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A teenager accused of belonging to the hacking group Scattered Spider has been extradited from Finland to face U.S. charges of conspiracy, computer intrusion, and fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice  announced  on July 1. Peter Stokes , 19, a dual U.S. and Estonian citizen, appeared in a Chicago federal court on June 30, where a judge ordered him held in custody. Finnish police arrested him in April on an Interpol Red Notice, an international arrest request, before his extradition in late June. His case is the latest in a run of arrests targeting a crew tied to breaches at casinos, retailers, and airlines. Court records identify Stokes by the online handle "Bouquet" and describe at least four intrusions, the first when he was 16. In one case, in May 2025, prosecutors say he and others broke into a luxury jewelry retailer, copied its data, and demanded about $8 million in cryptocurrency. The retailer refused to pay, evicted the intruders, and spent at least $2 milli...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged an active browser extension campaign that is designed to steal cryptocurrency by stealthily replacing wallet addresses when unsuspecting users initiate a transaction. The cryptocurrency clipper activity has been codenamed Silent Swap by McAfee Labs. "The campaign is delivered through unsigned installers – observed in both .NET and Golang variants – that deploy a malicious Chromium extension masquerading as a benign 'Google Notes' utility," the cybersecurity company said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The unsigned .NET installer, named BaseZipInstaller, is designed to retrieve a ZIP archive, which serves as a foundation for the malicious browser extension by scanning the system for Chromium-based browsers. For each detected profile in those browsers, it forcibly terminates the browser process and injects the extension by modifying the Secure Preferences and Preferences files. The end goal of the ex...

New findings unearthed by Infoblox show that more than 236,000 websites are using investment scam templates built using a legitimate Chinese open-source, cross-platform application development framework called DCloud Uni-App . The templates power bogus cryptocurrency exchanges, multi-language pig-butchering operations, WhatsApp phishing networks, fake gambling platforms, brand-impersonation sites, and crypto wallet drainers. A total of 236,493 distinct second-level domains have been identified by the DNS threat intelligence company. "For the last two years, there's been a dramatic scaling up of scam websites using the DCloud framework, and operators of these sites continue to launch complex real-world schemes to trick victims," Infoblox said in an exhaustive report published last week. It's being assessed that unknown threat actors are selling DCloud investment scam templates, although there are indications of centralized ownership across a significant chunk o...

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered two hijacked npm packages and a cluster of Go packages that are designed to deploy a Python-based information stealer on compromised Windows, Linux, and macOS hosts. "This attack avoids the most common npm execution paths through lifecycle scripts, perhaps in an attempt to remain 'compatible' with npm v12's security hardenings ," JFrog said in a technical analysis. "The package hides execution inside a VS Code task, configured to run automatically when the project folder is opened in VS Code. From there, the malware retrieves encrypted JavaScript from blockchain transaction data, connects to attacker-controlled infrastructure, launches a socket.io backdoor, and eventually deploys a Python infostealer. The names of the identified npm packages are listed below - html-to-gutenberg fetch-page-assets (which lists html-to-gutenberg as a dependency) The two packages were uploaded to npm on May 25, 2026, an...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday announced the seizure of a cloud computing account put to use by subsidiaries of Cambodia-based corporate conglomerate HuiOne Group, as the Treasury unveiled fresh sanctions against nine individuals and 26 entities linked to Prince Group . "These subsidiaries are alleged to have assisted individuals and organizations in transferring proceeds of cryptocurrency investment frauds, cyber scams, and other criminal activities on cryptocurrency blockchains and allowing for the conversion of the proceeds of these schemes to the legitimate banking sector undetected," the DoJ said. The seized account, the Justice Department added, hosted backend infrastructure for the subsidiaries, including HuiOne Guarantee (aka Haowang Guarantee), which operated an illicit Telegram-based marketplace that engaged in transactions with billions of dollars between 2021 and 2025 by peddling a wide range of crimeware tools. These included personal an...

