- U.S. DOJ: Prolific Chinese state-sponsored contract hacker extradited from Italy
April 27, 2026
Xu Zewei (徐泽伟), 34, of the People’s Republic of China was extradited to the United States this weekend and appeared today in U.S. District Court in Houston on a nine-count indictment related to his involvement in computer intrusions between February 2020 and June 2021. Certain of those computer intrusions allegedly are part of the HAFNIUM computer ...
- Governments on high alert after CISA snuffs out Firestarter backdoor on fed network
April 24, 2026
A US federal agency was successfully targeted by a previously unknown backdoor malware called Firestarter, according to CISA cybersnoops and their UK counterparts – neither of which disclosed the agency’s name. Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies include NASA; Homeland Security itself (cyberworkers at CISA are part of an operational unit in Homeland Security); the FBI; the DoJ; the IRS; the ...
- France confirms data breach at government agency that manages citizens’ IDs
April 22, 2026
The French government agency that handles the issuing and management of citizens’ identity documents, including national IDs, passports, and immigration documents, confirmed Wednesday that it experienced a data breach. In an announcement, the Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés (ANTS) said the data stolen in the breach could include full names, dates and places of birth, mailing ...
- Hungary: Nearly 800 state logins surfaced in breach data, including defense and NATO-linked accounts
April 11, 2026
Hungary’s government has discovered the hard way that the biggest threat to national security might just be its own password choices. An investigation by Bellingcat has uncovered close to 800 Hungarian government email and password pairings circulating in breach dumps, cutting across nearly every major ministry, from defense and foreign affairs to finance. This doesn’t look ...
- Hack-for-hire group caught targeting Android devices and iCloud backups
April 8, 2026
Security researchers say they have identified a hack-for-hire group targeting journalists, activists, and government officials across the Middle East and North Africa. The hackers used phishing attacks to access targets’ iCloud backups and messaging accounts on Signal, and deployed Android spyware capable of taking over the targets’ devices. This hacking campaign highlights a growing trend of ...
- Sophisticated supply chain attack exploited TrueConf update process
April 2, 2026
Southeast Asian governments were recently targeted by a highly sophisticated supply chain attack as part of a wider cyber-espionage campaign, which experts believe is the work of the Chinese government. Security researchers Check Point detailed their findings on Operation TrueChaos, a campaign revolving around a zero-day vulnerability in TrueConf, a video conferencing and collaboration platform which ...
- Swedish government IT system hacked
March 13, 2026
A large amount of sensitive information allegedly coming from a Swedish government IT system has been posted on the darknet, according to Dagens Nyheter and Expressen. DN writes that the newspaper has taken note of the leak and that it appears to contain the source code for a digital identity management system used by several authorities. ...
- DOGE employee stole Social Security data and put it on a thumb drive
March 10, 2026
A former employee of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly stole Americans’ personal data from the U.S. Social Security Administration and stored it on a thumb drive, according to a whistleblower complaint reported by The Washington Post. The former DOGE software engineer told co-workers at his new job that he “possessed two tightly restricted databases ...
- ISA warns of increasing cyber attacks against Israeli officials
February 11, 2026
The ISA and the National Cyber Directorate announced on Wednesday that they thwarted hundreds of cyberattack attempts over the past year carried out by Iranian intelligence operatives. According to the agencies, the attacks targeted senior government and defense officials, academics, journalists, and employees in the defense industry. A joint statement said a marked escalation in hostile ...
- Malaysia: Nacsa investigating alleged cyber-espionage targeting multiple government bodies
February 7, 2026
The National Cyber Security Agency (Nacsa) is currently investigating alleged incidents of cyber-espionage activity targeting various Malaysian government entities. In a statement to StarLifestyle, a Nacsa spokesperson said the agency is aware of a report published by Unit 42, the threat research unit of US-based cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks. The Nacsa spokesperson said the agency ...
