The proliferation and evolution of AI-powered hacking tools – how generative AI has changed the cyber attack ecosystem and response strategies
WormGPT, which emerged in June 2023, has brought a paradigm shift to the cybercrime ecosystem. generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry for attacks, and AI-powered hacking tools are rapidly proliferating in both paid subscription services and free open source. furthermore, AI is evolving beyond the creation of attack
Don’t trust ‘secure mail’! malicious Files Impersonating Credit Card Companies Are Being Distributed
ahnLab recently confirmed the distribution of malicious files disguised as security emails from a major credit card company in Korea. this attack has a similar flow to the Kimsuky group’s past malicious LNK distribution case of disguising password files, but it is characterized by a change in the command execution
Crypto Guest at Dawn Endpoint (Midnight) ransomware analysis
Summary EndPoint is a ransomware variant formerly known as Midnight, which is believed to be built on the Babuk ransomware framework. It targets not only Windows environments, but also ESXi and NAS environments, and uses a double extortion method that combines file encryption with Data exfiltration threats. Overview Since the
April 2026 Infostealer Trend Report
Content this report summarizes the trends of new Infostealers collected during the month of April 2026, including distribution channels, malware distribution, malware quantity, detection quantity, and disguised targets. the data collected is based on ASEC’s Automated Data Collection System, Email Honeypot System, and AhnLab product detection results. Purpose and Scope
April 2026 Security Issues in Korean & Global Financial Sector
Statistics on Malware Distributed to the Financial Sector attack Stage 1 Phishing, Attack Stage 2 Backdoor-Downloader-Dropper, and Attack Stage 3 Infostealer-Ransomware were identified as the top malware in the financial sector. The actual distribution files were identified based on MD5 Hash, and it was explained that there may be many
April 2026 Threat Trend Report on Ransomware
Purpose and Scope this report summarizes ransomware-related statistics based on Dedicated Leak Sites (DLS) (ransomware PR sites or PR pages) and Quantity of ransomware damaged systems identified during the month of April 2026. it also provides major ransomware issues in Korea and abroad and Damage Trends by Industry/Region. Key Statistics
April 2026 Phishing Email Trends Report
Statistics on Attachment Threat Types in April 2026, the most common threat in phishing email attachments was Trojan (47%). this type was distributed by disguising itself with a double extension or a legitimate file name to trick the user into executing it and installing malware on the system. they continued
March 2026 Phishing Email Trends Report
Statistics on Attachment Threats Types. trojans accounted for the largest share of attachment-based threats in March 2026 at 21%. phishing (FakePage) came in at 15%, with a significant month-over-month decrease in share from 42% to 15%, but a slight decrease in volume. downloaders were identified at 9% and droppers at
March 2026 Security Issues in the Korean & Global Financial Sector
Content. a number of malware samples including phishing, web shell, droppers, backdoor malware, downloaders, Infostealer, and CoinMiner targeting the financial sector have been distributed. we observed a number of cases where Korean disguised attachment names and HTML/JS execution methods were utilized to propagate phishing. account compromise campaigns through the Telegram
March 2026 Ransomware Trends Report
Purpose and Scope. this report summarizes the number of ransomware samples, number of affected systems, DLS-based statistics, and major Korean & Global ransomware issues identified during the month of March 2026. Key statistics. ransomware sample counts and victimized systems statistics were aggregated by detection name assigned by AhnLab. statistics on
