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Tag: motivated

Shadow AI, deepfakes, and supply chain compromise are rewriting the financial sector threat playbook

Financially motivated attacks continued to drive the bulk of cyber incidents against banks, insurers, and payment processors in 2025. Approximately 90% of breaches affecting financial institutions carried a financial motive, with data breaches accounting for roughly 64% of incidents and ransomware making up the remaining 36%. The average cost of a data breach in the…

Poisoned “Office 365” search results lead to stolen paychecks

A financially motivated hacking group is targeting Canadian employees with a sophisticated campaign designed to covertly redirect their salary payments into attacker-controlled bank accounts, Microsoft researchers discovered. SEO poisoning and malvertising + phishing + AiTM The group, which Microsoft tracks as Storm-2755, begins by poisoning search engine results and running malicious ads against generic queries…

Researchers Uncover Mining Operation Using ISO Lures to Spread RATs and Crypto Miners

A financially motivated operation codenamed REF1695 has been observed leveraging fake installers to deploy remote access trojans (RATs) and cryptocurrency miners since November 2023. “Beyond cryptomining, the threat actor monetizes infections through CPA (Cost Per Action) fraud, directing victims to content locker pages under the guise of software registration,” Elastic

‘CanisterWorm’ Springs Wiper Attack Targeting Iran

A financially motivated data theft and extortion group is attempting to inject itself into the Iran war, unleashing a worm that spreads through poorly secured cloud services and wipes data on infected systems that use Iran’s time zone or have Farsi set as the default language. Experts say the wiper campaign against Iran materialized this…

AWS Threat Intel Finds 600+ FortiGate Devices Hit 

A financially motivated cybercriminal has used commercial generative AI tools to compromise more than 600 FortiGate devices across 55 countries — without exploiting specific software vulnerabilities. This “… campaign succeeded by exploiting exposed management ports and weak credentials with single-factor authentication, fundamental security gaps that AI helped an unsophisticated actor exploit at scale,” said CJ…

AI-Assisted Threat Actor Compromises 600+ FortiGate Devices in 55 Countries

A Russian-speaking, financially motivated threat actor has been observed taking advantage of commercial generative artificial intelligence (AI) services to compromise over 600 FortiGate devices located in 55 countries. That’s according to new findings from Amazon Threat Intelligence, which said it observed the activity between January 11 and February 18, 2026. “No exploitation of FortiGate

North Korean actors blend ClickFix with new macOS backdoors in Crypto campaign

A financially motivated threat actor tracked as UNC1609 is using a ClickFix-style social engineering campaign to deploy multiple macOS malware families against crypto-focused organizations. According to new research from Google Cloud’s Mandiant, the activity recently targeted an employee at a company operating in the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. The researchers said that the…