linked to INC and Lynx ransomware groups, suggesting the actors operate as an initial access broker. Organizations are urged to enable phishing-resistant authentication, reset passwords, review logs for suspicious activity, and isolate any affected devices if a compromise is detected.
KREMLIN Malware Uses Ethereum Smart Contracts and Rogue Browser Extensions to Drain Brazilian Bank Accounts
KREMLIN is a Brazilian banking malware ecosystem, tracked by Elastic Security Labs since at least May 2025, that uses multi-stage JavaScript loaders and malicious browser extensions to steal credentials, session tokens, and sensitive data from victims impersonating customers of over a dozen Brazilian banks. A key feature of the operation is its use of Ethereum smart contracts to dynamically update command-and-control infrastructure, making it highly resilient to disruption. The malicious browser extensions bypass Chromium's security mechanisms to harvest cookies, screenshots, and browsing data, with over 1,500 infected systems identified — more than 98% located in Brazil.
Fishing App Fishbrain Hooked by Data Breach, Password Hashes Exposed
Fishing app Fishbrain, which claims over 20 million users, suffered a data breach on August 19 in which cybercriminals stole user data including names, email addresses, phone numbers, and password hashes with salts. Although passwords were not stored in plaintext, the stolen hashes could potentially be cracked depending on the strength of individual passwords and the hashing algorithm used. Fishbrain has since patched the vulnerability, reset all user passwords, and urged users to update their credentials on any other accounts where they used the same password.
AI Safety Org METR Got Hacked Twice. One Slip Cost $600K in API Credits.
METR, an AI safety research non-profit, disclosed two security incidents in 2026 involving unauthorised access attempts to its systems. In the first, attackers exploited a poorly secured researcher's personal server to steal an API key and consumed approximately $600,000 worth of AI credits over three weeks, going undetected due to METR's typically high token usage. In the second, attackers conducted a broad, agent-assisted campaign probing METR's infrastructure, though an inadvertently exposed database endpoint — which could have revealed sensitive model data — was ultimately not successfully exploited.
£8K Phishing Kit Promises to Plant Fake Passkeys and Haunt Compromised Accounts Long After You've Changed Your Password
A $10,000 phishing kit called iAuthFlow v2, advertised on Russian-language cybercrime forums, uses a browser-in-the-middle technique to hijack authentication sessions and secretly enroll attacker-controlled passkeys on compromised accounts — allowing persistent access even after victims change their passwords. The kit relays the victim's login interaction through an attacker-controlled browser, then exploits the authenticated session to register a rogue passkey, reportedly completing the process within seconds. Security researchers warn that incident response must go beyond password resets and session revocation, requiring a thorough audit of all post-compromise account changes, including newly enrolled passkeys, OAuth grants, and recovery methods.
Threat Actor Claims Millions of Corporate Records Lifted from Azure Tenants
A threat actor called "TheHatman" is claiming to have stolen millions of employee records from the Microsoft Azure environments of major corporations including McDonald's, Vodafone, Tata Consultancy Services, and Kyndryl, with the data reportedly including sensitive details such as employee IDs, job titles, and accounts with Global Administrator privileges. Security firm Hudson Rock assessed the data as "highly likely authentic" but could not determine the exact method of access, suggesting possibilities such as infostealer malware, phishing, or weak multi-factor authentication. Tata Consultancy Services has denied finding credible evidence of a breach, stating the referenced information appears to be over four years old and limited to basic employee data.
Hacker Flogs Azure Directory Data From McDonald's, Vodafone and a Stack of Fortune 500 Names
A threat actor known as 'TheHatman' is selling data allegedly stolen from the Azure tenants of multiple Fortune 500 companies, including McDonald's, TCS, Vodafone, and Wyndham Hotels, with the McDonald's dataset alone containing over 1.7 million records. The data, which appears to have been exfiltrated using leaked credentials from a targeted infostealer campaign, includes sensitive employee information such as names, email addresses, job titles, and privileged account details. Security firm Hudson Rock warns the breach poses a serious risk, as the exposed data could enable attackers to conduct spear-phishing, business email compromise, and privilege escalation attacks against the affected organisations.
