A cybersecurity startup dangling millions of dollars to acquire zero-day security vulnerabilities in popular software is run by a pair of far-right conspiracy theorists and convicted felons whose most recent ventures included fake intelligence companies and a now-defunct AI-based lobbying platform they operated under assumed names.

The X/Twitter account IRIS C2 (@C2IRIS) has gained more than 4,000 followers since its creation in January 2025, posting frequently about security vulnerabilities, AI and software exploits. IRIS C2 says it is a company in McLean, Va. that sells offensive cybersecurity capabilities.

“Our business model is this,” reads a pinned post on top of the IRIS C2 account on X. “Attract the very best vulnerability researchers and exploit developers in the world to join our company. This mostly revolves around junior engineers with raw talent/extremely high IQ. We don’t care if they have a college degree/industry experience.”

The website linked in that profile — irisc2[.]com — says the company is hiring for a number of open positions, and a recent post on its LinkedIn page enthuses about an overwhelming number of applications from potential employees. The website claims IRIS C2 is in the business of acquiring “zero-day exploits, individual primitives, partial chains, and full capabilities across all major platforms. Payouts range from $10,000 to $7 million depending on target, reliability, and operational value.”

The government contracting portal g2exchange.com reports that irisc2[.]com is operated by a business based in Virginia called Calvexa Group LLC. The “contact” link on the website for Calvexa Group — calvexagroup[.]com — forwards visitors to irisc2[.]com. G2Exchange shows that while Calvexa Group LLC is registered as a federal contractor, it does not appear to be working on any direct government contracts.

A search on the Arlington, Va. address listed in the incorporation records for Calvexa Group LLC finds the property is occupied by Jack Burkman, the 60-year-old founder and managing partner of the lobbying firm Burkman & Associates. When approached with questions about IRIS C2, Burkman referred further inquiries to his longtime associate, 28-year-old Jacob Wohl.

Burkman and Wohl have a storied history of creating fake intelligence companies and using them to spread false claims about and frame public figures, including fabricated sexual assault claims against then FBI director Robert Mueller, and Pete Buttigieg, then mayor of South Bend, Indiana and a Democratic candidate for the presidency. In 2019, Burkman and Wohl held press conferences falsely alleging extramarital affairs by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and then-2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Wohl and Burkman were prosecuted by multiple U.S. states for making thousands of robocalls to residents of battleground states and disseminating false claims about mail-in ballots. They were indicted in Cleveland on 15 felony counts of orchestrating a robocall scheme aimed at suppressing the black vote in Detroit, and were sentenced in late 2025 to probation after their appeals to dismiss the charges were rejected.

In 2022, Wohl and Burkman both pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of telecommunications fraud in Ohio, and sentenced to a fine, probation, and community service. In March 2023, a judge in a New York civil case ruled that Wohl and Burkman had violated federal and state civil rights laws, and the two agreed to pay a $1 million settlement.

In June 2023, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed a $5.1 million fine against Wohl and Burkman for their robocall campaigns, at the time the largest fine ever sought by the FCC under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

By the age of 17, Wohl had started multiple investment firms, and cultivated the nickname “Wohl of Wall Street” after appearing on Fox News in 2015 to discuss his new hedge funds. In 2017, the Arizona Corporation Commission charged Wohl and his investment funds with 14 counts of securities fraud, and ordered him to pay $35,000 in restitution. In 2019, Wohl pleaded guilty in California to four felony counts of selling unregistered securities and was sentenced to two years of probation.

The market for previously unknown security vulnerabilities has always been populated by a colorful mix of researchers, academics, charlatans, clout-chasers and people actively involved in cybercrime communities. But the market for selling offensive security services to the U.S. government tends to be far more circumspect. Plenty of government contractors recruit vulnerability researchers and pay for the exclusive rights to novel software exploits, yet none of them do so quite as brazenly and openly as IRIS C2.

Indeed, KrebsOnSecurity was unaware of IRIS C2 until last month, when an attendee at a regional cybersecurity conference shared that Wohl and Calvexa Group were pestering people at the conference about selling their vulnerability research.

In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, Wohl said Mr. Burkman was not involved in the day-to-day operations of IRIS C2. Wohl shared that IRIS C2 originally began as a penetration testing company, but shifted its focus recently to selling phone-hacking services to the government. Several times throughout the interview, Mr. Wohl mentioned working on federal government contracts, but when pressed for specifics said he was not at liberty to speak publicly about them.

Mr. Wohl said he does not have any formal education or training in computer science or information security, and that most of his knowledge on the matter is self-taught.

“I know more about tech than anyone,” Wohl bragged. “My background has always been extremely technical, and I’ve always been deeply into tech. People know me as someone who is able to create spectacularly exquisite capabilities that would make your head spin.”

Wohl said security researchers bring the company unique vulnerability findings “on a regular basis,” but that in many cases those findings are preliminary and not fully fleshed-out.

“Let’s say someone finds a flaw in a media decoder on a phone,” Wohl said. “A lot of times what we receive is an exploit primitive, where the idea is there but the [execution] needs work. You need that exploit to be stable and reliable, and that’s what we do.”

Wohl claims IRIS C2 has approximately 40 employees, although he said none of them are allowed to list their employment on LinkedIn for operational security reasons. In May, the author of the IRIS C2 account on X said that his girlfriend had no idea what he did for a living. But if IRIS C2 has any other employees, they may be similarly unaware of Mr. Wohl’s history of outright fabrications — or even his real name.

In September 2024, Politico reported that Burkman and Wohl were bragging about big companies supposedly buying services from their now-defunct company LobbyMatic, which claimed to use artificial intelligence to assist in political lobbying efforts. However, Politico found the pair were running the company using pseudonyms, with Wohl reportedly adopting the name “Jay Klein” and Burkman using the moniker “Bill Sanders.” Politico reported that two of the former LobbyMatic employees resigned after learning of their true identities, while other employees only learned after they had left the company.

Update, July 9, 9:44 a.m. ET: Several readers pointed our attention to a March 31 publication from journalist Molly White, which reported that Burkman and Wohl were paid a $300,000 retainer by a Canadian cryptocurrency fraudster wanted by the United States and several other countries for allegedly stealing $65 million from the crypto platforms KyberSwap and Indexed Finance. According to that report, the two were hired to pursue a “presidential pardon to avert a miscarriage of justice” on behalf of the accused hacker, who has not yet been convicted.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said today it worked with industry partners to seize hundreds of domains associated with NetNut, a sprawling residential proxy service operated by the publicly-traded Israeli company Alarum Technologies [NASDAQ: ALAR]. The action comes roughly two weeks after KrebsOnSecurity published findings from multiple security firms connecting NetNut to the Popa botnet, a collection of at least two million devices that have been compromised by malicious software with little or no consent from victims.

On June 19, three different security firms issued similar findings: That NetNut is a residential proxy network which populates a botnet called Popa, and distributes software for devices commonly found in homes, such as smart TVs and streaming boxes. NetNut’s software turns those systems into always-on residential proxy nodes that are rented to others, who predominantly use them to relay abusive and intrusive Internet traffic, such as mass content scraping, advertising fraud, and account takeover activity.

Earlier today, NetNut’s homepage was replaced with a seizure notice from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division. The seizure notice thanked Google, Lumen, Shadowserver and other industry partners for their help in dismantling hundreds of domains tied to the Popa botnet, which experts say has long been synonymous with NetNut’s residential proxy infrastructure.

In a blog post published today, the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said NetNut’s proxy network is widely resold and white-labeled by a number of third-party proxy providers, and that its services are heavily sought out by cybercriminals seeking to obfuscate the source of their malicious traffic. The GTIG said that in a single week during June 2026, they observed 316 distinct clusters of threat actors using suspected NetNut exit nodes, including cybercriminal and espionage groups.

