Social engineering incidents
277 entries spanning 1995 to 2026. Filter by how the attacker reached the human, what it cost, and whether AI was involved.
Tycoon2FA phishing-as-a-service disrupted after reaching 500,000 orgs a month
Organisations across education, healthcare, finance, nonprofit and government · Global
Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, working with Europol, Trend Micro and industry partners, disrupted the Tycoon2FA phishing-as-a-service platform in March 2026. By early 2026 the service was pushing tens of millions of phishing messages reaching more than 500,000 organisations a month worldwide. Subscriptions ran from $120 for ten days to $350 a month and included ready-made Microsoft 365, Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive and Gmail sign-in templates.
Contagious Interview: fake developer job interviews deliver backdoors
Software developers at enterprise solution, media and communications firms · Global
Microsoft Defender Experts published detail in March 2026 on the long-running Contagious Interview operation, in which threat actors pose as recruiters from cryptocurrency and AI companies and run convincing technical interview processes with software developers. Victims are steered into cloning malicious NPM packages or opening booby-trapped repositories in Visual Studio Code, which auto-execute backdoors including OtterCookie, Invisible Ferret and FlexibleFerret.
Figure Technology loses ~967,000 customer records after employee falls for SSO vishing
Figure Technology Solutions · United States
Nasdaq-listed fintech Figure Technology Solutions, which runs blockchain-based home equity lending, disclosed that an employee was compromised in a voice-phishing attack on the company's single sign-on accounts, part of a wider ShinyHunters campaign against Okta-protected tenants. Figure confirmed to TechCrunch that the attackers obtained a limited number of files. Roughly 967,000 user records were exposed, containing names, dates of birth, email addresses, postal addresses and phone numbers. ShinyHunters posted more than 2.4 GB of alleged company data on its Tor leak site, and the incident was reported on 19 February 2026.
CarGurus hit by vishing that harvested Okta, Microsoft and Google SSO codes
CarGurus · United States
Automotive marketplace CarGurus was attacked on 13 February 2026. ShinyHunters said it used vishing to trick employees into surrendering single sign-on codes from Okta, Microsoft and Google, and claimed roughly 1.7 million records plus more than 12 million email addresses and internal corporate data. CarGurus said the incident was contained and limited in scope, that dealer systems and APIs were not compromised, and that no broad set of highly sensitive data appeared to be involved.
Optimizely confirms data breach after vishing attack on employees
Optimizely · United States
Optimizely, a New York ad tech company with more than 10,000 customers, notified customers of a breach after threat actors contacted it on February 11, 2026 claiming system access. The company said attackers obtained basic business contact information, internal CRM records and limited back-office documents, and that no sensitive customer data beyond basic business details was compromised. Optimizely said the attackers could not escalate privileges, install software or create backdoors.
Hims & Hers support tickets stolen through compromised Okta SSO accounts
Hims & Hers Health · United States
Telehealth company Hims & Hers disclosed that attackers reached its Zendesk support platform between 4 and 7 February 2026 by compromising Okta single sign-on accounts. Suspicious activity was spotted on 5 February and the breach confirmed on 3 March. Millions of customer support tickets containing names, contact details and request content were taken. The company said medical records and clinician communications were not involved. ShinyHunters conducted the breach.
Deepfake of a crypto CEO on a fake Zoom call delivered macOS malware
An unnamed cryptocurrency company executive · Unknown
Mandiant reported in February 2026 that North Korean group UNC1069 targeted a cryptocurrency company official using a hijacked Telegram account belonging to another crypto executive. The victim was sent a Calendly link leading to a Zoom meeting hosted on attacker infrastructure, where they were shown what appeared to be a deepfake of a cryptocurrency CEO. The attackers then ran a ClickFix pretext and installed the WAVESHAPER and HYPERCALL backdoors plus DEEPBREATH and CHROMEPUSH stealers on the victim's macOS device.
BlackFile extortion gang runs vishing campaign against retail and hospitality
Multiple retail and hospitality organisations (unnamed) · United States
BleepingComputer reported on April 24, 2026 that a financially motivated group tracked as BlackFile had been running data theft and extortion attacks against retail and hospitality organisations since February 2026. Mandiant confirmed it was actively responding to several vishing incidents involving the group. Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 linked BlackFile with moderate confidence to 'The Com' network of English-speaking cybercriminals.
STAC4749 Teams vishing campaign led to Chaos ransomware in North America
Dozens of North American organisations (unnamed) · Canada
Sophos tracked a campaign designated STAC4749 that ran from February through June 2026 and targeted dozens of North American organisations, roughly 50 percent in Canada and 45 percent in the United States. Sectors hit included services, manufacturing, energy and construction/engineering. At least three compromises escalated to Chaos ransomware deployment, one of them going from first contact to file encryption in under 17 hours.
Odido staff phished then called by fake IT department, exposing 6.2 million Dutch customers
Odido (and subsidiary Ben) · Netherlands
Dutch mobile operator Odido detected a cyberattack on its customer contact system over the weekend of 7 February 2026 and disclosed it on 13 February. Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported that attackers first harvested customer service employees' passwords with phishing emails, then telephoned those employees while posing as Odido's own ICT department to get them to approve the fraudulent login attempts and bypass two-factor authentication. The system reached was Odido's Salesforce environment, from which customer data was scraped in bulk. About 6.2 million current and former Odido and Ben customers were notified, and the breach was reported to the Dutch Data Protection Authority.
