There has been a significant decrease in social engineering attacks linked to the Black Basta ransomware group since late December 2024.
This lapse also included the leaked Black Basta chat logs in February 2025, indicating internal conflict within the group. Despite this, Rapid7 has observed sustained social engineering attacks. Evidence now suggests that BlackSuit affiliates have either adopted Black Basta’s strategy or absorbed members of the group. The developer(s) of a previously identified Java malware family, distributed during social engineering attacks, have now been assessed as likely initial access brokers, having potentially provided historical access for Black Basta and/or FIN7 affiliates.
Read more…
Source: Rapid7
Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- RenEngine: When “free” comes at too high a price
February 11, 2026
Kaspersky researchers often describe cases of malware distribution under the guise of game cheats and pirated software. Sometimes such methods are used to spread complex malware that employs advanced techniques and sophisticated infection chains. In February 2026, researchers from Howler Cell announced the discovery of a mass campaign distributing pirated games infected with a previously unknown ...
- Patch Tuesday – February 2026
February 11, 2026
Microsoft is publishing 55 vulnerabilities this February 2026 Patch Tuesday. Microsoft is aware of exploitation in the wild for six of today’s vulnerabilities, and notes public disclosure for three of those. Earlier in the month, All three of the publicly disclosed zero-day vulnerabilities published today are security feature bypasses, and Microsoft acknowledges the same cast of ...
- Spam and phishing in 2025
February 11, 2026
In 2025, online streaming services remained a primary theme for phishing sites within the entertainment sector, typically by offering early access to major premieres ahead of their official release dates. Alongside these, there was a notable increase in phishing pages mimicking ticket aggregation platforms for live events. Cybercriminals lured users with offers of free tickets to ...
- A Peek Into Muddled Libra’s Operational Playbook
February 10, 2026
During a September 2025 incident response investigation, Unit 42 discovered a rogue virtual machine (VM) which they believe with high confidence to be used by the cybercrime group Muddled Libra (aka Scattered Spider, UNC3944). The contents of this rogue VM and activity from the attack provide valuable insight into the operational playbook of this threat actor. ...
- UNC1069 Targets Cryptocurrency Sector with New Tooling and AI-Enabled Social Engineering
February 9, 2026
North Korean threat actors continue to evolve their tradecraft to target the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi) verticals. Mandiant recently investigated an intrusion targeting a FinTech entity within this sector, attributed to UNC1069, a financially motivated threat actor active since at least 2018. This investigation revealed a tailored intrusion resulting in the deployment of seven unique ...
- European Commission probes intrusion into staff mobile management backend
February 9, 2026
Brussels is digging into a cyber break-in that targeted the European Commission’s mobile device management systems, potentially giving intruders a peek inside the official phones carried by EU staff. Identified by CERT-EU, the bloc’s computer emergency response team responsible for defending EU institutions, the intrusion was detected on January 30 and affected infrastructure associated with centrally ...