News – July 2025


  • Scattered Spider hackers are targeting US critical infrastructure via VMware attacks

    July 28, 2025

    The infamous ScatteredSpider ransomware group is using VMware instances to target critical infrastructure organizations in the US, researchers have warned. In the campaign, the hackers do not exploit any vulnerabilities, but instead go for “aggressive, creative, and particularly skilled” social engineering. They first reach out to their victim’s IT desk, impersonating an employee, and asking for ...

  • Russia: Aeroflot cancels dozens of flights after hacker attack paralyzes IT systems

    July 28, 2025

    Russia’s Aeroflot airline has cancelled 49 round-trip flights to and from Moscow due to an IT system failure, the air carrier reported. The press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia said that the airline’s information systems were brought down by a hacker attack. The carrier warned of adjustments to its flight schedule, including delays ...

  • NASCAR confirms user data breach following Medusa ransomware attack

    July 28, 2025

    NASCAR has confirmed it suffered a cyberattack and a data breach in April 2025 which saw personal information of racing fans allegedly stolen. The organization filed data breach reports with attorneys general in multiple US states, describing what had happened, and how it responded, noting the attack started on March 31, 2025, and was spotted – ...

  • In-Depth Analysis of an Obfuscated Web Shell Script

    July 26, 2025

    This analysis is a follow-up to the investigation titled ‘Intrusion into Middle East Critical National Infrastructure’, conducted by the FortiGuard Incident Response Team (FGIR), which investigated a long-term cyber intrusion targeting critical national infrastructure (CNI) in the Middle East. The report revealed that threat actors had installed numerous web shell servers on the compromised system. In ...

  • Allianz Life says ‘majority’ of customers’ personal data stolen in cyberattack

    July 26, 2025

    U.S. insurance giant Allianz Life has confirmed to TechCrunch that hackers stole the personal information of the “majority” of its customers, financial professionals, and employees during a mid-July data breach. When reached by TechCrunch, Allianz Life spokesperson Brett Weinberg confirmed the breach. “On July 16, 2025, a malicious threat actor gained access to a third-party, cloud-based ...

  • Dating safety app Tea breached, exposing 72,000 user images

    July 26, 2025

    Tea, an app that allows women to post anonymous comments about men they’ve supposedly dated, announced Friday that it has suffered a data breach, with hackers gaining access to 72,000 images. That number includes 13,000 selfies and photo IDs submitted for account verification, as well as 59,000 images from posts, comments, and direct messages, the company ...

  • Digital Compliance Alert: UK Online Safety Act and EU Digital Services Act Cross-Border Impact Analysis

    July 26, 2025

    As of July 25, 2025, all sites and apps that allow pornography will need to have strong age checks in place, to make sure children can’t access that or other harmful content. This represents the most significant change to how adults access online content in the UK since the internet’s mainstream adoption. Gone are the days ...

  • Ukraine: Authorities expose large-scale network of call centres involved in investment fraud

    July 25, 2025

    In Ukraine, the activities of organized criminal groups that committed financial fraud under the guise of call centers have been exposed and stopped. In Kyiv, Lviv region, Lutsk, and Odesa region, networks that defrauded citizens both within the country and abroad have been neutralized. This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General, writes ...

  • Muddled Libra Threat Assessment: Further-Reaching, Faster, More Impactful

    July 25, 2025

    Unit 42 has tracked and responded to several waves of intrusion operations conducted by the cybercrime group we track as Muddled Libra (aka Scattered Spider, UNC3944) across different sectors in recent months. This article contains observations on Muddled Libra thus far in 2025 based on Unit 42 incident response insights. Unit 42 researchers share defensive recommendations ...

  • ToolShell: a story of five vulnerabilities in Microsoft SharePoint

    July 25, 2025

    On July 19–20, 2025, various security companies and national CERTs published alerts about active exploitation of on-premise SharePoint servers. According to the reports, observed attacks did not require authentication, allowed attackers to gain full control over the infected servers, and were performed using an exploit chain of two vulnerabilities: CVE-2025-49704 and CVE-2025-49706, publicly named “ToolShell”. Additionally, ...