“These bad actors can use NetNut to mask their origin IP address when accessing victim environments, accessing their own infrastructure, and conducting password spray attacks,” Google’s GTIG wrote. “Furthermore, when a consumer device becomes an exit node, unauthorized network traffic passes through it. This means bad actors can access other private devices on the same home network, effectively exposing them to Internet threats.”

Google said it disabled Google accounts and services used by NetNut for malware command and control, and that it shared technical intelligence on NetNut’s software development kits (SDKs) and backend infrastructure with platform providers, law enforcement and research firms. The company also disabled apps known to bundle NetNut’s various SDKs.

Omer Weiss, legal counsel for NetNut parent Alarum Technologies, said the company was aware of the FBI seizure and cooperating with investigators.

“Alarum takes this matter seriously and will fully cooperate with law enforcement to ensure any misuse of its infrastructure is thoroughly investigated and those responsible are held to account,” Weiss said in a written statement.

Benjamin Brundage is founder of the proxy tracking service Synthient, one of the companies that published evidence last month linking the Popa botnet to NetNut and Alarum Technologies. Brundage said the domain seizures appear to have disrupted both the Popa botnet and the NetNut proxy network that rides on top of it.

Brundage said NetNut’s apparent demise is likely to be a great disadvantage for the cybercrime community, which was already reeling from legal actions by Google earlier this year that seized infrastructure for NetNut’s biggest competitor — IPIDEA.

“I think this takedown is going to have a big impact, because NetNut gained significant popularity after the IPIDEA takedown,” he said. “Also NetNut has been incredibly common among resellers, and they were on par with IPIDEA in terms of their daily traffic, quality, size, price per gigabyte, all of it.”

The NetNut and Popa botnet takedown may have another added benefit, Brundage said: Lessening the impact of large distributed denial-of-service botnets that have been built on the backs of poorly configured residential proxy services. In January, Synthient revealed how cybercriminals had built the world’s largest DDoS botnet (Kimwolf) by tunneling through IPIDEA proxy connections into the local networks of TV box owners, and infecting other Android-based devices behind the victim’s firewall.

While many of the bigger proxy providers took steps to block this activity, resellers of the major proxy networks have been far slower to respond to the threat, Brundage said.

“In terms of all these TV box devices getting compromised from the proxy network, it will have an impact on the DDoS botnets out there,” he said.

For its part, Google reckons today’s actions have caused “significant degradation to NetNut’s proxy network and its business operations, reducing the available pool of devices for the proxy operator by millions.” But the company warns that proxy networks can rebuild themselves by effectively reselling other proxy services, as IPIDEA has done over the past few months.

“Google has high confidence that many popular residential proxy brands are in fact whitelabeling the NetNut botnet,” the GTIG report concludes. “While we expect this disruption to have a larger ripple effect across the residential proxy ecosystem, observations after the disruption of IPIDEA proved that individual networks can appear resilient. What we have observed is that when faced with the degradation of their own botnet, proxy operators begin buying capacity from their competitors, effectively becoming a reseller. We recognize that creating a lasting disruption in this fluid ecosystem means we must scale our efforts to target the infrastructure of several interconnected providers.”

As KrebsOnSecurity has warned repeatedly, most of the no-name TV streaming boxes for sale on the major e-commerce websites either come pre-installed with residential proxy software, or require the installation of proxy SDKs in order to use the device for its stated purpose (streaming pirated movies, sporting events and TV shows). Google’s advice here is sound: When it comes to TV boxes, stick to name brands from reputable manufacturers, and then be sparing and judicious with any apps you choose to install.

The sketchy TV boxes that are being commandeered by the Popa botnet and other threats all come with or require the user to install unofficial Android operating systems that do not operate within the confines of Google’s Official Play Protect store. Google says consumers can confirm whether or not a device is built with the official Android TV OS and Play Protect certification by following these instructions.

Even people without TV streaming boxes can find their smart TVs enrolled in residential proxy networks, just by installing one of thousands of apps available for download on Samsung and LG smart TVs. In a report released last month, the proxy tracking company Spur found 42 percent of apps available for download via the webOS operating system on LG smart TVs include SDKs that turn one’s television into an always-on residential proxy node. More than a quarter of the apps made for Samsung’s Tizen operating system had similar residential proxy components, Spur found.

Update, 4:24 p.m. ET: Included a statement shared post-publication from an attorney representing NetNut parent Alarum Technologies.

Update, July 8, 2:34 p.m. ET: The website for Alarum Technologies — alarum[.]io — now also features a seizure notice from the FBI. The company’s stock has taken a beating since the FBI action, and is currently trading at $2.62 a share, a roughly 67 percent decline over the past week.

Two men pleaded guilty in the United Kingdom this week to criminal charges stemming from an August 2024 cyberattack that crippled Transport for London, the entity responsible for the public transport network in the Greater London area. The duo were key members of a prolific cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider, and their guilty pleas came on the first day of what was expected to be a six-week trial.

Thalha Jubair, 20, of East London and 18-year-old Owen Flowers of Walsall admitted conspiring to commit unauthorized acts against Transport for London computer systems and causing risk of serious damage to human welfare. According to a report from the BBC, Flowers alone admitted to being part of a conspiracy to hack into U.S. based healthcare providers SSM Health Care Corporation and Sutter Health in September 2024.

Jubair is also wanted by U.S. law enforcement agencies. In September 2025, prosecutors in New Jersey unsealed an indictment alleging Jubair and other Scattered Spider members committed computer fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering in relation to 120 computer network intrusions involving 47 U.S. entities between May 2022 and September 2025, and that the group’s victims paid at least $115 million in ransom payments.

In July 2025, KrebsOnSecurity reported that Flowers and Jubair were arrested in the United Kingdom in connection with Scattered Spider ransom attacks against the retailers Marks & Spencer and Harrods, and the British food retailer Co-op Group. Multiple sources familiar with those investigations said Flowers was the Scattered Spider member who anonymously gave interviews to the media in the days after the group’s September 2023 ransomware attacks disrupted operations at Las Vegas casinos operated by MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment.

According to prosecutors, Jubair co-ran a bustling Telegram channel called Star Chat, the home of a SIM-swapping group that used voice- and SMS-based phishing attacks to steal credentials from employees at the major wireless providers in the U.S. and U.K. The group would then use that access to sell a service that could redirect a target’s phone number to a device the attackers controlled and intercept the victim’s calls and text messages (including one-time codes for multi-factor authentication).

New Jersey prosecutors also allege Jubair also was involved in a mass SMS phishing campaign during the summer of 2022 that stole single sign-on credentials from employees at hundreds of companies. That weeks-long SMS phishing campaign led to intrusions and data thefts at more than 130 organizations, including LastPass, DoorDash, Mailchimp, Plex and Signal.

KrebsOnSecurity reported last year that one of Jubair’s alter egos at age 15 was “Everlynn,” a hacker who sold fraudulent “emergency data requests” that used compromised police and government email addresses to demand subscriber data (e.g. username, IP/email address) from major tech companies, claiming the requests concerned urgent matters of life and death and could not wait for a court order.

In April 2026, 24-year-old British national and Scattered Spider member Tyler “Tylerb” Buchanan pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft for participating in the group’s SMS phishing spree in the summer of 2022. The government said Buchanan, Jubair and others used the credentials harvested in that phishing campaign to steal at least $8 million in cryptocurrency from victims throughout the United States. Buchanan is currently scheduled to be sentenced on October 2.

In August 2025, 20-year-old Scattered Spider member from Florida named Noah Michael Urban was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $13 million in restitution, after pleading guilty to charges of wire fraud and conspiracy.

The U.S. Department of Justice says three alleged Scattered Spider defendants indicted along with Buchanan still face charges, including Ahmed Hossam Eldin Elbadawy, 24, a.k.a. “AD,” of College Station, Texas; Evans Onyeaka Osiebo, 21, of Dallas, Texas; and Joel Martin Evans, 26, a.k.a. “joeleoli,” of Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Flowers and Jubair are slated to be sentenced in a London court on July 15, 2026.

