Article
The Road Back: Recovery from a Malware Attack in the Long Term
Arete Analysis
Cybersecurity 101
Arete Incident Response is currently answering the call of duty for about 60 companies per month who have experienced malware intrusions. These are mostly ransomware or business email compromise attacks. Arete’s primary goal is to restore what was broken and get the client back into business. However, another important goal is to harden the client’s IT environment against future attacks.
The steps taken by Arete commonly involve the following:
Implementing a more secure login process, such as two factor authentication—especially for remote access
Installing endpoint protection agents, which some call “Next Gen AV”, but are far more than just antivirus software
Minimizing the attack service by disabling unneeded services and protocols; and
Changing passwords, particularly on administrative accounts.
During the initial stages of the response process, the Arete team is completely focused on remediating the malware and getting the client’s critical systems back online. But what does this experience mean for the future of the company? Usually, the business owner has some regret about not having taken sufficient security precautions before the incident, and the question always arises: “How do we keep this from happening again?”
One critical piece has already been implemented – endpoint protection. Comprehensive coverage of the network boundaries increases the chances that intrusions will be detected. However, cyber-extortion/ransomware and the malware that enables it can evolve rapidly and
require a continuously trained staff to thwart. Acquiring, retaining, and training adequate staff is beyond the capability of many businesses. A cybersecurity firm offering vCISO (virtual chief security officer) services can provide the needed expertise to ensure that the business develops a formal information security program that addresses current risk, as well as prepares for the next wave of attacks.
Preventing the recurrence of a breach involves more than technology and requires a more comprehensive approach to security. Information security is not just a technical problem–it is a business problem. It should be approached in the same methodical fashion by which other business problems are managed. Just as the company has a “quality culture” for products, it must be understood that security is just another aspect of product and service quality. Quality is achieved through deliberate and continuous actions. The development of policies, standards of behavior, and contingency protocols for security should run parallel to the critical business processes that generate revenue. A successful security program requires some investment, but in the long run pays off in safeguarding the business’ data, intellectual property, consumer information, business processes and most importantly, its reputation.
A comprehensive treatment of a full security program is beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, significant components include:
IT policy that clearly establishes expectations that management has regarding the protection and handling of company/customer data, company technology and resources.
IT infrastructure review for assessing the current state of company technology and means of access to that technology, with a roadmap of continuous security improvement.
Data security and privacy reviews that map the movement and protection of sensitive data as that data traverses the critical business activities and processes.
Special attention should be paid to understanding what is most important to continue generating revenue, with contingency planning for disaster recovery and business resilience for each critical process. The people, processes and technology that actually make the business what it is should be well understood, documented, and have redundant resources for ensuring continuous operations, even during a cyber-attack.
Spending on improving the security posture of a business can be a hard pill to swallow, particularly after expenses from a breach come in, but there will never be a better moment to tackle it. Security events can be a focal point for employee awareness, and the need to heighten that awareness will never make more sense than in the days following the event. Building a culture of security and framing the effort required as just another part of the business day is a relatively low-cost way to improve. Other investments in maturing processes and technology will probably be required to ensure a secure future for the business. The best way to spend on security could be to acquire the services of those who have built programs before, at least until there is a functioning security program that can stand on its own two feet.
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Article
Europol Disrupts AudiA6 Crypto Laundering Service
European authorities have dismantled AudiA6, a major cryptocurrency laundering service linked to ransomware groups and broader cybercriminal networks. Between 2022 and 2025, the platform is believed to have processed over €336 million in illicit funds, enabling threat actors to obscure financial trails and monetize cybercrime proceeds. Its operators are also suspected of running Dark2Web, a dark web forum that facilitated collaboration, services, and connections among cybercriminals globally. This development underscores the expanding role of sophisticated, large-scale cryptocurrency laundering services in sustaining the cybercrime economy, enabling threat actors to obscure illicit funds and evade regulatory controls.
What’s Notable and Unique
Following law enforcement disruption of Cryptex and Garantex, AudiA6 emerged as another platform involved in financial activities linked to ransomware groups. Investigators believe that AudiA6 became a central hub for cybercriminals seeking to launder stolen digital assets while obscuring the transaction trail from authorities.
On June 10, 2026, a coordinated operation resulted in two arrests in Georgia, the dismantling of key infrastructure (30+ servers, 25 domains), the freezing or seizure of over €778,000 in crypto, and the takedown of the AudiA6 and Dark2Web platforms.
