Normal view

Under Armour Looking Into Data Breach Affecting Customers’ Email Addresses

23 January 2026 at 13:01

Under Armour is investigating a recent data breach that purloined customers’ email addresses and other personal information.

The post Under Armour Looking Into Data Breach Affecting Customers’ Email Addresses appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Under Armour ransomware breach: data of 72 million customers appears on the dark web

22 January 2026 at 13:02

When reports first emerged in November 2025 that sportswear giant Under Armour had been hit by the Everest ransomware group, the story sounded depressingly familiar: a big brand, a huge trove of data, and a lot of unanswered questions. Since then, the narrative around what actually happened has split into two competing versions—cautious corporate statements on one side and mounting evidence on the other that strongly suggests a large customer dataset is now circulating online.

Public communications and legal language talk about ongoing investigations, limited confirmation, and careful wording around “potential” impact. For many customers, that creates the impression that details are still emerging and that it’s unclear how serious the incident is. Meanwhile, a class action lawsuit filed in the US alleges negligence in data protection and references large‑scale exfiltration of sensitive information, including customer—and possibly employee—data during a November 2025 ransomware attack. Those lawsuits are, by definition, allegations, but they add weight to the idea that this is not a minor incident.

The Everest ransomware group claimed responsibility for the breach after Under Armour allegedly “failed to respond by the deadline.”

Everest Group leak site
Everest Group leak site

From the cybercriminals’ perspective, that means negotiations are over and the data has been published.

The Everest leak site also states that:

“After the full publication, all the data was duplicated across various hacker forums and leak database sites.”

Which seems to be confirmed by posts like this one, where the poster claims the data set contains full names, email addresses, phone numbers, physical locations, genders, purchase histories, and preferences. The data set contains 191,577,365 records including 72,727,245 unique email addresses.

Data made available on the Dark Web

So where does that leave Under Armour customers? The cautious corporate framing and the aggressive cybercriminal claims can’t both be entirely accurate, but they do not carry equal weight when it comes to assessing real-world risk. Ransomware groups sometimes lie about their access, but spinning up a major leak entry, publishing sample data, and distributing it across underground forums is a lot of work for a bluff that could be quickly disproven by affected users. Combined with the “Database Leaked” status on the Everest site, the balance of probabilities suggests that a substantial customer database is now in the wild, even if not every detail in the attackers’ claims is accurate.

Protecting yourself after a data breach

If you think you have been affected by a data breach, here are steps you can take to protect yourself:

  • Check the company’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the company to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice it offers.
  • Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
  • Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of 2FA can be phished just as easily as a password, but 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
  • Watch out for impersonators. The thieves may contact you posing as the breached platform. Check the official website to see if it’s contacting victims and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
  • Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
  • Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to let sites remember your card details, but but it increases risk if a retailer suffers a breach.
  • Set up identity monitoring, which alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online and helps you recover after.

We don’t just report on threats—we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your, and your family’s, personal information by using identity protection.

Under Armour ransomware breach: data of 72 million customers appears on the dark web

22 January 2026 at 13:02

When reports first emerged in November 2025 that sportswear giant Under Armour had been hit by the Everest ransomware group, the story sounded depressingly familiar: a big brand, a huge trove of data, and a lot of unanswered questions. Since then, the narrative around what actually happened has split into two competing versions—cautious corporate statements on one side and mounting evidence on the other that strongly suggests a large customer dataset is now circulating online.

Public communications and legal language talk about ongoing investigations, limited confirmation, and careful wording around “potential” impact. For many customers, that creates the impression that details are still emerging and that it’s unclear how serious the incident is. Meanwhile, a class action lawsuit filed in the US alleges negligence in data protection and references large‑scale exfiltration of sensitive information, including customer—and possibly employee—data during a November 2025 ransomware attack. Those lawsuits are, by definition, allegations, but they add weight to the idea that this is not a minor incident.

The Everest ransomware group claimed responsibility for the breach after Under Armour allegedly “failed to respond by the deadline.”