Researchers have analyzed a new Android banking Trojan called Rokarolla. It can effectively take over a device, steal banking and crypto login details from more than 200 apps, and quietly monitor much of what you do on your phone.

On an infected device, Rokarolla steals banking and crypto login details. It also uses fake lock-screen overlays to capture your PIN, pattern, or password.

When you open one of the banking or crypto apps on Rokarolla’s target list, the malware downloads and displays a matching fake login page over the real app. Anything you type into the fake page, including usernames, passwords, and card numbers, is sent to the attackers.

Separately, Rokarolla abuses Android’s Accessibility features to monitor activity across the device. It can recognize WhatsApp screens by looking for familiar labels such as “Chats” and “Calls,” extract contact information, read SMS messages, and send new ones. These capabilities can help it intercept one-time passwords (OTPs) and two-factor authentication (2FA) codes.

Rokarolla can take control of text messages and phone calls, helping it block security alerts and hide signs of fraud.

It can also record everything you type and see on the screen. If you copy and paste a cryptocurrency wallet address, the malware can secretly replace it with one belonging to the attackers.

Other features help the malware stay hidden, including the ability to hide its icon, silence the device, turn off Google Play Protect, and prevent the screen from going to sleep.

How it spreads

Rokarolla is distributed through rogue websites, where it is offered as fake versions of popular apps like TikTok or Chrome.

Instead of sending you to the official Google Play Store, these malicious sites push you to download the app directly, a process known as sideloading. After you install it, the fake app poses as Google Play Protect and quietly downloads and installs the malware that carries out the attack.

To gain the access it needs, the fake app asks for powerful permissions, including Accessibility access, the permission to read SMS messages, and access to notifications. Because these requests can look legitimate, many users may approve them without realizing the risks.

How to stay safe

To avoid banking Trojans like Rokarolla, there are a few guidelines you should follow:

• Don’t trust apps that claim to be Google Play Protect or another system component. You should never need to install these manually.
• Use up-to-date, real-time anti-malware protection with web protection on your devices.
• Don’t sideload apps that are available on the Google Play Store. While malware can sometimes slip into official stores, the risk is much greater elsewhere.
• Deny powerful permissions to apps downloaded from links or websites, especially if they ask for Accessibility access, SMS permissions, or the ability to handle calls, even though that doesn’t match their stated purpose.
• In fact, any request for Accessibility access should be treated with caution. If an app that is not clearly an accessibility tool asks for it, deny the request and reconsider whether you trust the source.
• Scrutinize banking and crypto login screens. If something looks off, or you see multiple login prompts, close the app and relaunch it from its official icon.

---

Scammers know more about you than you think. 

Malwarebytes Mobile Security protects you from phishing, scam texts, malicious sites, and more. With real-time AI-powered Scam Guard built right in. 

Download for iOS → Download for Android → 

A newly discovered database containing 24 billion stolen records is a reminder that personal information from data breaches, phishing campaigns, and infostealer infections continues to circulate online.

The collection was exposed on the internet before being taken offline. While researchers can’t confirm exactly whose information was included, the discovery is a good opportunity to check whether your email addresses, passwords, or other personal data have already been exposed.

What happened?

Researchers at Cybernews found a publicly exposed database holding more than 8.3 TB of data.

The data, consisting of 24 billion credential records, reportedly came from 36 sources, including numerous Telegram channels, prior breach compilations, collections of infostealer logs, and some datasets apparently exported directly from live servers.

Because the data came from different sources there are some differences in what the records contain and how they are organized.

Some records were structured infostealer logs containing usernames, email addresses, and plaintext passwords, and the associated login URL. Infostealers are a type of malware designed to steal sensitive information from infected devices, such as your home computer.

An infostealer log from a single infected device can include passwords stored across all browsers, active session cookies and tokens (including those that bypass multi-factor authentication), autofill data, device fingerprints, and sometimes crypto wallets or messaging accounts. The complete bundle is what ends up in logs such as those seen by the Cybernews researchers.

Roughly 1.7 billion of the records came from hacking-related Telegram channels, mainly English and Russian, including at least one that was focused on stolen credit card data.

The exposed database was hosted on an Elasticsearch cluster. Elasticsearch is a tool used to quickly store and search lots of data. If an Elasticsearch server lacks passwords, authentication, or network restrictions, it can be accessed by anyone who finds it online. Without protections such as passwords or a firewall, anyone can read, copy, change, or even delete its data.

Other documents in the dataset contained information about known vulnerabilities, articles about breaches, and social media posts about cyberattacks. This suggests the owner actively monitors security news and vulnerabilities and enriches the credential hoard with fresh breach information, either for a commercial “monitoring” service or for offensive use.

A few years ago, we wrote about what was called the “mother of all breaches,” where the source of the dataset was later identified as data breach search engine Leak-Lookup.

This newly discovered 24 billion record exposure is in the same league as that previous mega‑dump, but appears more heavily weighted toward fresh infostealer logs, rather than older, static breach data.

Since the data was taken out of public view soon after the discovery, the researchers were unable to fully retrace everything they had found or determine how many duplicate records it contained. That’s reassuring because it reduces the chances of cybercriminals finding the database, but reused passwords may still put accounts at risk. And we still don’t know the purpose for the data collection in the first place.

What to do now

It’s good to be aware of how much information about you is out there and who’s gathering it, but it’s even more important to know exactly which information they have, since that is what they can use against you.

1. Check if your data has been exposed online using our Digital Footprint Portal.

2. If you discover exposed passwords, change them immediately and make sure you aren’t reusing the same password across multiple accounts. Prioritize updating your important accounts such as email, banking, shopping, and social media accounts.

3. Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible, since it can help protect accounts even if a password has been exposed.

How to protect your data

Infostealers often spread through malicious ads, fake browser updates, and one-click downloads. Avoid clicking sponsored ads, and instead visit official websites directly. Download software only from trusted sources such as official vendor sites or app stores.

Another increasingly popular technique is ClickFix, a social engineering attack that tricks users into infecting their own devices. Never run commands or scripts copied from websites, emails, or messages unless you trust the source and understand what they do.

Pirated software, game cheats, cracked tools, and shady browser extensions remain common sources of infostealer infections. Stick to reputable software and extensions, and be wary of anything asking for excessive permissions.

Lastly, phishing emails are still a major threat. Be cautious of unexpected attachments, links, and urgent requests. If you’re unsure whether a message is legitimate, verify it through the company’s official website rather than the link in the message.

You can also use Malwarebytes Scam Guard to check individual messages. Just upload a screenshot and we’ll let you know if it’s a scam.

---

---

---

Cardiac monitoring provider iRhythm has been hit by a data theft followed by an extortion attempt.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), iRhythm revealed it was contacted by someone on June 9 who claimed to have stolen sensitive information, including proprietary data, patient PHI, and other personal information. That person demanded payment in exchange for not publishing the data.

iRhythm provides ambulatory cardiac monitoring and analysis (for example using the Zio patch) and has reportedly processed over two billion hours of heartbeat data from more than twelve million patients.

In the filing, the company said the data was obtained through social engineering and is from “certain third-party-hosted business applications”, without revealing any further details about the amount of data.

On its own website, iRhythm also doesn’t disclose much about the nature of the stolen data, but does seem to imply no financial data was affected:

“We have not identified any impact to our products, our clinical or medical device systems, our connections to customers, our manufacturing and distribution operations, patient safety, or our ability to meet patient needs. In addition, we do not store or retain individual financial account information or payment card information. 

 As we actively investigate, we will notify individuals affected by this incident in accordance with applicable law and take steps as needed to protect and remediate the impact to them.“

However, the SEC filing adds that iRhythm determined that the incident is significant, “in light of the volume of the potentially affected data.” Together with the extortionist’s claims that they have patients’ medical data, that makes the breach one worth noting if you have used iRhythm’s services.