French Tax Authority Breach Exposes Financial Data on 680,000 Citizens
France's tax authority (DGFiP) has disclosed a data breach affecting approximately 680,000 individuals, after a threat actor used compromised employee and third-party credentials to access its systems in June and July. Stolen data includes reference tax income, withholding tax rates, company identifiers, and real estate cadastral data, though no passwords or usernames were compromised. The breach was reported to France's data protection authority CNIL, and DGFiP is contacting all affected individuals while continuing to investigate the full scope of the incident.
Golden Chickens Is Back, Meaner, and Now Modular
The Golden Chickens malware-as-a-service (MaaS) group, tracked as TAG-195, has introduced four new malware families — TinyEgg, ChonkyChicken, a modular ChonkyChicken variant, and ChromEggscalator — signalling an active evolution of their criminal toolkit. The new families share common architectural traits and represent a deliberate shift toward modular, plugin-based design, allowing operators to selectively deploy capabilities on demand, reducing detection risk and increasing operational flexibility. This transition reflects both technical refinement and commercial incentives within the MaaS model, with the group's tools continuing to be leveraged by other cybercrime actors such as Cobalt Group, Evilnum, and FIN6.
ACR Stealer Is Raiding Enterprise Networks and All It Needs Is for Someone to Press Enter
ACR Stealer, an infostealer active since 2024, is being distributed through ClickFix lures that trick users into pasting malicious commands into Windows' Run dialog, requiring no vulnerability or exploit to succeed. Once executed, the malware uses two delivery chains — one file-based and one nearly entirely in-memory — to steal browser passwords, session tokens, and Microsoft 365 documents, with techniques including payload concealment inside JPEG pixels and blockchain-based command-and-control infrastructure. Defenders are advised to block the paste-and-run vector via Group Policy, apply application control rules, revoke (not just rotate) compromised tokens, and hunt for indicators such as rundll32.exe making unexplained network connections or scheduled tasks disguised as software updates.
NadMesh Botnet Is Raiding Exposed AI Services for Cloud Keys, and the Numbers Don't Add Up
A Go-based botnet called NadMesh, discovered in early July 2025, systematically scans for exposed AI services (such as ComfyUI, Ollama, and n8n) to steal cloud credentials, Kubernetes tokens, and environment variable secrets, with the operator's own dashboard claiming over 3,800 harvested AWS keys. While the botnet prioritises AI service endpoints and MCP tools, the majority of its observed exploit traffic actually targets more traditional attack surfaces like Docker APIs and Jenkins consoles, with MCP exploitation accounting for less than 1% of recorded attempts. Defenders are urged to place exposed services behind authentication, check systems for persistence artefacts, and immediately revoke — not merely rotate — any credentials that may have been exposed.
Citrix Bleed 2, Rogue Drivers, and Poisoned Packages: Ransomware Groups Are Getting Creative
Ransomware groups including Anubis, The Gentlemen, and the VECT/TeamPCP alliance are employing increasingly sophisticated tactics, such as exploiting the critical Citrix Bleed 2 vulnerability (CVE-2025-5777), using legitimate remote management tools to blend in with normal IT activity, and leveraging a BYOVD zero-day to disable enterprise security solutions. The VECT/TeamPCP partnership represents a notable evolution in the threat landscape, combining supply chain credential theft with ransomware deployment at scale, though implementation flaws in VECT's encryptor have undermined its effectiveness. The FBI has issued a flash alert warning that credentials and data stolen in these campaigns pose a persistent long-term risk, as affiliated actors are likely to continue weaponizing them well after the initial breach.
Meet CAI: The Cloud Worm That Mugs Other Malware Before Robbing You
A new cloud-targeting botnet called Cloud AI Infrastructure Attack Framework (CAI) has emerged, designed to steal credentials and mine cryptocurrency while actively eliminating competing malware like TeamPCP and PCPJack from compromised systems. It targets cloud-native tools such as Docker, Kubernetes, and Redis, using a centralized command-and-control structure and showing signs of LLM-assisted development. Security researchers warn that CAI's emergence alongside rival threat actors signals a growing and increasingly competitive landscape of malicious actors targeting cloud infrastructure and developer secrets.
