Even though reports show that ransomware already forms 69% of attacks against businesses, that figure might go further up. Researchers at spotted a new RaaS group on the darknet, offering an unusual payment structure, potentially easing access to anyone interested in cybercrime.

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The largest Russian internet company, Yandex, was hit by a major denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The Russian tech giant claims that the attack began in August and reached a record level on September 5. The company claims it had seen 5.2 million requests per second (RPS) on August 7, 6.5 million RPS on Aug. 9, 9.6 million Rps on August 29, 10.9 million requests a day, 21.8 million on Sept. 5. DDoS caused internet outages in New Zealand last week when the country's third-largest internet service provider was hit.

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U.S. citizen sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for helping North Korean hackers steal $1.3 billion from banks. Alaumary was considered a “prolific’s money laundering expert. He was also ordered to pay more than $30 million in restitution to victims of the fraud. Alumary was found guilty of launder money stolen from a North Korean bank in February. He is believed to be one of the world's most prolific cybercriminals.

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Hacktivist collective Anonymous claims to have obtained 180GB of data from domain registrar Epik. Epik provides domain name, hosting, and DNS services for clients including the Texas GOP, Gab, Parler, and 8chan. The data set contains a "decade's worth of data," Anonymous says, "all that's needed to trace actual ownership and management of the fascist side of the Internet that has eluded researchers, activists, and, well, just about everybody" Epik says it is investigating the allegation, but denies any breach.

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Apple released security updates for iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and Mac computers earlier this week. The updates close a vulnerability reportedly exploited by invasive spyware built by Israeli company NSO Group. Apple's iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 will be generally available for free download starting on Sept. 20. The fix, earlier reported by The New York Times, stems from research done by a public interest cybersecurity group called Citizen Lab that found a Saudi activist's phone had been infected with Pegasus spyware.

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Matthew Gatrel of St. Charles, Illinois, ran two websites that allowed paying users to launch more than 200,000 DDoS attacks. Court documents reveal that Gatrel had been operating the DDoS services since at least October 2014. He ran two sites, DownThem and Ampnode, both enabling DDoS. Gatrel is facing a maximum statutory sentence of 35 years in a federal prison for the three felonies he has been found guilty of: conspiracy to commit unauthorized impairment of a protected computer.

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