Even without payment data, healthcare breaches have serious downstream effects:

• Attackers can craft highly convincing emails, texts, or calls that reference specific procedures or monitoring episodes (for example, “about your recent Zio patch recording”) to trick patients into sharing more data or paying fake bills.
• The breached data can be used to create a fake identity, insurance fraud, or medical identity theft.
• Exposure of cardiac and other health‑related information can be deeply sensitive and may have employment/insurance ramifications, especially if data is posted publicly or sold to data brokers.

Healthcare breach data tends to circulate for years, and victims may face sporadic fraud and phishing attempts long after the headlines fade.

How to stay safe

If you’ve used iRhythm’s services, keep an eye on your post, email, and patient portals for official breach notifications from iRhythm or your healthcare provider.

In the US, breaches of protected health information that meet certain criteria must be reported to patients and regulators. iRhythm has promised to “notify individuals affected by this incident in accordance with applicable law and take steps as needed to protect and remediate the impact to them.”

To stay out of the hands of phishers and scammers:

• When you receive a communication about the data breach, verify through other channels that it really came from iRhythm. Go directly to iRhythm’s official website or patient portal, or call a known phone number to confirm the communication is genuine.
• Be extra suspicious of emails or texts that claim to offer compensation, refunds, or other financial consequences related to this incident.
• Change passwords for your iRhythm‑linked portals and your cardiology or hospital patient portals, especially if you reused those passwords elsewhere.
• Log into your health insurer’s portal and check claims on a regular basis.
• If you see anything suspicious, report it immediately to your insurer and provider and ask them to flag your account for possible identity theft.
• Do not provide personal or financial information over the phone just because the caller knows details about you which they may have obtained from the stolen data.

---

Let’s face it, an incognito window can only do so much. 
 
Breaches, dark web trading, credit fraud. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection monitors for all of it, alerts you fast, and comes with identity theft insurance. 

Thanks to Uncle Sam, anyone trying to find nonconsensual intimate deepfakes on CFake.com and SOCFake.com will be disappointed. The US Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security has seized the two domain names under the TAKE IT DOWN Act.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed in May 2025, is the first US federal statute criminalizing the publication of nonconsensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated forgeries. It imposes penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment, gives covered platforms 48 hours to remove flagged content, and grants the forfeiture powers the DOJ just used.

According to the seizure warrants, the digital forgeries depicted “politicians, first ladies of multiple countries, royalty, journalists, television presenters, athletes, entertainers, and others,” and visitors could browse them under tags including “rape,” “forced,” and “degradation”.

The authorities didn’t just snag the sites, though. They got the alleged operator of CFake.com, in an international effort.

The US alerted the Paris prosecutor’s office to a French national in Nice who was allegedly running CFake.com. French investigators counted roughly 300,000 images and 7,000 videos depicting 14,000 people across CFake.com, drawing four million monthly views from 200,000 user accounts.

They then arrested the IT professional, who had no prior criminal record. They also found around $64,000 in Ether cryptocurrency at his home in advertising revenue from the site.

The man will be tried on July 7 in Paris for carrying out illicit transactions online and providing nonconsensual sexual deepfakes. The former offence carries a potential seven years’ imprisonment and a €500,000 (approximately $580,000) fine. The latter could yield three years and a €75,000 ($87,000) fine.

Providers and accused providers of nonconsensual intimate deepfakes have also been held in the US. In April, James Strahler II from Ohio pleaded guilty to cyberstalking, producing child sexual abuse material, and publishing digital forgeries.

Strahler had downloaded produced over 700 images and animations posted to a child sexual abuse site, and had sent deepfake material to at least six adult women, including one sent to a victim’s coworkers.

Last month, the DoJ also arrested Cornelius Shannon and Arturo Hernandez under the TAKE IT DOWN Act for publishing thousands of deepfake images of prominent women and those not in the public eye.

Other countries are also taking action. Anthony Rontondo was arrested by Australian authorities in May last year for posting deepfaked pictures of prominent Australian women. He eventually received an AU$343,000 fine.

How prevalent are deepfakes?

These seizures and prosecutions are encouraging, but prosecutors trying to force non-consensual deepfakes offline face a rising tide of such material. Requests for and sharing of nonconsensual deepfake imagery have risen, with activity migrating across platforms. Deepfake incidents overall jumped 257% in 2024, and girls accounted for 94% of victims in reported AI-generated child sexual abuse cases.

Seizing a distribution point removes a storefront. It does not remove the AI models used to produce the material, the anonymous hosting providers downstream, or the demand that draws visitors in the first place.

What you can do

If you or someone you know are depicted in a nonconsensual deepfake, keep dated screenshots, URLs, and any communications as evidence before filing a takedown request and reporting it to the authorities.

Limit the high-resolution face images you and your children post publicly, since school portraits and social media profile pictures are the raw material these tools need.

Take advantage of expert advice to help protect yourself from non-consensual deepfakes:

• Cyber Civil Rights Safety Initiative Safety Center (US)
• Revenge Porn Helpline (UK)
• Cybertip.ca (Canada)

---

Let’s face it, an incognito window can only do so much. 
 
Breaches, dark web trading, credit fraud. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection monitors for all of it, alerts you fast, and comes with identity theft insurance. 

Anthropic has been ordered by the US government to cut off its newest Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for fear of abuse by adversaries.

Reuters reports that Anthropic said it will “abruptly ​disable” its most advanced AI models for all users after the US government ordered it to suspend access to the models for foreign nationals, citing national security ‌concerns.

Officials reportedly believe a jailbreak could turn Fable 5 and Mythos 5 into vulnerability-discovery tools for adversaries, so Anthropic says it is disabling them worldwide rather than try to nationality‑filter access, since it is virtually impossible to verify every user’s nationality.

In a statement on its website, Anthropic says:

“The letter did not provide specific details of its national security concern. Our understanding is that the government believes it has become aware of a method of bypassing, or “jailbreaking” Fable 5. We reviewed a demonstration of this specific technique being used to identify a small number of previously known, minor vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities all appear relatively simple, and we have found that other publicly-available models are able to discover them as well without requiring a bypass.”

Mythos 5 is the non-public full version, which is currently used only by government agencies and selected corporate partners to harden their systems. Fable 5 is a Mythos-class model that should supposedly be safe for general use.

It makes sense to me that if Fable 5 is easy to jailbreak, that it should fall under the same restrictions as Mythos 5. However, Anthropic maintains that it has built-in safeguards that mean queries on some topics will instead receive a response from the next-most-capable model, Claude Opus 4.8. 

The relationship between the US government and Anthropic had shown signs of easing in parts of the US government after tensions over military use, surveillance, and autonomous weapons. In March, defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the San Francisco-based company a “supply-chain risk to national security.”

To understand the nature of the argument, it is necessary to understand that Mythos 5 is described in multiple reports as particularly effective at identifying software vulnerabilities, including long‑standing bugs in complex, legacy systems such as those in banking and other critical infrastructure. Many view this as dual‑use: great for defense hardening, but catastrophic in the wrong hands.

In recent updates from major software vendors like Microsoft and Google, we’ve seen a growth in numbers of patched vulnerabilities after the vendors began using AI-guided search for new vulnerabilities in their own software. We also know that Mozilla found over 270 Firefox vulnerabilities with the aid of Anthropic’s new Claude Mythos model. 

What this means

In the wrong hands these vulnerabilities could definitely do a lot of harm. So, it looks like it will take some time before regular consumers and developers will gain access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 entirely. However, existing Anthropic models (older Claude variants) remain available.

For home users who were simply chatting with Claude or using it to help with basic scripting, the change will mostly show up as “this specific version is unavailable” rather than a broader AI blackout.