Everest Group leak site
Everest Group leak site

From the cybercriminals’ perspective, that means negotiations are over and the data has been published.

The Everest leak site also states that:

“After the full publication, all the data was duplicated across various hacker forums and leak database sites.”

Which seems to be confirmed by posts like this one, where the poster claims the data set contains full names, email addresses, phone numbers, physical locations, genders, purchase histories, and preferences. The data set contains 191,577,365 records including 72,727,245 unique email addresses.

Data made available on the Dark Web

So where does that leave Under Armour customers? The cautious corporate framing and the aggressive cybercriminal claims can’t both be entirely accurate, but they do not carry equal weight when it comes to assessing real-world risk. Ransomware groups sometimes lie about their access, but spinning up a major leak entry, publishing sample data, and distributing it across underground forums is a lot of work for a bluff that could be quickly disproven by affected users. Combined with the “Database Leaked” status on the Everest site, the balance of probabilities suggests that a substantial customer database is now in the wild, even if not every detail in the attackers’ claims is accurate.

Protecting yourself after a data breach

If you think you have been affected by a data breach, here are steps you can take to protect yourself:

  • Check the company’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the company to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice it offers.
  • Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
  • Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of 2FA can be phished just as easily as a password, but 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
  • Watch out for impersonators. The thieves may contact you posing as the breached platform. Check the official website to see if it’s contacting victims and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
  • Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
  • Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to let sites remember your card details, but but it increases risk if a retailer suffers a breach.
  • Set up identity monitoring, which alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online and helps you recover after.

We don’t just report on threats—we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your, and your family’s, personal information by using identity protection.

After Goldman, JPMorgan Discloses Law Firm Data Breach

13 January 2026 at 18:09

The law firm Fried Frank seems to be informing high-profile clients about a recent data security incident. 

The post After Goldman, JPMorgan Discloses Law Firm Data Breach appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Hackers Accessed University of Hawaii Cancer Center Patient Data; They Weren’t Immediately Notified

12 January 2026 at 03:09

UH officials refused to provide key information, including which cancer research project had been affected or how much UH paid the hackers to regain access to files.

The post Hackers Accessed University of Hawaii Cancer Center Patient Data; They Weren’t Immediately Notified appeared first on SecurityWeek.

One million customers on alert as extortion group claims massive Brightspeed data haul

7 January 2026 at 13:19

US fiber broadband company Brightspeed is investigating claims by the Crimson Collective extortion group that it stole sensitive data belonging to more than 1 million residential customers, including extensive personally identifiable information (PII), as well as account and billing details.

Brightspeed is one of the largest fiber broadband providers in the US and serves customers across 20 states.

On January 4, the Crimson Collective posted this message on its Telegram channel:

Telegram post Crimson Collective about Brightspeed

“If anyone has someone working at BrightSpeed, tell them to read their mails fast!

We have in our hands over 1m+ residential user PII’s, which contains the following:

  • Customer/account master records containing full PII such as names, emails, phone numbers, billing and service addresses, account status, network type, consent flags, billing system, service instance, network assignment, and site IDs.
  • Address qualification responses with address IDs, full postal addresses, latitude and longitude coordinates, qualification status (fiber/copper/4G), maximum bandwidth, drop length, wire center, marketing profile codes, and eligibility flags.
  • User-level account details keyed by session/user IDs, overlapping with PII including names, emails, phones, service addresses, account numbers, status, communication preferences, and suspend reasons.
  • Payment history per account, featuring payment IDs, dates, amounts, invoice numbers, card types and masked card numbers (last 4 digits), gateways, and status; some entries indicate null or empty histories.
  • Payment methods per account, including default payment method IDs, gateways, masked credit card numbers, expiry dates, BINs, holder names and addresses, status flags (Active/Declined), and created/updated timestamps.
  • Appointment/order records per billing account, with customer PII such as names, emails, phones, addresses, order numbers, status, appointment windows, dispatch and technician information, and install types.

