Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

U.S. sanctions hit VPN provider 1VPNS and a cryptor seller for enabling ransomware gangs behind billions in losses to critical infrastructure. The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two individuals and one entity on July 13 for supplying tools and infrastructure to ransomware groups that have caused billions of dollars in losses to […]

An alleged Ryuk ransomware member pleaded guilty in the U.S. for helping deploy attacks on American companies and faces up to 15 years in prison. Armenian national Karen Serobovich Vardanyan (34) pleaded guilty in the U.S. for his role in Ryuk ransomware attacks targeting American organizations between 2019 and 2020. Extradited from Ukraine after his […]

Ransomware remains above 1,400 attacks yearly since 2023. Qilin leads in 2026, while the U.S. remains the main target. Ransomnews has independently confirmed 9,291 ransomware attacks worldwide between January 2018 and July 2026, tracking incidents only when verified through victim disclosures, regulatory filings, official statements, or credible press reporting. Leak-site listings alone don’t qualify, operators […]

A former ransomware negotiator was sentenced to nearly six years for secretly helping BlackCat extort victims while betraying his clients. A U.S. court sentenced former ransomware negotiator Angelo Martino, 41, to 70 months in prison for conspiring with the BlackCat ransomware gang. While negotiating on behalf of five victims, he secretly shared confidential information about […]

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. […]

DragonForce hid for months by routing malware traffic through Microsoft Teams infrastructure, masking C2 activity and evading network detection. DragonForce ransomware operators hit a major U.S. services firm and stayed hidden for one to two months by routing their command-and-control traffic through Microsoft’s own Teams relay servers. Symantec’s threat hunters tracked the custom backdoor they […]

Ukrainian national Oleksii Lytvynenko pleaded guilty in the U.S. for his role in Conti ransomware attacks targeting victims worldwide. Oleksii Oleksiyovych Lytvynenko (44), a Ukrainian national extradited from Ireland to the U.S., has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his involvement in the Conti ransomware operation. Prosecutors said he helped conduct attacks […]