Removing a high‑end vulnerability‑finding model from broad circulation increases the effort required for less‑resourced cybercriminals to automate discovery of complex bugs in consumer‑facing software and services only by so much. There are other models available on the black market that might be just as effective. And for most cybercriminals, turning a vulnerability into a method they can utilize in an exploit is much more relevant.

---

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Stolen iPhones could soon be worth a lot less to thieves
• Fake verification pages are stealing Steam accounts from players
• Google can be liable for false AI Overviews, court rules
• VRChat says reported data breach never happened
• Children’s phones must block nude images by September, UK says
• Free Spotify Premium hacks on social media are spreading infostealers
• Microsoft’s biggest-ever Patch Tuesday fixes 206 bugs, including 3 zero-days
• 88% of people struggle to tell what’s real online
• Meta’s face-recognition code raises new concerns about smart glasses
• Scammers love Meta, according to Lloyds Bank
• Update Chrome: Google patches actively exploited vulnerability and 73 others
• Americans lost nearly $900 million to AI-powered scams, FBI says
• Pirated PC games are delivering password-stealing malware

Stay safe!

---

Something feel off? Check it before you click.  

Malwarebytes Scam Guard helps you analyze suspicious links, texts, and screenshots instantly.  

Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.  

Try it free → 

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:

• I’m giving a keynote at Cybernation 2026 in Berlin, Germany, on June 24, 2026.
• I’m speaking at the Potsdam Conference on National Cybersecurity at the Hasso Plattner Institut in Potsdam, Germany. The event runs June 24–25, 2026, and my talk will be the evening of June 24.
• I’m participating in a panel discussion at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs in Vienna on Thursday, June 25, 2026.
• I’m speaking at the Digital Humanism Conference in Vienna, Austria, on Friday, June 26, 2026.
• I’m giving a fireside chat for Epicenter Works, to be held at Kaffee Alt Wien in Vienna, Austria, on Friday, June 26, 2026.
• I’m participating (via Zoom) in a panel discussion at Quantum.Tech World in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, on Friday, June 26, 2026. The topic is “Q-Day’s Shortening Deadline: Immediate Solutions.”
• I’m speaking at Czech Technical University in Prague, Czechia, on Monday, June 29, 2026.
• I’m speaking at the Nuremberg Digital Festival in Nuremburg, Germany, on Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
• I’m speaking at CanSecWest 2026 in Vancouver, Canada. The conference runs September 30–October 1, 2026; the time of my talk is TBD.

The list is maintained on this page.

The UK’s Metropolitan Police has reached an agreement with Apple designed to make stolen iPhones harder to resell and less attractive to thieves. The approach combines stronger technical protections with direct data sharing between Apple and law enforcement.

In 2023, about 1.4 million mobile phones were stolen in the US alone. London is reportedly one of the worst cities for phone theft, with around 200 devices stolen every day. 

As part of this effort, Apple has strengthened its Stolen Device Protection feature in iOS 26.4, making it harder for thieves to change security settings, factory‑reset a stolen iPhone, or set it up as new.

Previously, thieves with your passcode (or who snatched your iPhone while it was still unlocked) could factory reset it, wiping your account and making the device look new for resale. Stolen Device Protection blocks this, requiring biometric authentication, not just a passcode, to make critical changes.

The Met has started sharing identifiers for reported stolen devices with Apple. In return, Apple can provide data on whether those devices later attempt to reconnect to a network or attempt to be reactivated.

Police say this gives them a better picture of what happens to stolen devices: Are they being switched back on locally? Shipped abroad? Broken down for parts?

Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said Apple believes it has “cracked” the engineering problem. Phone thefts in London have since fallen 18% year-on-year, with Westminster (the capital’s worst-affected borough) down 45.8%.

Given the early signs of success, the Met is pressing for broader changes.

The Commissioner has written to the Home Secretary asking for laws that would require all phone manufacturers and mobile operators to share information about stolen devices and implement measures that make stolen handsets unusable. 

As part of that effort, the Met has explicitly said that Samsung and Google are also improving device security to address phone theft, suggesting this will become an industry‑wide expectation rather than an Apple‑only initiative.

Possible pitfalls

From a privacy perspective, it’s important to keep an eye on what data is shared, and who can see it.

Reports so far suggest that Apple and the Met are exchanging device identifiers and high‑level information about whether a stolen phone has attempted to reconnect or be reactivated. In theory, that sounds narrow and purpose‑bound: device X was reported stolen, later tried to come online in country Y, at time Z. There is no public indication that content, contacts, or location histories are being handed over wholesale.

There’s also a risk of someone reporting your phone as stolen. If a device is incorrectly marked as stolen, the protections designed to stop thieves could lock an innocent user out, turning a valuable asset into a brick. Without transparent appeal mechanisms, this is a notable concern.

The measures could also create challenges for recycling initiatives, legitimate repair shops, and refurbishers. They may face additional hurdles when diagnosing, restoring, or reselling devices if anti-theft protections become more restrictive.

Stay safe

Make sure your phone is protected with a strong passcode and biometric security, such as Face ID or a fingerprint.

Enable Apple’s Find My feature, or the Android equivalent, and make sure it is linked to a strong account password.

Keep lock screen notifications to a minimum so thieves cannot quickly access your sensitive information if they get hold of your device.

When buying a used phone, use a reputable seller and make sure the device has been reset by its owner. Complete the initial setup process with the seller present to confirm the phone isn’t locked to someone else’s account or reported stolen.

---

Scammers know more about you than you think. 

Malwarebytes Mobile Security protects you from phishing, scam texts, malicious sites, and more. With real-time AI-powered Scam Guard built right in. 

Download for iOS → Download for Android → 

A German court has ruled that Google can be held directly responsible for defamatory claims produced by its AI Overviews. Basically, the court said that telling people they should double-check AI search results is not enough to deny liability for what those results say.

The Munich Regional Court issued a preliminary injunction against Google after two German publishers discovered that AI Overviews falsely portrayed them as involved in scams and “dubious business practices,” even though the linked articles did not support those claims.

The decision could echo far beyond Germany. The court effectively found that Google can be held directly liable for defamatory content generated by its AI Overviews. The court cut through the usual “it’s just AI, don’t trust it too much” messaging and made one thing clear: If you build a system that confidently smears people or companies, you may be responsible for what it says, even when the content was “hallucinated” by AI.

AI Overviews are not harmless suggestions. In this case, the court treated them as Google’s own statements, with all the legal baggage that comes with that.

When the publishers sent a cease-and-desist letter, Google did not promptly stop similar claims from appearing. That detail turned out to be crucial in the ruling. The court noted that, unlike traditional search results, which simply list third-party content, AI Overviews generate “independent, new, and substantive statements.”

And since only Google can adjust the models and the logic that create those statements, only Google can reliably stop the system from repeating the same or similar falsehoods. In this case, the court found that Google can be held responsible.

For years, search engines have enjoyed broad protection under the logic that some harmful content is unavoidable when indexing the open web at scale. Showing a search result does not mean endorsing it. The search engine is a channel, not a publisher.

That changes when an AI Overview summarizes, rephrases, and sometimes invents facts, then publishes them at the top of search results.

AI Overviews are an extra feature, not essential to how search works. However, the appeal of AI summaries is their fast, confident answers, which is exactly what makes them dangerous. When those answers are wrong, many users may not click through to check the sources.

The ruling is preliminary and may be appealed, but the signal is clear: AI search output is not magic dust that makes liability disappear. Disclaimers about possible mistakes may not be enough when a system is deployed at scale, creates new content, and is designed to be trusted.

By the numbers

Google AI Overviews are powered by Gemini, Google’s AI model. Like other AI systems, it can produce confident answers that are wrong or poorly supported.

Pew Research studied browsing data from hundreds of users and found that when an AI Overview appears on a Google results page, clicks to traditional search results drop from around 15% to about 8%. 

