• The US Treasury's FinCEN arm asks financial institutions to file scam center suspicious activity reports under a new keyword
• FinCEN says that it flagged financial moves across 33,904 different filings, but actual losses might differ significantly, as the approach is prone to double-counting transactions
• Only 1,300 institutions filed reports, with 10,082 (29.7%) of them centering around exploitation of the elderly by scammers

The US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has issuespublished an alert and a companion data analysis telling banks, credit unions, digital asset exchanges, and securities firms that it needs sharper reporting on the overseas scam centers that it says target Americans at an industrial scale.

FinCEN puts total damages, per its reporting mechanism, at roughly $12.7 billion linked to suspected digital asset investment scams between September 2023 and the end of 2025.

The number comes from adding up the dollar values of 33,904 Bank Secrecy Act filings that referenced the keyword from its 2023 "pig butchering" alert, which may be overstated, as it includes both attempted and successful transactions as well as both inbound and outbound reports, often of the same transactions, causing significant overlap.

FinCEN's new requirement is a keyword

While the $12.7 billion is a measure of what institutions have flagged and is prone to double-counting and errors, victim losses, a significant chunk of which go unreported, may be considerably higher.

This has prompted Gene Lange, who effectively works as the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, to call these scams "one of the most significant fraud threats facing Americans today."

It has also prompted a new suspicious activity report keyword: "FIN-2026-SCAMCENTERS," which institutions are expected to use to indicate that a scam center is potentially involved.

FinCEN also wants chat logs, scammer phone numbers, social media handles, wallet addresses, transaction hashes, and the URLs victims were told to deposit into, filed in the structured cyber indicator fields rather than left out.

Institutions to volunteer more information to stop scams

The move is part of its push to have institutions volunteer more information under the US Patriot Act, as it aims to confront what is a growing intelligence problem: scammers tend to route victims through several institutions in sequence; most filers see only one slice of a scam's lifecycle and often have difficulty tracing it all the way.

For example, a crypto exchange might see a customer buying USDT and sending it off-platform, a bank might see a wire to that exchange, and a brokerage might see a retirement account liquidated. None of them would have the bigger picture of what essentially happened or what triggered the transaction.

Combined, with properly linked information, it makes it much easier to identify a potential scam; separately, these incidents can inflate the number of reports, which often aren't linked, and investigations can lack insight into the origin or final destination of the funds.

FinCEN's Rapid Response Program has interdicted $1.8 billion and recovered just over $1 billion for 5,790 US victims since 2015, which, against the flagged totals, is a very limited recovery at best compared with the actual funds at stake. This highlights a larger fundamental problem: institutions mostly detect these schemes after the money is gone, and reporting them correctly and thoroughly may yield limited dividends at best against an industry that has morphed, relatively unchecked, into a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut.

• A pseudonymous GitHub account has published what it calls a reconstruction of Stuxnet malware that purportedly took out a fifth of Iran's centrifuges before being discovered
• The original source has never surfaced, and the 'Stuxnet' moniker that the account uses comes from Symantec's coining of the name weeks after it was discovered
• The code remains unverified and untested, with some users indicating that it is likely an AI-generated replication of the original binaries' behavior, which has been widely documented

A GitHub account has published what it describes as a faithful reconstruction of Stuxnet, the worm that sabotaged Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuges.

It also became the first piece of software widely accepted as having caused physical destruction in the real world, highlighting how malicious software can often do much more harm to people and hardware than just stealing or manipulating data.

The repository surfaced via a Show HN submission, which mainstream media outlets then picked up, highlighting the as-yet-unknown researcher's reverse-engineered code.

Not the first or last Stuxnet repository

The original Stuxnet source, written by whoever built it, has never been leaked and did not leak last week. The repository's README explicitly states that it is a reconstruction assembled from decompiled binaries, and those binaries have been in public circulation since Belarusian firm VirusBlokAda pulled samples from an Iranian customer's machines in June 2010.

Everything that followed, including Symantec's W32.Stuxnet Dossier and Ralph Langner's To Kill a Centrifuge, was built on those samples and how they reacted in test environments.

This is also not the first time readable C-language code aiming to replicate Stuxnet has been published online. Malware researcher Amr Thabet published a decompilation of the MRxNet rootkit carrying a 2010 to 2011 copyright notice. Christian Roggia followed with a dropper decompilation called open-myrtus, copyrighted 2012 to 2014, which has since been forked into a long chain of repositories.