Microsoft has disclosed details of a Windows-based cryptocurrency clipper campaign codenamed CryptoBandits that has targeted users since February 2026 with clipboard-intercepting malware with self-spreading capabilities and using the Tor anonymity network to hide communication. "The clipper in this campaign relies on Windows Script Host and ActiveX-driven logic to launch a bundled Tor proxy and poll a hidden-service C2 [command-and-control] server," the Microsoft Defender Security Research Team said in an analysis published Tuesday. "It carries out high-frequency clipboard theft, screenshot exfiltration, and wallet-address substitution." "The execution of this clipper is notable because it does not depend on a traditional installer or exposed IP-based C2 infrastructure. Instead, it deploys a portable Tor client, routes traffic through a local SOCKS5 proxy, and blends data theft with remote code execution, turning a financially motivated stealer into a li...

An unknown threat actor has been observed leveraging paid or promoted posts on legitimate news websites to drum up buzz for their warez, according to new findings from Check Point Research. The threat actor also has at their disposal a dedicated WordPress phishing page that acts as the central hub, alongside GitHub and SourceForge projects promoted by fake accounts, a YouTube channel, and a cluster of accounts that engage in coordinated activity on VirusTotal with the intent to misclassify malicious files as safe. "To push a malicious 'tool,' a single threat actor borrowed the same playbook legitimate brands use to build buzz: inflated download counts, coordinated five-star reviews, influencer-style tutorial videos, and promotion on platforms people instinctively trust," Check Point said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The result is a fake reputation economy spanning every platform a curious victim might check before they click 'download.'...

As many as 145 npm packages associated with the Mastra namespace ("@mastra/*"), a popular open-source JavaScript and TypeScript framework for building artificial intelligence (AI) applications, have been compromised as part of a software supply chain attack codenamed easy-day-js , per findings from Endor Labs , JFrog , OX Security , SafeDep , Socket , StepSecurity , and Synk . "A single npm account (ehindero) mass-published more than 140 malicious packages across the Mastra scope within a short window on 2026-06-17," Socket said. The infected packages themselves do not include malicious code. Instead, it's introduced by means of a third-party library named "easy-day-js" that has been added to each package's dependency list in what has been described as an automated publishing campaign spanning 88 minutes. In its analysis, SafeDep described "easy-day-js" as a clone of the "dayjs" date library that downloads and runs a ...

Security researchers at Zimperium's zLabs have documented a new Android banking trojan, Rokarolla , that targets 217 banking and cryptocurrency apps and packs 137 remote commands. Together, they give an operator near-total control of an infected phone: it lifts lock-screen PINs, reads and sends SMS, rewrites the clipboard to redirect crypto payments, and switches off Google Play Protect. Rokarolla , named after its command-and-control servers, spreads through malicious websites posing as well-known apps such as TikTok and Chrome. The first thing a victim installs is a dropper that pretends to be Google Play Protect. It uses that disguise to get the payload installed and grab Accessibility access. Once the malware is running, one of its commands turns Play Protect off. The theft runs through overlays. Rokarolla pulls a target list from its server, and for each app flagged active, it downloads a fake HTML login page and stores it in a local database. When the victim ope...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged two malicious cyber campaigns that exhibit similarities with a persistent North Korean threat cluster known as Contagious Interview (aka Famous Chollima, HexagonalRodent, and Void Dokkaebi). According to a report published by Proofpoint, the threat actor has been found orchestrating phishing campaigns using developer role recruitment or code review themes to target nearly 100 organizations in finance, cryptocurrency, education, technology, and several other sectors. The activity has been codenamed UNK_DeadDrop . "The infection chain begins with emails containing links to actor-controlled GitHub repositories hosting malicious scripts that result in the execution of cross-platform malware for macOS, Linux, and Windows, including an open-source Go framework named Overlord ," Proofpoint researchers Saher Naumaan and Carlos Rubio said . A crucial aspect connecting the campaign to Pyongyang is the use of Microsoft Visual Studio Code (...