A New York Times analysis of AI Overviews found that they were accurate roughly nine out of ten times. But with Google processing more than five trillion searches a year, even a small error rate could mean millions of wrong answers.

And those mistakes are not always due to bad sources. Even when Google links to a page with the correct information, its AI can still produce a false answer. More than half of the accurate responses were classified as “ungrounded,” meaning the websites cited by the AI Overview did not fully support the information it provided.

The main lesson here is to double-check AI search responses. Don’t trust an answer just because it’s presented confidently and includes links.

Users can be steered toward real threats, or away from effective protections, simply because an AI system sounded convincing on a search page.

If you find false or defamatory AI summaries about yourself or your company, document them thoroughly. Take screenshots, save the search terms, file correction requests, and keep records of the platform’s response. Or the lack of one.

---

Scammers don’t need to hack you. They just need you to click once. 

Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection catches suspicious activity before it becomes a problem.

A data breach notice has been filed with the Maine Attorney General, saying more than 2.4 million users of VRChat have had their data breached.

The question is, was it VRChat who filed the breach notice, or did someone pretending to represent the company post it instead? On Reddit, a VRChat representative posted:

VRChat did not submit this Notice of Data Incident, and we have no reason to believe that our systems have been compromised. We are in the process of contacting the Maine Attorney General’s office to have this removed.

The breach notice states that VRChat experienced unauthorized access to some account data between May 10 and May 12, 2026. The access supposedly happened in VRChat’s cloud environment and involved user profile and login-related data.

According to the notice, the information exposed varied by account, but may have included:

• VRChat username
• Email address associated with the VRChat account
• VRChat+ subscription status
• Login history, including device information, hardware identifiers, and IP addresses

VRChat is a social platform designed primarily for virtual reality headsets, allowing users to interact with others through user-created 3D avatars and worlds. Users can access VRChat through Steam for PC, the Meta Quest Store, or as an Android app for compatible devices.

The notice states that no passwords or payment card data was exposed. However, even without passwords or card details, there are still potential risks when it comes to other breached data.

Phishing

Cybercriminals may use usernames and email addresses in targeted phishing attempts. For example, users may receive phishing emails or in‑platform messages claiming to be from “Support,” with fake security alerts or prompts to “confirm your age” via a malicious link.

Knowledge of subscription status could make scams more convincing. A scammer could send tailored lures like “billing issue with your subscription” or refund scams, which tend to have higher click-through rates among paying users.

Account takeover

Cybercriminals may combine usernames and email addresses from one breach with passwords stolen in other data breaches and try them against accounts. This technique, known as credential stuffing, takes advantage of people who reuse passwords across multiple sites.

Valuable accounts may then be sold to other players or used for scams.

Identity correlation

Steam and Meta user IDs linked to breached accounts can help cybercriminals connect identities across gaming and social platforms, especially if the same email or profile name is reused.

IP addresses, login history, device information, and other identifiers can also help build a more detailed advertising or tracking profile of a user.

How to stay safe

Whether or not the breach turns out to be an actual breach, here are some steps you can take to protect yourself:

First and foremost, be cautious of emails, texts, or calls claiming to come from VRChat or the gaming platforms you used it on, as cybercriminals often exploit breaches with phishing scams.

If you’ve used your VRChat password anywhere else, change those accounts immediately, and set up two-factor authentication (2FA) on your VRChat account if you haven’t already.

More general advice can be found in our article on what to do when you find out you’re involved in a data breach.

Update June 11, 2026: Article was updated to reflect VRChat’s post on Reddit.

Before publishing our original article, we tried to contact VRChat on two separate email addresses but received no meaningful response.

---

Let’s face it, an incognito window can only do so much. 
 
Breaches, dark web trading, credit fraud. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection monitors for all of it, alerts you fast, and comes with identity theft insurance. 

Short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels have become the latest way cybercriminals spread malware.

We’ve already seen attackers move away from traditional phishing emails and toward tactics that trick people into installing malware themselves. Now they’re being lured with slick social media videos that promise free Spotify Premium, free Windows activation, or free Microsoft Office, but instead leave people with infostealers on their Windows devices.

Researchers at ReversingLabs uncovered two active campaigns that use short videos to trick users into running dangerous PowerShell commands or visiting malicious download sites. Similar campaigns have been reported by other researchers and national cybersecurity agencies, suggesting a growing trend: Cybercriminals are learning how to use social media algorithms just as effectively as marketers.

In true social media fashion, the videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels claim to solve a problem you didn’t know you had. The catch is that following the instructions delivers malware to your device.

How the scam works

The first campaign looks deceptively professional.

Accounts with names like “windows.tips” or “windows.insights” use Windows-style branding and post polished tutorial videos that resemble genuine tech support content. The videos are tagged with Windows and Office-related keywords so they appear alongside legitimate troubleshooting and tips content.

The videos promise to unlock Spotify Premium, Microsoft Office, or Windows for free. Viewers are then guided through step-by-step instructions that include opening Powershell, a legitimate Windows admin tool, and pasting in commands. Those commands download and run malware, much like the ClickFix scams we’ve covered before.

The malware was identified as Vidar, an infostealer designed to steal sensitive informtion from infected devices. Vidar commonly targets:

• Saved browser passwords
• Autofill data
• Browser cookies
• Cryptocurrency wallets
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) data
• TOR browser data

The stolen information is then sent back to servers controlled by the attackers.

How to stay safe

Research into similar TikTok-based attacks shows these scripts commonly add exclusions to Windows Defender, making it harder for security software to detect future malicious activity.

Fortunately, there are  a few simple ways to protect yourself:  

• Only download software from official vendor websites.  
• Be skeptical of “free”, cracked, or unofficial versions of paid software. 
• Don’t follow instructions on a webpage without thinking them through, especially if the page asks you to run commands on your device or copy and paste code. Many ClickFix pages use countdowns, fake user counters, or other pressure tactics to make you act quickly.
• Check that downloaded files match what you expected to download.
• Verify a file’s publisher and digital signature before you run it. On Windows, you can usually check this by right-clicking the file, selecting Properties > Digital Signatures. Keep in mind that a valid signature does not guarantee a file is safe, but missing or suspicious signatures are often a red flag. 
• Use a real-time, up-to-date anti-malware solution to block malware like infostealers before it runs.

Pro tip: If you’re unsure whether a video, message, or website is legitimate, you can ask Malwarebytes Scam Guard about it. It can help identify suspicious content and advise you on what to do next.

Image courtesy of ReversingLabs

---

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

A cybercrime group known as The Gentlemen has emerged as the second most active ransomware gang by victim count, rapidly attracting a talented pool of hackers through an aggressive recruitment strategy that promises affiliates 90 percent of any ransom paid by victims. This post examines clues pointing to a real life identity for the administrator of The Gentlemen ransomware group.

Experts at the security firm Check Point Software have been closely covering exploits of The Gentlemen, a so-called “ransomware-as-a-service” (RaaS) offering that pays affiliates handsomely to help spread the group’s malware.

“A 90/10 affiliate revenue split — compared to the industry standard 80/20 — is accelerating the group’s growth by attracting experienced operators from competing programs,” the researchers wrote in April.

Check Point found The Gentlemen are the second most active ransomware group by victim count so far this year, claiming at least 332 published victims since the group’s inception in mid-2025 and more than 240 in 2026 alone.

According to Check Point, the group targets Internet-facing devices (VPNs, firewalls) as their entry point, and once inside moves quickly to encrypt entire networks within hours.

Check Point says the administrator and primary operator of the ransomware group uses the nickname Zeta88 on the Russian-language cybercrime forums, and that this individual was previously known under the moniker Hastalamuerte. Check Point noted that a breach of the group’s backend infrastructure made it clear that Hastalamuerte/Zeta88 is the person who assembles the locker and RaaS panel, manages payments, and is essentially the administrator of the entire program who receives 10 percent of all ransoms.

