Cyber Security News

Hacking Editorial Brief — June 26, 2026

Iranian National Arrested in Montenegro for Multi-Year Academic Hacking Campaign

Montenegrin police, working with the FBI, have arrested an Iranian national wanted by the United States for a sustained hacking campaign that targeted more than 150 U.S. universities beginning in 2013. The suspect was apprehended in the coastal resort town of Kotor. U.S. authorities allege the individual caused approximately $3.4 billion in damages through the theft of academic research data and intellectual property from higher education institutions. The arrest represents a significant law enforcement action against state-aligned threat activity, though the specific affiliation and operational details of the campaign remain under investigation. The case underscores the persistent targeting of academic and research institutions by nation-state actors seeking to exfiltrate valuable intellectual property and scientific research.

French Government Messaging Platform Breached; Microsoft Defender Zero-Day Released

The French government's secure messaging platform Tchap suffered a breach by threat actor "misere," who claims to have exfiltrated 13.5 GB of data including 73,467 government employee accounts and message history. The compromise of a platform designed specifically for secure government communications raises significant operational security concerns for French administrative operations. In a separate development, security researcher Chaotic Eclipse publicly released a proof-of-concept exploit for "RoguePlanet," a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Defender that grants SYSTEM-level privileges on fully patched Windows systems. The public disclosure provides adversaries with ready-made tooling for privilege escalation attacks before patches are available. Additional incidents include a data breach claim against Myanmar's AYA Bank by a group identifying as LAPSUS$, alleging theft of over 120 GB of banking data, and a ransomware group called ShadowByt3$ claiming to have compromised Nintendo of America, stealing internal employee data including financial records.

Sources: Reuters · Iran International · SharkStriker · The Hacker News · Kaseya