Nichirei Co confirms cyberattack disrupting refrigerated warehouse and frozen food logistics, impacting customers including KFC Japan
KFC warned of delivery delays leading to possible menu restrictions, shortened hours, or temporary suspension of online orders
No data leaks or attacker claims have surfaced; disruptions suggest ransomware, but both companies expect operations to normalize by week’s end
Nichirei Co, a large Japanese company which produces frozen and processed foods, and operates cold-chain logistics to distribute them across the country, has confirmed it suffered a cyberattack which affected some of its customers, including KFC.
The company confirmed the news in a notice stating, “Today, Nichirei Co experienced a system failure caused by unauthorized access."
Nichirei said that it is currently investigating the incident, but that there is no evidence of personal or customer data leaking outside the company. However, due to the nature of the incident (which hasn’t been explained in detail), multiple operations have been affected, including refrigerated warehouse inbound/outbound operations, and frozen food shipping services.
No claims yet
These disruptions affected, among others, KFC - one of the largest fast food chains in the world. In a separate announcement, KFC said that a system failure at Nichirei Logistics Group, which happened on July 13, affected the company’s logistics and delivery sites. “From Tuesday, July 14, 2026, food delivery to KFC stores is expected to be affected,” it said.
“As a result, each store may suspend operations depending on some products going out of stock, menu restrictions, shortened business hours, or ingredient stock availability. Additionally, online orders from the official app and website have also been temporarily suspended.”
The nature of the attack, or the identity of the attackers, were not disclosed. Since Nichirei had to shut down some of its services, it could mean this was a ransomware attack and that some company data was stolen after all. The Register reports that KFC Japan hasn’t posted information about store closures and continues to promote summer menu items.
At press time, no threat actors claimed responsibility for the attacks, and no Nichirei/KFC data surfaced on the dark web. The companies expect to resume normal operations by the end of the week.
Geopolitical tensions are mounting, and nation states are employing new types of strategies to gain intelligence. A recent Five Eyes warning, for example, accused Chinese military intelligence officers of using professional networking sites and online job platforms to target individuals of interest.
In this specific case, the agents pose as recruiters advertising seemingly legitimate work to build relationships and, ultimately, get their hands on non-public information. Popular sites like LinkedIn, Indeed and Upwork have all seen this new type of attack take place.
At the same time, a parallel threat sees operatives applying for jobs within trusted organizations with access to intelligence, creating insider threats that experts warn AI might be mostly responsible for.
Generative AI, for example, can create documents, write applications and even supply live answers during real-time remote interviews, meaning that a small group of fake applicants can extend their reach much more quickly.
Rather than attacking existing workers, nation states are creating their own job candidates
Once inside an organization and with access to company tools like PCs, emails and other internal systems, nation state spies can then move laterally to acquire the information they sought.
Security experts at Exabeam warn that, because this technique is still evolving, it might not always be so easy to spot. Additionally, motives can differ, with Chinese intelligence operations typically seeking military, political or economic information. North Korean agents, on the other hand, tend to be tied to stealing money, which could also come with the side effect of data and intelligence theft.
Exabeam even observed this type of attack first-hand, when a North Korean-affiliated applicant used a false identity to apply for a job at the company. After passing technical tests, a video interview and other standard checks, the suspect’s laptop was quickly flagged for unusual activity.
In the following Q&A with AI Strategy and Security Research VP Steve Povolny, I discuss these new types of attacks, who’s responsible for stamping them out and what we can do to prevent similar incidents from happening more commonly.
The Five Eyes alliance recently warned that foreign intelligence groups are using job platforms to recruit insiders. How significant is this threat, and what is driving its growth?
This is among the most serious access-driven threats facing cleared workers, and it keeps growing because the economics now favor the attacker.
Foreign intelligence services no longer need handlers and dead drops when they can post a job ad on LinkedIn or Upwork and let candidates self-select based on the access listed in their own resumes. Generative AI lets them run thousands of these conversations at once, drafting outreach and scoring which applicants sit closest to sensitive information without a trained officer.
The Five Eyes alert describes a scaled, automated funnel, and that scale is what makes it dangerous.
A parallel risk runs alongside that warning: adversaries who secure employment directly rather than recruiting an existing employee. Which scenario presents the greater defensive challenge, and why?