Sample will be dropped on monday night time, letting them some time first to answer to us. (UTC+9, Japan is quite fun for new years while dumping company data)”

The promised sample was later made available and contains 50 entries from each of the following database tables:

  • [get-account-details]
    account details sample
  • [getAddressQualification]
  • [getUserAccountDetails]
  • [listPaymentHistory]
  • [listPaymentMethods]
    payment methods sample
  • [user-appointments]

In a separate Telegram message, the group also claimed it had disconnected a large number of Brightspeed customers. However, this allegation appears only in the group’s own messaging and has not been corroborated by any public reporting.

While there are some customer complaints circulating on social media, it remains unclear whether these issues are actually caused by any actions taken by the Crimson Collective.

StatusISDown update about Brightspeed

Brightspeed told BleepingComputer:

“We take the security of our networks and protection of our customers’ and employees’ information seriously and are rigorous in securing our networks and monitoring threats. We are currently investigating reports of a cybersecurity event. As we learn more, we will keep our customers, employees and authorities informed.”

Protecting yourself after a data breach

If you think you have been affected by a data breach, here are steps you can take to protect yourself:

  • Check the company’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the company to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice it offers.
  • Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
  • Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of 2FA can be phished just as easily as a password, but 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
  • Watch out for impersonators. The thieves may contact you posing as the breached platform. Check the official website to see if it’s contacting victims and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
  • Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
  • Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to let sites remember your card details, but we highly recommend not storing that information on websites.
  • Set up identity monitoring, which alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online and helps you recover after.

We don’t just report on threats—we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your, and your family’s, personal information by using identity protection.

One million customers on alert as extortion group claims massive Brightspeed data haul

7 January 2026 at 13:19

US fiber broadband company Brightspeed is investigating claims by the Crimson Collective extortion group that it stole sensitive data belonging to more than 1 million residential customers, including extensive personally identifiable information (PII), as well as account and billing details.

Brightspeed is one of the largest fiber broadband providers in the US and serves customers across 20 states.

On January 4, the Crimson Collective posted this message on its Telegram channel:

Telegram post Crimson Collective about Brightspeed

“If anyone has someone working at BrightSpeed, tell them to read their mails fast!

We have in our hands over 1m+ residential user PII’s, which contains the following:

  • Customer/account master records containing full PII such as names, emails, phone numbers, billing and service addresses, account status, network type, consent flags, billing system, service instance, network assignment, and site IDs.
  • Address qualification responses with address IDs, full postal addresses, latitude and longitude coordinates, qualification status (fiber/copper/4G), maximum bandwidth, drop length, wire center, marketing profile codes, and eligibility flags.
  • User-level account details keyed by session/user IDs, overlapping with PII including names, emails, phones, service addresses, account numbers, status, communication preferences, and suspend reasons.
  • Payment history per account, featuring payment IDs, dates, amounts, invoice numbers, card types and masked card numbers (last 4 digits), gateways, and status; some entries indicate null or empty histories.
  • Payment methods per account, including default payment method IDs, gateways, masked credit card numbers, expiry dates, BINs, holder names and addresses, status flags (Active/Declined), and created/updated timestamps.
  • Appointment/order records per billing account, with customer PII such as names, emails, phones, addresses, order numbers, status, appointment windows, dispatch and technician information, and install types.

Sample will be dropped on monday night time, letting them some time first to answer to us. (UTC+9, Japan is quite fun for new years while dumping company data)”

The promised sample was later made available and contains 50 entries from each of the following database tables:

  • [get-account-details]
    account details sample
  • [getAddressQualification]
  • [getUserAccountDetails]
  • [listPaymentHistory]
  • [listPaymentMethods]
    payment methods sample
  • [user-appointments]

In a separate Telegram message, the group also claimed it had disconnected a large number of Brightspeed customers. However, this allegation appears only in the group’s own messaging and has not been corroborated by any public reporting.

While there are some customer complaints circulating on social media, it remains unclear whether these issues are actually caused by any actions taken by the Crimson Collective.

StatusISDown update about Brightspeed

Brightspeed told BleepingComputer:

“We take the security of our networks and protection of our customers’ and employees’ information seriously and are rigorous in securing our networks and monitoring threats. We are currently investigating reports of a cybersecurity event. As we learn more, we will keep our customers, employees and authorities informed.”

