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.
Cybersecurity researchers have called attention to a cyber attack in which unknown threat actors deployed an open-source endpoint monitoring and digital forensic tool called Velociraptor, illustrating ongoing abuse of legitimate software for malicious purposes
Anthropic's Claude Code large language model has been abused by threat actors who used it in data extortion campaigns and to develop ransomware packages. [...]
Apology issued after names tied to redress scheme revealed in mass mailing A London law firm leaked the details of nearly 200 people who requested to receive updates about the redress scheme set up for victims of abuse at the hands of the Church of England (CoE).…
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.
Stolen dev credentials posted to GitHub as attackers abuse CLI tools for recon Nx is the latest target of a software supply chain attack in the NPM ecosystem, with multiple malicious versions being uploaded to the NPM registry on Tuesday evening.…