Artem Stryzhak was sentenced to 70 months in prison after pleading guilty to using Nefilim ransomware in attacks.
The post Ukrainian Hive and Nefilim Ransomware Affiliate Gets 70 Months in US Prison appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Table Of ContentsRansomware operators are scaling their attacks, and the barriers to entry continue to fall. In the first half of 2026, Flashpoint identified 6,256 ransomware attacks across industries, representing a 45% increase between 2025 and 2026, as Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operations expanded and threat actors increasingly leveraged AI, stolen credentials, and vulnerability exploits to accelerate their campaigns.
The impact is widespread. Manufacturing accounted for 18% of observed attacks, followed by business services and consulting (13%) and healthcare (9%). Meanwhile, prolific ransomware groups such as Qilin and Akira continue to demonstrate the scale at which these operations can function.
Understanding how ransomware attacks develop, and where they can be interrupted, is critical for defenders.
Flashpoint’s new guide, Ransomware in the Age of AI: A Survival Guide for Defenders, provides cyber threat intelligence professionals, threat hunters, and security leaders with a practical look at the modern ransomware attack lifecycle, from initial reconnaissance and access to incident response and recovery.
Drawing on Flashpoint’s primary-source intelligence and analysis of evolving threat actor tactics, the guide explores how organizations can identify opportunities to disrupt attacks before they escalate, strengthen incident response, and reduce the risk of repeat compromise.
Access the guide to learn:
“In H1 2026, Flashpoint observed a 45% surge in ransomware activity, with critical sectors like manufacturing, business consulting, and healthcare taking the brunt of these attacks. As RaaS syndicates like Qilin and Akira scale their operations alongside a 27% rise in infostealers, access is becoming faster and cheaper. Effective defense requires grounding incident response in primary-source intelligence across every phase of the attack lifecycle.”
Ian GrayVP of Intelligence, Flashpoint
Ransomware attacks rarely begin with encryption. Long before systems are locked or ransom demands appear, threat actors may be gathering intelligence on potential targets, exploiting exposed vulnerabilities, or acquiring stolen credentials through underground marketplaces.
Flashpoint observed a 27% increase in infostealer operations in H1 2026 compared to H1 2025, underscoring the growing role of compromised identities in the ransomware ecosystem. Stolen credentials and session data can provide attackers with access to organizational environments, potentially allowing them to bypass traditional defenses and establish a foothold.
These initial access methods are increasingly interconnected with broader criminal operations. RaaS groups can leverage specialized tools and services throughout the attack chain, while AI-enabled capabilities offer additional opportunities to automate and accelerate certain activities.
This creates multiple opportunities for defenders to act. Intelligence about exposed credentials, emerging exploitation activity, and threat actor behavior can help security teams identify risks earlier and prioritize defensive action before an intrusion progresses.
The guide examines these opportunities across the ransomware lifecycle, outlining how proactive intelligence and coordinated response can help organizations minimize operational disruption and strengthen resilience.
As ransomware operations continue to evolve, organizations need visibility into the threats targeting their environments and the intelligence to respond at every stage of an attack.
From identifying compromised credentials and monitoring emerging threats to containing incidents and preventing repeat attacks, a lifecycle-based approach helps security teams make more informed decisions before, during, and after a ransomware incident.
Get the Ransomware in the Age of AI: A Survival Guide for Defenders to explore the modern ransomware attack lifecycle and learn how Flashpoint’s threat intelligence can help your organization anticipate, disrupt, and recover from ransomware attacks.
The post Ransomware in the Age of AI: How Defenders Can Break the Attack Chain appeared first on Flashpoint.
U.S. federal investigators pursuing the ShinyHunters hacking group that recently stole highly sensitive data from the FBI have identified executives at two different ransomware negotiation firms who maintained unusually close relations with the extortion group, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Sources close to the investigation say one of the executives in the United States even helped ShinyHunters operate a website that pressured victims into paying a ransom.
Hackers aligned with ShinyHunters have claimed credit for dozens of major data breaches since 2019, when the group was primarily operated by cybercriminals living in France. As those original members were arrested or jailed one by one, control over the ShinyHunters brand eventually passed to “Rey,” identified last year as a teenage hacker from Amman, Jordan. According to the FBI, ShinyHunters has extorted more than $70 million from victims so far this year.
In late September, ShinyHunters hacked the FBI recruitment website fbijobs.gov and taunted the agency by threatening to publish the stolen files, which reportedly included medical and psychological records, Social Security numbers and home addresses, and information about each employee’s unit and specialization.
The FBI jobs site hack has prompted the agency to move with uncommon speed to arrest, detain and question people who had any communications with Rey or other ShinyHunters suspects. Reuters reported on October 3 that Rey had been detained by Jordanian authorities and was cooperating with the FBI.
Rey was able to assume control over the hacking group because one of its alleged senior members had just been nabbed. On the evening of September 15, 2026, authorities in the Netherlands arrested convicted hacker and ShinyHunters suspect Pepijn van der Stap. Dutch police reportedly used flash-bang grenades in an effort to stun and apprehend Van der Stap as he was logged in to various online accounts.
According to a source close to the investigation, the authorities arrested Van der Stap while he was using his Signal instant messaging account, which allowed them to read recent communications with frequent contacts — including ransomware negotiators based in Canada and the United States.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the matter told KrebsOnSecurity that Van der Stap’s messages were the key to unraveling a murder-for-hire plot that emerged immediately following his arrest. The Dutch news outlet RTL reported last month the two murders were allegedly to be committed abroad, and that there are indications Van der Stap gave the order for the attacks (there is no indication those orders were ever carried out).
On October 9, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that the FBI arrested a 54-year-old Canadian cybersecurity executive named Edward Dubrovsky in connection with the ShinyHunters investigation. Dubrovsky, who recently published a book on handling cyber extortion that recommended always engaging with the hackers, was charged with threatening to disclose stolen or hacked data and interfering with interstate commerce through extortion, according to court records. Politico reports prosecutors have asked that Dubrovsky remain in custody pending trial, and that records related to his case remain under seal.
A source close to the investigation told KrebsOnSecurity that Van der Stap’s Signal messages showed he had frequent conversations with Mr. Dubrovsky and with at least one executive at a large U.S.-based consulting firm, and that these executives often knew the details about new ShinyHunters victims before the victims themselves had even learned of the breach.
That source shared another potentially explosive finding by federal investigators: the Dutch hacker’s chats showed Mr. Dubrovsky knew ShinyHunters had stolen highly sensitive data from FBI servers, and that he never informed the bureau of the data breach prior to ShinyHunters threatening on Twitter/X to publish the agency’s deeply personal personnel files.
KrebsOnSecurity has learned from two sources close to the ShinyHunters probe that FBI investigators believe at least one executive at a U.S.-based consulting firm played an active role in operating the now-defunct ShinyHunters victim extortion website “shinywire[.]com.” KrebsOnSecurity is not naming the U.S. company or the suspected executive(s) for now because they have not yet been charged with a crime, but it is a prestigious firm with more than 1,000 associates.
A section of the homepage for the now-defunct Shinywire website.
The Shinywire website was active from approximately May 3, 2026 until October 16 and had entries for nearly 100 organizations hacked by ShinyHunters. Each entry urged victims to engage with the cybercrime group and discuss terms for payment. The pages also included samples of stolen files and promised those files would be published online if the victim ignored their demands.
The following screenshot shows a cached portion of the Shinywire extortion page for Intuitive Surgical, an American medical technology company that was breached in March 2026 after an employee fell for a targeted phishing email.
The Shinywire website, as indexed by urlscan.io. This listing is an extortion demand targeting Intuitive Surgical, an American medical technology company breached in March 2026 by a targeted phishing email attack that compromised an employee’s credentials.
Victim organizations that refused to engage or negotiate after seven days would find all of their stolen data published on the ShinyHunters victim shaming blog (a website that is only reachable via the anonymity network Tor).
In a story published October 15, The Globe and Mail wrote that a few months before Edward Dubrovsky was arrested by the FBI, the Canadian cybersecurity executive alleged in court documents he had become collateral damage in a campaign by a former business partner to “destroy” another industry executive.
The story noted that Dubrovsky filed the lawsuit in Ontario this year against Daniel Tobok, the former chief executive of Cypfer, a cybersecurity firm founded in Toronto with offices in the U.S., Britain, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico. The two first became business partners in 2017 and later developed Cypfer together, where Mr. Dubrovsky was a managing partner and chief operating officer. But by 2024, the two had a falling out, with Dubrovsky accusing Tobok of gradually excluding him from business matters and making “increasingly capricious business decisions.”
Mr. Tobok reportedly denied the allegations and filed a counterclaim, accusing Mr. Dubrovsky of accessing confidential information and unfairly competing with Cypfer through work at another firm called CyberSteward Inc. He also said Mr. Dubrovsky has misrepresented himself as a Cypfer founder, and is not a shareholder.
According to interviews with several former colleagues of Mr. Tobok, as far back as eight years ago he was known to ransomware purveyors by a particular nickname: Ghostbyte. In 2018, a Canadian company was hacked by Dharma, a prolific Russian-language ransomware affiliate program that first surfaced in 2016. The victim company told the Dharma ransomware representative they were leaning toward paying because some of the files were unrecoverable after being locked, but that they needed a better guarantee that Dharma would keep their word if paid.
A redacted copy of the Dharma rep’s reply is pictured below, and it shows the ransomware group urged the victim to contact a person at a Canadian IT firm that helps companies seeking such guarantees. The Dharma rep recommended the victim contact the email address ghostbyte@tutanota.com.
“If you want guarantees, you can write to the IT company,” the Dharma reply advised. “Take the phone and negotiate with them. This IT company often solves such problems in Canada. You can contact them and sign a contract for services. You’ll still have to pay.”
An email reply from the Dharma ransomware group to a victim, recommending they contact an email address that is connected to Mr. Tobok.
It’s unclear if Mr. Tobok ever used that Ghostbyte address offered by the Dharma representative, and he has not responded to multiple requests for comment. However, the breach tracking service Constella Intelligence finds an email address Mr. Tobok has frequently used — dtobok@me.com — is associated with two online accounts where the chosen username was “ghostbyte,” including a Snapchat account.
Incidentally, Constella also finds the Dharma rep’s email address luckygoodlucky@tuta.io is associated with a cryptocurrency address that processed 38 transactions totaling 43 bitcoin, ~$3.5 million at today’s value (the most recent transaction for this wallet is dated February 2019).
In a statement shared on October 14, Cypfer said the company’s business does not include making or facilitating ransomware payments, and that Cypfer learned of Dubrovsky’s arrest when the news first broke in the media.
“We had no prior knowledge of Mr. Dubrovsky’s arrest,” a spokesperson told KrebsOnSecurity via email. “CYPFER has not received any outreach from law enforcement and, to our knowledge, is not the target of any law enforcement investigation.”
The statement said CyberSteward and Cypfer are separate companies with no officers, directors or employees in common, and that Cypfer was recently acquired by the Apros Group, a holding company led by Jason Hogg, a former FBI special agent and former CEO of Aon Cyber Solutions Group. In 2020, Aon aquired Cytelligence, a security consulting firm where Mr. Tobok was founder and CEO and Mr. Dubrovsky was a managing partner.
It is not illegal in the United States to pay hackers for an encryption key to unlock servers infected with ransomware, or in exchange for a promise to delete any stolen files and refrain from publishing them online. While victim organizations can land in legal hot water if they pay a ransom to a group that is sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, ShinyHunters is not among the ransomware groups currently sanctioned by the United States or by any other government.
Experts say ransomware victims are typically directed by their insurance provider to work with a specific incident response firm. But not all cyber forensics and breach response companies will agree to facilitate payments to ransomware groups on behalf of their clients. As a result, once victim firms make a decision to pay, the firms that eschew rewarding extortionists are invariably replaced by companies that have no such qualms.
In December 2024, ShinyHunters began extorting the education technology company PowerSchool, stealing private information on 62 million students and 9.5 million teachers in the U.S. and Canada. PowerSchool reportedly paid a $2.85 million ransom demand, and a “frequently asked questions” statement (PDF) about the breach says PowerSchool was assisted in that effort by CyberSteward (ShinyHunters affiliate Matthew Lane, 20, of Sterling, Mass., was sentenced in November 2025 to four years in prison for his admitted role in the PowerSchool hack).
But that ransom payment did not stop future extortion attempts using the same stolen data. By May 2025, individual school districts were reportedly receiving separate ransom demands using samples of the same stolen files. While nobody has alleged ShinyHunters was behind the second wave of extortion against PowerSchool users, the incident drives home the reality that there is no technical way to verify the threat actors have deleted the stolen data as promised, or prevent others from abusing the same records.
A number of leading cyber incident response firms, including Coveware and Unit 221B, have consistently warned victims against paying ShinyHunters, noting that “destroyed” victim data is often kept, resold or used to extort the company’s clients directly later on.
The FBI echoed those sentiments in an alert on May 15, 2026 advising victims against paying the ShinyHunters group. Meanwhile, ShinyHunters members have been harassing and threatening employees at Coveware and Unit 221B for offering this advice.
The following screenshots show just how annoyed the ShinyHunters leaders were with Coveware’s relentless advice against paying the group. The first image is from a conversation on May 6, 2026 that took place between the group’s main account on Telegram and a co-conspirator. In that chat, snippets of which were shared with KrebsOnSecurity by a trusted source, ShinyHunters complained that Coveware was harming the group’s payment rates.
The operator of the ShinyHunters account on Telegram speaking privately with a co-conspirator and complaining that Coveware was harming their business.
“Go on my website, majority of those companies would’ve paid if it weren’t for Coveware giving them misinformation,” the ShinyHunters account wrote. “Someone (100% Coveware) is going out of their way to make sure i am not paid.”
In another conversation on April 11, 2026, the ShinyHunters Telegram account privately said they were trying to “eliminate the problem,” which they said was Coveware. Coveware declined to comment for this story.
“I’m sure the company will pay but in this specific case I am aware of Coveware and their involvement, and I’ve probably been not getting a lot of other negotiations mostly likely because Coveware keeps getting involved,” the ShinyHunters account bemoaned.
The operator of the ShinyHunters account on Telegram telling a co-conspirator they were “trying to eliminate the problem,” which they identified as Coveware advising victims not to pay the cybercrime group.
Mark Camillo is chief executive at CyberAcuView, an industry group founded in 2021 by a consortium of major cyber insurance carriers. Camillo said some firms charge a flat retainer fee, while those that specialize in helping companies negotiate a ransom payment tend to charge a percentage of the total ransom amount paid.
That latter dynamic, he said, is an inherent conflict of interest, as the negotiator has every incentive to make things more favorable to the attackers because they are financially incentivized to negotiate and pay out, and to not negotiate down on the price.
“It has come to the industry’s attention that many of the ransomware payers charge a percentage of the final payment which may or may not be disclosed,” Camillo said. “This makes no sense if they are also the negotiator. There needs to be more transparency in the process as no one in the ecosystem should be profiting purely on the size of the ransomware transaction or payment itself.”
Camillo said the firms doing this work would argue the fees are needed because there may be unexpectedly higher costs to secure larger quantities of cryptocurrency or more risk carrying the float, and because cryptocurrency exchanges may charge higher fees for high risk transactions.
“There definitely needs to be more visibility around the transaction and clarity on the increasing value of the crypto and the exchange’s percent in the transaction to get to the bottom of this and remove any misaligned incentives,” he said.
In recent months, the U.S. Department of Justice has prosecuted a number of ransomware negotiators alleged to have conspired with cybercriminals to defraud their clients. On October 7, the DOJ charged MonsterCloud CEO Zohar Pinhasi, 50, with wire fraud and conspiracy for allegedly charging customers to remediate ransomware attacks without paying the hackers. According to charging documents, Pinhasi secretly went behind his customers’ backs and paid hackers anyway, paying ransomware groups $8 million while charging customers $19 million.
In July, Angelo Martino, a 41-year-old ransomware negotiator from Land O’Lakes, Florida, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for conspiring with the Blackcat/ALPHV ransomware group to extort multiple victims. According to the DOJ, Martino was paid by BlackCat attackers to provide confidential information about the negotiating position and strategy of his employer’s clients and enable the ransomware actors to maximize the ransoms paid by the victims.
A teenager from Amman, Jordan suspected of leading the prolific data theft and extortion group ShinyHunters has been detained and is reportedly cooperating with the FBI to identify other members of the hacking gang. KrebsOnSecurity has learned that the suspect, who uses the hacker handle “Rey,” was detained as ShinyHunters was in the process of extorting a business unit recently divested by the global aerospace company Boeing, which manufactures the fleet of planes used by the employer of Rey’s father — Royal Jordanian Airlines.
The logo for Jeppesen ForeFlight, a business unit divested last year by the aerospace firm Boeing.
On October 3, Reuters cited three unnamed sources saying a suspected ShinyHunters member in Amman named Saif Al-din Khader was detained by Jordanian authorities and was cooperating with the FBI. KrebsOnSecurity identified Rey as Khader in a November 2025 profile, in which the young man admitted working with multiple ransomware groups.
Rey was featured again in a September 28 exclusive about the Dutch police arresting 24-year-old convicted cybercriminal Pepijn van der Stap on suspicion of aiding in data thefts and extortions by ShinyHunters. The story noted that immediately following the Dutchman’s arrest on the evening of September 15, Rey assumed control over the ShinyHunters brand and boasted publicly about stealing highly sensitive data from the FBI and extorting the ransomware group Cl0p.
Rey taunted both the FBI and Cl0p with memes posted to his longtime account on Twitter/X, while simultaneously including images of the avatar used by Van Der Stap’s former hacker alias “Umbreon” in an apparent attempt to frame the Dutchman for both hacks.
A taunting meme uploaded to Twitter/X by Rey on Sept. 22. A giant sized version of the Pokemon character Umbreon can be seen in the bottom left.
As noted in our September 28 report, ShinyHunters gained access to the FBI site and other victims by exploiting a vulnerability (CVE-2026-35273) in PeopleSoft, a software-as-a-service platform from the tech giant Oracle that is broadly used by companies to manage hiring and human resources, benefits and payroll. Oracle quickly issued a fix for CVE-2026-35273, which ShinyHunters first began exploiting as a zero-day in June, and at the time Mandiant released web application firewall rules intended for organizations that couldn’t apply the security update quickly enough.
ShinyHunters told BleepingComputer in June that the original goal behind exploiting the PeopleSoft vulnerability was to breach the FBI’s own PeopleSoft database, but the hackers said those attacks were unsuccessful for some reason. In recent weeks, however, ShinyHunters turned to a well-known URL-encoding trick to bypass Mandiant’s suggested web application firewall rules.
In a report released Sept. 25, security experts at Mandiant and the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) confirmed that ShinyHunters had mass-exploited the PeopleSoft vulnerability to steal data from dozens of systems across a range of industries, including higher education, technology, healthcare, agriculture, transportation and government.
Reuters reported October 5 that the FBI has removed a contractor at Accenture over their failure to patch the FBI recruitment website hacked by ShinyHunters, which exposed sensitive data on more than 5,000 FBI personnel, including each’s person’s unit and specialization, as well as medical and psychiatric records.
According to two sources familiar with the ShinyHunters investigation, a navigation and digital aviation unit recently divested by the global aerospace company Boeing was among the victims that ShinyHunters was in the process of extorting when Rey was apprehended by Jordanian authorities.
Those sources said the FBI’s investigation into ShinyHunters gained renewed urgency with the group’s attempted extortion of the former Boeing unit, which allegedly included the theft of sensitive information that sources said could pose operational safety and security risks.
In a brief statement shared with KrebsOnSecurity, Boeing acknowledged the extortion attempts by ShinyHunters, and said the incident concerned data stolen from Jeppesen ForeFlight, a subsidiary that Boeing sold in November 2025 to the private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $10.55 billion.
“We are aware of claims by a threat actor regarding data allegedly associated with Boeing and our former subsidiary Jeppesen ForeFlight,” a Boeing spokesperson shared. “We are actively reviewing the matter with the Jeppesen ForeFlight team.”
A spokesperson for Jeppesen ForeFlight shared a written statement in response to questions, saying the company has seen no impact on their end. “Based on our investigation to date into this claim and proactive security posture, there was no impact to our operations or products.”
Rey’s alleged involvement in attempting to extort the former Boeing unit is noteworthy because there is strong evidence that his father works for Royal Jordanian Airlines, which is mostly controlled by the Jordanian government and operates its long-haul fleet on passenger planes built by Boeing. Rey claimed on Telegram in early 2025 that his father was an airline pilot, although that could not be independently confirmed.
However, as noted in our November 2025 profile of Rey, his family’s shared computer was at one point compromised by password-stealing malware, and the data collected by that malware clearly shows Rey’s father used the same credentials to log in at multiple online portals for Royal Jordanian Airlines employees.
Royal Jordanian Airlines has not yet responded to a request for comment. In advance of our September 28 story, KrebsOnSecurity once again emailed Rey’s father to seek comment and update him on his son’s alleged activities. Neither of the Khaders have responded. But just hours after that request was sent, Rey began deleting his various social media accounts, including the Twitter/X account he previously used to taunt the FBI, Cl0p, and other ShinyHunters victims.