Protecting yourself after a data breach

If you think you have been affected by a data breach, here are steps you can take to protect yourself:

  • Check the company’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the company to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice it offers.
  • Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
  • Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of 2FA can be phished just as easily as a password, but 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
  • Watch out for impersonators. The thieves may contact you posing as the breached platform. Check the official website to see if it’s contacting victims and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
  • Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
  • Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to let sites remember your card details, but we highly recommend not storing that information on websites.
  • Set up identity monitoring, which alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online and helps you recover after.

We don’t just report on threats—we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your, and your family’s, personal information by using identity protection.

2025 exposed the risks we ignored while rushing AI

30 December 2025 at 11:02

This blog is part of a series where we highlight new or fast-evolving threats in the consumer security landscape. This one looks at how the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is putting users at risk.

In 2025 we saw an ever-accelerating race between AI providers to push out new features. We also saw manufacturers bolt AI onto products simply because it sounded exciting. In many cases, it really shouldn’t have.

Agentic browsers

Agentic or AI browsers that can act autonomously to execute tasks introduced a new set of vulnerabilities—especially to prompt injection attacks. With great AI power comes great responsibility, and risk. If you’re thinking about using an AI browser, it’s worth slowing down and considering the security and privacy implications first. Even experienced AI providers like OpenAI (the makers of ChatGPT) were unable to keep their agentic browser Atlas secure. By pasting a specially crafted link into the Omnibox, attackers were able to trick Atlas into treating a URL input as a trusted command.

Mimicry

The popularity of AI chatbots created the perfect opportunity for scammers to distribute malicious apps. Even if the AI engine itself worked perfectly, attackers have another way in: fake interfaces. According to BleepingComputer, scammers are already creating spoofed AI sidebars that look identical to real ones from browsers like OpenAI’s Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet. These fake sidebars mimic the real interface, making them almost impossible to spot.

Misconfiguration

And then there’s this special category of using AI in products because it sounds cooler with AI or you can ask for more money from buyers.

Toys

We saw a plush teddy bear promising “warmth, fun, and a little extra curiosity” that was taken off the market after researcher found its built-in AI responding with sexual content and advice about weapons. Conversations escalated from innocent to sexual within minutes. The bear didn’t just respond to explicit prompts, which would have been more or less understandable. Researchers said it introduced graphic sexual concepts on its own, including BDSM-related topics, explained “knots for beginners,” and referenced roleplay scenarios involving children and adults.

Misinterpretation

Sometimes we rely on AI systems too much and forget that they hallucinate. As in the case where a school’s AI system mistook a boy’s empty Doritos bag for a gun and triggered a full-blown police response. Multiple police cars arrived with officers drawing their weapons, all because of a false alarm.

Data breaches

Alongside all this comes a surge in privacy concerns. Some issues stem from the data used to train AI models; others come from mishandled chat logs. Two AI companion apps recently exposed private conversations because users weren’t clearly warned that certain settings would result in their conversations becoming searchable or result in targeted advertising.

So, what should we do?

We’ve said it before and we’ll probably say it again:  We keep pushing the limits of what AI can do faster than we can make it safe. As long as we keep chasing the newest features, companies will keep releasing new integrations, whether they’re safe or not.

As consumers, the best thing we can do is stay informed about new developments and the risks that come with them. Ask yourself: Do I really need this? What am I trusting AI with? What’s the potential downside? Sometimes it’s worth doing things the slower, safer way.


We don’t just report on privacy—we offer you the option to use it.

Privacy risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep your online privacy yours by using Malwarebytes Privacy VPN.

2025 exposed the risks we ignored while rushing AI

30 December 2025 at 11:02

This blog is part of a series where we highlight new or fast-evolving threats in the consumer security landscape. This one looks at how the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is putting users at risk.

In 2025 we saw an ever-accelerating race between AI providers to push out new features. We also saw manufacturers bolt AI onto products simply because it sounded exciting. In many cases, it really shouldn’t have.