The infiltration model gives defenders less to work with, which makes it the harder problem. When an adversary recruits someone already on staff, most of the suspicious behavior happens outside the company on platforms the employer never sees, yet the insider remains a known person with a verified identity and a real history.
When the adversary becomes the employee, the company has onboarded a fabricated person and handed them a laptop and standing network access on day one. No behavioral baseline exists, since everything that account does counts as a first. The deception also clears the controls most organizations trust, so the failure lands before any security tool gets a vote.
Exabeam identified a North Korea-affiliated individual who gained employment at the company. How did the operative clear Exabeam's hiring process, and what first signaled that something was wrong?
He cleared it by performing well on the parts we test and forging the parts we verify. Applying under the alias Trevor Rothluebber, he aced the technical interview and take-home assessment, passed the video interview and cleared our standard pre-employment process including the background check and I-9 validation.
Our hiring team flagged a suspicion that he leaned on generative AI for live help during the video call, the first soft signal. The hard signal arrived the moment he logged into his corporate account. Our threat intelligence feed matched his username to activity previously associated with North Korean operatives and rated it high risk, and that single match reframed how the team read everything that followed.
Simultaneously, Exabeam’s platform detected a number of anomalies inconsistent with a brand new employee’s first day, and escalating in severity within hours. Incident response quietly isolated and reimaged his laptop before any real damage could be done.
The candidate completed applications, interviews and assigned work without raising alarm. In retrospect, what indicators were present, and why did standard screening miss them?
The indicators existed, but they lived in places our screening was never built to read. The driver's license he submitted was either AI-generated or very badly manually modified, and the tell was physical. The image had unique aberrations, such as the ears in the photo which had an unnatural and pixelated modification an artifact that image generators still produce, and a reviewer skims past.
The live AI assistance during the interview was another, since his answers carried a fluency that did not match the natural hesitation you expect when someone reasons through an unfamiliar problem. Standard screening missed all of it because background checks and identity validation confirm whether documents are internally consistent and whether a record exists, and they never ask whether the human attached to those documents is real.
Further fabrication of documents such as I-9 were missed by a 3rd party identity verification company, and validation of (fake) job references was not properly identified.
How did AI contribute to the deception? What did the fraudulent documentation involve, and what capabilities does AI introduce that traditional forgery methods lack?
AI showed up at nearly every stage. The fraudulent documentation centered on a forged driver's license we believe was generated rather than physically produced, paired with a stolen identity that gave the paperwork a real history to rest on.
During the interview the candidate appeared to have run an AI copilot feeding him answers in real time, and many of these tools now stay invisible to everyone else on the call even while the candidate shares a screen. What AI adds over traditional forgery is volume and believability together. A skilled forger could always produce one convincing passport, but the craft capped how many operations could run at once.
Generative tools remove that ceiling, so a single actor can fabricate convincing documents and coach themselves through a live technical interview across dozens of applications at once, and the forgery stopped being the bottleneck it used to be.
The Five Eyes warning focused on China, while the Exabeam case involved North Korea. Do these actors share tactics and objectives, or do they represent distinct operational models that overlap on method?
They overlap heavily on method while running on different motives, which defenders should sit with. The Chinese operation the Five Eyes described aims at intelligence collection, pulling government and military insight out of people who already hold access.
The North Korean program that hit us and so many others in this industry is funded differently, since much of its purpose is revenue for a sanctioned regime, with intrusion and theft riding alongside the paycheck. The objectives diverge, yet the tradecraft has converged on one toolkit of fabricated identities, AI-assisted documents, manufactured professional histories and the patient relationship-building that lets an operative stay quiet.
When two adversaries with separate goals reach the same playbook, that tells you the playbook works and other actors are already watching.
Conventional insider threat programs are built to detect employees who become compromised over time. How should organizations identify a candidate who was an adversary from the point of hire?
Our mindset must shift toward treating the moment of hire as the start of the highest-risk window rather than the end of vetting. Traditional insider programs watch for drift, the employee who gradually turns after a financial shock or a grievance, so they depend on a baseline built over months.
A candidate who was hostile from day one never produces that baseline, which forces you to scrutinize the earliest behavior most closely. In our case, the catch came from putting new accounts under enhanced monitoring and letting an AI agent correlate scattered signals that no single alert would have justified escalating.