Rey may have nixed many of his social media profiles, but his cybersecurity blog on GitHub somehow escaped the purge, and it shows that Rey was fixated on the leaders of the Cl0p ransomware group. In March 2026, Rey’s blog featured a lengthy post that identified two Russian men as the core developers and hackers behind Cl0p.
Rey’s blog on GitHub. This post doxes two Russian men as the core operators behind Cl0p, one of the oldest and most established ransomware groups still in operation today.
Meanwhile, news outlets in the Netherlands reported explosive new allegations leveled at Van der Stap, whose supposed personal transformation from convicted to reformed hacker has been widely covered in the tech news media. The Dutch daily RTL reported on Sept. 29 that investigators suspect Van der Stap tried to orchestrate at least two murders. According to RTL, the murders were allegedly to be committed abroad, and there are indications Van der Stap gave the order for these attacks.
Van der Stap was released from prison after serving the better part of a four year sentence for data theft and extortion activity that prosecutors said netted between €1.5 million and €2.7 million. In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity on September 9, Van der Stap described his new role as “offensive security lead” at the Dutch cybersecurity company Neo Security, saying the job involved probing client networks for security vulnerabilities.
Neo Security’s owner Benjamin Korper told Reuters he has hired an outside firm to investigate whether Van der Stap had hacked Neo Security or its customers, but that so far investigators have found no evidence he acted against his employer or clients. Korper said Dutch forensic investigators visited his office on September 15, the night Van der Stap was arrested in a dramatic police raid that reportedly involved flash bang grenades.
A screenshot of a Sept 16 story by the Dutch news outlet at5.nl, describing a police raid on Van Der Stap’s residence that reportedly used flash-bang grenades.
Prior to his first arrest in 2023, Van der Stap was working as a software engineer at the Amsterdam-based cybersecurity startup Hadrian, while volunteering at the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) — even as he was hacking into and extorting a number of large organizations.
When asked in a recent interview why anyone should believe the word of a self-described “reformed” cybercriminal who had so casually deceived countless friends, co-workers and journalists for years, Van der Stap replied that his work spoke for itself and there was nothing he could say that would convince his worst critics.
“You can throw a bunch of nice words at someone, but you can’t convince them if they don’t want to be convinced,” Van der Stap told KrebsOnSecurity on Sept. 9. “I’m doing what I can to repay victims, and that’s all I can do. If someone doesn’t want to believe me, then that’s on them.”
Cybercriminals aligned with ShinyHunters have been responsible for dozens of data breaches involving billions of stolen records, and breaches claimed by the group stretch back to at least 2019. But experts say the people recently operating behind the ShinyHunters name are not the same core members that populated the group in its early days, most of whom are French citizens who have been arrested (if not also imprisoned) on at least one prior occasion for alleged cybercrime activity.
More to the point, ShinyHunters has become something of a franchise. Think the Dread Pirate Roberts character in the 1980s cult movie classic “The Princess Bride,” only succession by death is replaced with succession by arrest, and there can be multiple simultaneous Dread Pirate Robertses. Sources close to the investigation say the FBI is focusing on a remaining handful of cybercriminal freelancers or affiliates who have been feeding the group stolen credentials to various software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms used by major companies in exchange for a cut of any data ransoms later paid by victims.
In the days after the news broke of Van der Stap’s arrest, a cybercrime-focused chat server on Telegram that was allegedly operated by Rey erupted with hot takes, with most participants heaping ridicule on the teenage hacker after he publicly backed down from threats against the FBI and Cl0p, and again when the ShinyHunters’s darknet website suddenly went offline. Several commentators accused Rey of resurrecting the ShinyHunters brand after its core members were rounded up in France, and making a mockery of the group’s name and reputation ever since.
“He bought the old forum PGP key and used it to make new Breachforum websites and Telegram channels larping as ShinyHunters to ransom companies and then sell the used data or resell his forum when he goes broke,” one member recounted.
A relatively new Telegram channel called “The Battle” has been doxing and needling Rey and other alleged ShinyHunters members for several weeks, and it has gained a considerable readership among the cybercrime communities operating on Telegram. One of the coordinators of that harassment campaign repeatedly portrayed Rey as clueless greenhorn who sought to ride the coattails of a cybercriminal brand that has long enjoyed a reputation for ruthlessly selling or publishing data stolen from victim companies who refuse to give in to extortion demands.
“Rey (Saif Al-Din Khader) made a serious mistake when he started pretending to be a member of ShinyHunters,” wrote the administrators of The Battle server on Telegram. “That group had already been dismantled, with many of its members either arrested or imprisoned, yet Rey still chose to use its name while carrying out his crimes. We’re aware of claims that [Rey] caused over $200 million in damages and helped around 5–6 friend groups in the community make money by using Shiny Hunters group aliases to negotiate deals for a 25–30% cut over the past few months.”
In an interview with The Register, ShinyHunters claimed they hacked the FBI to counter the agency’s narrative in a May 2026 alert that advised victims against paying a ransom to the group, which came off looking unprofessional and capricious in the FBI’s advisory.
A flash notice on ShinyHunters released by the FBI on May 15, 2026.
The public notice warned the group has been known to pursue a number of different victim harassment strategies, from sending threatening text messages and phone calls to victims and their family members to in some cases swatting victims. The FBI warned ShinyHunters members “may also falsely claim to have sensitive or compromising information, including embarrassing photographs or videos of victims, which frequently do not exist.”
The hackers told The Register their attack on the FBI “demonstrated our technical capabilities and directly refuted the misinformation disseminated by the FBI, journalists, and industry researchers.” At the same time, the group’s leaders seemed to acknowledge that the FBI’s warning materially harmed their prospects for convincing victims to pay, saying “this was fundamentally a public relations and marketing initiative for our business.”
Many businesses still fear ransomware attacks. But is this threat still as relevant today? A few years ago, at the peak of ransomware’s popularity, the term “ransomware” was practically synonymous with malicious encryption of data. But in reality blocking access to information had long been little more than a symbolic gesture. In a May Securelist post on shifts in the ransomware threat landscape, our experts noted that in 2026, attackers are encrypting company data for ransom less and less frequently. Here’s a striking example: while investigating an incident, Kaspersky’s Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) uncovered the PAYLOAD extortion campaign, whose operators didn’t even bother using ransomware. They took a different route instead.
In this campaign, instead of using ransomware, the attackers seized control of the Active Directory environment, and created a malicious group policy object (GPO). They used it to deploy a ransom note, change wallpapers, and lock screens on workstations, and set up a banner to display at system login. Naturally, they also disabled local administrator accounts while they were at it. This move let the attackers demonstrate their presence in the compromised infrastructure and prove they’d accessed confidential information — just as effectively as encryption would have. Detailed information about this incident, along with indicators of compromise, can be found in the same Securelist post. What interests us more, though, is the trend of abandoning encryption.
Let’s start with the fact that in a large company with thousands of infected computers, decrypting data is an extremely effort-intensive process. Restoring data from backups, which has become common practice largely thanks to mass ransomware attacks, is far easier than waiting for criminals to hand over a key, hoping it’s genuine, and trusting that the ransomware itself didn’t have bugs that made the data unrecoverable. As a result, cybercriminals found it harder and harder over time to actually collect a ransom for the decryption key.
Attackers tried to adapt to this shift. Alongside encryption, they increasingly began stealing confidential data and threatening to publish it. Publishing confidential information puts a company’s reputation, its security, and the safety of its business partners at risk. This is especially true if the data includes people’s personal information: more than 140 countries around the world have data protection laws, so a leak puts an organization at a fairly high risk of a hefty fine. Sometimes that’s far scarier than simply losing data, and no backup can help with that.
Data exfiltration has another advantage from the attackers’ perspective: it’s usually much harder to detect than malware activity. File encryption, for instance, triggers a spike in disk activity that endpoint protection tools pick up fairly quickly. By contrast, data exfiltration is easy to disguise as normal traffic. This is precisely what the ShinyHunters group exploits, building its attacks around the standard OAuth mechanism. On top of that, attackers can steal data much quicker if they don’t bother with encryption, which also makes it harder to catch the threat in time.
As a result, encryption has become a kind of calling card — proof that the attackers had access to the data. So cybercriminals finally decided to drop this optional step altogether.
Standard cyberhygiene practices can help protect against a wide range of extortion schemes — regardless of whether or not they involve encryption:
Activity associated with Storm-2570, a ransomware affiliate linked to multiple ransomware payloads, illustrates how tracking and responding to ransomware attacks by payload alone can obscure the affiliates carrying out intrusions and the recurring behaviors that defenders can use to detect and disrupt them. Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Storm-2570 using consistent post-compromise tools and techniques across deployments involving Qilin, DragonForce, Anubis, and BERT ransomware. Across multiple investigations, Storm-2570 has maintained largely uniform tradecraft, infrastructure overlaps, and repeated use of the same remote access and cloud exfiltration tooling despite operating across multiple ransomware ecosystems.
These findings reinforce the value of examining threat actor behavior across the attack chain rather than treating each ransomware payload as an isolated activity set. Recurring remote access, credential access, lateral movement, security tampering, and data exfiltration activity can help defenders connect related intrusions and respond before ransomware deployment, even when the final payload changes.
In this blog post, we delve into the attack techniques attributed to Storm-2570. While Storm-2570’s methodology aligns with the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of many tracked ransomware actors, analysis of their post-compromise tactics provides essential insights into how organizations can harden and defend against ransomware threat actors, informing opportunities to disrupt attackers even if they have gained initial access to a network. At the end of this blog, we also provide a comprehensive recommendation section with detection details.
Storm-2570 is a ransomware affiliate that Microsoft Threat Intelligence has tracked since April 2025. We assess that Storm-2570 has operated across multiple ransomware as a service (RaaS) ecosystems, including Qilin, DragonForce, Anubis, and BERT.
To date, Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Storm-2570 in multiple investigated intrusions affecting organizations in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands, and Puerto Rico, including healthcare and public health, education, government agencies and services, financial services, energy, consumer retail, Information technology (IT), food and agriculture, consumer services, commercial facilities, non-government organization (NGO), chemicals, critical manufacturing, and transportation.
Unlike actors that consistently support a single ransomware operation, Storm-2570 appears to be a cross-ecosystem threat actor that works with multiple ransomware groups and shifts between operations as opportunities arise, giving the threat actor the flexibility to use and deploy multiple families and improve opportunities for payouts. As a result, organizations could encounter the same actor, tools, and intrusion methods despite different ransomware payloads being deployed.
While the method through which Storm-2570 gains initial access remains unconfirmed, observed intrusion chains indicate subsequent use of remote management tooling and hands-on-keyboard activity to progress toward credential access, lateral movement, exfiltration, and ransomware deployment.
Across incidents, Microsoft has observed the use of commodity tools in the pre-ransom attack stage even when the ransomware payload changed. These tools include:
These tools enable remote administration, command execution, persistence, and tunneling or proxy access.
MeshAgent, a remote device management software, stands out as one of Storm-2570’s most frequently observed remote access and execution tools across multiple intrusions. Rather than appearing as a one-off utility, MeshAgent repeatedly shows up at key points in Storm-2570 attack chains, often after the actor has gained access and is preparing to expand control, run commands, deploy additional tooling, or move toward ransomware impact. In several cases, Storm-2570 used MeshAgent along with MeshCentral as an operational bridge between initial hands-on-keyboard activity and later-stage actions, such as account manipulation, discovery, credential access, security tampering, and ransomware deployment.
Many intrusions tracked by Microsoft have shown Storm-2570 tailoring MeshAgent deployments to the compromised environment. The actor renames MeshAgent-related binaries or services with victim-themed names, likely to make the tool appear more legitimate in the environment. For example, Storm-2570 renames the variant of the meshagent64 RMM tool to include the name of the compromised organization, such as meshagent64-[organization name].exe and uses Base64-encoding to obfuscate the commands being executed. In one such intrusion, MeshAgent was used alongside NinjaRMM before the activity progressed to ntdsutil for credential dumping, network scanning, and Qilin deployment.
Storm-2570 uses a diverse set of remote access tools rather than relying on a single capability. The threat actor rotates among commercially available RMM platforms, remote desktop components, and tunneling utilities, often deploying multiple tools during the same intrusion. For example, Storm-2570 uses Atera to install agents and execute interactive commands, while ngrok and Cloudflared.exe expose RDP services or establish persistent outbound tunnels. Storm-2570 uses AteraAgent to issue commands and to further download and install Splashtop Streamer in compromised environments. Splashtop appears to be the interactive remote control component delivered through Atera, giving the threat actor hands-on keyboard access. The actor also uses tools such as ScreenConnect for command execution and account or domain reconnaissance and installs Remotely_Agent as a persistent remote management service.
Storm-2570 also pairs remote access tooling with tunneling utilities such as Cloudflared.exe to create resilient outbound access paths. In one intrusion, Storm-2570 installed MeshAgent and later created a persistent Cloudflare Tunnel service on the victim host. The tunnel was configured to run automatically as a service under LocalSystem, allowing the threat actor to maintain an encrypted outbound channel from inside the network. This type of tunnel can help bypass inbound firewall restrictions and provide covert remote access for follow-on activity.
Post-compromise, Storm-2570 routinely conducts internal network discovery using tools such as NetScan, SoftPerfect Network Scanner Portable, and Nmap, alongside native discovery commands and file-searching activity. These activities are used to identify reachable hosts and services, map internal networks and remote systems, and locate systems, network shares, and files that may facilitate data collection, credential access, or encryption operations.
For credential access and harvesting, Storm-2570 uses tools like Mimikatz, LaZagne, and pypykatz. Storm-2570 also uses ntdsutil in intrusions for NTDS.dit credential dumping, a credential theft technique against Active Directory domain credentials. The ntdsutil command usage pattern is consistent with creating an Install From Media (IFM) copy of Active Directory database material. In an intrusion context, attackers can use this to obtain NTDS.dit and related registry hives for offline extraction of password hashes and credential material.
The command uses the legitimate Windows ntdsutil.exe to activate the NTDS Active Directory instance and create a full IFM backup in C:\Windows\Temp\<XXXXXXXXX>.
Storm-2570 uses this command to dump or stage Active Directory database NTDS.dit and supporting registry hive material, then copy it off-host and potentially extract domain credential hashes offline, indicating that the actor has high-privilege access to a victim’s domain controller:
After acquiring privileged credentials, Storm-2570 uses defense evasion tactics preceding ransomware deployment, including antivirus tampering and the modification of Microsoft Defender settings and Defender exclusions. In multiple observed intrusions, Storm-2570 disabled real-time monitoring, added Defender exclusions for C:\PerfLogs to weaken endpoint detections, and modified registry values under Microsoft Defender service keys to further impair protections.
These tactics are consistent across Storm-2570 ransomware intrusions involving Qilin, DragonForce, and Anubis deployment, including cases where the actor used registry changes to alter DisableAntiSpyware, DisableRealtimeMonitoring, and WinDefend service behavior.
Storm-2570 moves into lateral movement and deployment preparation phase typically by using a mix of legitimate administrative tooling, offensive frameworks, and remote execution utilities.
Across multiple investigated intrusions, Storm-2570 was observed leveraging PsExec, Impacket, NetExec, RDP batch scripts, and admin shares to reach additional systems, execute commands remotely, and stage tooling across the environment. The actor uses these capabilities to facilitate data exfiltration and prepare victim networks for ransomware deployment. These tools frequently appear alongside earlier discovery activity, credential access, and remote access tooling such as MeshAgent, and often precede the use of s5cmd for exfiltration or ransomware payload execution.
PsExec is one of the most consistent lateral movement and deployment tools used by Storm-2570. The actor frequently uses PsExec, sometimes with host lists such as @ip.txt, to move laterally and install renamed MeshAgent binaries across compromised environments. Storm-2570 utilizes MeshAgent during the lateral movement phase in several intrusions as a remote access tool deployed onto newly compromised systems.
The following are examples of PsExec commands with host lists @ip.txt:
Storm-2570 also uses RDP and RDP-enabling scripts as part of this phase. If RDP is not allowed in the environment, Storm-2570 needs admin privileges to modify the policy and enable it. In several intrusions, rdp.bat script appeared with PsExec, including cases where PsExec ran rdp.bat across hosts using @ip.txt.
The RDP batch script (rdp.bat) enables inbound Remote Desktop access by modifying Terminal Server settings and adding a firewall rule to allow TCP port 3389, as observed in the command below:
Additionally, the threat actor uses ngrok to expose TCP 3389 (default port for RDP), after which PsExec-related activity and security tampering appears. These examples show Storm-2570 combining RDP access, tunneling, and remote execution to sustain hands-on-keyboard control and reach additional systems.
Storm-2570’s use of Impacket and NetExec over Server Message Block (SMB) further supports their lateral movement pattern. Impacket is a collection of open-source Python classes designed for working with network protocols, and is popular with adversaries due to its ease of use and wide range of capabilities. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has a dedicated attack surface reduction rule to defend against lateral movement techniques used by Impacket; protecting lateral movement pathways can also mitigate Impacket.
The following NetExec SMB command is used to conduct credential theft and reconnaissance against internal Windows hosts:
Storm-2570 frequently performs data theft using cloud and file-transfer utilities that are capable of moving large volumes of data quickly from compromised environments to a remote attacker-owned cloud resource. Microsoft has observed Storm-2570 using s5cmd or Rclone to stage and exfiltrate data, often after the actor has already completed discovery, credential access, lateral movement, and remote access setup. Tools like Rclone provide data synchronization capabilities, moving newly created or updated files to cloud resources in real-time to enable continuous exfiltration throughout all stages of the attack without needing attacker interaction.
Most commonly, Storm-2570 relies on s5cmd, a command-line utility designed for managing Amazon S3 and compatible object storage services, for S3-based exfiltration. In multiple intrusions, the actor staged s5cmd.exe alongside a credentials file and used it to copy documents, spreadsheets, images, databases, mail-related files, archives, and other business-relevant file types to S3 buckets. Storm-2570 identifies high-value drives and network shares, stages s5cmd.exe and a credentials file, and then executes run copy (cp) operations with extension filters to transfer selected data to attacker-controlled S3 buckets. To interact with the destination S3 bucket, s5cmd requires credentials for authentication and the credentials file stores the AWS access keys for authentication to the S3 bucket.
The following is an example of s5cmd data exfiltration command lines:
Overall, Storm-2570’s exfiltration tradecraft shows a strong preference for tools that blend into legitimate administrative or cloud-transfer workflows, allowing double-extortion operations: first collecting sensitive data through cloud-transfer tooling, then deploying ransomware.
Storm-2570 illustrates common human-operated ransomware attacks and how modern ransomware affiliates increasingly operate independently of a single ransomware brand. Ransomware affiliates’ use of common tools, intrusion methods, and operational patterns remain remarkably consistent. Although Storm-2570’s techniques are not novel, recognizing the patterns used by ransomware affiliates can be important for defenders to know to improve prevention, detection, and incident response.
To defend against Storm-2570 TTPs and similar activity, Microsoft recommends the following mitigation measures:
Microsoft Defender customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.
| Tactic | Observed activity | Microsoft Defender coverage |
| Execution | Storm-2570 delivers tools such as PsExec, Impacket, NetExec, and RDP batch scripts, to carry out post-compromise activity | Microsoft Defender Antivirus – Behavior:Win32/PsexecRemote Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Hands-on-keyboard attack involving multiple devices – Remote access software – Suspicious PowerShell command line – Suspicious PowerShell download or encoded command execution – Ransomware-linked threat actor detected |
| Persistence | Storm-2570 uses RMM tools for persistence, payload delivery, and lateral movement | Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Suspicious Atera activity – File dropped and launched from remote location |
| Defense Impairment | Storm-2570 disables Microsoft Defender | Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Defender detection bypass – Attempt to turn off Microsoft Defender Antivirus protection |
| Credential Access | Storm-2570 has used tools like Mimikatz, LaZagne, and pypykatz for credential access and harvesting and NTDS.dit for credential dumping | Microsoft Defender Antivirus – HackTool:Win32/Mimikatz – HackTool:Win64/Mimikatz – HackTool:Linux/LaZagne – HackTool:Win32/LaZagne – HackTool:Win64/LaZagne Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Exposed credentials at risk of compromise – Compromised account credentials – Process memory dump |
| Exfiltration | Storm-2570 uses Rclone and s5cmd for data theft | Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Potential human-operated malicious activity – Renaming of legitimate tools for possible data exfiltration – Possible data exfiltration – Hidden dual-use tool launch attempt |
| Impact | Storm-2570 deploys Anubis, DragonForce, Qilin, and BERT ransomware | Microsoft Defender Antivirus – Ransom:Win32/Qilinloader – Behavior:Win32/Ransomware!Qilin – Ransom:Linux/Qilin – Ransom:Win32/Qilin – Ransom:Win32/DragonForce – Ransom:Win64/Anubis Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Possible ransomware activity based on a known malicious extension – Possible compromised user account delivering ransomware-related files – Potentially compromised assets exhibiting ransomware-like behavior – Ransomware behavior detected in the file system – File dropped and launched from remote location |
Microsoft Security Copilot is embedded in Microsoft Defender and provides security teams with AI-powered capabilities to summarize incidents, analyze files and scripts, summarize identities, use guided responses, and generate device summaries, hunting queries, and incident reports.