WHO IS HASTALAMUERTE?

The cyber intelligence firm Intel 471 shows that the user Hastalamuerte is a Russian and English speaking person who registered on almost a dozen cybercrime forums between 2019 and the present day, including Exploit, Breachforums, Ramp_V2, BHF, Raidforums, and Nulled.

Intel 471 reveals that Hastalamuerte registered on Breachforums in January 2025 from an Internet address in Izhevsk, the capital city of Russia’s Udmurt Republic. Likewise, the user Zeta88 signed up at the English-language cybercrime forum Breached in August 2022 from a different Internet address in Izhevsk.

Intel 471 finds Hastalamuerte registered on Raidforums in 2020 using the email address hastalamuerte1488@protonmail.com (1488 is a common combination of two numeric symbols associated with white supremacy). A lookup on this address at the open source intelligence service Epieos shows it is connected to an account at Apple and to a phone number ending in 04.

Epieos says that Protonmail address is also linked to a GitHub account under the username SantaMuerte. That account is marked private, but a history of this user’s activity shows they are watching and developing a number of malware tools and exploits.

In April 2020, Hastalamuerte said on the crime forum Nulled that they could be contacted at the Telegram instant messenger name @hastalamuerte18, and the threat intelligence company Flashpoint finds this username is assigned the unique Telegram ID number 30907522 [full disclosure: Flashpoint is an advertiser on this blog].

The breach tracking service Constella Intelligence reports that Hastalamuerte’s Telegram ID is connected to another username — “bu4vs” — and to the Russian phone number 79127650004. Pivoting on this phone number in Constella fetches multiple records from hacked Russian government databases showing it is assigned to one Alexander Andreevich Yapaev, a 36-year-old from Izhevsk.

Constella reveals that phone number was used to create an account at the Russian social media platform Pikabu under the name “4apai18,” and shows Mr. Yapaev has signed up at a number of websites using the common surname Ivanov, or else “Chapaev” (the numeral 4 is often used as shorthand for a “ch” sound in Russian).

A search in Intel 471 for cybercrime forum members with the nickname SantaMuerte unearths an account by the same name created in 2020 on the Russian hacking forum Codeby. Intel 471 shows this user originally registered on Codeby with the not-so-subtle nickname Alexandr 4apaev.

Constella finds Mr. Yapaev regularly used the email address bu4vs@mail.ru. Meanwhile, Epieos shows this address is connected to a LinkedIn account for Alexander Yapaev, who lists himself as the head of B2B marketing at the company Uralenergo Udmurtia, one of Russia’s largest suppliers of electrotechnical and lighting products.

Mr. Yapaev did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Nearly every time we publish one of these Breadcrumbs stories, readers are curious to know why it seems like so many cybercriminals from Russia apparently do little to hide their real life identities. The truth is that — Russian or not — most didn’t exactly set out to be arch criminals, but instead got drawn into the scene gradually over several years as their skills broadened and sharpened.

Another important dynamic is that the Russian government generally either co-opts or ignores cybercriminal activity within its borders so long as the hackers do not steal from or attack Russian businesses and citizens. As a result, successful cybercriminals in Russia are usually insulated from prosecution and arrest by foreign law enforcement agencies provided they occasionally pay off the right people and do not travel abroad. And cybercriminals who intend to strictly adhere to those unwritten rules may (at least initially) be less concerned about covering their tracks online.

But the simplest explanation is that cybercriminals of all nationalities tend to make a number of basic operational security mistakes early in their careers, when they are less savvy and have far less to lose by their carelessness. A review of Hastalamuerte’s early posts on the crime forums (circa 2019-2020) shows a relatively unsophisticated and low-skilled hacker still trying to learn the ropes and earn a positive reputation on these communities.

For example, in June 2020 Hastalamuerte’s Telegram account joined a multi-month training program (@pntst) to learn how to use popular penetration testing tools, and their candid posts to this hacker training camp show Hastalamuerte struggling to use these tools effectively. A Google-translated record of Hastalmuerte’s posts to @pntst is here.

Update, June 11, 10:23 a.m. ET:  The threat research group PRODAFT has released a detailed writeup on the history and current operations of The Gentlemen. PRODAFT said its findings match the same persona with “high confidence,” and found the administrator (Zeta88/Hastalamuerte) supplies affiliates with initial access directly, primarily Fortinet SSL-VPN credentials obtained through brute-force attacks or sourced from the group’s own leak database. They also discovered the administrator is using AI to develop and maintain the ransomware and associated tooling, as well as to assist with post-exploitation activity.

This month’s Patch Tuesday fixes 206 security flaws in Microsoft software, making it the biggest Patch Tuesday release ever.

The update includes 32 critical vulnerabilities, as well as three publicly disclosed zero-days. Microsoft classifies these as zero-days because information about the vulnerabilities became public before patches were available. None are known to have been actively exploited by attackers.

The huge number of fixed vulnerabilities makes this the largest Patch Tuesday since Microsoft launched the program in October 2003. The company introduced the monthly update schedule after the Blaster worm caused disruption in the early days of Windows.

How to apply patches and check if you’re protected

These updates fix security problems and keep your Windows PC protected. Here’s how to make sure you’re up to date:

1. Open Settings

• Click the Start button (the Windows logo at the bottom left of your screen).
• Click on Settings (it looks like a little gear).

2. Go to Windows Update

• In the Settings window, select Windows Update (usually at the bottom of the menu on the left).

3. Check for updates

• Click the button that says Check for updates.
• Windows will search for the latest Patch Tuesday updates.
• If you have selected to get the latest updates as soon as they’re available, you may see this under More options.
  In which case you may see a Restart required message. Restart your system and the update will complete.
  
• If not, continue with the steps below.

4. Download and install

• If updates are found, they’ll start downloading automatically. Once complete, you’ll see a button that says Install or Restart now.
• Click Install if needed and follow any prompts. Your computer will usually need a restart to finish the update. If it does, click Restart now.

5. Double-check you’re up to date

• After restarting, go back to Windows Update and check again. If it says You’re up to date, you’re all set!

Technical details

One publicly disclosed vulnerability is important to mention. This flaw in Windows BitLocker is tracked as CVE-2026-50507 (CVSS score: 6.8 out of 10) and its description states:

“a protection mechanism failure in Windows BitLocker allows an unauthorized attacker to bypass a security feature with a physical attack.”

BitLocker is a built-in Windows security feature that encrypts your entire hard drive, securing your data from unauthorized access if your device is lost or stolen. However, this vulnerability could allow an attacker with physical access to bypass BitLocker Device Encryption and gain access to encrypted data.

Another is CVE-2026-49160 (CVSS score: 7.5 out of 10) in HTTP.sys. This vulnerability can be exploited to launch a remote denial-of-service attack against major web servers using a technique called HTTP/2 Bomb.

The third to discuss is CVE-2026-45586 (CVSS score: 7.8 out of 10) in the Windows Collaborative Translation Framework (CTFMON). An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges. These elevation of privilege (EoP) vulnerabilities are especially valuable to attackers because they can be combined with other flaws to gain full control of a compromised system.

---

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Meta’s smart glasses are once again at the center of a privacy debate due to face recognition.

WIRED reports that Meta had quietly embedded unreleased face-recognition code, internally called “NameTag,” into its Meta AI companion app, which powers the company’s smart glasses. The code was not active, but its presence in an app installed on more than 50 million devices raised immediate concerns about how quickly using smart glasses could slide into biometric surveillance.

Face recognition in glasses, even if disabled or unreleased, is especially sensitive because it can identify people at a distance, in real time, and without their consent. Many organizations have warned that this technology could be misused by stalkers, abusers, and others who want to identify people in public without drawing attention.