Authorities in Europe have disrupted AudiA6 , a cryptocurrency laundering service used by ransomware gangs and cybercriminal networks. Europol, in a statement issued Thursday, said the dismantling of AudiA6 cut off a "key financial pipeline used to wash hundreds of millions in illicit profits." The service is estimated to have been used to launder more than €336 million (~$389 million) since the service was launched in 2021. "The platform became a central hub for ransomware actors and cybercriminals seeking to cash out stolen digital assets while hiding the money trail from authorities," the agency added . The operators of AudiA6 are suspected to have also administered a dark web cybercrime forum known as Dark2Web, where cybercriminals advertised illicit services and connected with other threat actors across the world. As part of the operation that took place on June 10, 2026, a number of coordinated actions were carried out, including - The arrest of ...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a large-scale operation that impersonates open-source and freeware projects to funnel unsuspecting users through a Traffic Distribution System (TDS) and deliver malware families like Remus Stealer, AnimateClipper, and the SessionGate framework. "The sites are well-designed and often look like legitimate project portals at a glance, sometimes referencing real upstream resources," Check Point security researcher Alexey Bukhteyev said in a breakdown of the campaign. "The deception is not in the page content alone, it's in what happens when a user interacts." "These pages load a CloudFront-hosted JavaScript staging layer that converts a click on a 'download' button/link into a handoff to a Traffic Distribution System (TDS). The TDS enforces strict gating: first-visit state, mandatory click confirmation, anti-bot/anti-analysis logic, VPN/datacenter filtering, and frequency capping." It's suspected t...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday announced the results of a sweeping action undertaken by government authorities and private sector companies to combat cyber-enabled and cryptocurrency fraud targeting Americans. The "Disruption Week" operation began May 18, 2026, leading to the takedown of millions of social media, email, and internet access accounts used by transnational cybercrime groups in Southeast Asia to defraud victims. Private sector entities voluntarily froze over $3.8 million in cryptocurrency involved in the laundering of funds stolen from Americans. "Cyber-enabled and crypto investment fraud is devastating Main Street Americans, wiping out life savings and preying on some of our most vulnerable citizens," said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro for the District of Columbia. The efforts are part of an ongoing U.S. government initiative called Scam Center Strike Force, which aims to dismantle transnational criminal organizations ru...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new campaign targeting Minecraft players via YouTube to spread malware capable of gaining control of victims' systems. The Minecraft-focused malware-as-a-service (MaaS) campaign has been codenamed Weedhack by McAfee Labs, stating the activity has been active since January 2026 and impersonates Minecraft clients and mods to infect users. In all, 3820 unique malicious JAR files and over 240 URLs responsible for distributing the malware have been identified. "This campaign utilizes SEO poisoning and YouTube to generate traffic to these malicious URLs," security researcher Aayush Tyagi said . "We also found two YouTube channels and multiple videos that demonstrate Minecraft Mods and Clients and redirect viewers to these URLs." Central to the campaign is an enterprise-grade dashboard ("weedhack[.]to") that enables customers to view stolen credentials and system information, as well as remotely keep tabs on th...