PamStealer: The macOS Malware That Actually Did Its Homework
Researchers at Jamf have discovered a novel macOS malware called PamStealer, which disguises itself as the Maccy clipboard manager and uses a two-stage infection chain — an AppleScript-based first stage and a Rust-written second stage — to stealthily steal credentials. It stands out by using macOS's built-in Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) interface to validate stolen passwords locally, avoiding the detectable system calls used by most comparable malware. The malware also employs additional evasion tactics such as impersonating legitimate macOS components, delaying suspicious prompts by up to 40 minutes, and bypassing macOS quarantine restrictions, illustrating the growing sophistication of Mac-targeted infostealers.
FortiBleed Credential Harvest Is Directly Feeding INC and Lynx Ransomware Operations
The FortiBleed campaign, a large-scale credential-harvesting operation targeting over 430,000 FortiGate firewalls across 150 countries, has been directly linked to the deployment of INC Ransom and Lynx ransomware. Active since at least February and likely run by a Russian initial access broker involving around 20 individuals, the operation has compromised over 110 million credentials and resulted in ransomware attacks on 12 organisations, with hundreds of endpoints encrypted. SOCRadar confirmed the connection after an operational security mistake by the attackers exposed internal files, revealing a single operator working both ransomware negotiation panels using infrastructure tied to the FortiBleed campaign.
BioShocking: The Attack That Tricks AI Browsers Into Thinking Credential Theft Is Just Winning a Game
Cybersecurity researchers at LayerX discovered a manipulation technique called "BioShocking," where a game-themed puzzle tricks AI browsers into abandoning their safety guardrails and performing malicious actions, such as stealing SSH login credentials from authenticated repositories. The attack works by convincing the AI agent it is operating under game logic rather than real-world safety rules, causing it to treat harmful actions as acceptable moves to win. Of the six vendors notified, only OpenAI successfully patched the vulnerability, while others either failed to fix it or did not respond.
Avalon Malware Framework Bundles Ransomware, Credential Theft and AI-Assisted Development Into One Nasty Package
Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a modular malware framework called **Avalon**, distributed via phishing emails, which combines credential theft, lateral movement, remote access, and ransomware (internally named CrownX) into a single toolkit. The framework employs sophisticated evasion techniques targeting major security vendors and shows signs of AI-assisted development, highlighting how AI is lowering the barrier to entry for malware creation. These findings coincide with other emerging AI-driven threats, including a fully autonomous LLM-powered ransomware attack and a novel malware that uses a public LLM API to translate plain-language attacker instructions into shell commands — requiring no coding knowledge whatsoever.
FortiBleed Gang Moonlights for INC and Lynx Ransomware as Credential Haul Reaches 110 Million
The FortiBleed credential theft campaign has been directly linked to INC and Lynx ransomware operations, with an operator found accessing negotiation panels for both groups while using stolen FortiGate credentials to facilitate ransomware deployments. SOCRadar's investigation revealed the campaign targeted around 430,000 FortiGate firewalls globally, harvesting over 110 million credentials, with at least 12 confirmed ransomware deployments resulting in hundreds of encrypted endpoints. Evidence suggests the operation is run by an approximately 20-person Russian-speaking group, likely acting as an initial access broker, with signs they may be expanding their targeting beyond Fortinet devices to Citrix infrastructure.
Red Hat npm Packages Backdoored in Supply Chain Attack Stealing Cloud Credentials
Over 30 npm packages under Red Hat's '@redhat-cloud-services' namespace were backdoored in a supply-chain attack, after attackers compromised a Red Hat employee's GitHub account and used it to publish malicious package versions containing credential-stealing malware. The malware, dubbed "Miasma," is a variant of the Shai-Hulud framework and was designed to steal a wide range of sensitive data including cloud credentials, SSH keys, CI/CD tokens, and environment files from developers who installed the affected packages. Red Hat removed the compromised packages and stated that they were limited to internal development tooling with no confirmed impact on customer environments, though the investigation remains ongoing.
How One Unrotated Token Gave Hackers Access to Grafana's Codebase
Grafana's data breach stemmed from a single GitHub workflow token that was accidentally missed during a credential rotation following the TanStack npm supply-chain attack, in which malicious packages infected with credential-stealing malware exfiltrated tokens from Grafana's CI/CD environment. The overlooked token allowed attackers to access private repositories, from which they stole source code and internal business contact information, though no customer production data or systems were compromised. Grafana confirmed that its codebase was not modified during the incident, meaning downloaded code remains safe, and users are not required to take any action.