Breach Roundup: US Indicts Qakbot Malware Leader

Also: Signal Blocks Recall, Europe Sanctions Stark IndustriesThis week, Qakbot leader indicted, Signal blocked Recall and a judge said Trump illegally removed watchdogs. Ivanti and Palo Alto hacks linked, Stark Industries sanctioned, Marks and Spencer’s hack costs 300M pounds. Pro-Ukraine hackers hit a Russian clinic and an outbreak of PureRAT in Russia.

US Takes Down DanaBot Malware, Indicts Developers

DanaBot Used to Steal and to SpyA top figure in the Russian cybercrime gang behind DanaBot infected his own computer with the malware, allowing an FBI agent to search an image of his system, U.S. federal prosecutors disclosed Thursday in indictments and an announced disruption of the malware’s infrastructure.

German Cyber Agency Sounds Warning on Grid Vulnerabilities

BSI Cites New Technologies, Geopolitical Tensions as Key Risk FactorsMounting decentralization and digitization put electricity grids at risk of hacking that could cause power outages, the German cybersecurity agency warned Wednesday. Technologies such as internet-connected solar power inverters and a tense geopolitical situation sparks increased concern.

Suridata Buy Adds SaaS Posture Management to Fortinet SASE

Deal Aims to Target Identity and AI Risks, SaaS Blind Spots With Unified SecurityBy acquiring Suridata, Fortinet plans to introduce SaaS Security Posture Management to its SASE platform. The update provides end-to-end visibility into SaaS apps, identity threats and AI plugin misuse, making SSPM a vital control plane in cloud-first security strategies.

Oops: DanaBot Malware Devs Infected Their Own PCs

The U.S. government today unsealed criminal charges against 16 individuals accused of operating and selling DanaBot, a prolific strain of information-stealing malware that has been sold on Russian cybercrime forums since 2018. The FBI says a newer version of DanaBot was used for espionage, and that many of the defendants exposed their real-life identities after […]

KrebsOnSecurity Hit With Near-Record 6.3 Tbps DDoS

KrebsOnSecurity last week was hit by a near record distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that clocked in at more than 6.3 terabits of data per second (a terabit is one trillion bits of data). The brief attack appears to have been a test run for a massive new Internet of Things (IoT) botnet capable of launching […]

Breachforums Boss to Pay $700k in Healthcare Breach

In what experts are calling a novel legal outcome, the 22-year-old former administrator of the cybercrime community Breachforums will forfeit nearly $700,000 to settle a civil lawsuit from a health insurance company whose customer data was posted for sale on the forum in 2023. Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, a.k.a. “Pompompurin,” is slated for resentencing next month […]

Patch Tuesday, May 2025 Edition

Microsoft on Tuesday released software updates to fix at least 70 vulnerabilities in Windows and related products, including five zero-day flaws that are already seeing active exploitation. Adding to the sense of urgency with this month’s patch batch from Redmond are fixes for two other weaknesses that now have public proof-of-concept exploits available. Microsoft and […]

Pakistani Firm Shipped Fentanyl Analogs, Scams to US

A Texas firm recently charged with conspiring to distribute synthetic opioids in the United States is at the center of a vast network of companies in the U.S. and Pakistan whose employees are accused of using online ads to scam westerners seeking help with trademarks, book writing, mobile app development and logo designs, a new […]