The working principle is to give hiring workflows and new-hire activity the same suspicion you already apply to production access.
Where should accountability for this threat reside within an organization? Is it a security function, an HR function, or a gap that persists because ownership is unclear?
Accountability most often lives in the gap right now, and that gap is exactly why the threat works. Hiring sits with HR and talent acquisition, who are measured on filling roles quickly and are not equipped to run identity verification at an intelligence-grade level.
Detection sits with security, which usually gains no visibility into a candidate until that person already holds a badge and a laptop, and the adversary exploits the seam between the two.
The workable answer is shared ownership with a clean handoff, where security sets the identity and behavioral standards hiring must meet and stays involved through the first weeks of employment rather than inheriting the problem once onboarding closes.
Many mid-sized companies lack dedicated threat intelligence resources. What practical measures can such organizations implement to reduce their exposure?
Useful defense does not require a dedicated threat intelligence team. The interview itself is the cheapest control available, and small changes make it far more revealing.
Underspecifying a problem on purpose shows whether a candidate asks clarifying questions like a real engineer or simply produces a confident answer and switching the problem partway through tests whether they adapt or whether something is feeding them responses.
Asking for an external webcam that shows the workspace instead of a shared screen removes one of the easiest hiding spots for an interview copilot. Beyond hiring, the highest-leverage move is placing every new employee on a watchlist for closer monitoring through their first weeks, which costs configuration time rather than budget.
Even a basic, low-cost threat intelligence feed would have surfaced the username match that broke our case open.
What is the most contested prediction on this issue, one that many security leaders would currently dispute?
My contested prediction is that within a couple of years the verified human interview, run live and in person for any role with meaningful access, returns as a security requirement. Many security leaders will fight that because it breaks the remote-first hiring model they spent years optimizing.
The objection I expect is that it does not scale and shrinks the talent pool, and those concerns are legitimate. My counter is that the economics have already flipped for high-access roles, since the cost of onboarding a single fabricated adversary now dwarfs the friction of one in-person verification step.
The deeper claim underneath it is that remote identity verification as we practice it today is no longer reliable for sensitive positions, and AI is what made it unreliable. Most security leaders are not ready to say that out loud yet.
Group‑IB warns of scams exploiting Celine Dion’s concert comeback, with fraudsters selling duplicate Ticketmaster tickets and spoofing sites like AXS and Paris La Défense Arena
Scammers embed themselves in Facebook fan groups and marketplaces, even using voice messages to build trust and make fake offers seem legitimate
Fans are advised to only buy from official distributors, verify tickets in person if using resellers, and contact banks to dispute charges if scammed
Celine Dion is back, and hackers are already trying to exploit the fact for their own financial gain, experts have warned.
A report from security researchers Group-IB has claimed there are numerous scam campaigns all across the internet and social media, looking to exploit gullible fans and steal their money.
Its aptly named “The Scam Will Go On” report said it saw scammers lurking in Facebook Groups, Facebook Marketplace, and other fan-centric spaces, offering concert tickets for sale. The tickets themselves, hosted on Ticketmaster, are valid. However, the scammers only have a few tickets which can be redeemed by the first person who reaches the venue. Everyone else will be denied entry, since their tickets will already have been used.
How to avoid getting scammed
But that’s not the only scam. Some people don’t want to pay an unknown third person via wire, and would prefer to purchase the tickets directly from a service.
For those people, the scammers created entire websites, spoofing ticketing distributors such as AXS and Ticketmaster. Group-IB also saw fake websites spoofing Celine Dion and Paris La Défense Arena, the stadium where the concert will take place.
“We see that such an event generates excitement and provides scammers with another opportunity to make a fortune at the expense of unsuspecting fans,” Group-IB warned.
“Scammers are using increasingly sophisticated techniques, such as embedding themselves into social networking fan groups and speaking directly to their victims via voice messages to make the interaction more personal and gain their victims’ trust more easily. Furthermore, official ticketing platforms are being misused to make scams seem legitimate.”
The researchers recommend fans only visit official websites and those of official distributors, and if they absolutely must buy from a reseller, to make sure they’re purchasing a physical ticket, in person. Those that fell for the scam should call their bank and lodge an objection on their credit card.