Customers can also deploy AI agents, including the following Microsoft Security Copilot agents, to perform security tasks efficiently:
Security Copilot is also available as a standalone experience where customers can perform specific security-related tasks, such as incident investigation, user analysis, and vulnerability impact assessment. In addition, Security Copilot offers developer scenarios that allow customers to build, test, publish, and integrate AI agents and plugins to meet unique security needs.
Microsoft Defender XDR customers can use the following threat analytics reports in the Defender portal (requires license for at least one Defender XDR product) to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.
Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.
Microsoft Sentinel customers can run the following advanced hunting queries to find related activity in their networks:
Hunt for PsExec-based remote execution and deployment
Login
DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where FileName in~ ("psexec.exe", "psexec64.exe")
or ProcessCommandLine has_any ("psexec.exe", "psexec64.exe")
| where ProcessCommandLine has_any ("@ip.txt", "-accepteula", "\\")
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine,
InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine,
SHA256, DeviceId, ReportId
| order by Timestamp desc
Hunt for renamed MeshAgent binaries and services
let MeshAgentTerms = dynamic(["meshagent", "meshagent64", "meshcentral"]);
union isfuzzy=true
(
DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where FileName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or ProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath,
ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessFileName,
InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256,
RegistryKey="", RegistryValueName="", SourceTable="DeviceProcessEvents"
),
(
DeviceFileEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where FileName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or FolderPath has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath,
ProcessCommandLine="", InitiatingProcessFileName,
InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256,
RegistryKey="", RegistryValueName="", SourceTable="DeviceFileEvents"
),
(
DeviceRegistryEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where RegistryKey has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or RegistryValueName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or RegistryValueData has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName="", FolderPath="",
ProcessCommandLine="", InitiatingProcessFileName,
InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256="",
RegistryKey, RegistryValueName, SourceTable="DeviceRegistryEvents"
)
| order by Timestamp desc
For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog.
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The post Beyond the ransomware: Tracking Storm-2570’s consistent tradecraft across deployments appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.
Hackers stole patient information from Clover Health Investments and AngMar Management Services in July.
The post 250,000 Impacted by Data Breaches at New Jersey, Texas Healthcare Firms appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Table Of ContentsVulnerability and exposure management (VM) teams need critical metadata and context that clearly show which issues pose an immediate risk to their organization. While traditional VM frameworks tell defenders how severe a vulnerability may be, they do not provide visibility into how likely threat actors are to exploit it. This leaves security teams overwhelmed in patch backlogs without a clear strategy for prioritization.
Nowhere is this prioritization gap more dangerous than with ransomware. Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) groups no longer choose targets at random. They look for specific technical conditions that make vulnerability exploitation easy, fast, and repeatable. With RaaS attacks rising by 45% period-over-period in H1 2026, organizations need a way to identify the specific traits that make a vulnerability attractive to ransomware operators before an attack occurs.
Flashpoint built the Ransomware Risk score into Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence to solve exactly this problem. Since 2022, it has rated newly discovered vulnerabilities based on how closely they resemble those known to be used in ransomware attacks. With the grant of the U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360 on August 11, 2026, the methodology behind the score is now formally patented. This milestone formalizes Flashpoint’s ability to cut through the noise with a proven, threat-informed signal that gives defenders the clarity they need to act on Day Zero.
“As vulnerability disclosures surge, prioritization is more important than ever for security teams. A severity score alone can’t tell you which vulnerabilities pose the greatest real-world risk of exploitation by ransomware actors.
Our patented Ransomware Risk model applies years of threat intelligence to that problem, giving customers an earlier signal and helping them prioritize based on how attackers actually operate.”
josh lefkowitz, co-founder and ceo at flashpoint
The patented system evaluates newly disclosed vulnerabilities against the patterns shared by vulnerabilities ransomware groups have exploited. Rather than trying to predict what threat actors will do next, the model learns what past ransomware-exploited vulnerabilities have in common and compares each new flaw against those patterns.
Every vulnerability ingested into Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence is profiled against more than 60 distinct technical factors. This “fingerprinting” links the vulnerability to key inputs including whether the flaw is remotely exploitable without authentication, whether it affects SCADA or Operational Technology (OT) systems, and its potential impact on data availability, which is central to extortion schemes.
The model turns each multi-factor fingerprint into a set of values that place it as a single point on a map, so vulnerabilities with similar profiles land close together.
Flashpoint overlays historical threat data onto the map to establish neighborhoods where vulnerabilities previously exploited in real-world ransomware attacks aggregate.
When a new vulnerability is ingested, its coordinates are checked against these neighborhoods. The scoring system calculates its spatial proximity to known ransomware vectors and assigns a clear rating: Low, Medium, High, or Critical.
This four-step method, developed by Flashpoint’s Ben Haynes and Jacob Kouns, is the basis of U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360.
By translating complex structural attributes into a single risk score, the patented model delivers four key operational advantages:
Flashpoint’s Ransomware Risk model is built to enhance, not replace the vulnerability management frameworks organizations already rely on. In fact, it provides even greater value for security teams as our Ransomware Risk model provides clarity for every vulnerability detailed by Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence, including over 105,000 issues missed by CVE and NVD.
Within Flashpoint Ignite, security teams have a complete view of vulnerability risk, seeing the score alongside CVSS (v3 and v4), EPSS, Social Risk, and exploit maturity.
Vulnerability management requires more than cataloging. It demands threat-informed prioritization that aligns security operations with real-world business risk. Flashpoint’s patented Ransomware Risk model eliminates guesswork by surfacing the flaws that match the profile of known ransomware targets, allowing security teams to patch what matters most, first.
By combining proprietary knowledge of vulnerability architecture and ransomware attacks, Flashpoint bridges the gap between theoretical and active exposure. Request a demo today to see how our Ransomware Risk model provides the definitive signal needed to stay ahead of extortion groups.
What is the Ransomware Risk score?
The Ransomware Risk score is a rating in Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence that shows how closely a vulnerability resembles those known to be used in ransomware attacks. Each vulnerability is rated Low, Medium, High, or Critical, so security teams can see which ones to patch first to reduce their ransomware exposure.
How is Ransomware Risk different from CVSS and EPSS?
CVSS measures how severe a vulnerability could be, and EPSS estimates how likely it is to be exploited in general. Ransomware Risk adds a ransomware-specific signal that works alongside both, showing how closely a vulnerability matches those ransomware groups have used. In Flashpoint Ignite, all three scores appear together.
What does Flashpoint’s ransomware patent cover?
U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360, granted August 11, 2026, covers Flashpoint’s method for rating how likely a vulnerability is to be used in a ransomware event. Each vulnerability is profiled on more than 60 factors, compared with vulnerabilities used in past ransomware attacks, and rated by similarity. The patent formalizes the model behind the Ransomware Risk score, live since 2022.
How often are Ransomware Risk scores updated?
Ransomware Risk scores update in near real time, so new vulnerabilities are rated as soon as they’re disclosed. The model also keeps adjusting as new vulnerabilities join the body it compares against, so ratings reflect the ransomware landscape as it stands today.
The post Ransomware Risk Model: Flashpoint’s Patented Scoring Method to Inform Vulnerability Prioritization appeared first on Flashpoint.
Threat actors are no longer just using automation to execute tasks, they are leveraging prepackaged, safeguard-free AI, weaponizing stolen session data, and directly targeting defenders’ security stacks.
Table Of ContentsIn our latest webinar, Flashpoint Vice President of Intelligence, Ian Gray, briefed security leaders on the evolving threat environment, providing critical insights from the Flashpoint Global Threat Intelligence Report (GTIR): 2026 Midyear Edition.
The threat landscape has developed at a striking pace with Flashpoint tracking over 22 million illicit AI discussions, 7.4 million compromised hosts yielding 1.7 billion stolen credentials, and over 21,600 disclosed vulnerabilities in just six months. Beyond these staggering numbers, the on-demand session detailed something even more alarming: a fundamental shift in adversary operational tradecraft.
Here are the five critical shifts every cyber threat intelligence (CTI), Vulnerability Management, and SOC team needs to know.
The public discussion surrounding criminal artificial intelligence (AI) has reached a critical inflection point. Early in the AI boom, Flashpoint observed threat actors collaboratively experiment across underground forums, jailbreaking commercial frontier models or advertising surface-level tools like WormGPT and DarkGPT.
Today, adversaries are shifting from public forums to running fine-tuned, open-source models locally on private servers, which greatly hampers traditional signature-based detection. Flashpoint analysts are now seeing attackers generate unique, highly tailored malware variants, flawless phishing lures, and custom exploit scripts at extremely low costs—completely offline and shielded from public monitoring.
“A few months ago, a lot of this was collaborative… public outsourcing. Now what we’re seeing is scarier: pre-packaged cybercrime models run locally on private infrastructure. Malicious code, exploit scripts, and targeted phishing are all being generated inside closed environments.”
Ian Gray, VP of Intelligence, Flashpoint
Another eye-opening tactical insight shared during the session was how threat actors are repurposing defender infrastructure for automated initial access and extortion. In the webinar, we pointed to recent campaigns where adversaries specifically targeted misconfigurations and zero-day vulnerabilities inside open-source vulnerability scanners, secrets-detection tools, Kubernetes clusters, and Infrastructure-as-Code(IaC) environments.
What this means for defenders is that the attack surface is no longer bounded by traditional enterprise network boundaries: it extends directly into CI/CD pipelines, security orchestration tooling, and third-party SaaS integrations. Security teams are finding themselves in a race against attackers who use automated scanning scripts to weaponize vulnerabilities in the security tools themselves.
Flashpoint tracked 7.4 million hosts compromised by infostealers in H1 2026—a 27% increase period-over-period—harvesting 1.7 billion credentials and identity information.
While the top infostealer strains remain familiar, law enforcement operations have created vacuums that competitors rapidly fill.
Threat actors are leveraging drive-by downloads, watering holes, and pirated software packages to plant stealers. Once a machine is compromised, the logs capture corporate SSO credentials, active browser cookies, VPN keys, and SaaS session tokens. This enables adversaries to simply log in without having to leverage complex technical exploits.
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) and National Vulnerability Database (NVD) have failed to keep pace with the velocity of AI-assisted vulnerability discovery. As such, vulnerability management teams are facing significant operational delays.
| Metric | Flashpoint GTIR Midyear H1 2026 Data | Operational Impact |
| Total Disclosures | 21,667 | Remediation volume exceeds defender bandwidth. |
| Exploit Availability | 19% (4,015 CVEs) | Functional code is ready before patches are deployed. |
| Public Catalog Lag | Growing Backlog (NVD/KEV) | Delay in official scoring leaves teams blind to active risk. |
Therefore, waiting for NVD enrichment before prioritizing a patch is a dangerous strategy. To compensate, security teams require Vulnerability Intelligence (VI) that provides primary-source confirmation of weaponization, exploit availability, and actionable mitigation guidance long before public databases update.
Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) activity surged by 45% period-over-period, reaching 6,256 verified victim postings on data leak sites. However, total on-chain payout revenue dropped by 8% to $820 million, with victim pay-rates hitting a record low of 28%.
Faced with declining payouts and resilient enterprise backups, extortion syndicates are adapting. Rather than relying exclusively on technical file-encrypting malware, groups are executing pure data extortion campaigns—frequently targeting cloud platforms or extracting data through third-party vendor access.
Defending against machine-speed attacks requires moving beyond reactive, post-incident telemetry. Flashpoint arms security, CTI, and vulnerability management teams with the primary-source intelligence required to preempt adversary operations:
Request a demo, or watch the full on-demand webinar to explore the data shaping today’s risk landscape.
The post Cybercrime at Machine Speed: Key Takeaways from Flashpoint’s 2026 Midyear Threat Intelligence Briefing appeared first on Flashpoint.
In this post, we preview the critical findings of Flashpoint’s Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition.
Table Of ContentsIn the first half of 2026, the global threat landscape reached a clear operational inflection point: threat operations have fundamentally transitioned from human-led campaigns to machine-speed, AI-driven exploitation. As threat actors gain commoditized access to open-source AI technologies and actively deploy automated, safeguard-free tooling locally on private infrastructure, organizations face an accelerating hybrid risk environment.
The Flashpoint Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition anchors security leaders—from threat intelligence, vulnerability management, to executive leadership—in the data required to navigate this evolving threat landscape. Covering the period from January 1 to June 30, 2026, the report delivers timely insights backed by Flashpoint’s proprietary primary-source collection from over 3.9 petabytes of continuously monitored illicit sources.
Our midyear findings reveal several key metrics that highlight the speed and scale of the H1 2026 threat landscape:
Download the Flashpoint Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition to gain:
“AI is compressing the time between opportunity and exploitation. Capabilities that once took significant expertise, coordination, and time to develop are becoming faster to build, easier to scale, and harder to detect. Security teams are facing an adversary ecosystem that can use AI to iterate at unprecedented speed — the only way to keep pace is with primary-source intelligence that surfaces adversary behavior before attacks unfold.”
Josh Lefkowitz, Flashpoint Co-Founder & CEO
During the first half of 2026, Flashpoint captured over 22M illicit posts discussing or advertising AI for criminal-related activities. By stripping ethical safeguards, custom malicious LLMs allow unsophisticated threat actors to automate complex phases of the attack lifecycle, including target profiling, malware evasion script creation, and zero-day exploit generation.
Infostealer malware harvested 1.7 billion credentials across 7.4 million compromised systems in H1 2026 alone, turning digital identity into the main entry point for enterprise intrusions.
19% (4,015) of all H1 2026 vulnerability disclosures arrived with ready-made exploit code. Adversaries deploy automated replication scripts almost immediately upon disclosure, eliminating manual remediation windows.
Despite a 45% surge in victim volume (6,256 overall), total on-chain revenue fell by 8% to $820M. Improved enterprise backups and incident response have driven payout rates down to 28%, prompting syndicates to demand larger sums from paying victims.
The data shows that traditional enterprise security organizations are struggling to keep pace with modern threat cycles that are accelerated by illicit uses of AI. This continued convergence of AI engines and initial access vectors have further compressed attack timelines, making it nearly impossible for security teams to defend against them—especially if they are limited by traditional approaches to threat intelligence.
Equipping your team with primary-source threat intelligence is critical for protecting critical assets in 2026. Download the Flashpoint Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition to gain the visibility and strategic clarity required to defend your organization.
The post Navigating AI-Driven Cyber Threats: Insights from Flashpoint’s 2026 GTIR Midyear Edition appeared first on Flashpoint.
The China-based hacking group has been exploiting SharePoint vulnerabilities since July 2025.
The post Warlock Expands SharePoint Exploitation in Critical Infrastructure Attacks appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Flashpoint was awarded U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360 for its Ransomware Risk model, which rates how closely new vulnerabilities match those used in ransomware attacks.
Table Of ContentsVulnerability and exposure management (VM) teams need critical metadata and context that clearly show which issues pose an immediate risk to their organization. While traditional VM frameworks tell defenders how severe a vulnerability may be, they do not provide visibility into how likely threat actors are to exploit it. This leaves security teams overwhelmed in patch backlogs without a clear strategy for prioritization.
Nowhere is this prioritization gap more dangerous than with ransomware. Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) groups no longer choose targets at random. They look for specific technical conditions that make vulnerability exploitation easy, fast, and repeatable. With RaaS attacks rising by 45% period-over-period in H1 2026, organizations need a way to identify the specific traits that make a vulnerability attractive to ransomware operators before an attack occurs.
Flashpoint built the Ransomware Risk score into Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence to solve exactly this problem. Since 2022, it has rated newly discovered vulnerabilities based on how closely they resemble those known to be used in ransomware attacks. With the grant of the U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360 on August 11, 2026, the methodology behind the score is now formally patented. This milestone formalizes Flashpoint’s ability to cut through the noise with a proven, threat-informed signal that gives defenders the clarity they need to act on Day Zero.
“As vulnerability disclosures surge, prioritization is more important than ever for security teams. A severity score alone can’t tell you which vulnerabilities pose the greatest real-world risk of exploitation by ransomware actors.
Our patented Ransomware Risk model applies years of threat intelligence to that problem, giving customers an earlier signal and helping them prioritize based on how attackers actually operate.”
josh lefkowitz, co-founder and ceo at flashpoint
The patented system evaluates newly disclosed vulnerabilities against the patterns shared by vulnerabilities ransomware groups have exploited. Rather than trying to predict what threat actors will do next, the model learns what past ransomware-exploited vulnerabilities have in common and compares each new flaw against those patterns.
Every vulnerability ingested into Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence is profiled against more than 60 distinct technical factors. This “fingerprinting” links the vulnerability to key inputs including whether the flaw is remotely exploitable without authentication, whether it affects SCADA or Operational Technology (OT) systems, and its potential impact on data availability, which is central to extortion schemes.
The model turns each multi-factor fingerprint into a set of values that place it as a single point on a map, so vulnerabilities with similar profiles land close together.
Flashpoint overlays historical threat data onto the map to establish neighborhoods where vulnerabilities previously exploited in real-world ransomware attacks aggregate.
When a new vulnerability is ingested, its coordinates are checked against these neighborhoods. The scoring system calculates its spatial proximity to known ransomware vectors and assigns a clear rating: Low, Medium, High, or Critical.
This four-step method, developed by Flashpoint’s Ben Haynes and Jacob Kouns, is the basis of U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360.
By translating complex structural attributes into a single risk score, the patented model delivers four key operational advantages:
Flashpoint’s Ransomware Risk model is built to enhance, not replace the vulnerability management frameworks organizations already rely on. In fact, it provides even greater value for security teams as our Ransomware Risk model provides clarity for every vulnerability detailed by Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence, including over 105,000 issues missed by CVE and NVD.
Within Flashpoint Ignite, security teams have a complete view of vulnerability risk, seeing the score alongside CVSS (v3 and v4), EPSS, Social Risk, and exploit maturity.
Vulnerability management requires more than cataloging. It demands threat-informed prioritization that aligns security operations with real-world business risk. Flashpoint’s patented Ransomware Risk model eliminates guesswork by surfacing the flaws that match the profile of known ransomware targets, allowing security teams to patch what matters most, first.
By combining proprietary knowledge of vulnerability architecture and ransomware attacks, Flashpoint bridges the gap between theoretical and active exposure. Request a demo today to see how our Ransomware Risk model provides the definitive signal needed to stay ahead of extortion groups.
What is the Ransomware Risk score?
The Ransomware Risk score is a rating in Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence that shows how closely a vulnerability resembles those known to be used in ransomware attacks. Each vulnerability is rated Low, Medium, High, or Critical, so security teams can see which ones to patch first to reduce their ransomware exposure.
How is Ransomware Risk different from CVSS and EPSS?
CVSS measures how severe a vulnerability could be, and EPSS estimates how likely it is to be exploited in general. Ransomware Risk adds a ransomware-specific signal that works alongside both, showing how closely a vulnerability matches those ransomware groups have used. In Flashpoint Ignite, all three scores appear together.
What does Flashpoint’s ransomware patent cover?
U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360, granted August 11, 2026, covers Flashpoint’s method for rating how likely a vulnerability is to be used in a ransomware event. Each vulnerability is profiled on more than 60 factors, compared with vulnerabilities used in past ransomware attacks, and rated by similarity. The patent formalizes the model behind the Ransomware Risk score, live since 2022.
How often are Ransomware Risk scores updated?
Ransomware Risk scores update in near real time, so new vulnerabilities are rated as soon as they’re disclosed. The model also keeps adjusting as new vulnerabilities join the body it compares against, so ratings reflect the ransomware landscape as it stands today.
The post Ransomware Risk Model: Flashpoint’s Patented Scoring Method to Inform Vulnerability Prioritization appeared first on Flashpoint.
In April 2026, we at Kaspersky’s Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) responded to a security incident at a manufacturing organization in the Middle East. The threat actor obtained domain admin-equivalent control of the organization’s Active Directory environment and authored a malicious Group Policy Object (GPO) named PAYLOAD, linking it at the domain root. Through that single object, the actor delivered ransom notes, hijacked the desktop wallpaper and lock screen, enforced a logon banner, and disabled the local administrator account across every domain-joined Windows workstation — all without dropping a ransomware binary or encrypting any data. The only ransomware we found in this incident was PAYLOAD sample targeting ESXi on Linux servers. Besides that, data exfiltration was observed originating from the file servers and several additional systems, and was later published on the dark web.
This case is an example of two converging trends that define the 2026 ransomware landscape:
We confirmed that no files were encrypted on Windows machines, no malicious binaries were resident on disk, no endpoint persistence was established, and no malicious processes were running at the time of analysis. The entire attack lived inside Active Directory itself. The defensive implication is stark: an organization whose detection strategy depends on catching a ransomware executable would have seen nothing until the first endpoint rebooted and the ransom wallpaper appeared.
In this article, we will describe the GPO attack chain and provide operational advice on how to detect such threats, including detailed remediation recommendations.
Attacks through group policies are nothing new. They can inflict significant, domain-wide damage with multiple malicious capabilities. A Group Policy Object (GPO) is essentially a combination of a Group Policy Container (GPC) in Active Directory and a Group Policy Template (GPT) in SYSVOL. The Group Policy scope depends on whether the GPC is linked to the directory tree at the domain, site, or organization unit (OU) level. A link at the domain root means the policy applies to every computer and user object beneath it. Thus, a GPO compromised at the domain root can affect all in-scope domain users and computers, potentially granting an attacker complete control over the corporate network. What makes GPO abuse even more dangerous is that group policies are processed in a trusted, high-privilege environment, ensuring persistence because endpoint cleanup is not enough to remove them.
