Abuse covers the misuse of accounts, services, and systems for fraud, intrusion, harassment, or other harmful cyber activity.
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Abuse in cybersecurity means using systems, networks, or services in unauthorized or harmful ways, such as sending spam, hijacking accounts, or launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. It often exploits weak authentication, misconfigurations, or gaps in policies to gain access or disrupt services. Common abuse techniques include credential stuffing, phishing, and using compromised infrastructure to amplify attacks.
Managing abuse is critical because it can degrade service availability, expose sensitive data, and damage organizational reputation. Security teams focus on detecting unusual activity patterns, enforcing multi-factor authentication, and applying rate limits to reduce automated abuse. Timely abuse reporting and automated detection tools help identify and block malicious behavior, making abuse mitigation a key part of maintaining secure and reliable systems.
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Investigators Found Months of Unchecked Database Scraping ActivitySouth Korea's privacy regulator fined Coupang a record 624.7 billion won after concluding that weak authentication controls, insider access abuse, evidence destruction and unauthorized data collection contributed to the exposure of personal information belonging to 33.7 million people.
Complaint Says Service Generated More Than 1.5 Million Malicious URLsGoogle has sued a Chinese phishing-as-a-service provider accused of teaching customers to use Gemini to generate and customize scam websites, a campaign linked to more than 1.59 million phishing URLs, over 100,000 victims, and widespread credential and financial theft.
Déjà Vu: Is Mythos in Hands of Bad Actors Akin to Cobalt Strike, Brute Ratel Abuse?Anthropic's Claude Mythos and similarly powerful artificial intelligence tools pose elevated cyber risk to the healthcare sector, warns a new report. Addressing the onslaught of newly discovered bugs will require healthcare organizations to evolve their vulnerability mindsets.
Series C Funding Round Focuses on Secrets Remediation, Agent Governance ExpansionBacked by a $50 million Series C, GitGuardian plans to accelerate U.S. expansion and enhance secrets detection remediation and non-human identity controls as AI agents multiply across enterprises, increasing exposure to credential abuse and lateral movement.
As the compliance deadline quickly approaches for changes to align the federal rules for the confidentiality of substance use disorder records with HIPAA, entities that participate in so-called Part 2 programs still face critical unanswered questions, said attorney Aleksandra Vold of BakerHostetler.
As the compliance deadline quickly approaches for changes to align the federal rules for the confidentiality of substance use disorder records with HIPAA, entities that participate in so-called Part 2 programs still face critical unanswered questions, said attorney Aleksandra Vold of BakerHostetler.
New NSA Guidance Demands Continuous Access Checks, Implementation OverhaulThe National Security Agency's new zero trust guidance instructs agencies to move beyond login-based security by continuously assessing user behavior and app-layer activity in real time, aiming to close gaps that allow post-authentication abuse and elevate federal defenses against modern threats.
Security Experts See Coincidental Timing After Leak of Scraped Instagram User DataInstagram said a massive wave of password reset emails sent to its users traced to malicious abuse of a legitimate feature, but didn't result from any breach of its systems. Separately, security experts said a threat actor leaked 6.2 million users' email addresses, among other account information.
Synthetic Entities, AI-Driven Scams, Stablecoin Misuse Pose Key Threats in 2026Artificial intelligence-powered scams reached new heights in 2025. In the coming year, those threats will evolve further, with synthetic entities, stablecoin abuse and deepfakes driving fraud campaigns. Banks and lenders need better data, reporting and regulations to stay ahead of fraudsters.
Cyber Advisory Cites Abuse of Linked Devices to Monitor Sensitive CommunicationsThe U.S cyber defense agency issued an alert outlining how commercial spyware and state-aligned groups are abusing messaging-app features through malicious QR-based linking and zero-click exploitation to monitor U.S. government, military and other high-profile figures.
Denmark Concedes Domestic and International Opposition Against Client-ScanningDenmark withdrawing a proposal that would have required online service providers to scan communications and files on user devices for child sexual abuse material after domestic and international opposition. The Scandinavian country presides over the Council of European Union until December.
HHS Shifts 42 CFR Enforcement Duties to Office of Civil Rights Amid Massive ReorgThe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has put its Office for Civil Rights in charge of investigating and penalizing organizations that breach the confidentiality of substance abuse disorder records. Some fear the agency doesn't have the bandwidth to enforce both HIPAA and 42 CFR Part 2.
Malicious Accounts Linked to Malware, Influence OperationsOpenAI is using its artificial intelligence models to detect and counter abuse and has banned accounts associated with malicious state-linked operations. Hackers aligned with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have used OpenAI's tools for malware development and social media manipulation.
Pixtral Models 60 Times More Likely to Generate Harmful Content Than RivalsPublicly available artificial intelligence models made by Mistral produce child sexual abuse material and instructions for chemical weapons manufacturing at rates far exceeding those of competing systems, found researchers from Enkrypt AI.
Investigators See Ongoing Use of Living-Off-the-Land Binaries, Frequent RDP AbuseIncident responders studying last year's top attacker tools, tactics and procedures have urged cyber defenders to monitor for the unusual use of legitimate administrator tools, suspicious use of Remote Desktop Protocol, as well as attempts by attackers to hide their tracks by wiping logs.
Abuse Can Lead to Fraud, Impersonation ScamsNeed a new voice? Artificial intelligence has you covered. Need to protect your own? That's another story. Some of the most widely used AI voice synthesis tools offer only superficial safeguards against misuse - if any at all, researchers found in a recent analysis.
President Fulfills Campaign Promise to Pardon 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' Blames DOJ AbuseOn his second day in office, U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, an online marketplace tied to over $200 million in illegal bitcoin transactions. Ulbricht has been in federal prison since 2015, sentenced to life with no possibility of parole.
American Addiction Centers Says 422,424 Individuals' Private Details ExposedSubstance abuse treatment company American Addiction Centers is warning nearly half a million patients that ransomware-wielding attackers stole their personal details, including names and Social Security numbers. The Rhysida ransomware operation claimed to perpetrate the attack.
Ransomware Gang Could Have Axis Health's Mental Health, Drug Abuse RecordsRansomware gang Rhysida is threatening to dump data on the dark web that belongs to a Colorado provider of mental health, substance abuse and other healthcare services unless it pays nearly $1.5 million. The group is leaking records it claims to have stolen from a Mississippi nursing home.
Also: CrowdStrike Grilled by Congress; Coalition Against Spyware Abuse Is GrowingIn the latest weekly update, ISMG editors discussed Microsoft's major cybersecurity overhaul in the wake of some high-profile breaches, the latest developments from CrowdStrike's global outage hearing and the expanding U.S.-led coalition against spyware abuse in the EU.