Analyst Comments
Ransomware groups and cybercriminal networks are increasingly leveraging sophisticated techniques, including chain-hopping, decentralized exchanges, and mixer-as-a-service platforms, to rapidly move illicit cryptocurrency across multiple blockchains, effectively obscuring transaction trails. Concurrently, the widespread use of fraudulent exchange accounts, mule wallets, and privacy-enhancing tools has elevated cryptocurrency laundering to a core enabler of the cybercrime ecosystem, allowing actors to bypass anti-money-laundering controls at scale. This investigation identified over 6,000 KYC records linked to money-mule accounts, many of which were tied to Russian-speaking intermediaries specifically recruited to facilitate the movement of illicit proceeds. These threat actors systematically used both commercial and domain-controlled email services to establish mule accounts across multiple cryptocurrency platforms. Collectively, these findings underscore the growing scale, coordination, and professionalization of cryptocurrency-enabled crime, highlighting the critical need for sustained, intelligence-led, and internationally coordinated efforts to disrupt these evolving financial ecosystems.
Sources
Ransomware gangs cut off from EUR 336 million ‘AudiA6’ crypto laundering pipeline
Article
Threat Actors Leverage AI for EDR Evasion
A threat actor has developed and deployed a ransomware attack toolkit enhanced with AI-assisted development workflows, enabling automated Active Directory (AD) discovery and improved EDR evasion capabilities. The toolkit leverages agent-based AI systems, such as Claude’s Opus and Cursor agents, for iterative malware development, testing, and refinement.
What’s Notable and Unique
Researchers have highlighted that this toolkit can not only generate ransomware code but also bypass sophisticated security defenses and identify AD networks for malware distribution.
The framework incorporates multiple capabilities, including automated AD discovery and reconnaissance mechanisms, iterative EDR testing environments to refine evasion techniques, and a command-and-control (C2) infrastructure that leverages Telegram APIs and Cloudflare redirectors for stealth.
Additionally, some agents were tasked with checking security research and technical posts for various bypass techniques. The agents recognized what was required for reproduction, extracted the techniques, mapped them to the MITRE ATT&CK knowledge base of adversary behaviors, set up a test lab, carried out the methodology, and reported the results.
After a few repetitions, the modules seemed to avoid nearly all EDR solutions, despite the agent’s initial suggestion of a high failure rate. Although researchers found no evidence that AI was embedded in deployed malware or was operating independently in victim environments, the technology was still used to accelerate the iterative process of developing, testing, and refining payloads against security products, shortening the period between the publication of offensive security research and its practical implementation by threat actors.
Analyst Comments
AI-driven tools like this could accelerate the pace and sophistication of ransomware attacks, enabling even relatively inexperienced actors to launch high-impact campaigns. This development underscores the urgent need for security solutions to adapt to AI-assisted threats. Organizations must respond by strengthening detection engineering, improving visibility across environments, and maintaining robust security fundamentals.
Sources
AI-built ransomware toolkit automates EDR evasion, AD discovery
Pointing a Cursor at evading detection
Article
Arete's 2026 Q1 Crimeware Report
Harness Arete’s unique data and expertise on extortion and ransomware to inform your response to the evolving threat landscape.
Article
CMS Vulnerability Leads to ClickFix Campaign
Threat actors compromised at least 700 education and technology websites in a recent ClickFix campaign by exploiting a critical SQL injection flaw (CVE-2026-26980) in the Ghost content management system (CMS). Adversaries combined the vulnerability with the ClickFix social engineering tactic to steal admin keys and inject a malicious JavaScript that delivers a fake Cloudflare or CAPTCHA verification pop-up, tricking victims into copying and pasting a malicious command into their systems.
What’s Notable and Unique
Rather than targeting the end user first, this campaign is unique in its initial exploitation of the system, followed by social engineering attempts. This hybrid attack style is likely being leveraged to bypass traditional defenses.
This recent campaign also highlights how trusted web properties can be weaponized at scale and coupled with unpatched CMS vulnerabilities. Rather than using the CMS compromise to perpetrate a single attack, threat actors turned it into a supply-chain attack that ultimately affected over 700 trusted websites.
Analyst Comments
As network defenders and their tools enhance threat detection capabilities, adversaries increasingly seek methods to bypass these defenses. By combining vulnerability exploitation, social engineering techniques, and staging for ancillary attacks, this campaign successfully bypassed traditional defenses and inflicted significant impact. Defending against hybrid cyberattacks requires comprehensive security controls beyond simply patching vulnerabilities. Organizations should focus on limiting movement within the environment, detecting abuse of trusted applications, and preventing end-user manipulation.
Sources
700+ education and tech websites hijacked in huge ClickFix malware campaign
Under the engineering hood: Why Malwarebytes chose WordPress as its CMS
Think before you Click(Fix): Analyzing the ClickFix social engineering technique
Ghost CMS Vulnerability Exploited to Infect 700 Sites With ClickFix Malware