We have already discussed GPO architecture and ways it can be compromised in greater detail in an earlier blog post. Other public threat intelligence has also repeatedly documented this technique in ransomware operations. Microsoft observed Ryuk operators distributing ransomware through Group Policy, SYSVOL startup items, and PsExec. LockBit affiliates have been documented modifying SYSVOL Group Policy files, including ScheduledTasks.xml, to support ransomware execution and propagation. BlackCat/ALPHV operators have also abused GPOs to create scheduled tasks and deploy ransomware.
Another notable example of GPO abuse is PAYLOAD ransomware, which weaponizes GPO Preferences and policy settings for pure impact rather than as a launcher for an encryptor. Let’s take a closer look at this attack, which is detailed further below.
During the April 2026 investigation, we managed to reconstruct the attack timeline as outlined below:
| Date | Event |
| 11 April | Initial access. Threat actor authenticates to the FortiGate SSL VPN using a valid but compromised domain credential. |
| 13 April | GPO authored. Malicious GPO, PAYLOAD ({C897F2C7-C2AC-4E6F-BF48-58036FF29E79}) created and linked at the domain root, configuring ransom notes, wallpaper, lock screen, logon banner, and administrator account disablement. |
| 13 April | SYSVOL staging. The payload.jpg and hello.txt files written to \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\. |
| 13 April | Second GPO. GPO named win Firewall Off ({22099AD2-E062-4F56-B574-5099BBA4E7A6}) linked at the domain root, disabling Windows Firewall on all profiles. |
| 13 April | Dormancy. GPO cached on endpoints but computer configuration not yet applied — no endpoint had rebooted since the policy update. |
| 13 April | Data exfiltration. Data exfiltration was observed originating from the file servers and several additional systems. |
| 14 April | Detonation. Most of the endpoints begin rebooting; computer configuration policies apply. Ransom wallpaper, logon banner, and notes appear. Operational disruption begins. |
| 15 April | Response. Kaspersky GERT engaged. Forensic triage of affected workstations and the domain controller initiated. |
| 16 April | Assessment. GERT confirms no file encryption, no resident malware, no endpoint persistence. |
Next, we will discuss each of these stages in more detail and share the findings from our incident response activities.
The entry vector was a compromised valid account (MITRE ATT&CK T1078) used to authenticate through the organization’s FortiGate SSL VPN — an external remote service (T1133). Insufficient logging on the FortiGate appliance prevented us from reconstructing how the credential was originally compromised.
Three hypotheses were considered plausible in the context of the attack, in no particular order:
Once on the internal network, the actor operated with the compromised security principal’s privileges. Because the account was able to create and link a GPO at the domain root, it held either domain admin privileges or a delegated equivalent (e.g., membership of Group Policy Creator Owners combined with link rights on the domain object).
FortiGate SSL VPN authentication logs and ESXi/virtualization privilege escalation logs were insufficient to reconstruct the lateral movement and privilege escalation chain between initial VPN access and the GPO write privilege level. The most common real-world routes to GPO control — DCSync, Kerberoasting of privileged service accounts, and Pass-the-Hash/Pass-the-Ticket — could not be confirmed or ruled out.
Rather than deploying an encryptor, the actor abused the victim’s Active Directory policy infrastructure, resulting in malicious GPOs being configured and linked at the domain root to deliver the observed impact across domain-joined systems. The two GPOs below constitute the entire offensive toolkit observed.
We performed a Resultant Set of Policy (RSOP) analysis, which helped us list all policy settings on the affected workstations. From these results, we reconstructed the following changes delivered by PAYLOAD:
| GPO extension/CSE | Setting/path | Configured value/resulting action |
| Files (Group Policy Preference) | Source SYSVOL\hello.txt → Desktop, C:\, D:\ | Dropped as README-payload.txt (ReadOnly) |
| Registry (Computer) | HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\legalnoticecaption | Welcome to Payload! |
| Registry (Computer) | HKLM\…\Policies\System\legalnoticetext | (ransom demand text) |
| Personalization Policy | Lock Screen Image | \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol…\payload.jpg |
| Desktop Policy (User) | Wallpaper path | \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol…\payload.jpg |
| Security Settings (GptTmpl.inf) | Accounts: Administrator account status | Disabled |
The PAYLOAD GPO enabled the following actions:
legalnoticecaption value to "Welcome to Payload!" and the legalnoticetext to the ransom note text through the “Group Policy Registry” CSE.This activity was enabled entirely through a legitimate group policy mechanism, meaning there is no malware code for security solutions to look for because the malicious logic is contained within the policy configuration.
A second domain-root-linked GPO, named “win Firewall Off”, disabled Windows Firewall across the domain, private and public profiles on all endpoints (T1562.004). Deployed independently of PAYLOAD, this object degraded host defenses and ensured the actor retained unimpeded network reach to endpoints for any follow-on activity.
Settings changed by win Firewall Off GPO
The most forensically instructive detail is the one-day gap between GPO creation (13 April) and visible impact (14 April). Analysis of Master File Table (MFT) timestamps and the Group Policy History registry key confirmed the policy was written to SYSVOL and cached on endpoints on 13 April. However, computer configuration settings (wallpaper and lock screen machine policy, security settings, firewall disabling) only apply upon reboot or policy refresh — and no endpoint had rebooted in the interim. The attack therefore remained dormant in the GPO cache for one day before detonating en masse when machines were restarted in accordance with standard procedures.
We have to point out here that this delayed policy application is characteristic of GPO-based operations and has two potential consequences for defenders. Firstly, it may grant the actor a quiet window for exfiltration, persistence, or further staging between weaponization and impact. Secondly, it can be used to sever the temporal link between the cause (a GPO-creation event in the directory log) and the effect (mass user-visible disruption occurring at a later time), complicating timeline reconstruction unless directory service auditing is in place.
Initial incident response engagement revealed a number of findings associated with the attack that we share below.
The attack’s persistence mechanism is the GPO link itself on the domain controller, with no endpoint-resident component.
Because no malicious binary or process exists, the detection logic should focus on the directory service and SYSVOL indicators. Below are the highest-value telemetry sources for identifying the described malicious activity.
| Event ID | Meaning | Hunt focus |
| 5137 | A directory service object was created | The account that created new groupPolicyContainer objects must be an authorized GPO administrator |
| 5136 | A directory service object was modified | Changes to gPLink on the domain root or sensitive organizational units; changes to gPCMachineExtensionNames/gPCUserExtensionNames/gPCFileSysPath/versionNumber for all GPOs |
| 5141 | A directory service object was deleted | GPO deletions (relevant for tamper detection and remediation assessment) |
A gPLink modification at the domain root by a non-standard account is one of the most telling indicators of this attack class.
The Windows endpoint attack described in this report was implemented through malicious Group Policy Objects and did not involve a recovered ransomware executable, resident endpoint malware, confirmed file encryption or active malicious processes at the time of the forensic examination. However, PAYLOAD cryptomalware for Windows does exist, and other sources, including public analysis of its samples, reveal further malicious capabilities of this ransomware that could be used by security teams to enrich detection logic and security policies.
The behaviors documented in this section must therefore be interpreted as family-level capabilities identified through the public reverse engineering of PAYLOAD ransomware samples. They were not confirmed as having executed during the GPO-based incident unless corresponding evidence was identified in the host, memory, process, event-log, or hypervisor.
Public reverse engineering of the PAYLOAD Windows variant reveals an optional event log clearing capability (T1685.005, formerly T1070.001). The ransomware dynamically resolves Windows Event Log APIs, enumerates available event log channels, and clears individual channels.
Implementation artifacts include:
Clearing event logs reduces the availability of records related to process execution, authentication, PowerShell, service control, and system changes. However, it does not necessarily remove events that were already forwarded to a SIEM, Windows Event Collector, EDR backend, or protected log archive.
We should note that these indicators can’t be interpreted on their own. For instance, Event ID 1102 should be correlated with a number of aggravating factors, such as:
At the same time, the absence of Event ID 1102 does not prove that log clearing did not occur. Direct deletion, truncation, service impairment, or an incomplete audit configuration may produce different evidence.
PAYLOAD analysis reveals that the Windows ransomware variant contains logic that targets security processes and services (T1685 and T1489). This capability is intended to stop security products, backup software, database services, and applications that may lock files targeted for encryption.
Process and service termination serves several objectives:
Public PAYLOAD sample analysis reports the deletion of Windows Volume Shadow Copies before encryption (T1490). This behavior removes local restore points and reduces the victim’s ability to recover files without external backups.
Recovery inhibition is broader than VSS deletion and may include multiple other malicious techniques, including the following:
In the PAYLOAD Windows sample that is proven to perform encryption, VSS deletion is confirmed to have taken place before encryption. A broader compromise of the backup platform was not established in the investigated incident.
Above, we discussed the techniques specific to PAYLOAD ransomware. In this section, we’ll review other common ransomware techniques, such as BYOVD abuse and ESXi policy weakening, that remain relevant risks in the ransomware ecosystem. However, these techniques should not be attributed to this incident without supporting driver load, process, memory, ESXi, vCenter, or backup platform telemetry. We describe these techniques below as they may prove useful in other ransomware-related forensic investigations.
The examples used in this section are therefore ecosystem-relevant: they are commonly observed in ransomware operations but not conclusively attributed to the analyzed PAYLOAD samples.
Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) is a kernel-supported tracing architecture used by Windows components, diagnostic utilities, security products, and endpoint monitoring systems.
Although we didn’t encounter this technique in our case, some ransomware families can patch ETW-related functions inside the ransomware process (T1685, formerly T1562.001). The reported routine changes the memory protection of code pages, overwrites the beginning of selected ETW functions so they return without producing events, restores the original protection, and refreshes the instruction cache.
Reported target functions include EtwEventWrite, EtwEventWriteFull, EtwEventWriteTransfer, and EtwRegister.
This modification applies to the process-local mapping of ntdll.dll. It does not disable ETW globally across Windows, but it can reduce the telemetry generated by the modified process.
It should be noted that telemetry gaps are not conclusive evidence of ETW patching. Other factors include agent upgrades, network outages, endpoint shutdowns, SIEM ingestion failures, collector backpressure, and filtering or licensing changes.
Memory acquisition is the strongest validation source when process-local ETW patching is suspected.
Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) involves introducing or abusing a legitimately signed but vulnerable kernel driver (T1068 and T1685). The attacker exploits the driver’s exposed functionality to gain kernel-level capabilities, modify protected memory, terminate security processes, remove security callbacks, or bypass operating system security controls.
BYOVD is highly relevant to contemporary ransomware operations. However, the reviewed public PAYLOAD analyses do not provide sufficient evidence to conclude that BYOVD is an intrinsic PAYLOAD capability.
It should therefore be presented as an ecosystem-relevant technique rather than a confirmed PAYLOAD feature.
Ransomware operators are increasingly targeting ESXi and vCenter because compromising the virtualization layer provides access to many business-critical virtual machines.
Public research typically describes operators performing the following activities (T1685, T1490 and T1489):
execInstalledOnlyOn the target organization’s Linux servers we saw an ESXi PAYLOAD variant, which makes this behavior operationally relevant. Nevertheless, the reviewed evidence does not indicate that PAYLOAD operators used any of these policy-weakening actions in the investigated incident.
execInstalledOnlyTo contain the described threat and limit possible damage, several remediation steps should be taken. Below, we recommend a four-phase remediation approach for containing this threat and restoring the affected environment.
When dealing with PAYLOAD GPO, the first priority of the remediation plan should be to remove the source GPOs. Until this is done, endpoint cleanup is ineffective because the next policy refresh re-infects cleaned machines.
The immediate domain controller actions to be taken are:
gpupdate /force across endpoints after deletion; re-enable local administrator and firewall via clean policy.gPLink change by a non-standard account.PAYLOAD demonstrates a maturing tactic of turning the victim’s own trusted infrastructure into a weapon. By weaponizing Group Policy, the actor achieved a domain-wide impact without a single malicious binary on any endpoint, evaded file- and process-based detection entirely, and caused organization-wide disruption within seconds of the first reboot.
The absence of encryption is the most strategically significant finding and is consistent with the 2026 trend toward encryptionless extortion. At Kaspersky GERT, we assess with moderate confidence that the missing encryption reflects one of two scenarios: (1) a deliberate decision to stay below the irreversible data destruction threshold while preserving the option of a follow-on encryption phase, or (2) an operation interrupted before full execution.
The absence of encrypted files must not be mistaken for the absence of a serious compromise — the most critical impact lies in the actor gaining domain admin-level control. This incident proves that a threat actor with domain admin access and a working knowledge of group policy internals can inflict domain-wide disruption equivalent to a ransomware attack without writing a single malicious file to any endpoint.
Detection strategies anchored solely in file- or process-based indicators are blind to this attack class. Effective controls include directory service change auditing, SYSVOL integrity monitoring, and privileged access governance, which allow for GPO protection.
Kaspersky security solutions effectively detect the described malicious activity at various stages of the attack. Possible detection scenarios are listed below.
To protect organizations that use our Kaspersky SIEM system, we have prepared a package of correlation rules designed to help detect this type of malicious activity. The rules are now available for customers to download from the SIEM repository; the package name is: [OOTB] Group policy hijacked: PAYLOAD ransomware – ENG.
The “Group policy hijacked: PAYLOAD ransomware” package contains rules that detect suspicious file creation or modification in the SYSVOL shared folder on a domain controller, as well as changes to critical attributes and settings of domain group policies. Some rules may require adjustment if they trigger in response to legitimate activity, such as synchronization between domain controllers or the configuration of a new group policy.
To ensure the detection rules function correctly, verify that events from Windows systems are being received in full, including events with the following identifiers: Sysmon: 11, Security — 4663, 5136, 4657.
We also recommend applying the following rules available in the repository to detect all attack stages.
R050_03_Windows Event Log was clearedR262_Suspicious access to the LSASS processR231_20_Running the Volume Shadow Copy serviceR321_Shadow copy deletionR076_01_Windows Defender Antivirus was disabledR240_03_Disabling system firewall via the registryR281_01_Installation of a service from a non-system folderFor the rules in this list to function correctly, it is necessary to configure Security event auditing for event IDs 4663, 5136, 4657, 7036, and 1102.
In addition to the SIEM system, when audit settings are configured correctly, the process of creating, modifying, and deleting GPOs generates a large number of characteristic artifacts on the domain controller, enabling Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Expert to promptly alert the user to anomalies in the infrastructure.
The creation of a new GPO is covered by the gpo_creation rule, which triggers in response to the corresponding event in the infrastructure. Changes to existing policies are detected by the following rules:
gPCMachineExtensionNames attribute.gPCFileSysPath attribute of a Group Policy Object, which specifies the path to the GPO’s contents in SYSVOL.groupPolicyContainer class.GPO deletion is covered by the gpo_deletion rule.
In the next major version update of Kaspersky EDR Expert, a new event type, GPO, will be introduced, allowing users to track changes to Group Policy Objects.
For information security officers, GPO events will serve as an additional source of context when investigating activity in Active Directory and will help detect changes that could affect the configuration, access rights, and security of endpoints before a potentially malicious policy is deployed.
| Tactic | Technique | Observed behavior |
| Initial Access | T1078 — Valid Accounts | Compromised domain credential used for VPN authentication |
| Initial Access | T1133 — External Remote Services | FortiGate SSL VPN used as entry point |
| Privilege Escalation | T1078.002 — Domain Accounts | Account held domain-level GPO create/link rights |
| Privilege Escalation/Defense Impairment | T1484.001 — Group Policy Modification | Malicious PAYLOAD GPO created and linked at domain root; re-applies on every refresh/reboot; uses trusted channel to evade EDR |
| Defense Impairment | T1686 — Disable or Modify System Firewall | win Firewall Off GPO disables Windows Firewall on all profiles |
| Impact | T1491.001 — Internal Defacement | Wallpaper and lock screen replaced with ransom image |
| Impact | T1531 — Account Access Removal | Local Administrator account disabled via GPO Security Settings |
| Collection | T1005 — Data from Local System | Data exfiltration was observed originating from the file servers |
| Command and Control | T1071 — Application Layer Protocol | No live C2 confirmed; delivery achieved entirely via GPO |
GPOs
PAYLOAD ransomware GPO: {C897F2C7-C2AC-4E6F-BF48-58036FF29E79}
win Firewall Off GPO: {22099AD2-E062-4F56-B574-5099BBA4E7A6}
File names and MD5 hashes
payload.jpg: Ransom wallpaper and lock screen image (SYSVOL)
hello.txt: Ransom note source (SYSVOL)
README-payload.txt: Ransom note dropped to desktops and drive roots
killer.exe (0108656A3E1ADE6CA4F21B084F5E1208): process killer tool
kill.exe (BEA5E267F24D7DA59F6821BFFDBFF293): process killer tool
IP addresses
37.19.210[.]12
146.70.117[.]239
149.102.229[.]154
104.164.55[.]46
104.28.162[.]228
104.28.163[.]162
64.190.76[.]14
192.42.116[.]50
192.42.116[.]12
192.42.116[.]56
192.42.116[.]97
192.42.116[.]52
Registry keys
HKLM\...\Policies\System\legalnoticecaption = Welcome to Payload!
SYSVOL path
\\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\payload.jpg
Event IDs
5137: GPO object creation on DC — review creator account
5136: GPO attribute modification — watch gPLink at domain root
Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested a 24-year-old convicted cybercriminal on suspicion of aiding in data thefts and extortions by the prolific hacker group ShinyHunters. In the days immediately following the suspect’s arrest, remaining ShinyHunters members dramatically escalated their attacks, stealing highly sensitive data from the FBI and extorting the Russian ransomware group Cl0p.
According to three sources familiar with the matter, the Dutch man arrested by authorities this month is Pepijn van der Stap, a convicted cybercriminal from Almere and Lelystad in the Netherlands. Van der Stap was previously convicted in 2023 in connection with a string of data thefts and extortions that prosecutors said earned between €1.5 million and €2.7 million.
At his trial in late 2023, van der Stap admitted that he lived a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde existence, secretly using the hacker handle “Umbreon” to extort victims and post their data on English language hacking communities like the now-defunct RaidForums and Breached. By day, however, van der Stap was working as a software engineer at the Amsterdam-based cybersecurity startup Hadrian, while volunteering at the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD), a nonprofit security research group.
Pepijn van der Stap’s alter ego “Umbreon” selling a database on RaidForums, offering information on 2.3 million people from The Netherlands in September 2021. This user’s avatar is a depiction of the Pokemon character Umbreon. Image: KELA.
Van der Stap confessed to his data theft and extortion activity, and was sentenced to four years in prison (one of which was suspended). During his trial, van der Stap opted to remain in custody for a time rather than at home, saying he could not find better treatment on the outside for his ongoing psychological issues, which he claimed included PTSD related to childhood trauma. He was released from prison in December 2025.
In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity on September 9, 2026, Van der Stap cast himself as a reformed hacker who was trying to turn his life around and make a positive contribution to society. Van der Stap is currently employed as offensive security lead at the Dutch company Neo Security, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Van der Stap said he was still dealing with civil lawsuits and restitution related to his previous cybercrime victims, and that he was trying his best to make amends. But not long after that interview, the Dutch hacker abruptly stopped replying to messages. Efforts by others close to him also repeatedly failed to elicit a response for the past two weeks.
The LinkedIn profile for Pepijn van der Stap.
According to two sources with knowledge of the matter, Van der Stap was arrested by Dutch authorities on or around September 16, and has been held in custody for questioning since. One source said a colleague of theirs personally witnessed Dutch authorities carting items out of Van der Stap’s residence.
Authorities in the Netherlands have been asking the public for help in identifying the voice in a recorded telephone call from February 2026 in which a native Dutch-speaking ShinyHunters member social engineered their way into Odido, the nation’s largest mobile telecommunications provider. In that intrusion, ShinyHunters tricked an Odido employee into logging in at a spoofed website, and then used that access to steal data on more than 6.2 million Dutch people.
Responding to Dutch news media, ShinyHunters confirmed that the suspect in the audio clip is indeed a member of the hacker collective.
“Our team member has our full support – emotionally, mentally, and financially,” the hackers said. “Everything has been arranged, including a criminal defense lawyer. We do not look down on our staff and members; we take excellent care of them,” reads a statement ShinyHunters shared with NL Times. It remains unclear if the Dutch police have matched the Odido caller to a confirmed real-life identity. The Dutch police unit handling the Odido incident did not respond to requests for comment.
The group also lashed out at the authorities in the Netherlands. “The Dutch police will need all the luck in the world – and everyone’s prayers – if they want to catch him before we carry out another large-scale data theft in the Netherlands,” the ShinyHunters statement said. “Frankly, the Dutch police are a big joke; they are incapable of doing anything. Incompetent. Irrelevant. Unimportant. Useless.”
Just days after sources say Van der Stap was detained by Dutch authorities, ShinyHunters claimed credit for an unusually brazen breach at the FBI’s job application site apply.fbijobs.gov. According to reporting from 404 Media, the data stolen from the FBI site includes Social Security numbers and personal information on more than 5,000 officials.