Gizmodo reports on a proposed Pennsylvania bill that would require smart glasses and similar wearable recording devices to include a visible indicator light when they are capturing audio or video. The bill would also prohibit users from disabling that indicator, a move clearly aimed at reducing covert recording in public spaces.

Most smart glasses already include such an indicator, but reporters noted that some users have been paying others to have them removed or disabled. The proposal is interesting because it tries to solve a hardware-level trust problem with a visible signal. But a visible light only helps if it is both mandatory and difficult to bypass, and history suggests that any visible privacy safeguard becomes a target for tampering when the incentives are high enough.

These two stories are really about the same issue: smart glasses are normalizing the use of always-on cameras, microphones, and AI features in a form that is much easier to conceal than a phone. That creates an unwanted privacy problem for people around the wearer.

Smart glasses are supposed to make computing more seamless. Instead, they are becoming a test case for what happens when cameras, microphones, AI, and biometric features are squeezed into everyday wearables before the privacy rules catch up.

From our point of view, smart glasses sit at the intersection of consumer privacy, surveillance tech, and potential abuse. The risk is not just that a device records audio or video. AI-enabled wearables can process what they see, deduce identities, and potentially store biometric data in ways that ordinary users and bystanders can’t easily detect.

We’d rather err on the side of caution and use an app that can detect when smart glasses are nearby. Unfortunately, it only detects some devices, and we don’t yet know how well it will perform if smart glasses become more common.

As noted by 404 Media, the app is an imperfect, tech-based response to a social and legal problem: it can misfire, it can’t tell you who is being recorded, and it risks giving a false sense of safety. The developer frames it not as a solution but as a small, user-controlled countermeasure in an environment where surveillance devices are becoming less visible and more AI-enabled.

Don’t get recognized

If facial recognition features ever become common in smart glasses, much of their effectiveness will depend on how much information about you is already available online. There are a few steps you can take today to reduce your visibility in facial recognition systems and people-search databases.

A major factor is limiting who can see the photographs you post on social media and other online platforms. But there is more you can do:

Remove yourself from reverse face search engines

The major, most accurate reverse face search engines, Pimeyes and Facecheck.id, offer opt-out and removal processes that can help reduce your visibility in search results:

• How to remove your images from Pimeyes search results
• How to delete your photos from FaceCheck.ID search engine

Remove yourself from people search engines

Most people don’t realize how much information can be found from a name alone. People-search sites often aggregate home addresses, phone numbers, ages, and relatives from public records and commercial databases.

The New York Times has compiled a useful guide to many of the major people-search sites, along with instructions for opting out and removing your information.

Scrub your data

If you’re in the US, you can also use Malwarebytes Personal Data Remover to help find and remove personal information that data broker sites have collected about you.

The 2025 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Crime Report shows that Americans reported $893,346,472 in AI‑related scam losses.

Those losses stem from 22,364 AI-related complaints. And these figures represent only the reported losses, which may well be the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

The main drivers behind the rise in AI-powered scams are voice cloning, deepfake images and videos, and AI‑generated scripts. These tools have supercharged classic fraud schemes such as romance scams, kidnapping and extortion calls, fake influencers, and government impersonation.

Michael Machtinger, deputy assistant director of the FBI Cyber Division, told the Wall Street Journal:

“AI-created fraudulent communications can look very official and very legitimate to even the most trained individuals.”

The FBI and financial institutions recommend verifying identities via official contact channels. One of their biggest concerns is government impersonation scams, which have evolved from crude IRS gift‑card phone calls into sophisticated, multi‑channel operations that combine spoofed caller ID, stolen agency logos, and AI‑generated audio and video of public officials.

This report, and others like it, shows how AI is being weaponized to automate research on victims, generate convincing scripts, and create highly believable deepfake personas at scale.

AI is also increasingly used in business email compromise (BEC), romance scams, and impersonation fraud. In BEC cases involving AI, losses have already reached tens of millions of dollars for businesses alone.

For a broader look at why AI is simultaneously fueling scams like these and becoming indispensable to defending against them, see my article AI: Threat, tool, or both?

It explains how both defenders and criminals use AI to find vulnerabilities, and why security vendors increasingly rely on AI to process vast amounts of telemetry, detect anomalies, and keep pace with threats that “no longer move at human speed.”

How to stay safe

Consumer protection agencies have documented a growing list of the ways scammers are using AI to try to rip people off. The main problem is that we can no longer take it at face value that the person we’re talking to is who they claim to be.

Government agencies and financial institutions recommend that you:

• Be skeptical of urgent payment demands, especially those involving cryptocurrency or gift cards
• Limit the amount of voice and video content you share publicly, as it can be reused by scammers
• Report incidents quickly to your bank(s) and IC3.gov

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard can help you determine whether a message is a scam and guide you through the next steps.

---

Something feel off? Check it before you click.  

Malwarebytes Scam Guard helps you analyze suspicious links, texts, and screenshots instantly.  

Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.  

Try it free → 

A new Windows malware campaign hides inside pirated PC games and modified installers for franchises like Far Cry, Need for Speed, FIFA, and Assassin’s Creed.

Researchers estimate that more than 400,000 devices worldwide have been infected, with around 30,000 users in the US.

The infection method is simple and effective. Users are lured into installing a fully functional free game. While the cracked and repacked game appears to work, the malware installs silently in the background.

The strain is being called “RenEngine loader” and sometimes referred to as Ren’Py because parts of the malicious code are embedded in a legitimate Ren’Py launcher used to run some visual novel games. When the launcher runs, it decompresses the game files and secretly starts the infection chain.

Ren’Py is a legitimate, open-source visual novel engine used by developers to make story-driven games with text, images, sound, and interactive choices. The malware in this case is not Ren’Py itself. Attackers are abusing the engine or its launcher as a delivery method to hide malicious code inside pirated game installs.

In practice, the primary infection vector is software piracy. Victims download cracked games or repacked installers from unofficial sites, then run what looks like a normal game launcher or setup file. In reality, they’re infecting their computer with a malware loader.

At the time of writing, this loader is trying to deliver an infostealer called ARC, which can grab saved browser passwords, cookies, cryptocurrency wallets, autofill data, system details, and clipboard contents.

But we’ve also seen other payloads being dropped, including Rhadamanthys stealer, Async Remote Access Trojan (RAT), and Backdoor.XWorm, which can expand the damage from credential theft to full remote control of the machine. That can mean account takeovers, financial fraud, crypto theft, and deeper compromise of personal or work data.

Worst of all, a user may not realize they are infected until usernames and passwords have been stolen or the machine starts behaving strangely. 

How to stay safe

The most important lesson here is that “free” cracked software is often a delivery mechanism for malware, not a bargain. Once a loader like this is on the machine, the real goal is usually to steal credentials or install a secondary payload that is more persistent and more damaging.

Some other general advice to stay safe:

• Don’t download installers from unofficial sources.
• Use real-time, up-to-date anti-malware protection to block loaders.
• Keep your software up to date, especially Microsoft patches and other security-related programs.

If you think your computer is infected and want to make sure, follow the instructions posted here. The amazing volunteers on our forums will help you through the process of cleaning your machine.

---

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Your phone called. It needs a cleanup.
• Fake BlueWallet steals passwords, accounts, and crypto from Macs
• Fake virus alerts are invading mobile games
• 23andMe exposed genetic information of millions, lawsuit says
• These convincing copyright notices are designed to steal Google logins
• Infostealers are becoming the go-to phishing payload
• Keep getting calls from questionable numbers? Meet Scam Number Check
• We found this fake-invoice campaign while scammers were still building it
• Meta’s AI support bot happily handed Instagram accounts to hackers
• Travel scams are everywhere. Here’s how to avoid them
• AI: Threat, tool, or both?

Stay safe!

---

Let’s face it, an incognito window can only do so much. 
 
Breaches, dark web trading, credit fraud. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection monitors for all of it, alerts you fast, and comes with identity theft insurance.