Agentic browsers

Agentic or AI browsers that can act autonomously to execute tasks introduced a new set of vulnerabilities—especially to prompt injection attacks. With great AI power comes great responsibility, and risk. If you’re thinking about using an AI browser, it’s worth slowing down and considering the security and privacy implications first. Even experienced AI providers like OpenAI (the makers of ChatGPT) were unable to keep their agentic browser Atlas secure. By pasting a specially crafted link into the Omnibox, attackers were able to trick Atlas into treating a URL input as a trusted command.

Mimicry

The popularity of AI chatbots created the perfect opportunity for scammers to distribute malicious apps. Even if the AI engine itself worked perfectly, attackers have another way in: fake interfaces. According to BleepingComputer, scammers are already creating spoofed AI sidebars that look identical to real ones from browsers like OpenAI’s Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet. These fake sidebars mimic the real interface, making them almost impossible to spot.

Misconfiguration

And then there’s this special category of using AI in products because it sounds cooler with AI or you can ask for more money from buyers.

Toys

We saw a plush teddy bear promising “warmth, fun, and a little extra curiosity” that was taken off the market after researcher found its built-in AI responding with sexual content and advice about weapons. Conversations escalated from innocent to sexual within minutes. The bear didn’t just respond to explicit prompts, which would have been more or less understandable. Researchers said it introduced graphic sexual concepts on its own, including BDSM-related topics, explained “knots for beginners,” and referenced roleplay scenarios involving children and adults.

Misinterpretation

Sometimes we rely on AI systems too much and forget that they hallucinate. As in the case where a school’s AI system mistook a boy’s empty Doritos bag for a gun and triggered a full-blown police response. Multiple police cars arrived with officers drawing their weapons, all because of a false alarm.

Data breaches

Alongside all this comes a surge in privacy concerns. Some issues stem from the data used to train AI models; others come from mishandled chat logs. Two AI companion apps recently exposed private conversations because users weren’t clearly warned that certain settings would result in their conversations becoming searchable or result in targeted advertising.

So, what should we do?

We’ve said it before and we’ll probably say it again:  We keep pushing the limits of what AI can do faster than we can make it safe. As long as we keep chasing the newest features, companies will keep releasing new integrations, whether they’re safe or not.

As consumers, the best thing we can do is stay informed about new developments and the risks that come with them. Ask yourself: Do I really need this? What am I trusting AI with? What’s the potential downside? Sometimes it’s worth doing things the slower, safer way.


We don’t just report on privacy—we offer you the option to use it.

Privacy risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep your online privacy yours by using Malwarebytes Privacy VPN.

Flashpoint’s Top 5 Predictions for the 2026 Threat Landscape

Blogs

Blog

Flashpoint’s Top 5 Predictions for the 2026 Threat Landscape

Flashpoint’s forward-looking threat insights for security and executive teams, provides the strategic foresight needed to prepare for the convergence of AI, identity, and physical security threats in 2026.

SHARE THIS:
Default Author Image
December 2, 2025

As the global threat landscape accelerates its transformation, 2026 marks an inflection point requiring defensive strategies to fundamentally shift. The volatility observed in 2025 has paved the way for an era soon to be defined by AI-weaponized autonomy, information-stealing malware, systemic instability of public vulnerability systems, and the complete convergence of digital and physical risk.

Flashpoint offers a unique window into these complexities, providing organizations with the foresight needed to navigate what lies ahead. Drawing from Flashpoint’s leading intelligence and primary source collections, we highlight five key trends shaping the 2026 threat landscape. These insights aim to help organizations not only understand what’s next but also build the resilience needed to withstand and adapt to emerging challenges.

Prediction 1: Agentic AI Threats Will Weaponize Autonomy, Forcing a New Defensive Standard

2026 will see continued evolution of AI threats, with future attacks centering on autonomy and integration. Across the deep and dark web, Flashpoint is observing threat actors move past experimentation and into operational use of illegal AI. 