404 Media and Reuters reported the FBI data included each person’s job title or team, such as special agent, threat intake examiner, major cybercrimes unit, and those investigating cyber threats from foreign state-backed actors. Reuters examined documents shared by ShinyHunters and found they included sensitive psychiatric and medical files of FBI staff. The FBI issued a brief statement confirming the hack.
ShinyHunters said it gained access to the FBI site and other victims by exploiting a recently patched vulnerability (CVE-2026-35273) in PeopleSoft, a software-as-a-service platform from the software giant Oracle that is broadly used by companies to manage hiring and human resources, benefits and payroll. Oracle quickly issued a fix for the Peoplesoft vulnerability that ShinyHunters reportedly began exploiting as a zero-day in June, and at the time Mandiant released web application firewall rules intended for organizations who couldn’t apply the security update quickly enough.
But on Friday, BleepingComputer reported that ShinyHunters used a URL-encoding trick to bypass Mandiant’s suggested web application firewall rules designed to mitigate the threat from the PeopleSoft flaw. In a report released Sept. 25, security experts at Mandiant and the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) confirmed that ShinyHunters had mass-exploited the PeopleSoft vulnerability to steal data from dozens of systems across a range of industries, including higher education, technology, healthcare, agriculture, transportation and government.
Van der Stap’s former hacker alias Umbreon was hidden in plain sight throughout the imagery ShinyHunters used to spread news about the FBI hack: The defacement image that ShinyHunters left behind on the hacked FBI jobs site included an ASCII art design featuring the Pokemon character Umbreon. The message at the top read, “This site has been seized by ShinyHunters. rooting your systems since ’19 ;)” The image appears identical to a defacement message ShinyHunters used in their 2020 hack of the English-language cybercrime community Hackforums.
The defacement message left by ShinyHunters on the FBI jobs site included an ASCII art rendition of the Pokemon character Umbreon. Image: Bleeping Computer.
Multiple sources close to the ShinyHunters investigation said the group’s recent risky attacks against the FBI and one of Russia’s most venerated ransomware groups amounted to a major pivot away from the more measured tenor of the hacking gang’s operations. Those sources said the sudden shift came about after ShinyHunters was taken over by a teenage cybercriminal from Amman, Jordan who goes by the nickname Rey and operates as part of a cybercrime group called ScatteredLapsussHunters (SLSH), which experts say is an amalgamation of three hacking groups — Scattered Spider, LAPSUS$ and ShinyHunters.
Those sources said Rey had an ongoing beef with the Dutch hacker over control of the ShinyHunters brand and data, and that the inclusion of the oversized Umbreon Pokemon image in the FBI jobs site defacement was likely an attempt by Rey to pin the hack on the Dutchman.
Rey was first publicly identified by the cybersecurity firm KELA in March 2025. In advance of our November 2025 profile of Rey, KrebsOnSecurity messaged Rey’s father and asked for permission to interview his teenage son. Rey’s dad merely forwarded the message to his son, who admitted to participating in ransomware attacks and said he was trying to extricate himself from the SLSH hacker group.
Immediately after news of the FBI jobs site hack was picked up in the media, Rey’s main account on Twitter/X (Ryan Moran/@rmoskovy) was taunting the Cl0p ransomware group and the FBI, crudely depicting them as the twin towers in New York being struck by planes labeled “cl0p drama” and “fbi breach claim.” In the foreground of the city is the giant Pokemon figure of Umbreon.
A taunting meme uploaded to Twitter/X by Rey’s now-defunct account on Sept. 22. A giant float-sized version of the Pokemon character Umbreon can be seen in the bottom left.
On Sept. 24, KrebsOnSecurity again contacted Rey’s dad, asking to interview him and his son for a story on Rey’s apparent ascendency as the head of ShinyHunters. Just hours after that request, Rey deleted his longtime Twitter/X account. Meanwhile, Rey’s dad, who works for the Royal Jordanian Airlines, has failed to respond to a half-dozen emailed requests for comment about his son’s alleged activities.
Where does the bad blood between SLSH and ShinyHunters come from? According to a story in Wired this month, ShinyHunters and SLSH members briefly partnered earlier this year to help better monetize important stolen credentials collected by TeamPCP, an upstart group that was having great success compromising global code supply chains with malicious software but hadn’t been able to profit much from their stolen data (two alleged leaders of TeamPCP were arrested last month in Australia, and in an interview the TeamPCP leader claimed they made just $20,000).
The Wired story noted how Mandiant had infiltrated TeamPCP and was secretly responsible for having the crime group’s stolen credentials burned so quickly: Mandiant was secretly feeding those credentials to the major cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft, who quickly invalidated the stolen keys. Meanwhile, the formerly cooperating hacker groups began to blame one another for causing the credentials to become worthless.
Wired’s Andy Greenberg reported that a few weeks after partnering with TeamPCP, “ShinyHunters went rogue, carrying out its own extortions with TeamPCP’s credentials but without giving the supply-chain hackers their cut.”
Mandiant researcher Austin Larsen told KrebsOnSecurity earlier this month that ShinyHunters has been enjoying a successful extortion spree so far this year, and is on track to pull in nearly $100 million in extortion payments from cybercrime victims in 2026.
Van der Stap claims he was never motivated by money and that his earlier hacker activity was driven by a desire to have the world’s most complete collection of stolen databases. Speaking with reporters from Bloomberg in 2024, Van der Stap said that singular focus in turn fueled his desire to carry out cyberattacks.
“The hacking was very easy for me, and it wasn’t a compulsion,” he told Bloomberg. “My habit was collecting. Collecting data, organizing data, downloading data, creating folders.”
DIVD, the nonprofit security research group where Van der Stap previously served as a volunteer, disclosed on LinkedIn last week that the organization was dealing with an internal cybersecurity incident that appears to have involved the malicious use of artificial intelligence. DIVD has released few details about that incident, but a spokesperson for the nonprofit told KrebsOnSecurity it does not appear related to ShinyHunters, nor are there any signs the matter involves the work of a previous volunteer.
Update: 3:44 p.m. ET: Corrected Van der Stap’s age, which is 24 (not 23).
Update, 4:54 p.m. ET: The Dutch police have confirmed the arrest of a 24-year-old in connection with the ShinyHunters investigation. In a statement on Twitter/X, the Dutch police said the man will appear on Tuesday, September 29 before the chambers of the Rotterdam District Court, and that it will provide more information tomorrow.
Sept. 29, 9:42 a.m. ET: The Dutch news outlet RTL reports that investigators suspect Van der Stap tried to orchestrate at least two murders. RTL reported the two murders were allegedly to be committed abroad, and that there are indications the suspect gave the order for this.
The FBI released a short video message on the ShinyHunters investigation from Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, who thanked Dutch law enforcement partners for their assistance and urged remaining ShinyHunters members to turn themselves in.
“Arrests have a way of changing who is willing to talk, and seized infrastructure has a way of showing us who’s left,” Leatherman said. “The longer you stay in this, the more we learn about you. You know how to find us, and we know how to find you. I suggest you reach out to us while the choice is still yours.”
A U.S. Army soldier who pleaded guilty to hacking into multiple telecommunications companies and stealing mobile call and text metadata for more than 100 million AT&T customers in 2024 was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison today and ordered to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution to victims.
One of several selfies from the Facebook page of Cameron Wagenius.
Cameron John Wagenius, 22, was stationed at a U.S. Army base in South Korea when he adopted the cybercriminal persona “Kiberphant0m.” Working with three alleged co-conspirators, Kiberphant0m downloaded data from several large customers of the cloud data storage service Snowflake that had exposed credentials and did not enforce multi-factor authentication (Snowflake has since mandated MFA on all accounts).
In October 2024, Kiberphant0m bragged on the cybercrime forums that he’d stolen the call and text metadata (e.g. source and destination number, timestamp, duration, etc.) for tens of millions of AT&T customers. Kiberphant0m claimed to have hacked into more than dozen telecommunications companies worldwide, including Verizon’s Push-to-Talk business, and publicly extorted these companies in exchange for a promise not to publish the stolen data.
In late November 2025, KrebsOnSecurity warned that Kiberphant0m was likely a U.S. soldier stationed in South Korea. Less than a month later, Wagenius was arrested and charged in two separate federal indictments, and soon pleaded guilty to all counts in both cases.
At his sentencing hearing in Seattle today, Wagenius was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison, and ordered to pay $294,978 in restitution.
Federal prosecutors said Wagenius was assisted in his efforts to extort victim companies by Kenneth Schuchman, a 28-year old man from Vancouver, Washington who has a lengthy cybercriminal history. In 2019, Schuchman pleaded guilty to operating the Satori botnet, a vast collection of hacked Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices that was used for large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
Two other alleged co-conspirators of Wagenius are still facing charges in connection with the Snowflake data thefts; Conor Riley Moucka, a.k.a. “Judische,” of Kitchener, Ontario was arrested in 2024 and pleaded guilty in August 2026; and John Erin Binns, an American man currently living in Turkey who is also wanted for a 2021 data breach at T-Mobile that exposed the personal information of at least 76 million customers.
Kiberphant0m also admitted to re-extorting victims, and threatening to disclose national security secrets. Immediately following Moucka’s arrest — after AT&T had already paid the extortion group a $370,000 Bitcoin ransom — Kiberphant0m posted on hacker forums what he claimed were the AT&T call logs for then President-elect Donald Trump and for then Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as schematics allegedly stolen from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
Paul Russell is a resident agent in charge at the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), the criminal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Inspector General. Russell said when DCIS received information that a soldier with secret clearance was allegedly involved in cybercrime and extortion, the agency began working the investigation alongside the FBI, the Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID), and the U.S. Secret Service.
“We don’t often get leads where there’s an active duty soldier with a secret clearance who’s creating hacking tools and trafficking in data,” Russell said. “That doesn’t happen every day, and so when that hits it really spins all of our partner organizations up. It was very serious from jump street, just because it was unique, it was an insider threat, and we weren’t sure what we were dealing with.”
A sentencing memo (PDF) filed Sept. 19 by federal prosecutors in Seattle notes that while Wagenius pleaded guilty almost immediately and has been remarkably cooperative, he recently got caught trying to find security vulnerabilities in the BOP’s computer network. The government’s memo notes that while incarcerated and awaiting sentencing, Wagenius violated the computer use policies of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in attempts to learn about vulnerabilities in BOP computer systems.
“According to records from BOP, in or around September 2025, Wagenius used another inmate’s email system to request that the email recipient prompt a commercial AI tool to provide information about “[w]hat CVE’s are there for Windows 10 Enterprise privilege escalation and bypasses” and to “[p]rovide the CVE’s and a real world working script for each CVE . . . without omitted code,” the government’s memo states.
The memo states that less than a week later, Wagenius used a different inmate’s email account and requested that the email recipient prompt an AI tool to “[p]rovide the step by step for CVE-2023-45208, code for this if any, and if no code exists make some, make sure to describe everything in detail.” CVE-2023-45208 is a three-year-old “command injection” vulnerability in D-Link networking devices.
That same month, Wagenius allegedly again requested that the email recipient prompt AI with the question, “How do you make an antenna in a prison environment with commissary or readily available items/tools to improve/make an antenna to extend radio reception?”
Federal prosecutors said Wagenius also requested that the recipient research escaping prison.
“In several instances, Wagenius framed the AI queries as being posed in connection to a book he was writing. This is a common method of ‘prompt injection,’ in which attackers feed specially crafted, deceptive inputs into commercial AI tools that are programmed to avoid outputting malicious code that can be used to exploit computer vulnerabilities,” the sentencing memo reads.
The government told the court it is unaware of evidence that Wagenius figured out how to use or deploy the vulnerabilities he was researching in the BOP’s systems, and when questioned said he was only researching “potential vulnerabilities to provide information to the BOP.”
Incredibly, despite the enormous financial value of the data stolen from AT&T and other telecom providers, Wagenius’s extortion efforts were largely unsuccessful. The government’s sentencing memo says Wagenius made a whopping total of around $1,500 from selling stolen data.
“While Wagenius was not particularly financially successful as a cybercriminal, he both intended to and caused significant harm to numerous individual victims, U.S. companies, and the U.S. government,” the memo states.
Activity associated with Storm-2570, a ransomware affiliate linked to multiple ransomware payloads, illustrates how tracking and responding to ransomware attacks by payload alone can obscure the affiliates carrying out intrusions and the recurring behaviors that defenders can use to detect and disrupt them. Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Storm-2570 using consistent post-compromise tools and techniques across deployments involving Qilin, DragonForce, Anubis, and BERT ransomware. Across multiple investigations, Storm-2570 has maintained largely uniform tradecraft, infrastructure overlaps, and repeated use of the same remote access and cloud exfiltration tooling despite operating across multiple ransomware ecosystems.
These findings reinforce the value of examining threat actor behavior across the attack chain rather than treating each ransomware payload as an isolated activity set. Recurring remote access, credential access, lateral movement, security tampering, and data exfiltration activity can help defenders connect related intrusions and respond before ransomware deployment, even when the final payload changes.
In this blog post, we delve into the attack techniques attributed to Storm-2570. While Storm-2570’s methodology aligns with the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of many tracked ransomware actors, analysis of their post-compromise tactics provides essential insights into how organizations can harden and defend against ransomware threat actors, informing opportunities to disrupt attackers even if they have gained initial access to a network. At the end of this blog, we also provide a comprehensive recommendation section with detection details.
Storm-2570 is a ransomware affiliate that Microsoft Threat Intelligence has tracked since April 2025. We assess that Storm-2570 has operated across multiple ransomware as a service (RaaS) ecosystems, including Qilin, DragonForce, Anubis, and BERT.
To date, Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Storm-2570 in multiple investigated intrusions affecting organizations in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands, and Puerto Rico, including healthcare and public health, education, government agencies and services, financial services, energy, consumer retail, Information technology (IT), food and agriculture, consumer services, commercial facilities, non-government organization (NGO), chemicals, critical manufacturing, and transportation.
Unlike actors that consistently support a single ransomware operation, Storm-2570 appears to be a cross-ecosystem threat actor that works with multiple ransomware groups and shifts between operations as opportunities arise, giving the threat actor the flexibility to use and deploy multiple families and improve opportunities for payouts. As a result, organizations could encounter the same actor, tools, and intrusion methods despite different ransomware payloads being deployed.
While the method through which Storm-2570 gains initial access remains unconfirmed, observed intrusion chains indicate subsequent use of remote management tooling and hands-on-keyboard activity to progress toward credential access, lateral movement, exfiltration, and ransomware deployment.
Across incidents, Microsoft has observed the use of commodity tools in the pre-ransom attack stage even when the ransomware payload changed. These tools include:
These tools enable remote administration, command execution, persistence, and tunneling or proxy access.
MeshAgent, a remote device management software, stands out as one of Storm-2570’s most frequently observed remote access and execution tools across multiple intrusions. Rather than appearing as a one-off utility, MeshAgent repeatedly shows up at key points in Storm-2570 attack chains, often after the actor has gained access and is preparing to expand control, run commands, deploy additional tooling, or move toward ransomware impact. In several cases, Storm-2570 used MeshAgent along with MeshCentral as an operational bridge between initial hands-on-keyboard activity and later-stage actions, such as account manipulation, discovery, credential access, security tampering, and ransomware deployment.
Many intrusions tracked by Microsoft have shown Storm-2570 tailoring MeshAgent deployments to the compromised environment. The actor renames MeshAgent-related binaries or services with victim-themed names, likely to make the tool appear more legitimate in the environment. For example, Storm-2570 renames the variant of the meshagent64 RMM tool to include the name of the compromised organization, such as meshagent64-[organization name].exe and uses Base64-encoding to obfuscate the commands being executed. In one such intrusion, MeshAgent was used alongside NinjaRMM before the activity progressed to ntdsutil for credential dumping, network scanning, and Qilin deployment.
Storm-2570 uses a diverse set of remote access tools rather than relying on a single capability. The threat actor rotates among commercially available RMM platforms, remote desktop components, and tunneling utilities, often deploying multiple tools during the same intrusion. For example, Storm-2570 uses Atera to install agents and execute interactive commands, while ngrok and Cloudflared.exe expose RDP services or establish persistent outbound tunnels. Storm-2570 uses AteraAgent to issue commands and to further download and install Splashtop Streamer in compromised environments. Splashtop appears to be the interactive remote control component delivered through Atera, giving the threat actor hands-on keyboard access. The actor also uses tools such as ScreenConnect for command execution and account or domain reconnaissance and installs Remotely_Agent as a persistent remote management service.
Storm-2570 also pairs remote access tooling with tunneling utilities such as Cloudflared.exe to create resilient outbound access paths. In one intrusion, Storm-2570 installed MeshAgent and later created a persistent Cloudflare Tunnel service on the victim host. The tunnel was configured to run automatically as a service under LocalSystem, allowing the threat actor to maintain an encrypted outbound channel from inside the network. This type of tunnel can help bypass inbound firewall restrictions and provide covert remote access for follow-on activity.
Post-compromise, Storm-2570 routinely conducts internal network discovery using tools such as NetScan, SoftPerfect Network Scanner Portable, and Nmap, alongside native discovery commands and file-searching activity. These activities are used to identify reachable hosts and services, map internal networks and remote systems, and locate systems, network shares, and files that may facilitate data collection, credential access, or encryption operations.
For credential access and harvesting, Storm-2570 uses tools like Mimikatz, LaZagne, and pypykatz. Storm-2570 also uses ntdsutil in intrusions for NTDS.dit credential dumping, a credential theft technique against Active Directory domain credentials. The ntdsutil command usage pattern is consistent with creating an Install From Media (IFM) copy of Active Directory database material. In an intrusion context, attackers can use this to obtain NTDS.dit and related registry hives for offline extraction of password hashes and credential material.
The command uses the legitimate Windows ntdsutil.exe to activate the NTDS Active Directory instance and create a full IFM backup in C:\Windows\Temp\<XXXXXXXXX>.
Storm-2570 uses this command to dump or stage Active Directory database NTDS.dit and supporting registry hive material, then copy it off-host and potentially extract domain credential hashes offline, indicating that the actor has high-privilege access to a victim’s domain controller:
After acquiring privileged credentials, Storm-2570 uses defense evasion tactics preceding ransomware deployment, including antivirus tampering and the modification of Microsoft Defender settings and Defender exclusions. In multiple observed intrusions, Storm-2570 disabled real-time monitoring, added Defender exclusions for C:\PerfLogs to weaken endpoint detections, and modified registry values under Microsoft Defender service keys to further impair protections.
These tactics are consistent across Storm-2570 ransomware intrusions involving Qilin, DragonForce, and Anubis deployment, including cases where the actor used registry changes to alter DisableAntiSpyware, DisableRealtimeMonitoring, and WinDefend service behavior.
Storm-2570 moves into lateral movement and deployment preparation phase typically by using a mix of legitimate administrative tooling, offensive frameworks, and remote execution utilities.
Across multiple investigated intrusions, Storm-2570 was observed leveraging PsExec, Impacket, NetExec, RDP batch scripts, and admin shares to reach additional systems, execute commands remotely, and stage tooling across the environment. The actor uses these capabilities to facilitate data exfiltration and prepare victim networks for ransomware deployment. These tools frequently appear alongside earlier discovery activity, credential access, and remote access tooling such as MeshAgent, and often precede the use of s5cmd for exfiltration or ransomware payload execution.
PsExec is one of the most consistent lateral movement and deployment tools used by Storm-2570. The actor frequently uses PsExec, sometimes with host lists such as @ip.txt, to move laterally and install renamed MeshAgent binaries across compromised environments. Storm-2570 utilizes MeshAgent during the lateral movement phase in several intrusions as a remote access tool deployed onto newly compromised systems.
The following are examples of PsExec commands with host lists @ip.txt:
Storm-2570 also uses RDP and RDP-enabling scripts as part of this phase. If RDP is not allowed in the environment, Storm-2570 needs admin privileges to modify the policy and enable it. In several intrusions, rdp.bat script appeared with PsExec, including cases where PsExec ran rdp.bat across hosts using @ip.txt.
The RDP batch script (rdp.bat) enables inbound Remote Desktop access by modifying Terminal Server settings and adding a firewall rule to allow TCP port 3389, as observed in the command below:
Additionally, the threat actor uses ngrok to expose TCP 3389 (default port for RDP), after which PsExec-related activity and security tampering appears. These examples show Storm-2570 combining RDP access, tunneling, and remote execution to sustain hands-on-keyboard control and reach additional systems.
Storm-2570’s use of Impacket and NetExec over Server Message Block (SMB) further supports their lateral movement pattern. Impacket is a collection of open-source Python classes designed for working with network protocols, and is popular with adversaries due to its ease of use and wide range of capabilities. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has a dedicated attack surface reduction rule to defend against lateral movement techniques used by Impacket; protecting lateral movement pathways can also mitigate Impacket.
