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Stay updated on cyber extortion trends: threats, prevention tips, and incident responses. Protect your data with the latest info on digital ransom tactics.

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Extortion is coercion through threats: an attacker demands money or another concession while threatening harm if the victim refuses. In cybersecurity, this commonly involves encrypting systems and demanding payment for recovery, stealing data and threatening to publish it (often called double extortion), or threatening service disruption. The threatened harm may be real, exaggerated, or based on data the attacker did not actually obtain; payment does not guarantee data deletion, secrecy, or restoration.

Security teams should treat an extortion demand as a potential incident: preserve evidence, isolate affected systems, determine whether data was accessed, and involve legal and privacy specialists where notification or regulatory duties may apply. Offline, tested backups can reduce leverage from encryption, but they do not address stolen information. Reviewing exposed remote services, credentials, and unpatched internet-facing systems can help contain the access path, while threat intelligence may help assess the attacker’s claims and identify related activity.

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Security Affairs 6 days, 2 hours ago

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 105

Security Affairs Malware newsletter includes a collection of the best articles and research on malware in the international landscape Malware Newsletter Novel Java-Based QuimaRAT Targets Windows, macOS, and Linux   Vibe Coded Extortion: Avalon’s Path from Legal Lure to CrownX Ransom Capabilities Armored Likho digging a snake pit: inside the covert BusySnake Stealer campaign   RedWing: A […]

Medtronic says a ShinyHunters attack exposed the personal and medical data of over 3.8 million people. Products and operations were unaffected. Medtronic is notifying 3,834,294 individuals after a cyberattack by the ShinyHunters extortion group exposed personal and medical information. In April 2026, Medtronic confirmed a cyberattack on its corporate IT systems after the hacker group ShinyHunters claimed […]

A new round of the weekly Security Affairs newsletter has arrived! Every week, the best security articles from Security Affairs are free in your email box. Enjoy a new round of the weekly SecurityAffairs newsletter, including the international press. U.S. Government Agency Paid $1M to Data Extortion Group Kairos FBI: TeamPCP Compromised Dev Tools to […]

A U.S. government agency paid $1M to Kairos, a group focused on data theft and extortion rather than ransomware, Ransom-ISAC reports. A new case study from Ransom-ISAC reconstructs a complete data-extortion incident involving a U.S. government body and a threat actor called Kairos, using a leaked negotiation transcript and blockchain tracing of the ransom payment. […]

FulcrumSec leaked data stolen from Novo Nordisk, claiming to have exfiltrated 1.3TB, including clinical records and AI research assets. On June 15, 2026, a data-theft extortion group calling itself FulcrumSec began leaking files from Novo Nordisk, the Danish maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, after the company refused a $25 million ransom demand. The attackers claimed […]

UNC3753 phones staff posing as IT, hijacks screen sessions, steals sensitive legal files, and now sends operatives physically into offices to plug in USB drives. Google Mandiant and the Google Threat Intelligence Group published a detailed report documenting an active extortion campaign carried out by the cybercrime group UNC3753 (aka Luna Moth, Chatty Spider, and […]

ShinyHunters leaked 234 GB of data allegedly stolen from DentaQuest after failed negotiations, potentially impacting 2.6 million people. The ShinyHunters extortion group has published a 234 GB archive of data allegedly stolen from dental benefits administrator DentaQuest. The cybercrime gang added the company to its Tor data leak site in May, and the data was […]

Cybercrime group ShinyHunters leaked data allegedly stolen from Charter Communications, exposing millions of customer records after a failed extortion attempt. The ShinyHunters extortion group has published data allegedly stolen from Charter Communications after the company apparently refused to pay a ransom. Charter Communications is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States. It […]

A 5-year study on the Ransomware Economy found that 30,515 exposed databases were hit by ransom attacks, causing massive damage despite victims never paying. Database extortion doesn’t look like the ransomware stories that usually grab headlines. There’s no slick branding, no leak-site countdown, no gang posting memes on Telegram. In most cases, there’s just a […]

A new round of the weekly Security Affairs newsletter has arrived! Every week, the best security articles from Security Affairs are free in your email box. Enjoy a new round of the weekly SecurityAffairs newsletter, including the international press. CVE-2026-9082: Drupal’s Highly Critical SQL Injection Flaw Is Already Under Active Attack Why pure extortion is […]