BuzzSec

A 41-year-old former ransomware negotiator has been sentenced to nearly six years (i.e., 70 months) in prison in the U.S. for their role in conspiring with the now-defunct BlackCat ransomware operators to extort multiple victims and working with two other cybersecurity professionals to target additional victims in 2023. In a sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutors described Martino as a " from The Hacker News https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/ransomware-negotiator-gets-70-months-in.html

AI has changed how fast attacks move. Work that once took an attacker days now takes minutes. Using models like Mythos, attackers write tailored bait, pick targets, test what lands, and jump to the next host before your team clears the first alert. That is the gap, and it is not your fault. The tools and runbooks most teams run on were built for attackers who work at human speed. AI-driven from The Hacker News https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/ai-attacks-move-in-minutes-join-this.html

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new ransomware family called GodDamn that employs the PoisonX kernel driver to neutralize security software as part of its defense evasion strategy. According to a new report published by the Threat Hunter Team from Symantec, the ransomware was first publicly spotted in the wild on May 21, 2026. It's assessed to be a rebrand of the Beast ransomware, from The Hacker News https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/goddamn-ransomware-uses-poisonx-driver.html

Last week, national security agencies from the Five Eyes—that’s the rich, English-language-speaking countries club—jointly released a statement warning of the increasing cyber risks of AI models: in particular, their ability to autonomously hack into systems and networks. The statement was more measured than some of the breathless headlines about it, and the advice they gave is pretty much the standard advice everyone gives—albeit with newfound urgency. Internet risks are nothing new, and cyberattacks—both large and small—have been a significant issue since long before the current crop of generative AI models. What’s been changing over the decades, and what AI is changing even faster, is the gap between skill and ability. For most of human history, the two terms were synonymous—but computers have decoupled them. As the gap between the two expands, humans empowered with these AI tools can do more: more writing, more research, more analy...

June 2026 saw 176 confirmed cyber attacks. Cyber Crime drove three in four incidents, Malware remained attackers' weapon of choice, and Information & Communication infrastructure took the heaviest hit. This visual breakdown charts the month's motivations, attack vectors, initial access techniques, and hardest-hit sectors. from HACKMAGEDDON https://www.hackmageddon.com/2026/07/09/june-2026-cyber-attacks-statistics-infographic/

Microsoft has released security updates for a Defender vulnerability known as RoguePlanet, nearly a month after details of the flaw became public. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-50656 (CVSS score: 7.8), is a privilege escalation issue in the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine ("mpengine.dll"), which provides scanning, detection, and cleaning capabilities for its antivirus and from The Hacker News https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/microsoft-patches-rogueplanet-defender.html

Meta has announced that its new artificial intelligence (AI) model Muse Image lets people use public Instagram posts and reels to generate AI content, and it's enabled by default. "You can also @-mention Instagram accounts in the Meta AI app to bring specific Instagram profiles right into your images," the social media giant said in a post. "Whether you want to design a custom event invitation from The Hacker News https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/metas-new-ai-image-tool-lets-others-use.html