Over the past year, Microsoft uncovered a Chinese-language cybercriminal ecosystem, an interconnected network of phishing kit operators, developers, and an illicit marketplace selling tools and infrastructure for large-scale phishing, enabling cybercriminal operations worldwide.
Threat actors purchased and used these tools and infrastructure, including phishing kits and access to compromised or fraudulent Microsoft or Google cloud environments and related credentials, to target organizations across the healthcare, financial services, wholesale distribution, and information technology (IT) sectors in Japan, the United States, Australia, and India. In collaboration with law enforcement agencies and other partners worldwide, Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) facilitated a disruption of the ecosystem’s primary developers and infrastructure.
Read more…
Source: Microsoft
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Multiple London councils hit by ‘cyber attack’
November 26, 2025
Several London councils have been hit by a “cyber attack” which could have compromised residents’ data. Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Westminster City councils said they have been responding to a “cyber security issue” since Monday morning. The councils, which share a number of IT systems, added they are working with the “help of ...
- FBI: Account Takeover Fraud via Impersonation of Financial Institution Support
November 25, 2025
The FBI warns of cyber criminals impersonating financial institutions to steal money or information in Account Takeover (ATO) fraud schemes. The cyber criminals target individuals, businesses, and organizations of varied sizes and across sectors. In ATO fraud, cyber criminals gain unauthorized access to the targeted online financial institution, payroll, or health savings account, with the ...
- The Dual-Use Dilemma of AI: Malicious LLMs
November 25, 2025
A fundamental challenge with large language models (LLMs) in a security context is that their greatest strengths as defensive tools are precisely what enable their offensive power. This issue is known as the dual-use dilemma, a concept typically applied to technologies like nuclear physics or biotechnology, but now also central to AI. Any tool powerful enough ...
- US banks scramble to assess data theft after hackers breach financial tech firm
November 24, 2025
Several U.S. banking giants and mortgage lenders are reportedly scrambling to assess how much of their customers’ data was stolen during a cyberattack on a New York financial technology company earlier this month. SitusAMC, which provides technology for over a thousand commercial and real estate financiers, confirmed in a statement over the weekend that it had ...
- From Extortion to E-commerce: How Ransomware Groups Turn Breaches into Bidding Wars
November 24, 2025
Ransomware has evolved from simple digital extortion into a structured, profit-driven criminal enterprise. Over time, it has led to the development of a complex ecosystem where stolen data is not only leveraged for ransom, but also sold to the highest bidder. This trend first gained traction in 2020 when the Pinchy Spider group, better known as ...
- CrowdStrike fires ‘suspicious insider’ who passed information to hackers
November 21, 2025
Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike has confirmed firing a “suspicious insider” last month who allegedly fed information about the company to a notorious hacking group. A hacking collective known as Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters published screenshots late Thursday and Friday morning in a public Telegram channel that allegedly showed insider access to CrowdStrike systems. The screenshots, which TechCrunch has ...