- Approaching cyclone: Vortex Werewolf attacks Russia
February 6, 2026
In December 2025 and January 2026, BI.ZONE Threat Intelligence detected malicious activity by a new cluster Vortex Werewolf (SkyCloak). The attacks targeted Russian government and defense organizations. BI.ZONE researchers findings indicate that the adversary used phishing emails to deliver malware to the target systems. Victims received messages containing a download link disguised as a Telegram file‑sharing ...
- Asia-based government spies quietly broke into critical networks across 37 countries
February 5, 2026
A state-aligned cyber group in Asia compromised government and critical infrastructure organizations across 37 countries in an ongoing espionage campaign, according to security researchers. In total, the crew compromised at least 70 organizations, and maintained access to several of these for months. “While this group might be pursuing espionage objectives, its methods, targets and scale of ...
- Data breach at govtech giant Conduent balloons, affecting millions more Americans
February 5, 2026
A data breach at government technology giant Conduent appears to affect far more people than first disclosed, with the number of victims potentially stretching to dozens of millions of people across the United States. The January 2025 ransomware attack, which knocked out Conduent’s operations for several days, is now known to affect at least 15.4 million ...
- The Chrysalis Backdoor: A Deep Dive into Lotus Blossom’s toolkit
February 2, 2026
Rapid7 Labs, together with the Rapid7 MDR team, has uncovered a sophisticated campaign attributed to the Chinese APT group Lotus Blossom. Active since 2009, the group is known for its targeted espionage campaigns primarily impacting organizations across Southeast Asia and more recently Central America, focusing on government, telecom, aviation, critical infrastructure, and media sectors. Rapid7 investigation ...
- North Korean Labyrinth Chollima is morphing into three separate entities
January 30, 2026
One of the largest and most successful North Korean state-sponsored threat actors has split into three separate entities, each with their own tactics, malware tools, targets, and goals, experts have warned. In a recent in-depth analysis, researchers from CrowdStrike expalined the move is a strategic evolution to make Labyrinth Chollima cyberattacks more efficient, and that the ...
- No Agency Is Too Small
January 28, 2026
Back when nation-state threat actors were primarily targeting large government agencies, government contractors, and large companies, security through obscurity was a legitimate strategy. In years past, betting that attackers wouldn’t bother with smaller targets was a feasible way of operating. It’s feasible no longer. Hackers are better equipped than ever before, thanks in part to artificial ...
- Trump’s acting cyber chief uploaded sensitive files into a public version of ChatGPT
January 27, 2026
The interim head of the country’s cyber defense agency uploaded sensitive contracting documents into a public version of ChatGPT last summer, triggering multiple automated security warnings that are meant to stop the theft or unintentional disclosure of government material from federal networks, according to four Department of Homeland Security officials with knowledge of the incident. The ...
- PeckBirdy: A Versatile Script Framework for LOLBins Exploitation Used by China-aligned Threat Groups
January 26, 2026
Since 2023, Trend Micro researchers have been observing threat campaigns employing a previously unseen script-based command-and-control (C&C) framework which we named PeckBirdy, being used against Chinese gambling industries, as well as malicious activities targeting Asian government entities and private organizations. While tracking this framework, Trend Micro identified at least two campaigns using PeckBirdy, which we were ...
- UK government exempting itself from flagship cyber law inspires little confidence
January 10, 2026
From May’s cyberattack on the Legal Aid Agency to the Foreign Office breach months later, cyber incidents have become increasingly common in UK government. The scale extends far beyond these high-profile cases: the NCSC reports that 40 percent of attacks it managed between September 2020 and August 2021 targeted the public sector, a figure expected to ...
- UK unveiled new cyber action plan to tackle threats and strengthen public services
January 6, 2026
New measures will be introduced to make online public services more secure and resilient, so people can use them with confidence – whether applying for benefits, paying taxes or accessing healthcare. Backed by over £210 million, the Government Cyber Action Plan published today (Tuesday 6 January) sets out how government will rise to meet the growing ...