As attackers train custom fraud-tuned LLMs (Large Language Models) and multilingual phishing tools directly on illicit data, these AI models will become more capable. The criminal intent shaping their misuse will also become more sophisticated. Additionally, 2026 will see a greater marketplace for paid jailbreaking communities and synthetic media kits for KYC (Know Your Customer) bypass.

These advancements are enabling criminals to move beyond simple tools and engage in scaled, autonomous fraud operations, leading to two major shifts:

  1. Agentic AI is becoming the true flashpoint: Threat actors will be using agentic systems to automate reconnaissance, generate synthetic identities, and iterate on fraud playbooks in near real-time. In this SaaS ecosystem, AI will help attackers leverage subscription tiers and customer feedback loops at scale.
  2. The attack surface will shift to focus on AI Integrations: Organizations are increasingly plugging LLMs into live data streams, internal tools, identity systems, and autonomous agents. This practice often lacks the same security vetting, access controls, and monitoring applied to other enterprise systems. As such, attackers will heavily target these integrations, such as APIs, plugins, and system connections, rather than the models themselves.

The ubiquity of automation has dramatically increased attack tempo, leaving many security teams behind the curve. While automation can replace repetitive tasks across the enterprise, organizations must not make the critical mistake of substituting human judgement for AI at the intelligence level.

This is paramount because a critical threat in 2026 is Agentic AI autonomy weaponized against soft targets—API integrations and identity systems. The only winning defense will be human-led and AI-scaled, prioritizing purposeful use to keep organizations ahead of this exponential risk.

Josh Lefkowitz, CEO at Flashpoint

These evolving AI threats will force a fundamental shift in defensive strategies. Defenders will have to shift to deploying systems around AI rather than trust them on their own.

Prediction 2: Identity Compromise via Infostealers Will Become the Foundation of Every Attack

Infostealers will become the entry point, the data broker, the reconnaissance layer, and the fuel for everything that comes after a cyberattack. This shift is already in motion and is accelerating rapidly: in just the first half of 2025, infostealers were responsible for 1.8 billion stolen credentials, an 800% spike from the start of the year. However, 2026 will redefine the malware’s role, making its most valuable output being access, rather than disruption.

Infostealers will become the upstream event that powers the rest of the attack chain. Identity and session data will be increasingly targeted, since it gives attackers immediate access into victim environments. Ransomware, fraud, data theft, and extortion will simply be downstream ways to monetize.

This upstream approach defines the new reality of the attack chain, which is already operational. Nearly every major stealer strain Flashpoint observes now exfiltrates the following:

  • Autofill PII (personable identifiable information)
  • Saved addresses
  • Phone numbers
  • Internal URLs
  • Browsing history
  • Cloud app tokens

An organization’s attack surface is no longer just composed of their own networks. It is the entire digital identity of their employees and partners. This new reality requires security teams to take a new approach. Instead of attempting to block attacks, they must proactively detect compromised credentials before they are weaponized. This will be the difference between reacting to a data breach and preventing one.

The infostealer economy has fully industrialized the attack chain, making initial compromise a low-cost commodity. Multiple security incidents in 2025 tie back to credentials found in infostealer logs. This reality has underscored the critical importance of digital trust—specifically, verifying who can access what resources. For 2026, identity is the perimeter to watch, and security teams must proactively hunt for compromised credentials before they’re weaponized.

Ian Gray, Vice President of Intelligence at Flashpoint

Prediction 3: CVE Volatility Will Force Redundancy in Vulnerability Intelligence

The temporary funding crisis at CVE in April 2025 and the subsequent CISA stopgap extension through March 2026 exposed the systemic fragility of a centralized vulnerability intelligence model. With the future of the CVE/NVD system hanging in the balance, 2026 will be defined by the urgent need for redundancy and diversification in vulnerability intelligence.

In today’s vulnerability intelligence ecosystem, nearly every organization’s vulnerability management framework relies on CVE and NVD—including its “alternatives” such as the EUVD (European Union Vulnerability Database). The CVE system has grown into a critical global cybersecurity utility, relied upon by nearly all vulnerability scanners, SIEM platforms, patch management tools, threat intelligence feeds, and compliance reports. A complete shutdown of CVE would result in a widespread loss of institutional infrastructure.

