Kirsten Doyle

Hunters International, a notorious ransomware gang with ties to past high-profile cyberattacks, says it’s closing shop. The group made the announcement Thursday via its darknet extortion site, claiming it would release free decryption tools to help past victims recover data.  “After careful consideration and in light of recent developments, we have decided to close the Hunters International project,” read the statement. No further detail was given on what those “developments” might be. The group added that the decision “was not made lightly.” Hunters International said it wanted to ensure that victims were able to recover their encrypted data without the…

Amazon Prime Day 2025 is almost here. So are the scammers. With global shoppers gearing up for deals on 8 July, bad actors are already laying traps. In June alone, researchers tracked more than 1,000 new domains mimicking Amazon. Nearly nine in ten were flagged as malicious or suspicious. Many used the phrase “Amazon Prime” to bait unsuspecting shoppers. One in every 81 of these risky domains contained the term. Check Point Research warns the threat is only ramping up. “Threat actors know shoppers are distracted and in a hurry. That’s when mistakes happen,” said Check Point. Why Prime Day…

The Schengen Information System II (SIS II) is meant to be a digital sentinel for Europe’s borders. It flags suspects, alerts officials, and logs biometric data in real time. But behind the promise lies a system riddled with security flaws. Bloomberg reviewed confidential documents showing thousands of unpatched vulnerabilities. Some date back years. In a 2024 audit, the European Data Protection Supervisor rated many as “high risk.” Most troubling of all are excessive admin access and inadequate oversight. No breach has been confirmed. But the doors appear wide open. Digital Eyes on Europe’s Borders SIS II is the EU’s largest…

Qantas has confirmed a cyber incident affecting a third-party platform used by one of its call centres. The breach exposed the personal data of frequent flyer members and other customers. It has now been contained. In a statement, the airline said it had launched an investigation after noticing strange activity on its customer service system, which is operated by an external provider. “There is no impact to Qantas’ operations or the safety of the airline,” the company said. The breach was detected 30 June. While the exact scale has not been determined, early indications suggest a large portion of the…

Brand impersonation is nothing new. But Cisco Talos says it’s showing up in increasingly creative forms—especially within PDF attachments. A recent update to Cisco’s intelligence brand impersonation detection engine now expands its reach. It picks up a broader array of email threats where trusted brand names arrive not in plain text, but tucked inside PDF payloads. Some even come armed with QR codes or clickable annotations. Others skip links altogether and simply urge the victim to call a phone number. It’s a subtle twist on an old scam. And it’s working. Callback Phishing Via PDF This isn’t your average phishing…

The notorious cybercrime group, known as Scattered Spider, is shifting its focus. According to warnings issued in late June, the group has begun targeting North American airline and transportation companies. The alerts come from both federal authorities and private sector threat intelligence teams. The FBI confirmed this in a public advisory. The group’s method is familiar: social engineering. Impersonation. Manipulating help desk staff into resetting passwords, enrolling new multi-factor authentication (MFA) devices, or disclosing employee information. “Scattered Spider actors steal sensitive data for extortion and often deploy ransomware,” the FBI said. Their targets now include not only major airlines, but…

When researchers at Netcraft asked a large language model where to log in to major online services, the answers were often wrong. Sometimes, dangerously so. Of 131 login URLs suggested for 50 brands, 34% were not controlled by the brand in question. The findings were released in a detailed breakdown of domain accuracy, with one grim conclusion, more than one in three users could be sent to a site the brand doesn’t own, just by asking a chatbot where to log in. The tests used simple prompts, just like a user might type. No tricks or injections. “These were not…

Low-privileged malware can still steal Chrome cookies, despite Google’s latest defenses. In mid-2024, Google introduced AppBound Cookie Encryption, a major shift in how Chrome protects browser cookies from theft. The goal: block infostealers that operate with user-level privileges. The technique, praised as a meaningful upgrade, encrypted cookie keys twice,once using the user’s credentials, and again using the SYSTEM account’s DPAPI. It worked, for a while. However, researchers at CyberArk Labs have now uncovered a path around it. A pair of novel attacks—one using COM hijacking, the other a Padding Oracle Attack, allowed the team to crack cookie encryption as a…

Spanish authorities have arrested five alleged members of a sprawling crypto investment fraud network accused of laundering EUR 460 million in stolen funds. The operation, supported by Europol and law enforcement from the United States, France, and Estonia, is a major step towards taking down one of Europe’s most far-reaching and nefarious financial crime schemes. Three suspects were detained in the Canary Islands and two in Madrid during coordinated raids on 25 June. Investigators carried out five searches in total. Europol deployed a crypto expert to assist on the ground. Authorities say the group lured over 5,000 victims across the…

Multiple security flaws in Bluetooth chips made by Airoha could allow attackers to hijack wireless headphones and earbuds from major brands, including Sony, Beyerdynamic, and Marshall. That’s the warning from German IT security firm ERNW, which published its findings this week. Airoha supplies Bluetooth system-on-chip (SoC) components and reference designs used widely across the audio device industry. But ERNW says both the chips and the accompanying software development kit (SDK) expose a custom protocol with few safeguards. The flaws lie in how Airoha devices handle Bluetooth connections. ERNW found that the vulnerable protocol is exposed via both Bluetooth Low Energy…