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Category: cybercrime/malcode – Page 7

Interpol-led action decrypts 6 ransomware strains, arrests hundreds

An Interpol-coordinated initiative called Operation Sentinel led to the arrest of 574 individuals and the recovery of $3 million linked to business email compromise, extortion, and ransomware incidents.

Between October 27 and November 27, the investigation, which involved law enforcement in 19 countries, took down more than 6,000 malicious links and decrypted six distinct ransomware variants.

Interpol says that the cybercrime cases investigated are connected to more than $21 million in financial losses.

Russia-Linked Hackers Use Microsoft 365 Device Code Phishing for Account Takeovers

A suspected Russia-aligned group has been attributed to a phishing campaign that employs device code authentication workflows to steal victims’ Microsoft 365 credentials and conduct account takeover attacks.

The activity, ongoing since September 2025, is being tracked by Proofpoint under the moniker UNK_AcademicFlare.

The attacks involve using compromised email addresses belonging to government and military organizations to strike entities within government, think tanks, higher education, and transportation sectors in the U.S. and Europe.

Nigeria Arrests RaccoonO365 Phishing Developer Linked to Microsoft 365 Attacks

Authorities in Nigeria have announced the arrest of three “high-profile internet fraud suspects” who are alleged to have been involved in phishing attacks targeting major corporations, including the main developer behind the RaccoonO365 phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) scheme.

The Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF–NCCC) said investigations conducted in collaboration with Microsoft and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) led to the identification of Okitipi Samuel, also known as Moses Felix, as the principal suspect and developer of the phishing infrastructure.

“Investigations reveal that he operated a Telegram channel through which phishing links were sold in exchange for cryptocurrency and hosted fraudulent login portals on Cloudflare using stolen or fraudulently obtained email credentials,” the NPF said in a post shared on social media.

Microsoft 365 accounts targeted in wave of OAuth phishing attacks

Multiple threat actors are compromising Microsoft 365 accounts in phishing attacks that leverage the OAuth device code authorization mechanism.

Attackers trick victims into entering a device code on Microsoft’s legitimate device login page, unknowingly authorizing an attacker-controlled application and granting them access to the target account without stealing credentials or bypassing multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Although the method isn’t new, email security firm Proofpoint says that these attacks have increased significantly in volume since September, and involve both financially motivated cybercriminals like TA2723 and state-aligned threat actors.

Over 25,000 FortiCloud SSO devices exposed to remote attacks

Internet security watchdog Shadowserver has found over 25,000 Fortinet devices exposed online with FortiCloud SSO enabled, amid ongoing attacks targeting a critical authentication bypass vulnerability.

Fortinet noted on December 9th, when it patched the security flaw tracked as CVE-2025–59718 (FortiOS, FortiProxy, FortiSwitchManager) and CVE-2025–59719 (FortiWeb), that the vulnerable FortiCloud SSO login feature is not enabled until admins register the device with the company’s FortiCare support service.

As cybersecurity company Arctic Wolf reported on Monday, the vulnerability is now actively exploited to compromise admin accounts via malicious single sign-on (SSO) logins.

Clop ransomware targets Gladinet CentreStack in data theft attacks

The Clop ransomware gang (also known as Cl0p) is targeting Internet-exposed Gladinet CentreStack file servers in a new data theft extortion campaign.

Gladinet CentreStack enables businesses to securely share files hosted on on-premises file servers through web browsers, mobile apps, and mapped drives without requiring a VPN. According to Gladinet, CentreStack “is used by thousands of businesses from over 49 countries.”

Since April, Gladinet has released security updates to address several other security flaws that were exploited in attacks, some of them as zero-days.

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