The following NetExec SMB command is used to conduct credential theft and reconnaissance against internal Windows hosts:
Storm-2570 frequently performs data theft using cloud and file-transfer utilities that are capable of moving large volumes of data quickly from compromised environments to a remote attacker-owned cloud resource. Microsoft has observed Storm-2570 using s5cmd or Rclone to stage and exfiltrate data, often after the actor has already completed discovery, credential access, lateral movement, and remote access setup. Tools like Rclone provide data synchronization capabilities, moving newly created or updated files to cloud resources in real-time to enable continuous exfiltration throughout all stages of the attack without needing attacker interaction.
Most commonly, Storm-2570 relies on s5cmd, a command-line utility designed for managing Amazon S3 and compatible object storage services, for S3-based exfiltration. In multiple intrusions, the actor staged s5cmd.exe alongside a credentials file and used it to copy documents, spreadsheets, images, databases, mail-related files, archives, and other business-relevant file types to S3 buckets. Storm-2570 identifies high-value drives and network shares, stages s5cmd.exe and a credentials file, and then executes run copy (cp) operations with extension filters to transfer selected data to attacker-controlled S3 buckets. To interact with the destination S3 bucket, s5cmd requires credentials for authentication and the credentials file stores the AWS access keys for authentication to the S3 bucket.
The following is an example of s5cmd data exfiltration command lines:
Overall, Storm-2570’s exfiltration tradecraft shows a strong preference for tools that blend into legitimate administrative or cloud-transfer workflows, allowing double-extortion operations: first collecting sensitive data through cloud-transfer tooling, then deploying ransomware.
Storm-2570 illustrates common human-operated ransomware attacks and how modern ransomware affiliates increasingly operate independently of a single ransomware brand. Ransomware affiliates’ use of common tools, intrusion methods, and operational patterns remain remarkably consistent. Although Storm-2570’s techniques are not novel, recognizing the patterns used by ransomware affiliates can be important for defenders to know to improve prevention, detection, and incident response.
To defend against Storm-2570 TTPs and similar activity, Microsoft recommends the following mitigation measures:
Microsoft Defender customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.
| Tactic | Observed activity | Microsoft Defender coverage |
| Execution | Storm-2570 delivers tools such as PsExec, Impacket, NetExec, and RDP batch scripts, to carry out post-compromise activity | Microsoft Defender Antivirus – Behavior:Win32/PsexecRemote Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Hands-on-keyboard attack involving multiple devices – Remote access software – Suspicious PowerShell command line – Suspicious PowerShell download or encoded command execution – Ransomware-linked threat actor detected |
| Persistence | Storm-2570 uses RMM tools for persistence, payload delivery, and lateral movement | Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Suspicious Atera activity – File dropped and launched from remote location |
| Defense Impairment | Storm-2570 disables Microsoft Defender | Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Defender detection bypass – Attempt to turn off Microsoft Defender Antivirus protection |
| Credential Access | Storm-2570 has used tools like Mimikatz, LaZagne, and pypykatz for credential access and harvesting and NTDS.dit for credential dumping | Microsoft Defender Antivirus – HackTool:Win32/Mimikatz – HackTool:Win64/Mimikatz – HackTool:Linux/LaZagne – HackTool:Win32/LaZagne – HackTool:Win64/LaZagne Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Exposed credentials at risk of compromise – Compromised account credentials – Process memory dump |
| Exfiltration | Storm-2570 uses Rclone and s5cmd for data theft | Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Potential human-operated malicious activity – Renaming of legitimate tools for possible data exfiltration – Possible data exfiltration – Hidden dual-use tool launch attempt |
| Impact | Storm-2570 deploys Anubis, DragonForce, Qilin, and BERT ransomware | Microsoft Defender Antivirus – Ransom:Win32/Qilinloader – Behavior:Win32/Ransomware!Qilin – Ransom:Linux/Qilin – Ransom:Win32/Qilin – Ransom:Win32/DragonForce – Ransom:Win64/Anubis Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Possible ransomware activity based on a known malicious extension – Possible compromised user account delivering ransomware-related files – Potentially compromised assets exhibiting ransomware-like behavior – Ransomware behavior detected in the file system – File dropped and launched from remote location |
Microsoft Security Copilot is embedded in Microsoft Defender and provides security teams with AI-powered capabilities to summarize incidents, analyze files and scripts, summarize identities, use guided responses, and generate device summaries, hunting queries, and incident reports.
Customers can also deploy AI agents, including the following Microsoft Security Copilot agents, to perform security tasks efficiently:
Security Copilot is also available as a standalone experience where customers can perform specific security-related tasks, such as incident investigation, user analysis, and vulnerability impact assessment. In addition, Security Copilot offers developer scenarios that allow customers to build, test, publish, and integrate AI agents and plugins to meet unique security needs.
Microsoft Defender XDR customers can use the following threat analytics reports in the Defender portal (requires license for at least one Defender XDR product) to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.
Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.
Microsoft Sentinel customers can run the following advanced hunting queries to find related activity in their networks:
Hunt for PsExec-based remote execution and deployment
DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where FileName in~ ("psexec.exe", "psexec64.exe")
or ProcessCommandLine has_any ("psexec.exe", "psexec64.exe")
| where ProcessCommandLine has_any ("@ip.txt", "-accepteula", "\\")
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine,
InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine,
SHA256, DeviceId, ReportId
| order by Timestamp desc
Hunt for renamed MeshAgent binaries and services
let MeshAgentTerms = dynamic(["meshagent", "meshagent64", "meshcentral"]);
union isfuzzy=true
(
DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where FileName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or ProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath,
ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessFileName,
InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256,
RegistryKey="", RegistryValueName="", SourceTable="DeviceProcessEvents"
),
(
DeviceFileEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where FileName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or FolderPath has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath,
ProcessCommandLine="", InitiatingProcessFileName,
InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256,
RegistryKey="", RegistryValueName="", SourceTable="DeviceFileEvents"
),
(
DeviceRegistryEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where RegistryKey has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or RegistryValueName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or RegistryValueData has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName="", FolderPath="",
ProcessCommandLine="", InitiatingProcessFileName,
InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256="",
RegistryKey, RegistryValueName, SourceTable="DeviceRegistryEvents"
)
| order by Timestamp desc
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The post Beyond the ransomware: Tracking Storm-2570’s consistent tradecraft across deployments appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.
In April 2026, we at Kaspersky’s Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) responded to a security incident at a manufacturing organization in the Middle East. The threat actor obtained domain admin-equivalent control of the organization’s Active Directory environment and authored a malicious Group Policy Object (GPO) named PAYLOAD, linking it at the domain root. Through that single object, the actor delivered ransom notes, hijacked the desktop wallpaper and lock screen, enforced a logon banner, and disabled the local administrator account across every domain-joined Windows workstation — all without dropping a ransomware binary or encrypting any data. The only ransomware we found in this incident was PAYLOAD sample targeting ESXi on Linux servers. Besides that, data exfiltration was observed originating from the file servers and several additional systems, and was later published on the dark web.
This case is an example of two converging trends that define the 2026 ransomware landscape:
We confirmed that no files were encrypted on Windows machines, no malicious binaries were resident on disk, no endpoint persistence was established, and no malicious processes were running at the time of analysis. The entire attack lived inside Active Directory itself. The defensive implication is stark: an organization whose detection strategy depends on catching a ransomware executable would have seen nothing until the first endpoint rebooted and the ransom wallpaper appeared.
In this article, we will describe the GPO attack chain and provide operational advice on how to detect such threats, including detailed remediation recommendations.
Attacks through group policies are nothing new. They can inflict significant, domain-wide damage with multiple malicious capabilities. A Group Policy Object (GPO) is essentially a combination of a Group Policy Container (GPC) in Active Directory and a Group Policy Template (GPT) in SYSVOL. The Group Policy scope depends on whether the GPC is linked to the directory tree at the domain, site, or organization unit (OU) level. A link at the domain root means the policy applies to every computer and user object beneath it. Thus, a GPO compromised at the domain root can affect all in-scope domain users and computers, potentially granting an attacker complete control over the corporate network. What makes GPO abuse even more dangerous is that group policies are processed in a trusted, high-privilege environment, ensuring persistence because endpoint cleanup is not enough to remove them.
We have already discussed GPO architecture and ways it can be compromised in greater detail in an earlier blog post. Other public threat intelligence has also repeatedly documented this technique in ransomware operations. Microsoft observed Ryuk operators distributing ransomware through Group Policy, SYSVOL startup items, and PsExec. LockBit affiliates have been documented modifying SYSVOL Group Policy files, including ScheduledTasks.xml, to support ransomware execution and propagation. BlackCat/ALPHV operators have also abused GPOs to create scheduled tasks and deploy ransomware.
Another notable example of GPO abuse is PAYLOAD ransomware, which weaponizes GPO Preferences and policy settings for pure impact rather than as a launcher for an encryptor. Let’s take a closer look at this attack, which is detailed further below.
During the April 2026 investigation, we managed to reconstruct the attack timeline as outlined below:
| Date | Event |
| 11 April | Initial access. Threat actor authenticates to the FortiGate SSL VPN using a valid but compromised domain credential. |
| 13 April | GPO authored. Malicious GPO, PAYLOAD ({C897F2C7-C2AC-4E6F-BF48-58036FF29E79}) created and linked at the domain root, configuring ransom notes, wallpaper, lock screen, logon banner, and administrator account disablement. |
| 13 April | SYSVOL staging. The payload.jpg and hello.txt files written to \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\. |
| 13 April | Second GPO. GPO named win Firewall Off ({22099AD2-E062-4F56-B574-5099BBA4E7A6}) linked at the domain root, disabling Windows Firewall on all profiles. |
| 13 April | Dormancy. GPO cached on endpoints but computer configuration not yet applied — no endpoint had rebooted since the policy update. |
| 13 April | Data exfiltration. Data exfiltration was observed originating from the file servers and several additional systems. |
| 14 April | Detonation. Most of the endpoints begin rebooting; computer configuration policies apply. Ransom wallpaper, logon banner, and notes appear. Operational disruption begins. |
| 15 April | Response. Kaspersky GERT engaged. Forensic triage of affected workstations and the domain controller initiated. |
| 16 April | Assessment. GERT confirms no file encryption, no resident malware, no endpoint persistence. |
Next, we will discuss each of these stages in more detail and share the findings from our incident response activities.
The entry vector was a compromised valid account (MITRE ATT&CK T1078) used to authenticate through the organization’s FortiGate SSL VPN — an external remote service (T1133). Insufficient logging on the FortiGate appliance prevented us from reconstructing how the credential was originally compromised.
Three hypotheses were considered plausible in the context of the attack, in no particular order:
Once on the internal network, the actor operated with the compromised security principal’s privileges. Because the account was able to create and link a GPO at the domain root, it held either domain admin privileges or a delegated equivalent (e.g., membership of Group Policy Creator Owners combined with link rights on the domain object).
FortiGate SSL VPN authentication logs and ESXi/virtualization privilege escalation logs were insufficient to reconstruct the lateral movement and privilege escalation chain between initial VPN access and the GPO write privilege level. The most common real-world routes to GPO control — DCSync, Kerberoasting of privileged service accounts, and Pass-the-Hash/Pass-the-Ticket — could not be confirmed or ruled out.
Rather than deploying an encryptor, the actor abused the victim’s Active Directory policy infrastructure, resulting in malicious GPOs being configured and linked at the domain root to deliver the observed impact across domain-joined systems. The two GPOs below constitute the entire offensive toolkit observed.
We performed a Resultant Set of Policy (RSOP) analysis, which helped us list all policy settings on the affected workstations. From these results, we reconstructed the following changes delivered by PAYLOAD:
| GPO extension/CSE | Setting/path | Configured value/resulting action |
| Files (Group Policy Preference) | Source SYSVOL\hello.txt → Desktop, C:\, D:\ | Dropped as README-payload.txt (ReadOnly) |
| Registry (Computer) | HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\legalnoticecaption | Welcome to Payload! |
| Registry (Computer) | HKLM\…\Policies\System\legalnoticetext | (ransom demand text) |
| Personalization Policy | Lock Screen Image | \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol…\payload.jpg |
| Desktop Policy (User) | Wallpaper path | \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol…\payload.jpg |
| Security Settings (GptTmpl.inf) | Accounts: Administrator account status | Disabled |
The PAYLOAD GPO enabled the following actions:
legalnoticecaption value to "Welcome to Payload!" and the legalnoticetext to the ransom note text through the “Group Policy Registry” CSE.This activity was enabled entirely through a legitimate group policy mechanism, meaning there is no malware code for security solutions to look for because the malicious logic is contained within the policy configuration.
A second domain-root-linked GPO, named “win Firewall Off”, disabled Windows Firewall across the domain, private and public profiles on all endpoints (T1562.004). Deployed independently of PAYLOAD, this object degraded host defenses and ensured the actor retained unimpeded network reach to endpoints for any follow-on activity.
Settings changed by win Firewall Off GPO
The most forensically instructive detail is the one-day gap between GPO creation (13 April) and visible impact (14 April). Analysis of Master File Table (MFT) timestamps and the Group Policy History registry key confirmed the policy was written to SYSVOL and cached on endpoints on 13 April. However, computer configuration settings (wallpaper and lock screen machine policy, security settings, firewall disabling) only apply upon reboot or policy refresh — and no endpoint had rebooted in the interim. The attack therefore remained dormant in the GPO cache for one day before detonating en masse when machines were restarted in accordance with standard procedures.
We have to point out here that this delayed policy application is characteristic of GPO-based operations and has two potential consequences for defenders. Firstly, it may grant the actor a quiet window for exfiltration, persistence, or further staging between weaponization and impact. Secondly, it can be used to sever the temporal link between the cause (a GPO-creation event in the directory log) and the effect (mass user-visible disruption occurring at a later time), complicating timeline reconstruction unless directory service auditing is in place.
Initial incident response engagement revealed a number of findings associated with the attack that we share below.
The attack’s persistence mechanism is the GPO link itself on the domain controller, with no endpoint-resident component.
Because no malicious binary or process exists, the detection logic should focus on the directory service and SYSVOL indicators. Below are the highest-value telemetry sources for identifying the described malicious activity.
| Event ID | Meaning | Hunt focus |
| 5137 | A directory service object was created | The account that created new groupPolicyContainer objects must be an authorized GPO administrator |
| 5136 | A directory service object was modified | Changes to gPLink on the domain root or sensitive organizational units; changes to gPCMachineExtensionNames/gPCUserExtensionNames/gPCFileSysPath/versionNumber for all GPOs |
| 5141 | A directory service object was deleted | GPO deletions (relevant for tamper detection and remediation assessment) |
A gPLink modification at the domain root by a non-standard account is one of the most telling indicators of this attack class.
The Windows endpoint attack described in this report was implemented through malicious Group Policy Objects and did not involve a recovered ransomware executable, resident endpoint malware, confirmed file encryption or active malicious processes at the time of the forensic examination. However, PAYLOAD cryptomalware for Windows does exist, and other sources, including public analysis of its samples, reveal further malicious capabilities of this ransomware that could be used by security teams to enrich detection logic and security policies.
The behaviors documented in this section must therefore be interpreted as family-level capabilities identified through the public reverse engineering of PAYLOAD ransomware samples. They were not confirmed as having executed during the GPO-based incident unless corresponding evidence was identified in the host, memory, process, event-log, or hypervisor.
Public reverse engineering of the PAYLOAD Windows variant reveals an optional event log clearing capability (T1685.005, formerly T1070.001). The ransomware dynamically resolves Windows Event Log APIs, enumerates available event log channels, and clears individual channels.
Implementation artifacts include:
Clearing event logs reduces the availability of records related to process execution, authentication, PowerShell, service control, and system changes. However, it does not necessarily remove events that were already forwarded to a SIEM, Windows Event Collector, EDR backend, or protected log archive.
We should note that these indicators can’t be interpreted on their own. For instance, Event ID 1102 should be correlated with a number of aggravating factors, such as:
At the same time, the absence of Event ID 1102 does not prove that log clearing did not occur. Direct deletion, truncation, service impairment, or an incomplete audit configuration may produce different evidence.
PAYLOAD analysis reveals that the Windows ransomware variant contains logic that targets security processes and services (T1685 and T1489). This capability is intended to stop security products, backup software, database services, and applications that may lock files targeted for encryption.
Process and service termination serves several objectives:
Public PAYLOAD sample analysis reports the deletion of Windows Volume Shadow Copies before encryption (T1490). This behavior removes local restore points and reduces the victim’s ability to recover files without external backups.
Recovery inhibition is broader than VSS deletion and may include multiple other malicious techniques, including the following:
In the PAYLOAD Windows sample that is proven to perform encryption, VSS deletion is confirmed to have taken place before encryption. A broader compromise of the backup platform was not established in the investigated incident.
Above, we discussed the techniques specific to PAYLOAD ransomware. In this section, we’ll review other common ransomware techniques, such as BYOVD abuse and ESXi policy weakening, that remain relevant risks in the ransomware ecosystem. However, these techniques should not be attributed to this incident without supporting driver load, process, memory, ESXi, vCenter, or backup platform telemetry. We describe these techniques below as they may prove useful in other ransomware-related forensic investigations.
The examples used in this section are therefore ecosystem-relevant: they are commonly observed in ransomware operations but not conclusively attributed to the analyzed PAYLOAD samples.
Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) is a kernel-supported tracing architecture used by Windows components, diagnostic utilities, security products, and endpoint monitoring systems.
Although we didn’t encounter this technique in our case, some ransomware families can patch ETW-related functions inside the ransomware process (T1685, formerly T1562.001). The reported routine changes the memory protection of code pages, overwrites the beginning of selected ETW functions so they return without producing events, restores the original protection, and refreshes the instruction cache.
Reported target functions include EtwEventWrite, EtwEventWriteFull, EtwEventWriteTransfer, and EtwRegister.
This modification applies to the process-local mapping of ntdll.dll. It does not disable ETW globally across Windows, but it can reduce the telemetry generated by the modified process.
It should be noted that telemetry gaps are not conclusive evidence of ETW patching. Other factors include agent upgrades, network outages, endpoint shutdowns, SIEM ingestion failures, collector backpressure, and filtering or licensing changes.
Memory acquisition is the strongest validation source when process-local ETW patching is suspected.
Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) involves introducing or abusing a legitimately signed but vulnerable kernel driver (T1068 and T1685). The attacker exploits the driver’s exposed functionality to gain kernel-level capabilities, modify protected memory, terminate security processes, remove security callbacks, or bypass operating system security controls.
BYOVD is highly relevant to contemporary ransomware operations. However, the reviewed public PAYLOAD analyses do not provide sufficient evidence to conclude that BYOVD is an intrinsic PAYLOAD capability.
It should therefore be presented as an ecosystem-relevant technique rather than a confirmed PAYLOAD feature.
Ransomware operators are increasingly targeting ESXi and vCenter because compromising the virtualization layer provides access to many business-critical virtual machines.
Public research typically describes operators performing the following activities (T1685, T1490 and T1489):
execInstalledOnlyOn the target organization’s Linux servers we saw an ESXi PAYLOAD variant, which makes this behavior operationally relevant. Nevertheless, the reviewed evidence does not indicate that PAYLOAD operators used any of these policy-weakening actions in the investigated incident.
execInstalledOnlyTo contain the described threat and limit possible damage, several remediation steps should be taken. Below, we recommend a four-phase remediation approach for containing this threat and restoring the affected environment.
When dealing with PAYLOAD GPO, the first priority of the remediation plan should be to remove the source GPOs. Until this is done, endpoint cleanup is ineffective because the next policy refresh re-infects cleaned machines.
The immediate domain controller actions to be taken are:
gpupdate /force across endpoints after deletion; re-enable local administrator and firewall via clean policy.gPLink change by a non-standard account.PAYLOAD demonstrates a maturing tactic of turning the victim’s own trusted infrastructure into a weapon. By weaponizing Group Policy, the actor achieved a domain-wide impact without a single malicious binary on any endpoint, evaded file- and process-based detection entirely, and caused organization-wide disruption within seconds of the first reboot.
The absence of encryption is the most strategically significant finding and is consistent with the 2026 trend toward encryptionless extortion. At Kaspersky GERT, we assess with moderate confidence that the missing encryption reflects one of two scenarios: (1) a deliberate decision to stay below the irreversible data destruction threshold while preserving the option of a follow-on encryption phase, or (2) an operation interrupted before full execution.
The absence of encrypted files must not be mistaken for the absence of a serious compromise — the most critical impact lies in the actor gaining domain admin-level control. This incident proves that a threat actor with domain admin access and a working knowledge of group policy internals can inflict domain-wide disruption equivalent to a ransomware attack without writing a single malicious file to any endpoint.
Detection strategies anchored solely in file- or process-based indicators are blind to this attack class. Effective controls include directory service change auditing, SYSVOL integrity monitoring, and privileged access governance, which allow for GPO protection.
Kaspersky security solutions effectively detect the described malicious activity at various stages of the attack. Possible detection scenarios are listed below.
To protect organizations that use our Kaspersky SIEM system, we have prepared a package of correlation rules designed to help detect this type of malicious activity. The rules are now available for customers to download from the SIEM repository; the package name is: [OOTB] Group policy hijacked: PAYLOAD ransomware – ENG.
The “Group policy hijacked: PAYLOAD ransomware” package contains rules that detect suspicious file creation or modification in the SYSVOL shared folder on a domain controller, as well as changes to critical attributes and settings of domain group policies. Some rules may require adjustment if they trigger in response to legitimate activity, such as synchronization between domain controllers or the configuration of a new group policy.
