Japan has reportedly declared a national cybersecurity emergency amid record cyberattacks. AI is breaking down language barriers for attackers, exposing outdated legacy systems and making even small businesses attractive targets. “Too small to target” is no longer a defense.
Hackers compromised at least 17 organizations by using Claude AI chatbot to find vulnerabilities prioritized by likelihood of exploitation, and factoring in vulnerable technology type and the physical location as well as how much money can likely be extracted from ransom demands.
Misattribution of some ShinyHunters cyber attacks to Scattered Spider, such as the early July attack on Qantas, stems from the fact that the group was known to be targeting that industry at that time and the fact that some key details were not available to the public.
After hopping from UK retail to US retail to US insurance firms, the hacking group “Scattered Spider” appears to have switched industries once again. The FBI is advising that North American airlines should be on alert for cyber attacks, as well as their assorted vendors and contractors.
Intelligence from Google’s threat team and subsidiary Mandiant indicates that the “Scattered Spider” group can be attributed as the attackers of major UK retailers in recent weeks, and that the hackers are likely to turn their attention to cyber attacks on US targets in the coming weeks.
Of all the cyber attacks examined in the 2025 DBIR, 22% kicked off with credential abuse. Vulnerability exploitation has been making a strong push to take the lead over the last two years, however, with its most recent surge putting it at 20% (and ahead of phishing at 16%).
China made the seeming admission at a secret meeting taking place in Geneva in December. The WSJ source said that the admission of Volt Typhoon cyber attacks was not entirely direct, rather “somewhat ambiguous” in nature but still enough to “startle” US officials.
Early indications are that a recent rash of cyber attacks on Australia’s biggest superannuation funds were a credential stuffing campaign making use of information from older data breaches. The attacks compromised at least a few hundred accounts and led to the theft of at least AUD 500,000.
Federal agencies are warning that a Russian intelligence unit is highly active in cyber attacks against NATO members and Ukraine allies and has been particularly aggressive toward critical infrastructure.
Cyber attacks on DeFi protocols resulted in a $20 million theft at Sonne Finance totaling, and ALEX Lab had about $4.3 million stolen and investment firm BlockTower Capital lost about $1.5 million to hackers.