Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

The ShinyHunters extortion gang stole personal information from 4.9 million accounts after hacking the U.S. telecom giant Charter Communications in early April, according to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. [...]

The ShinyHunters extortion gang stole the personal information of over 183,000 people after hacking the systems of convenience store chain giant 7-Eleven in April, according to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. [...]

The ShinyHunters extortion gang stole personal information belonging to over 119,000 people after hacking the Vimeo online video platform in April, according to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. [...]

The European Commission has confirmed a data breach after its Europa.eu web platform was hacked in a cyberattack claimed by the ShinyHunters extortion gang. [...]

Google-owned Mandiant on Friday said it identified an "expansion in threat activity" that uses tradecraft consistent with extortion-themed attacks orchestrated by a financially motivated hacking group known as ShinyHunters

Everest Extortion Group Lists Dublin AirportA Russian data extortion group threatened Sunday to release passenger data putatively stolen from the Dublin Airport days after its operator said it investigated a breach stemming from a September cybersecurity incident that affected airports across Europe.

Also, Envoy Air Confirms Data Compromise Following Clop Extortion CampaignThis week, Qilin didn't hack a Spanish tax agency, Nexperia standoff, Envoy Air confirmed a data compromise, Experian Netherlands fined 2.7M euros, ToolShell used to breach global networks, flaws in TP-Link Omada and Festa VPN routers and a New York firm settled a cybersecurity investigation.

Also, Internet-Exposed Call Center Software Under Attack and Patch TuesdayThis week: Chinese hackers exploited ArcGIS, Internet-exposed call center software under attack, October patch Tuesday, Massachusetts student sentenced for $3 million extortion hack, New York fined eight insurers $14.2M over data breaches, more than 100 VS Code extensions leak secrets.

Two members of a group of cybercriminals named ViLE were sentenced this week for hacking into a federal law enforcement web portal in an extortion scheme. [...]

Man Accused of Hacking 90 Organizations Globally Under a Variety of AliasesA suspected hacker tied to more than 90 global data breaches has been arrested in Thailand. The Royal Thai Police and the Singapore Police Force said the 39-year-old suspect used a variety of aliases, including Altdos, Desorden, Ghostr and 0mid16B, and attempted to pressure victims into paying a ransom.

Kraft Heinz has confirmed that their systems are operating normally and that there is no evidence they were breached after an extortion group listed them on a data leak site. [...]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cyber Safety Review Board will review attacks linked to an extortion group known as Lapsus$, which breached multiple high-profile companies in recent attacks. [...]

The hacker who claimed to have breached Optus and stolen the data of 11 million customers has withdrawn their extortion demands after facing increased attention by law enforcement. The threat actor also apologized to 10,200 people whose personal data was already leaked on a hacking forum. [...]

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) on Monday disclosed it's working to gather "crucial evidence" and that it's collaborating with overseas law enforcement authorities following the hack of telecom provider Optus

Uber believes the hacker behind last week's breach is affiliated with the Lapsus$ extortion group, known for breaching other high-profile tech companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Nvidia, Samsung, and Okta. [...]

It's been seven years since the online cheating site AshleyMadison.com was hacked and highly sensitive data about its users posted online. The leak led to the public shaming and extortion of many AshleyMadison users, and to at least two suicides. To date, little is publicly known about the perpetrators or the true motivation for the attack. But a recent review of AshleyMadison mentions across Russian cybercrime forums and far-right underground websites in the months leading up to the hack revealed some previously unreported details that may deserve further scrutiny.

Enforcing the "double-extortion" technique aka pay-now-or-get-breached emerged as a head-turner last year.  May 6th, 2022 is a recent example

Many organizations are already struggling to combat cybersecurity threats from ransomware purveyors and state-sponsored hacking groups, both of which tend to take days or weeks to pivot from an opportunistic malware infection to a full blown data breach. But few organizations have a playbook for responding to the kinds of virtual "smash and grab" attacks we've seen recently from LAPSUS$, a juvenile data extortion group whose short-lived, low-tech and remarkably effective tactics are putting some of the world's biggest corporations on edge.

IT and software consultancy firm Globant has confirmed that they were breached by the Lapsus$ data extortion group, where data consisting of administrator credentials and source code was leaked by the threat actors. [...]

Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed that the LAPSUS$ extortion-focused hacking crew had gained "limited access" to its systems, as authentication services provider Okta revealed that nearly 2.5% of its customers have been potentially impacted in the wake of the breach