To ensure the detection rules function correctly, verify that events from Windows systems are being received in full, including events with the following identifiers: Sysmon: 11, Security — 4663, 5136, 4657.
We also recommend applying the following rules available in the repository to detect all attack stages.
R050_03_Windows Event Log was clearedR262_Suspicious access to the LSASS processR231_20_Running the Volume Shadow Copy serviceR321_Shadow copy deletionR076_01_Windows Defender Antivirus was disabledR240_03_Disabling system firewall via the registryR281_01_Installation of a service from a non-system folderFor the rules in this list to function correctly, it is necessary to configure Security event auditing for event IDs 4663, 5136, 4657, 7036, and 1102.
In addition to the SIEM system, when audit settings are configured correctly, the process of creating, modifying, and deleting GPOs generates a large number of characteristic artifacts on the domain controller, enabling Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Expert to promptly alert the user to anomalies in the infrastructure.
The creation of a new GPO is covered by the gpo_creation rule, which triggers in response to the corresponding event in the infrastructure. Changes to existing policies are detected by the following rules:
gPCMachineExtensionNames attribute.gPCFileSysPath attribute of a Group Policy Object, which specifies the path to the GPO’s contents in SYSVOL.groupPolicyContainer class.GPO deletion is covered by the gpo_deletion rule.
In the next major version update of Kaspersky EDR Expert, a new event type, GPO, will be introduced, allowing users to track changes to Group Policy Objects.
For information security officers, GPO events will serve as an additional source of context when investigating activity in Active Directory and will help detect changes that could affect the configuration, access rights, and security of endpoints before a potentially malicious policy is deployed.
| Tactic | Technique | Observed behavior |
| Initial Access | T1078 — Valid Accounts | Compromised domain credential used for VPN authentication |
| Initial Access | T1133 — External Remote Services | FortiGate SSL VPN used as entry point |
| Privilege Escalation | T1078.002 — Domain Accounts | Account held domain-level GPO create/link rights |
| Privilege Escalation/Defense Impairment | T1484.001 — Group Policy Modification | Malicious PAYLOAD GPO created and linked at domain root; re-applies on every refresh/reboot; uses trusted channel to evade EDR |
| Defense Impairment | T1686 — Disable or Modify System Firewall | win Firewall Off GPO disables Windows Firewall on all profiles |
| Impact | T1491.001 — Internal Defacement | Wallpaper and lock screen replaced with ransom image |
| Impact | T1531 — Account Access Removal | Local Administrator account disabled via GPO Security Settings |
| Collection | T1005 — Data from Local System | Data exfiltration was observed originating from the file servers |
| Command and Control | T1071 — Application Layer Protocol | No live C2 confirmed; delivery achieved entirely via GPO |
GPOs
PAYLOAD ransomware GPO: {C897F2C7-C2AC-4E6F-BF48-58036FF29E79}
win Firewall Off GPO: {22099AD2-E062-4F56-B574-5099BBA4E7A6}
File names and MD5 hashes
payload.jpg: Ransom wallpaper and lock screen image (SYSVOL)
hello.txt: Ransom note source (SYSVOL)
README-payload.txt: Ransom note dropped to desktops and drive roots
killer.exe (0108656A3E1ADE6CA4F21B084F5E1208): process killer tool
kill.exe (BEA5E267F24D7DA59F6821BFFDBFF293): process killer tool
IP addresses
37.19.210[.]12
146.70.117[.]239
149.102.229[.]154
104.164.55[.]46
104.28.162[.]228
104.28.163[.]162
64.190.76[.]14
192.42.116[.]50
192.42.116[.]12
192.42.116[.]56
192.42.116[.]97
192.42.116[.]52
Registry keys
HKLM\...\Policies\System\legalnoticecaption = Welcome to Payload!
SYSVOL path
\\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\payload.jpg
Event IDs
5137: GPO object creation on DC — review creator account
5136: GPO attribute modification — watch gPLink at domain root
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked continued to decrease, falling to 19.15%, its lowest level since 2022.
Percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked, Q3 2023–Q2 2026
Regionally, the percentages ranged from 8.1% in Northern Europe to 27.9% in Africa.
Regions ranked by percentage of attacked ICS computers
The figures increased in five regions over the quarter, most notably in East Asia (by 2.0 pp) and Africa (by 0.5 pp).
East Asia saw increases in percentages for all threats except miners. The region ranked first in terms of growth for malicious scripts and phishing pages, spyware, and viruses. East Asia also led in terms of growth in threats from the internet. The percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked also increased.
The biometrics sector (26.44%) has traditionally led the rankings of industries and OT infrastructures surveyed in this report in terms of the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked. Biometric systems are characterized by the availability of internet access, extensive email use for data exchange and approvals (e.g. access granting), and, in many cases, minimal cybersecurity controls within the organizations that use them.
Industries ranked by percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked
The biometrics sector ranked first among industries in terms of the following threat categories: malicious scripts and phishing pages, malicious documents, spyware, ransomware, and worms. The sector is also leading among industries in terms of email threats. At the same time, unlike other industries, the percentage of affected ICS computers for email threats in biometrics exceeds that for internet threats.
In all selected industries, the global average follows a downward trend.
In Q2 2026, Kaspersky security solutions blocked malware from 10,904 different malware families of various categories on industrial automation systems.
Over the quarter, the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects of the following categories were blocked increased: denylisted internet resources, malicious documents, worms, ransomware, and malware for AutoCAD.
Percentage of ICS computers on which the activity of malicious objects from various categories was blocked
Malicious scripts and phishing pages remained in first place in the threat category rankings based on the percentage of ICS computers on which the respective threats were blocked. In Q2 2026, the global average dropped to 5.42%.
Over the quarter, the figure for this category only increased in East Asia, rising by 0.93 pp to 4.86%. This is the second-highest figure in the region in the last three years.
In East Asia, the percentage of ICS computers affected by malicious scripts and phishing pages increased in all the industries surveyed, except construction. The highest figures were recorded for biometrics (9.01%) and building automation (6.49%).
In Q2 2026, denylisted internet resources rose in the threat category rankings from third to second place, displacing spyware. Globally, the percentage of ICS computers on which denylisted internet resources were blocked has been increasing for two quarters in row and reached 4.31%.
The figures increased in all regions over the quarter, most notably in Russia (by 1.33 pp). Moreover, Russia ranked first (5.17%) among the regions in terms of denylisted internet resources. Since 2022, the region has topped these rankings twice before, both times in Q2: in 2022 and 2024.
Among the selected industries in Russia, the highest figures for the denylisted internet resources were in the electric power (6.61%) and engineering and ICS integration (5.62%) industries.
Malicious documents ranked fourth in the threat category rankings by the percentage of ICS computers on which they were blocked. The percentage for this category decreased over the previous three quarters, reaching its lowest level in three years. However, in Q2 2026, it increased to 1.77%.
Over the quarter, the figures for malicious documents increased in seven regions, most notably in South America (by 1.35 pp) and Southern Europe (by 0.48 pp). These two regions are among the top three in terms of malicious documents, malicious scripts and phishing pages, as well as threats from email clients.
South America ranked second in the rankings of regions in terms of malicious documents. In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers in the region on which this threat was blocked was 3.56%, which was the fourth highest in three years.
Among the selected industries in South America, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which malicious documents were blocked was in biometrics (6.67%).
Southern Europe ranked first in the rankings of regions in terms of malicious documents. In the previous quarter, the percentage of ICS computers in the region on which this threat was blocked was the lowest in three years, but in Q2 2026 it increased to 3.63%.
Among the selected industries in Southern Europe, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which malicious documents were blocked was once again in biometrics (11.48%).
Spyware ranked third in the threat category rankings based on the percentage of ICS computers on which it was blocked. The percentage for this category (3.30%) is the lowest since 2022.
Over the quarter, the figures increased in three regions, most notably in East Asia (by 0.53 pp) and Southeast Asia (by 0.42 pp).
East Asia ranked third based on the figures for spyware (4.77%), behind Africa and Southeast Asia. This is the region’s highest rate since Q2 2025. Among the countries and territories in the region, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which spyware was blocked was in mainland China (6.61%). Among the selected industries in East Asia, the highest figures for spyware were in the electric power (11.75%) and manufacturing (5.87%) industries. In all the industries surveyed, the figures are higher than the regional average.
Southeast Asia ranked second after Africa in the ranking of regions in terms of spyware, with 5.32%. Among the selected industries in Southeast Asia, the highest figures for spyware were in biometrics (8.93%) and manufacturing (7.32%). The figures increased in all industries over the quarter.
The percentage of ICS computers on which ransomware was blocked decreased in the previous three quarters but increased to 0.16% in Q2 2026.
During the quarter, the percentage increased in all regions, except Western and Southern Europe and North America (Canada). Africa led the ranking in terms of growth for this metric.
In Q2 2026, Africa ranked first among the regions in terms of the percentage of ICS computers on which ransomware was blocked (0.29%). The only time the figure in the region was higher in the past three years was Q2 2025 (0.31%).
Among the selected industries in Africa, the highest figures for ransomware were in the electric power industry (0.72%) and biometrics (0.52%). Over the quarter, the figures increased in all industries, except manufacturing and construction. The biggest increase was recorded in the electric power industry.
In Russia, the percentage of ICS computers on which ransomware was blocked in biometric systems has increased for three consecutive quarters, reaching 1.22%. This is the highest level of ransomware across all industries in all regions.
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which miners were blocked was the lowest since 2021, for both miners in the form of executable files for Windows (0.48%) and web miners running in browsers (0.14%).
The figures for both categories decreased in all regions, except for Africa where figures for miners in the form of executable files for Windows increased slightly.
On average, the oil and gas industry led the rankings among the selected industries both in terms of miners in the form of executable files for the Windows OS (0.66%) and in terms of web miners (0.34%).
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which worms were blocked increased to 1.43%.
In Q2 2026, the Middle East (2.11%) was second (after Africa) in the rankings of regions in terms of worms, displacing Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Among the selected industries in the Middle East, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which worms were blocked was in building automation (2.90%). Over the quarter, the figures increased in all industries.
Australia and New Zealand ranked 12th among the regions in terms of the percentage of ICS computers on which worms were blocked (0.41%). Over the past three years, the figure in this region was only higher in Q2 2024 (0.42%). The figures increased in all the surveyed industries in the region, most notably in manufacturing and electric power. As a result, for these industries they exceeded the regional average by 2.9 and 2.3 times, respectively.
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked decreased to 1.29%.
The top three regions for this metric remain unchanged: Southeast Asia (6.03%), Africa (4.22%), and East Asia (3.14%). These same regions lead the rankings in terms of malware for AutoCAD.
The figures increased in three regions: East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and Africa, where it has been growing for four consecutive quarters and reached its highest value since 2022.
Among the selected industries in Africa, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked was in construction (5.47%).
East Asia ranked third among the regions in terms of viruses, reaching the highest level in the region for the past three years. Among the countries and administrative regions of East Asia, mainland China is the clear leader in terms of viruses (5.07%).
Among the selected industries in East Asia, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked was in construction (5.93%).
In Australia and New Zealand, the increase in the percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked was primarily due to a 4.3-fold increase in the figure for the electric power industry: from 0.29% to 1.24%. For a region where the percentage of attacked ICS computers for all threats is 0.12%, this is a very high value.
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which malware for AutoCAD was blocked increased to 0.31%.
The most notable increase over the quarter was observed in Africa. After more than doubling in the previous quarter, the figure for the region continued to rise (although not so dramatically), reaching 1.02%.
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which malware for AutoCAD was blocked was in construction in East Asia (6.38%) and in Southeast Asia (4.05%).
In Q2 2026, of all the threat sources, the percentage increased only for email.
Percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects from various sources were blocked
The percentage of ICS computers on which threats from the internet were blocked decreased to 7.61%, reaching its lowest level since 2021.
Over the quarter, the percentage increased in three regions: East Asia by 0.8 pp (to 6.3%), South Asia by 0.3 pp (to 10.4%), and Russia by 0.3 pp (to 6.4%).
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which threats from the internet were blocked was in biometrics (13.03%) and engineering and ICS integration (12.16%) in South Asia.
The percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked increased to 2.84%.
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked increased in South America by 1.0 pp (to 5.2%) and in Africa by 0.7 pp (to 4.3%).
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked was in biometrics (19.14%) and building automation (12.49%) in Southern Europe.
The percentage of ICS computers on which threats from removable media were blocked continued to decrease, reaching 0.24%, the lowest value for the period under review.
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which threats from removable media were blocked was in the electric power industry in East Asia (1.34%) and biometrics in Africa (1.29%).
The percentage of ICS computers on which threats from network folders were blocked continued to decrease. In Q2 2026, it was the lowest for the period under review, at 0.023%.
The only region to see an increase in the percentage of ICS computers on which threats from network folders were blocked during the quarter was Africa. This was mainly due to an increase in the building automation figure to 0.05%.
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which threats from network folders were blocked was in biometrics (0.23%), building automation (0.17%), and engineering and ICS integration (0.13%) in East Asia.
For more information on industrial threats see the full version of the report.
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked continued to decrease, falling to 19.15%, its lowest level since 2022.
Percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked, Q3 2023–Q2 2026
Regionally, the percentages ranged from 8.1% in Northern Europe to 27.9% in Africa.
Regions ranked by percentage of attacked ICS computers
The figures increased in five regions over the quarter, most notably in East Asia (by 2.0 pp) and Africa (by 0.5 pp).
East Asia saw increases in percentages for all threats except miners. The region ranked first in terms of growth for malicious scripts and phishing pages, spyware, and viruses. East Asia also led in terms of growth in threats from the internet. The percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked also increased.
The biometrics sector (26.44%) has traditionally led the rankings of industries and OT infrastructures surveyed in this report in terms of the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked. Biometric systems are characterized by the availability of internet access, extensive email use for data exchange and approvals (e.g. access granting), and, in many cases, minimal cybersecurity controls within the organizations that use them.
Industries ranked by percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked
The biometrics sector ranked first among industries in terms of the following threat categories: malicious scripts and phishing pages, malicious documents, spyware, ransomware, and worms. The sector is also leading among industries in terms of email threats. At the same time, unlike other industries, the percentage of affected ICS computers for email threats in biometrics exceeds that for internet threats.
In all selected industries, the global average follows a downward trend.
In Q2 2026, Kaspersky security solutions blocked malware from 10,904 different malware families of various categories on industrial automation systems.
Over the quarter, the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects of the following categories were blocked increased: denylisted internet resources, malicious documents, worms, ransomware, and malware for AutoCAD.
Percentage of ICS computers on which the activity of malicious objects from various categories was blocked
Malicious scripts and phishing pages remained in first place in the threat category rankings based on the percentage of ICS computers on which the respective threats were blocked. In Q2 2026, the global average dropped to 5.42%.
Over the quarter, the figure for this category only increased in East Asia, rising by 0.93 pp to 4.86%. This is the second-highest figure in the region in the last three years.
In East Asia, the percentage of ICS computers affected by malicious scripts and phishing pages increased in all the industries surveyed, except construction. The highest figures were recorded for biometrics (9.01%) and building automation (6.49%).
In Q2 2026, denylisted internet resources rose in the threat category rankings from third to second place, displacing spyware. Globally, the percentage of ICS computers on which denylisted internet resources were blocked has been increasing for two quarters in row and reached 4.31%.
The figures increased in all regions over the quarter, most notably in Russia (by 1.33 pp). Moreover, Russia ranked first (5.17%) among the regions in terms of denylisted internet resources. Since 2022, the region has topped these rankings twice before, both times in Q2: in 2022 and 2024.
Among the selected industries in Russia, the highest figures for the denylisted internet resources were in the electric power (6.61%) and engineering and ICS integration (5.62%) industries.
Malicious documents ranked fourth in the threat category rankings by the percentage of ICS computers on which they were blocked. The percentage for this category decreased over the previous three quarters, reaching its lowest level in three years. However, in Q2 2026, it increased to 1.77%.
Over the quarter, the figures for malicious documents increased in seven regions, most notably in South America (by 1.35 pp) and Southern Europe (by 0.48 pp). These two regions are among the top three in terms of malicious documents, malicious scripts and phishing pages, as well as threats from email clients.
South America ranked second in the rankings of regions in terms of malicious documents. In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers in the region on which this threat was blocked was 3.56%, which was the fourth highest in three years.
Among the selected industries in South America, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which malicious documents were blocked was in biometrics (6.67%).
Southern Europe ranked first in the rankings of regions in terms of malicious documents. In the previous quarter, the percentage of ICS computers in the region on which this threat was blocked was the lowest in three years, but in Q2 2026 it increased to 3.63%.
Among the selected industries in Southern Europe, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which malicious documents were blocked was once again in biometrics (11.48%).
Spyware ranked third in the threat category rankings based on the percentage of ICS computers on which it was blocked. The percentage for this category (3.30%) is the lowest since 2022.
Over the quarter, the figures increased in three regions, most notably in East Asia (by 0.53 pp) and Southeast Asia (by 0.42 pp).
East Asia ranked third based on the figures for spyware (4.77%), behind Africa and Southeast Asia. This is the region’s highest rate since Q2 2025. Among the countries and territories in the region, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which spyware was blocked was in mainland China (6.61%). Among the selected industries in East Asia, the highest figures for spyware were in the electric power (11.75%) and manufacturing (5.87%) industries. In all the industries surveyed, the figures are higher than the regional average.
Southeast Asia ranked second after Africa in the ranking of regions in terms of spyware, with 5.32%. Among the selected industries in Southeast Asia, the highest figures for spyware were in biometrics (8.93%) and manufacturing (7.32%). The figures increased in all industries over the quarter.
The percentage of ICS computers on which ransomware was blocked decreased in the previous three quarters but increased to 0.16% in Q2 2026.
During the quarter, the percentage increased in all regions, except Western and Southern Europe and North America (Canada). Africa led the ranking in terms of growth for this metric.
In Q2 2026, Africa ranked first among the regions in terms of the percentage of ICS computers on which ransomware was blocked (0.29%). The only time the figure in the region was higher in the past three years was Q2 2025 (0.31%).
Among the selected industries in Africa, the highest figures for ransomware were in the electric power industry (0.72%) and biometrics (0.52%). Over the quarter, the figures increased in all industries, except manufacturing and construction. The biggest increase was recorded in the electric power industry.
In Russia, the percentage of ICS computers on which ransomware was blocked in biometric systems has increased for three consecutive quarters, reaching 1.22%. This is the highest level of ransomware across all industries in all regions.
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which miners were blocked was the lowest since 2021, for both miners in the form of executable files for Windows (0.48%) and web miners running in browsers (0.14%).
The figures for both categories decreased in all regions, except for Africa where figures for miners in the form of executable files for Windows increased slightly.
On average, the oil and gas industry led the rankings among the selected industries both in terms of miners in the form of executable files for the Windows OS (0.66%) and in terms of web miners (0.34%).
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which worms were blocked increased to 1.43%.
In Q2 2026, the Middle East (2.11%) was second (after Africa) in the rankings of regions in terms of worms, displacing Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Among the selected industries in the Middle East, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which worms were blocked was in building automation (2.90%). Over the quarter, the figures increased in all industries.
Australia and New Zealand ranked 12th among the regions in terms of the percentage of ICS computers on which worms were blocked (0.41%). Over the past three years, the figure in this region was only higher in Q2 2024 (0.42%). The figures increased in all the surveyed industries in the region, most notably in manufacturing and electric power. As a result, for these industries they exceeded the regional average by 2.9 and 2.3 times, respectively.
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked decreased to 1.29%.
The top three regions for this metric remain unchanged: Southeast Asia (6.03%), Africa (4.22%), and East Asia (3.14%). These same regions lead the rankings in terms of malware for AutoCAD.
The figures increased in three regions: East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and Africa, where it has been growing for four consecutive quarters and reached its highest value since 2022.
Among the selected industries in Africa, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked was in construction (5.47%).
East Asia ranked third among the regions in terms of viruses, reaching the highest level in the region for the past three years. Among the countries and administrative regions of East Asia, mainland China is the clear leader in terms of viruses (5.07%).
Among the selected industries in East Asia, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked was in construction (5.93%).
In Australia and New Zealand, the increase in the percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked was primarily due to a 4.3-fold increase in the figure for the electric power industry: from 0.29% to 1.24%. For a region where the percentage of attacked ICS computers for all threats is 0.12%, this is a very high value.
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which malware for AutoCAD was blocked increased to 0.31%.
The most notable increase over the quarter was observed in Africa. After more than doubling in the previous quarter, the figure for the region continued to rise (although not so dramatically), reaching 1.02%.
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which malware for AutoCAD was blocked was in construction in East Asia (6.38%) and in Southeast Asia (4.05%).
In Q2 2026, of all the threat sources, the percentage increased only for email.
Percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects from various sources were blocked
The percentage of ICS computers on which threats from the internet were blocked decreased to 7.61%, reaching its lowest level since 2021.
Over the quarter, the percentage increased in three regions: East Asia by 0.8 pp (to 6.3%), South Asia by 0.3 pp (to 10.4%), and Russia by 0.3 pp (to 6.4%).