IO research shows 87% of UK cybersecurity managers doubt the credibility of speed‑focused certification programs
Rapid, automated compliance creates a false sense of security, with certifications like ISO 27001 not guaranteeing resilience
Experts stress continuous monitoring and human oversight, as automated recommendations and evidence still need validation and interpretation
Speed-focused compliance programs could help businesses get cybersecurity certifications quicker, but security professionals are skeptical if the speed comes at the expense of actual business resilience.
This is according to new research from resilience specialists IO, which claims that 87% of senior cybersecurity managers in the UK believe the speed at which certification is achieved affects its credibility.
According to the report, compliance initiatives that are either heavily automated or compressed into short timeframes are creating a false sense of security. Certifications like ISO 27001 might help companies win contracts and maintain an image, but researchers are warning that certification alone does not guarantee actual operational resilience.
Gaps in security posture
“Organizations that focus on achieving certification as quickly as possible are at risk of leaving gaps in their security posture,” says Chris Newton-Smith, CEO of IO. “Certification can open doors to new contracts and demonstrate commitment to recognised standards but treating certification as the end goal rather than the outcome of establishing and embedding effective compliance is more often than not at the expense of long-term resilience. Businesses must treat compliance not as a tick-box exercise but an evolving, iterative, and business critical project.”
Polling 251 cybersecurity managers in the UK, IO found that 31% consider continuous controls monitoring as the strongest indicator of compliance resilience. At the same time, a fifth (21%) said certifications could reflect security controls at the time of an audit, but could soon after become obsolete.
IO also stressed the importance of human expertise in these programs. Almost half (45%) of the respondents said human involvement is still essential when evaluating if automated compliance recommendations are still relevant and accurate, and another third (33%) said complex regulations still need human interpretation.
Finally, 32% stressed the importance of human in validating compliance evidence generated by automated systems.
Huntress report highlights “EvilTokens” PhaaS scaling phishing attacks 1,380% in early 2026 compared to last year
AI integration enables per‑victim personalization at scale, bypassing MFA, with subscription tiers from $600 to $1,500
Service sold openly on Telegram, showing how PhaaS now operates like a startup with cheap, powerful attack capabilities
Cybercriminals offering phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) are increasingly operating like a tech startup, and a good one, at that. They are also using Artificial Intelligence (AI), which helped them scale significantly. This is according to a new report from cybersecurity researchers Huntress, called “EvilTokens and the Rise of AI-Powered Phishing”.
In the report, Huntress claims that this particular PhaaS operation, called EvilTokens, was used to run 1,380% more phishing attacks in early 2026 compared to the same period last year.
“We’re seeing a clear maturation of the phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) market as threat actors increasingly integrate AI workflows into their product offerings,” the report reads. “The result is directly observable in our telemetry: a 1,380% increase in device code phishing attacks detected between July–December 2025 and January–April 2026, with over 50% of those incidents linked to two major waves of correlated incidents.”
A cheap service
“Furthermore, across hundreds of incidents associated with EvilTokens, no two phishing lures were identical. This level of per-victim personalization was previously limited to targeted, manually crafted campaigns. Now, it’s achievable at scale by any threat actor at the price of a subscription service”
So, AI is not only used to scale the operation, but it is also used for personalization at an unprecedented level. At the same time, the service is relatively cheap to use: it is being sold on Telegram for as little as $600.
If this sounds like a lot, keep in mind that a single successful phishing attack is enough to steal data worth hundreds of thousands on the black market, or even millions - in ransom negotiations.
EvilTokens’ service is tiered, too. The cheapest package costs $600, while two more expensive ones cost $1,000 and $1,500, respectively. For criminals, it is likely worth the investment, since this PhaaS is capable of bypassing multi-factor authentication, as well.
LastPass confirmed a supply chain breach via Klue, where stolen OAuth tokens let attackers access its Salesforce environment
Customer names, contact details, and CRM data were exposed, but master passwords were not; phishing risk remains high
Threat actor Icarus claimed responsibility; other firms including Recorded Future, Tanium, Jamf, Sprout Social, Gong, and Insurity also impacted
Password manager LastPass confirmed that it lost sensitive customer data in a supply chain attack that struck a third party.
As LastPass explained in a newly released incident report, unnamed threat actors first targeted Klue, a third-party market intelligence platform that integrates with its Salesforce and Gong systems. After obtaining its OAuth tokens, the attackers were able to access LastPass’ Salesforce environment and exfiltrate sensitive data stored there.