The irony is that if such code were a faithful replication of the infamous malware, it would not have mentioned "Stuxnet" in multiple places, including registry keys. This is because the moniker is not one the developers likely used, but one Symantec switched to from its original 'W32.Temphid' identifier.

The thread where it was first brought to attention by a user called Sadpainy also has mixed views from developers, many of whom have branded it 'AI slop' or a 'fake' that relies on a mixture of already existing repositories, even as the about page on its GitHub repo states that it was reproduced by the researcher for educational purposes and is designed to only work on Windows XP and Windows 7.

For those looking to test it, a virtual machine might be their best bet, especially given Stuxnet's ability to physically damage hardware, but it is also a stark reminder of what a rogue AI agent could do if left unchecked without specific instructions or safeguards.

• UK NCSC, FBI, and Dutch AIVD warn Iran is using Chosen Brick malware against dissidents and journalists
• Malware steals files, captures audio, grabs WhatsApp/Telegram data, and can wipe systems entirely
• Operatives rely on social engineering; agencies urge awareness, MFA, updates, and endpoint monitoring

Iranian hackers are targeting “enemies of the state”, both local and foreign, with advanced malware capable of spying on the victims and stealing their sensitive files, experts have warned.

This is according to a new security advisory, published jointly by the UK National Cyber Security Centre, the FBI, and the Netherlands’ General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), which noted how Iranian operatives would first do extensive research into their victims - dissidents, activists, and journalists - deemed a risk to the regime.

After learning as much about their targets as possible, they reach out via social media, either as someone the victims know, or as technical support for the platform they’re currently using, engaging in extended conversation until the victim lowers their guard. At one point, the attackers will try to share a piece of malware with the victims, tracked as Chosen Brick.

A thousand victims

This malware, designed primarily for the Windows platform, has a long list of capabilities, including enumerating running processes and system information, capturing screen content, enabling the microphone to capture audio content, capturing a copy of Telegram and WhatsApp data from web browsers, downloading additional files and malware, deleting files, stealing email content, and ultimately - wiping the entire computer system. The operatives communicate with the malware using Telegram, it was said.

“Iran almost certainly uses cyber activity to support the repression of individuals who are seen as a threat to the regime, such as dissidents, activists and journalists,” the three agencies said in the report. “In some cases, the Iranian intelligence services have plotted to kidnap or conduct lethal operations against individuals internationally, who they perceive as enemies of the regime.”

In the advisory, the three agencies said the best defense is to simply be more aware of social engineering. However, there are also a few technical mitigations that can help, including following NCSC advice on staying safe online, keeping all devices up-to-date (ideally through automatic updates), using antivirus software, and not disabling smart screen warnings on file downloads.

Finally, it would be wise to enable phishing-resistant MFA, make sure devices are managed with appropriate controls, turn on email scanning, deploy endpoint and network monitoring, and conduct a search for the IoCs.

Via The Register

• CenterPoint Energy confirmed a cyberattack via exposed API, with customer data stolen
• Threat actor claims 7.49M files including IDs, SSNs, billing data, and transaction records
• Operations unaffected; investigation ongoing, regulators notified, customers to be informed

CenterPoint Energy has confirmed suffering a cyberattack and data theft, days after a criminal advertised the stolen files on an underground hacking forum.

CenterPoint Energy is a large US energy utility company that delivers electricity and natural gas to homes and businesses. It employs roughly 8,800 people and operates around $48.3 billion in assets, as of June 2026.

Recently, a threat actor posted a new thread on a dark web forum, saying they stole 7.49 million CenterPoint files from a poorly secured API, The Register reports. They said that the data included customer names and contact details, billing data, move-in dates, driver’s license information, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers (SSN).

Incurring expenses

No independent investigators have confirmed these claims just yet, and the company said it was investigating the matter. In a new 8-K document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on September 14, the company said that it “became aware of an online post by a third party claiming to have obtained a data set containing certain of the company’s customer information.”

It activated its incident response protocols and kicked off an investigation with the help of third-party cybersecurity experts.

“While the investigation remains ongoing, the company has determined that an unauthorized third party obtained personal information relating to a portion of the company’s customers through one of the company’s external facing systems,” the filing reads. “The company is continuing to work with third-party experts to determine the scope of customers and personal information affected by the incident and intends to notify affected customers and regulatory authorities as required by applicable law.” The police and regulatory agencies have been notified.

While the attack did not impact CenterPoint’s operations, which continue as usual, it did incur certain expenses, the company concluded. It stressed that it will likely incur even more expenses as the investigation continues.

Via The Register