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which threats from the internet were blocked was in biometrics (13.03%) and engineering and ICS integration (12.16%) in South Asia.
The percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked increased to 2.84%.
In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked increased in South America by 1.0 pp (to 5.2%) and in Africa by 0.7 pp (to 4.3%).
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked was in biometrics (19.14%) and building automation (12.49%) in Southern Europe.
The percentage of ICS computers on which threats from removable media were blocked continued to decrease, reaching 0.24%, the lowest value for the period under review.
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which threats from removable media were blocked was in the electric power industry in East Asia (1.34%) and biometrics in Africa (1.29%).
The percentage of ICS computers on which threats from network folders were blocked continued to decrease. In Q2 2026, it was the lowest for the period under review, at 0.023%.
The only region to see an increase in the percentage of ICS computers on which threats from network folders were blocked during the quarter was Africa. This was mainly due to an increase in the building automation figure to 0.05%.
Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which threats from network folders were blocked was in biometrics (0.23%), building automation (0.17%), and engineering and ICS integration (0.13%) in East Asia.
For more information on industrial threats see the full version of the report.
Authorities in Australia have arrested two men believed to be members of TeamPCP, a prolific cybercrime and data extortion group blamed for perpetrating the longest running spree of software supply chain attacks ever.
In a statement released today, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said two men from Western Australia, aged 21 and 23, were arrested in connection with a “sophisticated cybercrime syndicate that allegedly created malicious open-source software to rob thousands of global businesses.”
The AFP did not name the defendants, but KrebsOnSecurity learned the 21-year-old suspect’s real identity in June, and has been communicating with him ever since. This story includes interviews with TeamPCP’s self-described spokesperson, and examines clues left behind by the TeamPCP leader that likely led to his undoing.
TeamPCP vaulted onto the cybercrime scene in late 2025, embedding malicious code in hundreds of open source software tools and extorting victims for profit. Members of the group made headlines by compromising corporate cloud environments using a self-propagating worm dubbed Shai-Hulud, which added malicious code to open source programs maintained by developers whose credentials at public code repositories like GitHub or NPM were phished or stolen.
Writing for Wired, journalist Andy Greenberg described TeamPCP’s core tactic as a kind of cyclical exploitation of software developers.
“The hackers gain access to a network where an open source tool commonly used by coders is being developed,” Greenberg wrote in May. “The hackers plant malware in the tool that ends up on other software developers’ machines, including some who are writing other tools intended to be used by coders. The malware allows TeamPCP’s hackers to steal credentials that let them publish malicious versions of those software development tools, too. The cycle repeats, and TeamPCP’s collection of breached networks grows.”
TeamPCP also has practiced something akin to cyclical recruitment. In May, the source code for the third iteration of Shai-Hulud was published online, and TeamPCP soon after launched a contest offering $1,000 in virtual currency to whichever participant could conduct the largest supply chain operation using the worm’s code. According to the contest rules, participants were scored based on the number of weekly and monthly downloads of packages they compromised — directly incentivizing them to target the most popular code libraries.
A screenshot of a message from TeamPCP’s Telegram account, announcing the supply chain hacking contest. Image: dataminr.com.
“TeamPCP has stated the competition is a recruiting opportunity and they intend to purchase all meaningful access harvested from participants’ campaigns,” the security firm Dataminr wrote. “The $1,000 XMR (Monero) prize is a recruitment floor and has been dismissed by the actor as ‘just like participation trophy,’ adding ‘if you find something good you will be paid way more,’ confirming the contest’s true function as talent identification and malicious access acquisition at scale.”
In March, TeamPCP executed a supply chain attack targeting AI infrastructure by compromising the code for LiteLLM, an open source AI gateway that connects users to more than 100 different large language models. A recent analysis by the security firm CloudSEK found TeamPCPs attack on LiteLLM harvested cloud service keys and other secrets from more than 2,500 organizations, including many of the world’s top technology companies.
In May, TeamPCP claimed credit for compromising at least 3,800 code repositories at the Microsoft-owned GitHub, after a GitHub developer installed a code extension that was compromised by TeamPCP’s malware.
Security experts say TeamPCP is less of a hacker group than an amalgamation of threat actors from multiple cybercriminal gangs who sometimes work together toward similar goals.
“It is not a structured criminal crew with a single operator,” said Austin Larsen, a principal threat analyst with the Google Threat Intelligence Group. “It is a peer community of individually-skilled actors, with one clear center of gravity.”
That center of gravity is George Prepakis, an accomplished security researcher and self-described exploit developer who operates the Twitter/X profile @kernelstub. Earlier this year, @kernelstub tweeted a public invite link to a Matrix chat server he created and dubbed “Cybercats,” and TeamPCP and several other cybercrime entities have been using this server to communicate daily for the past several months.
A screenshot of the Matrix chat server “Cybercats,” whose members used hacker handles associated with multiple distinct cybercrime groups that have occasionally collaborated on a series of supply chain and data ransom attacks over the past nine months.
Kernelstub, like other administrators in the Cybercats chat, has been using his Twitter/X profile name as his handle in these Matrix communications, frequently tweeting references to other members and to conversations taking place in the Cybercats chat. In a number of cases, the corresponding X accounts for members of the Cybercats chat taunted cybercrime victims publicly before the incidents were reported in the news media.
The Cybercats administrator listed at the top of the screenshot above — “Boxturtle” — is a close associate of TeamPCP who has been tweeting about the group’s conquests under the name @xpl0itrsturtle. This handle corresponds to a data breach broker active on Breachforums and Darkforums who has been selling data stolen in a wave of recent breaches at automobile manufacturers, including BMW Group, Audi, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and Toyota, as well as data allegedly taken from Snapchat and SportRadar.
The data leak site for the extortion group or handle “xpl0itrs.”
The Cybercats administrator “SeesawSec” in the screenshot above is the alias of whoever is behind the cybercrime group known as Fulcrumsec, which recently claimed credit for data extortion attacks against the pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, the data broker LexisNexis, and Avnet, a Fortune 500 distributor of electronic components.
The data leak site of Fulcrum Security, a.k.a. Fulcrumsec.
The Cybercats administrator “@pcpcasper” also has been using a similar name on X to discuss TeamPCP’s attacks and victims. This person has an extensive message history on Telegram, where their messages and shared videos show @pcpcasper is an active and vocal member of the National Socialist Network, a neo-Nazi political organization based in Australia.
At one point in these chats, @pcpcasper shared videos and images of what they claimed was their cat, and several of those videos place this user in Western Australia. One source close to the investigation told KrebsOnSecurity that @pcpcasper was one of the two arrested, a claim supported by messages that @kernelstub posted online this morning.
The Cybercats member roster pictured above also features an administrator with the username “T,” which is short for the now-banned Twitter/X profile @pcpcats, the account operated by the self-described TeamPCP spokesperson who was arrested today. As we’ll see in a moment, @pcpcats also is from Western Australia.
By the time @kernelstub tweeted a public invite link to the Cybercats Matrix server, T/@pcpcats was posting only infrequently to the group chat, with other members often inquiring as to his whereabouts and well-being. The group’s collective concern related to @pcpcats’s tendency to blame his increasingly extended absences on the use of hallucinogens and other narcotics that kept him awake for days on end, but also caused him to crash in bed for several days after the highs wore off.
The Cybercats member @pcpcats has used multiple nicknames on the cybercrime forums, including EllisD25/LSD on Darkforums, BulkDMT on Breachstars, and Express on Breachforums. These accounts are linked because they all advertised the same Tox ID and/or Session ID as instant message contact handles in their cybercrime forum posts. BulkDMT was also known on the forums as DMT Host, which was a virtual private server (VPS) hosting service that was peddled on Darkforums and Breachstars.
DMT Host/EllisD25, posting on the English-language cybercrime community DarkForums in September 2025. Image: ke-la.com.
According to the cyber intelligence firm Intel 471, Express registered on Breachforums using the email address shitstickpp@gmail.com. Intel 471 finds Express posted on Breachforums across a two-month period in 2025 using four different Internet addresses located in South Africa. On July 30, 2025, Express announced on Breachforums they were selling access to 14 gigabytes of data stolen from South Africa’s State Information Technology Agency.
The threat intelligence platform Flashpoint recorded more than a year’s worth of messages from the TeamPCP leader’s alter ego on Telegram — Persy_PCP — who claimed they split their life living between two countries [full disclosure: Flashpoint is an advertiser on this blog]. “I have these [files] as well, problem is these are in another country,” Persy_PCP explained to another user inquiring about a stolen data set in November 2025.
Later that month, Persy_PCP complained, “My whole country is racist and they want people like me dead.” Flashpoint records show BulkDMT shared in September 2025 that “this country is going to fucking starve when they take the farmers land,” a likely reference to white landowners in South Africa who claim to be targeted by an ongoing genocide campaign.
This tracks with public reporting on TeamPCP. Cyberscoop reported in June that Google had traced TeamPCP’s residential and mobile Internet address connections to South Africa, “indicating the primary operator was located there during at least some of its attacks.”
BulkDMT also shared on the group chat at Breachforums that they were recovering from an addiction to methamphetamine. “My life is kinda fucked rn [right now], but that’s fine and there isn’t really a point in pouring so much emotional energy into that fact, my parents had money but I unfortunately got really addicted to some things so I don’t get to benefit from that. As long as I continue to survive, stay sober, and move closer towards my goals that’s enough drive and meaning.”
The identity threat protection company SpyCloud finds shitstickpp@gmail.com shows up in the registration of an account called ChristmasSnow on the cybercrime community Raidforums in 2022. Nearly all of the Internet addresses used to access that account came from ISPs in Perth, Australia, SpyCloud found.
KrebsOnSecurity looked up all of those Perth IP addresses in passive DNS records maintained by DomainTools.com, and found one of them — 211.27.196.111 — for several years was used as a private file server by a family in Perth with the last name of Thomson. Those records show at least three hosts — ithomson.direct.quickconnect.to (a remote Synology server), kthomson0061.direct.quickconnect.to, and joshuawthomson39.myqnapcloud.com (a QNAP network storage device) — persisted at that address between 2022 and 2025.
Searching on “joshuathomson39” in the breach tracking service Constella Intelligence reveals an account at the freight forwarding company kwe.com created in the name of Joshua Thomson from Perth, Australia. The open source intelligence platform Epieos finds the phone number attached to that kwe.com account was used to register a Facebook profile for Josh Thomson, which says his family includes a brother named Ruben, his father Ian, and his mom Cindy.
That Facebook profile also says Josh and his family are originally from Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, but currently living in Cottesloe, a beach-side suburb of Perth. A search in DomainTools for Ian Thomson and Australia unearthed five domains by the same registrant, including securecomputing.au, thomson.org.au, and thomsonfamily.net.au. Ian Thomson is a dentist in Cottesloe, and a biography says he graduated from The University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Constella finds a joshua@thomson.org.au registered a number of accounts online, but Josh doesn’t seem to have much of a connection to dodgy cybercrime forums. His brother Ruben, on the other hand, has quite the presence on these communities, dating back to at least 2018. Constella reports ruben@thomson.org.au frequently reused the password “joshuathomson1,” and Constella further finds that password was used by just a handful of accounts, including yolosolo17@gmail.com and surfinup8@gmail.com.
According to Intel 471, surfinup8@gmail.com was used to register the user Yolosolo17 on the crime forum Altenen in 2018, and that user account was registered from the Perth address 110.141.230.15. On Altenen, Yolosolo17 advertised free web proxies, as well as the domain rubenthomson.com, which was at one point used to sell steeply discounted iPhones. DomainTools says rubenthomson.com was hosted at 110.141.230.15 and registered to surfinup8@gmail.com.
A cached copy of the domain rubenthomson.com from 2017 shows a login page underneath a banded stack of money. Image: archive.org.
SpyCloud reports 10.141.230.15 was used by the email address sheepstealing@gmail.com on Raidforums and surfinup8@gmail.com on Nulled, and that the same IP was used by the email addresses ian@thomsonfamily.net.au, jasper@yakuza.cc, and rubenthomson1@gmail.com. SpyCloud also shows that sheepstealing Gmail address is tied to the accounts Sheep420, YoloSolo117 and Yakuza.cc on Raidforums, and to the account “Sheep Stealing” on Hackforums. Intel 471 says sheepstealing@gmail.com was used to register the account DingoFlour on Breachforums in October 2023, as well Sheepx on Altenen.
Epieos reports that ruben@securecomputing.au is tied to an Airbnb account for Ruben, who described himself as a Web developer who went to school at the University of Western Australia and was living outside the country. “Hey, I’m Ruben, my friends call me Ellis. I’m a Perth creative who occasionally books rooms when visiting family and for photography.”
Epieos also finds sheepstealing@gmail.com registered an upwork.com profile under the name Ruben, who said his main skills are setting up secure server hosting solutions and PHP full-stack Web development.
“I’m familiar with Linux, working with relational databases (SQL),” the Upwork profile reads. “I also script in Python mainly for writing social media bots.”
The Upwork profile for Ruben Thomson in Cottesloe, Australia.
Epieos further discovered sheepstealing@gmail.com is connected to a Microsoft account for Ruben Thomson, and to a now-defunct GitHub account called XmasSnow/XmasSnowisBack that scammed people on the forums in 2022 by claiming to sell exclusive exploits for recently-released software patches (recall that shitstickpp@gmail.com was used to register a forum account named ChristmasSnow).
This same sheepstealing email address registered a Twitter/X account in 2026 called “Gone Fishing” that lists its location as South Africa. That Gmail account also left several reviews for businesses listed on Google Maps over the past seven years, but all of those establishments are located on the west coast of Australia.
Business reviews in Western Australia left by the Google account sheepstealing at gmail.com.
The people search service Pipl finds a 21-year-old Ruben Thomson in Western Australia who has a phone number ending in 979. A lookup on that number at Epieos reveals it is connected to a TikTok account under the name Ellis, and to a PayPal account in the name of Ruben Thomson.
Finally, a search on the name Ruben Thomson from Cottesloe at the Australian government’s record of registered businesses finds he has incorporated or served as an official in multiple companies created since 2024, including Secure Computing Solutions, Tensor Industries, and another entity ironically named OPSEC Express. Recall that Express was BulkDMT’s nickname on Breachforums.
Australian companies connected to Ruben Thomson. Image: abr.business.gov.au.
It’s ironic because OPSEC is short for the term “operational security,” which refers to techniques and behaviors used to obfuscate and compartmentalize one’s real-life identity online, and using your cybercrime handle as part of your own company name is very much the antithesis of that practice.
There is at least one other major opsec failure by Ruben that exposed a link to TeamPCP. In June 2025, someone using the name Ruben Thomson registered on HackerOne, a popular “bug bounty” program that seeks to reward and recognize researchers who agree to work with affected software vendors to help fix the flaws before publishing about their findings. What was Ruben Thomson’s chosen HackerOne username? Deadcatx3, a nickname that has been flagged by multiple security firms as an alias used by TeamPCP.
The HackerOne profile for “Ruben Thomson” uses the nickname Deadcatx3, which multiple security firms have concluded is an alias used by TeamPCP. Image credit: flare.io.
In early July 2026, not long after having discovered clues about Ellis’s real life identity, KrebsOnSecurity interviewed the TeamPCP leader via Signal, where he was remarkably open about his activities and personal struggles [for the sake of simplicity, the TeamPCP spokesperson will be referred to from here on as Ellis].
Ellis claims he stopped doing cybercrime for TeamPCP in March 2026 — just before the attacks that compromised LiteLLM — and that at least one other individual has taken over the group’s leadership since then. Ellis shared that a year earlier he had just completed the latest in a series of detox and sobriety programs, and was two months sober when he reconnected with some old friends from the malware development scene.
“One year ago I needed help monetizing some [GitHub credentials], I was two months sober and needed a distraction and something to keep busy as well as people to speak to,” Ellis said. “I had largely disconnected from my old circle, they had become very toxic and I needed to get away from the substances. Previously I had done some mass exploitation campaigns and grew up doing [malware development] and [capture the flag] contests. There were some friends who were also vending but had stopped a while, and one of them introduced me to some chats where I posted access for sale.”
Prior to that, Ellis said, he was homeless and hopping between “some very unstable places.”
“Blackhatting is fun,” he said. “There are actual rewards and incentives to learn and you grow with your team. Without qualifications, no employer will even take the time to hear you out.”
Ellis claims he’s earned a grand total of about $20,000 for his activities with TeamPCP, and that it was never about the money or fame for him. Asked whether his experiences with TeamPCP might prepare him for gainful employment in a legitimate IT job, Ellis said he doubted it.
“I am nowhere close to a skill level where I am comfortable, and this would take maybe half a decade of further experience,” he said. “I no longer have to choose between rent and food for that I’m grateful and so are the team members.”
Ellis expressed no remorse over his cybercrime activities, and said he was grateful for the friendships and relationships built throughout his engagement with TeamPCP. The young hacker also seemed resigned to his fate, and told KrebsOnSecurity that he’ll accept the consequences if he’s ever arrested.
“If I’ve already been found out then its out of my control, I’ll make peace with that,” he said. “Honestly, I think someone like me needs a lot of help that prison just can’t provide. If I had the funds to study different parts of the field and closer guidance, this would have turned out differently. But that’s a pipe dream and we both know this.”
It is clear from reading Ellis’s posts to the group’s Matrix server chats that his struggles with sobriety are ongoing. On Thursday, June 25, Ellis told @kernelstub he was about to “trip” with his “homie.”
“What kind,” @kernelstub inquired.
“Ketty and some DMT,” Ellis replied, referring to the dissociative anesthetic ketamine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a powerful psychedelic compound that is found naturally in some plants but is also synthetically produced in underground lab environments. “There’s a little 2cb so we might throw that in the mix,” he continued, referring to another psychedelic compound by its chemical shorthand.
Roughly two weeks before his arrest, Ellis told KrebsOnSecurity he was ready to leave his life of crime behind and was prepared to turn himself in, but that in the meantime he was making plans to tie up loose ends.
Less than 24 hours later, the TeamPCP leader posted an image on Telegram showing a yellowish powdered substance in a baggie and on a scale, possibly synthetic DMT. The image shows the powder being weighed next to a series of small vape cartridges, two of which are open on the table in front of the photographer.
An image posted by the TeamPCP leader to Telegram, advertising his acquisition of some type of psychoactive substance, most likely a synthetic version of the powerful hallucinogen known as DMT.
The two defendants were arrested Wednesday morning. The AFP said the men face a combined 14 cybercrime offenses and are scheduled to appear in Perth Magistrates Court today.
Charlie Eriksen is a security researcher at Aikido Security who has closely followed TeamPCP’s cybercrime campaigns. Eriksen said TeamPCP are a good example of a new kind of threat actor that does not fit neatly into the usual categories.
“They are not a state actor, not quite organized cybercrime, and not purely ideological,” he said. “Their motivations seem to mix money, disruption, attention, and ideology.”
Eriksen said that historically there has always been a meaningful gap between reading about an attack technique and being able to reliably turn it into an operational campaign, but that large language models (LLMs) and artificial intelligence increasingly are helping threat actors to bypass that knowledge gap.
“You had to understand the research, adapt the code, troubleshoot it, build infrastructure around it, and then repeat that process across different targets,” he said. “LLMs have compressed that gap significantly.”
According to Eriksen, this creates an environment where threat actors suddenly have the ability to operate at significant scale without having developed the operational discipline that traditionally accompanies that level of capability. Put another way, it sets the stage for cybercriminals who are capable enough to cause significant damage, but not necessarily careful enough to understand or care about the consequences.
“They can be noisy, they can make mistakes,” he said. “They can leave evidence everywhere. They can take risks that a professional criminal group or intelligence service would consider completely unacceptable. But that does not necessarily make them less dangerous. In some ways, it can make them more dangerous.”
In a recent blog post, Eriksen called TeamPCP’s Shai-Hulud worm the “best thing to happen to supply chain security,” because it forced GitHub and other public coding platforms to erect new security safeguards.
In direct response to TeamPCP’s broad success at pushing poisoned versions of popular software packages, GitHub in late July introduced a three-day “cooldown” mechanism for Dependabot, the platform’s tool for auto-fetching newly shipped updates for any package dependencies. Cooldown periods are designed to help buy time for security tools and package maintainers to identify and remove any compromised versions. Other coding ecosystems like Python and various JavaScript platforms also added support for cooldown periods this year amid growing calls from security experts about the need for more widespread adoption of the safety feature.
Eriksen said TeamPCP’s legacy is that they achieved in the span of a few months what the supply chain security community has been unable to do for years.
“They managed to wake up Microsoft to the fact that they had become negligent in terms of security,” Eriksen said. “By compromising GitHub and stealing their source code, they humiliated Microsoft into action, making them finally act on what we had been asking them to do and take seriously for a while now.”
Update, 10:08 a.m. ET: A story this morning from ABC News in Australia confirms Ruben Ian Thomson of Cottesloe was one of the two arrested. The 23-year-old suspect thought to be @pcpcasper, Michael Gaebler, also was arrested in Perth. ABC News reports that Thomson was denied bail (Mr. Gaebler’s attorney reportedly did not request bail for his client), and that both men will be held in custody until their next court appearance on September 18.