“On June 12th, LastPass was made aware of an incident that occurred at Klue (klue.com), a third-party market intelligence platform utilized by our go-to-market teams, which integrates with our Salesforce and Gong systems,” LastPass said.
Compromising names and emails
"We immediately launched an investigation and learned that, as part of this incident, an unauthorized actor was able to obtain OAuth tokens Klue held for many of its customers, including LastPass.”
“The threat actor then used these credentials to access LastPass customer data within our Salesforce environment.”
Further in the report, the password manager said the attackers most likely accessed customer names, phone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, support case information, and sales/CRM-related data.
Passwords, including the master password, were most likely not exposed. However, criminals can use the data they obtained to launch phishing attacks, through which they might trick the victims into sharing those secrets, as well.
LastPass is now urging customers to remain vigilant and be careful with incoming messages, particularly those claiming to come from the company.
According to BleepingComputer, the Klue supply chain attack was claimed by a threat actor called Icarus, which apparently used compromised legacy credentials for an integration service to breach the intelligence platform.
Besides LastPass, a number of other organizations are affected as well, the publication further reported, including Recorded Future, Tanium, Jamf, Sprout Social, Gong, and Insurity. LastPass has now disabled employee access to Klue.
Airbnb scams have surged 30x since 2023, including a sharp rise this year
Criminals hijack legitimate host accounts to to trick holidaymakers
Staying safe isn't so straightforward as threats evolve
Airbnb-related scam activity has increased 30x since the first half of 2023, according to new research from Saily and NordStellar, confirming that cybercriminals continue to go after holidaymakers seeking the best deals amid rising prices.
The report ultimately concludes that attackers are now targeting the trust built by larger platforms, saving them from having to build new identities from scratch.
And to top it all off, the nature of scams is also changing, as instead of using suspicious websites to obtain victim payments or information, criminals are now targeting legitimate Airbnb host accounts which have spent years amassing positive reviews and high ratings.
Exploiting legitimate accounts and hijacking trust
While the end goal remains high volumes of vulnerable consumers, scammers have added an extra layer of victim in their pipeline. Verified Airbnb hosts are now valuable assets for criminals because they already have identity verifications, positive reviews, booking histories, years of activity and established credibility.
Once the verified account is compromised, attackers can then go on to scam higher volumes of unsuspecting victims by posting – and charging for – fake property listings.
“Travelers are getting better at spotting obvious scams,” Saily Head of Product Matas Cenys said. “Criminals know this, so they are increasingly trying to steal trust instead of building fake trust from scratch.”
Where this type of attack differs from others, though, is that the victims never leave the platform. Rather than falling victim to phishing attacks and being redirected to malicious external sites, they interact fully with supposed legitimate hosts on the Airbnb platform.
While Airbnb attacks have seen a 30x increase in around three years and a sharp rise in the last year alone, they reflect a much broader trend of attackers compromising existing trusted accounts.
The recent ramp-up in attacks could also be tied to the summer season, with holidaymakers looking to book last-minute deals in the run-up to the summer season. Urgency and pressure to keep costs low also adds to criminals’ success.
“Everything looks normal until they arrive at their destination and discover the accommodation never existed," Cenys added.
How to protect yourself from booking scams
Saily is recommending that all communication stays within the booking platform and that customers avoid payment methods suggested outside of official channels. Unusually attractive listings in high-demand destinations could also be taken with a pinch of salt, and savvy shoppers may choose to reverse image search a property to double check its authenticity.
“As travel booking becomes increasingly digital, trust becomes one of the most valuable currencies in the travel ecosystem,” Cenys warned.
As for abusing victim trust, researchers also argue that AI has aided attacks by allowing criminals to produce better fake listings more quickly.
More generally, Airbnb revealed that two in five Americans have fallen victim for an online scam, with the average loss totalling nearly $2,000. The company has introduced measures to remind its users how to avoid scams, including introducing identity verification and reminders not to leave the platform, but account takeovers can still slip under the radar.
Airbnb also holds guest payments until 24 hours after check-in to ensure that everything is as described. Anti-fraud tech also prevented around 265,000 suspicious listings from appearing on the platform in 2025, the company boasted.
The company posted a comprehensive eight-step list of how to avoid scams on its platform online, calling out pressure tactics and unusual deals.
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