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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Background for this topic.
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.
Oracle still hasn't patched the vulnerability the group has been using in its attacks since late May. The post ShinyHunters is actively extorting universities after exploiting an unpatched Oracle flaw appeared first on CyberScoop.
The ShinyHunters extortion crew exploited an unpatched flaw in Oracle PeopleSoft to break into enterprise systems, steal data, and demand payment to keep it private. The campaign hit universities hardest
A new analysis of The Gentlemen operation has revealed that the financially motivated threat group initially operated as an affiliate responsible for conducting double extortion attacks, while leveraging resources from various ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) schemes like LockBit (aka Tenacious Mantis), Qilin (aka Pestilent Mantis), and Medusa (aka Venomous Mantis)
Extortion-only attacks are increasing as data theft drives most ransomware claims, with many organizations unable to stop stolen data from being exposed
Oracle PeopleSoft servers are being targeted in ongoing data theft attacks by the ShinyHunters extortion gang, which claims to have stolen data from over 100 organizations. [...]
The financially motivated group is combining vishing, IT impersonation, and in-person office intrusions to steal data and extort victims.
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 […]
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a financially motivated data theft extortion campaign that has targeted dozens of organizations across professional, legal, and financial services in the U.S. between January and May 2026
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 […]
The Silent Ransom Group extortion gang is actively targeting U.S. law firms and professional services organizations in social engineering attacks that often lead to data theft within hours of initial contact, according to a new report by cybersecurity firm Mandiant. [...]