A new campaign orchestrated by a previously undocumented threat actor has targeted cryptocurrency organizations with an aim to facilitate digital asset theft using recruitment-themed social engineering and bespoke macOS malware. "These campaigns leveraged sophisticated social engineering techniques, custom macOS malware, and deep targeting of CI/CD infrastructure," Wiz researchers Shira Ayal, Eden Abergil, Andre Maccarone, Yuval Dan, and Benjamin Read said . "The used methods enabled the threat actor to move laterally from compromised employee laptops to code distribution systems and development infrastructure." The Google-owned cloud security company is tracking the activity under the moniker JINX-0164 . The threat actor is assessed to be active since at least mid-2025 and motivated by financial gain, targeting developers through recruitment-themed and other social engineering techniques to siphon cryptocurrencies. In at least one case, the adversary is said t...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a cross-platform malware called RemotePE that has been put to use by the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group in attacks targeting financial and cryptocurrency organizations. RemotePE, per NCC Group subsidiary Fox-IT, is part of a multi-stage attack chain that involves two loaders tracked as DPAPILoader and RemotePELoader. "DPAPILoader decrypts and loads RemotePELoader from disk using the Windows Data Protection API ( DPAPI )," security researchers Yun Zheng Hu and Mick Koomen said . "RemotePELoader beacons to a C2 server and waits until it receives the next stage: RemotePE, a RAT executed entirely in memory and never written to disk, leaving no filesystem artifacts." RemotePE was first highlighted by the security vendor in September 2025 in connection with an attack targeting an unnamed organization in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, leading to the deployment of three malware families, including PondRAT, Th...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a fresh software supply chain attack campaign that has targeted multiple PHP packages belonging to Laravel-Lang to deliver a comprehensive credential-stealing framework. The affected packages include - laravel-lang/lang laravel-lang/http-statuses laravel-lang/attributes laravel-lang/actions "The timing and pattern of the newly published tags point to a broader compromise of the Laravel Lang organization's release process, rather than a single malicious package version," Socket said . "The tags were published in rapid succession on May 22 and May 23, 2026, with many versions appearing only seconds apart." More than 700 versions associated with these packages have been identified, indicating automated mass tagging or republishing. It's suspected that the attacker may have managed to obtain access to organization-level credentials, repository automation, or release infrastructure. What makes the att...

INTERPOL has coordinated a first-of-its-kind cybercrime crackdown across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) that led to 201 arrests and the identification of an additional 382 suspects. The initiative involved the efforts of 13 countries from the region, aiming to investigate and neutralize malicious infrastructure, arrest perpetrators behind these activities, and prevent future losses. It took place between October 2025 and February 2026. "The operation focused on neutralizing phishing and malware threats, as well as tackling cyber scams that inflict severe cost to the region," INTERPOL said in a statement. "In addition to the arrests made, 3,867 victims were identified, and 53 servers were seized." The operation, codenamed Ramz , led to the disruption of a phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) by Algerian authorities after its server was confiscated, along with a computer, a mobile phone, and hard drives containing phishing software and scripts. One suspect was ...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new version of the TrickMo Android banking trojan that uses The Open Network (TON) for command-and-control (C2). The new variant, observed by ThreatFabric between January and February 2026, has been observed actively targeting banking and cryptocurrency wallet users in France, Italy, and Austria. "TrickMo relies on a runtime-loaded APK  (dex.module), used also by the previous variant, but updated with new features adding new network-oriented functionality, including reconnaissance, SSH tunnelling, and SOCKS5 proxying capabilities that allow infected devices to function as programmable network pivots and traffic-exit nodes," the Dutch mobile security company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. TrickMo is the name assigned to a device takeover (DTO) malware that's been active in the wild since late 2019. It was first flagged by CERT-Bund and IBM X-Force , describing its ability to abuse Android's accessibility ser...

Threat hunters have flagged a previously undocumented Brazilian banking trojan dubbed TCLBANKER that's capable of targeting 59 banking, fintech, and cryptocurrency platforms. The activity is being tracked by Elastic Security Labs under the moniker REF3076 . The malware family is assessed to be a major update of the Maverick  family, which is known to leverage a worm called SORVEPOTEL to spread via WhatsApp Web to a victim's contacts. The Maverick campaign is attributed to a threat cluster that Trend Micro calls Water Saci. At the core of the attack chain is a loader with robust anti-analysis capabilities that deploys two embedded modules: a full-featured banking trojan and a worm component that uses WhatsApp and Microsoft Outlook for propagation. "The observed infection chain bundles a malicious MSI installer inside a ZIP file," security researchers Jia Yu Chan, Daniel Stepanic, Seth Goodwin, and Terrance DeJesus said . "These MSI installer packages are abus...