The next generation of security needs to be built on practices that are resilient, diversified, and intelligence-driven. It should be focused on providing insights that can be used to take action such as threat actor behavior, likelihood of exploitation in the wild, relevance to ransomware campaigns, and business context. Security teams will need to leverage a comprehensive source of vulnerability intelligence such as Flashpoint’s VulnDB that provides full coverage for CVE, while also cataloging more than 100,000 vulnerabilities missed by CVE and NVD.

Prediction 4: Executive Protection Will Remain a Critical Challenge as Cyber-Physical Threats Converge

The continued blurring of lines between cyber, physical, and geopolitical threats will elevate the risk to organizational leadership, turning executive protection into a holistic intelligence function in 2026. The rise of information warfare combined with physical world convergence means the threat to key personnel is no longer purely digital.

In the aftermath of the tragic December 2024 assassination of United Healthcare’s CEO, Flashpoint has seen the continued circulation and glorification of “wanted-style posters” of executives in extremist communities. Additionally, Flashpoint has seen nation-state actors participate, using espionage and influence to target high-value individuals.
Organizations must adopt an integrated approach that connects insights from threat actor chatter and a wealth of other OSINT sources. This fusion of intelligence is essential for applying frameworks to ensure the safety of leadership and key personnel.

Prediction 5: Extortion Shifts to Identity-Based Supply Chain Risk

2025 was marked by several large-scale extortion campaigns, demonstrating how the threat landscape is rapidly evolving. Ransomware operations have shifted into a straight extortion play. Flashpoint has observed a surge in new entrants to the ransomware market, accompanied by a decline in the quality and decorum of ransomware groups.

Furthermore, vishing campaigns attributed to “Scattered Spider” have highlighted weaknesses in identity, trust, and verification. Campaigns from “Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters” have also exposed vulnerabilities in third-party integrations. These attacks culminated in extortion, showcasing that modern attacks will target trusted users and trusted applications for initial access, and will forgo ransomware in place of data access.

As this shift continues into 2026, threat actors will increasingly focus their efforts on exploiting human behavior and identity systems. Instead of attempting to spend resources on breaking network perimeters, attackers will instead socially engineer employees to gain access to corporate systems at scale. This change in TTPs will undoubtedly greatly increase supply chain risk, especially for third parties.

Charting a Path Through an Evolving Threat Landscape with Flashpoint Intelligence

These five predictions highlight the transformative trends shaping the future of cybersecurity and threat intelligence. Staying ahead of these challenges demands more than just reactive measures—it requires actionable intelligence, strategic foresight, and cross-sector collaboration. By embracing these principles and investing in proactive security strategies, organizations can not only mitigate risks but also seize opportunities to enhance their resilience.

As the threat landscape continues to rapidly evolve, staying informed and prepared are critical components of risk mitigation. With the right tools, insights, and partnerships, security teams can navigate the complexities ahead and safeguard what matters most.

Request a demo.

The post Flashpoint’s Top 5 Predictions for the 2026 Threat Landscape appeared first on Flashpoint.

ICS Hard Knocks: Mitigations to Scenarios Found in ICS/OT Backdoors & Breaches

By: BHIS
5 December 2024 at 16:00

This blog will be referencing the ICS/OT Backdoors & Breaches expansion deck created by BHIS and Dragos. We will be reviewing the ICS-focused Initial Compromise cards that are used to simulate a cyber incident and suggest potential mitigations to what is presented.

The post ICS Hard Knocks: Mitigations to Scenarios Found in ICS/OT Backdoors & Breaches appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Join Us for Camp BHIS @ DEF CON 31 

Hey, Campers! It’s that time of year again. The smell of 0-day in the air. Charlatans roasting by the pyre. Old friends and new gather in one of the worst […]

The post Join Us for Camp BHIS @ DEF CON 31  appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

❌