Odido: IT impersonation calls and MFA approval requests expose 6.2M customers
Odido · Netherlands
Dutch mobile operator Odido, formerly T-Mobile Netherlands, disclosed in February 2026 that attackers reached its Salesforce CRM and scraped data on 6.2 million customers. Exposed fields included names, addresses, phone numbers, customer IDs, bank account numbers, dates of birth and government identification numbers such as passport and driving licence details. Network services were unaffected and no group claimed the breach.
Dickinson Public Schools loses $4.92M to vendor-impersonation BEC
Dickinson Public Schools · United States
Dickinson Public Schools in North Dakota lost $4.92 million from its restricted building fund after criminals impersonating a trusted vendor redirected two payments to a fraudulent account. The case was reported publicly on 13 February 2026. Dickinson police brought in the FBI and the Department of Justice because the scope exceeded local capacity. The district said no student or staff personal data was compromised and that classroom operations were unaffected.
Match Group SSO phished via lookalike domain; ShinyHunters claims 10 million dating records
Match Group (Match, Hinge, OkCupid) · United States
ShinyHunters compromised a Match Group employee's Okta single sign-on account through a phishing site hosted at the lookalike domain matchinternal.com, then pivoted into the company's AppsFlyer marketing analytics tenant and associated cloud storage. The group leaked 1.7 GB of compressed files it said contained about 10 million records covering Hinge, Match and OkCupid users along with internal documents. Match Group confirmed the incident on 29 January 2026, said it terminated the unauthorized access quickly, and stated that login credentials, financial data and private communications were not accessed, characterising most of the data as tracking information. Records affected is the attacker's claim, not a company figure.
Phishing attack on healthcare AI firm Xsolis exposes 1.4 million patients
Xsolis · United States
Nashville-based healthcare AI company Xsolis, whose utilisation-management platform is used by payers and health systems, suffered a targeted phishing attack on 20 January 2026 and detected the unauthorised activity two days later. Files containing names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health insurance details and treatment information were taken. 1,396,519 individuals were reported affected to HHS. No group claimed responsibility.
Starbucks employee data stolen via cloned Partner Central login pages
Starbucks · United States
Attackers stood up counterfeit websites mimicking Starbucks' Partner Central employee portal and used the harvested credentials to log into real accounts between 19 January and 11 February 2026. Starbucks detected the activity on 6 February. Nearly 900 of the company's more than 200,000 US workers were affected, with names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and bank account and routing numbers exposed. No threat actor was named.
$282M in Bitcoin and Litecoin stolen from a holder via social engineering
Unnamed cryptocurrency holder · Unknown
On 10 January 2026 an attacker drained 1,459 BTC and 2.05 million LTC, worth roughly $282 million, from a single hardware-wallet holder in what on-chain investigators described as a social engineering attack. Most proceeds were swapped into Monero across multiple instant exchanges, driving a 70 percent XMR price rise over four days, with some Bitcoin bridged out via Thorchain. Investigator ZachXBT said there was no indication of North Korean involvement.
Betterment named among victims of the January 2026 real-time vishing wave
Betterment · United States
Betterment, a US digital investment adviser, was named by researchers as a victim of the real-time voice-phishing campaign that also hit SoundCloud, with the attack dated 9 January 2026. The campaign targeted single sign-on accounts across education, real estate, energy, financial services and retail, using phishing kits that impersonated Google, Microsoft, Okta and cryptocurrency provider sign-in flows. At least three organisations appeared on a ShinyHunters leak site that has since gone offline.
FBI FLASH warns of Kimsuky QR-code spear phishing on think tanks and government
Think tanks, academic institutions and government entities · United States
The FBI issued a FLASH alert on 8 January 2026 warning that North Korean state-sponsored group Kimsuky, also tracked as APT43, was embedding malicious QR codes in spear-phishing emails aimed at think tanks, academics and government bodies. The FBI documented incidents from May and June 2025 in which the group spoofed foreign officials and embassy staff to solicit information from think tank leaders, and redirected targets to fake Google credential pages and bogus document-sharing sites.
SoundCloud hit as real-time vishing kits drive browsers through SSO logins
SoundCloud · Germany
A voice-phishing campaign discovered in mid-December 2025 and running through January 2026 broke into single sign-on accounts in real time. SoundCloud was among the named victims, with roughly 36 million users affected, about 20% of its user base. Betterment was also named, with an attack dated 9 January 2026. Okta researchers identified at least two phishing kits with dedicated panels impersonating Google, Microsoft, Okta and cryptocurrency sign-in flows, and Sophos tracked around 150 malicious domains.
Okta SSO accounts targeted in vishing campaign against financial firms
Multiple fintech, wealth management and advisory firms (unnamed) · United States
BleepingComputer reported on January 22, 2026 that Okta had privately warned customers about a vishing campaign targeting single sign-on accounts at fintech, wealth management, financial and advisory firms. Attackers impersonated corporate IT staff and captured credentials and one-time codes in real time through adversary-in-the-middle phishing sites. Data was then stolen, particularly from Salesforce, and followed by extortion emails.
Crunchbase confirms breach after ShinyHunters Okta vishing; 2 million records leaked
Crunchbase · United States
Business intelligence provider Crunchbase confirmed a data breach in late January 2026 after ShinyHunters published roughly 400 MB of compressed files it said contained more than 2 million records plus contracts and corporate documents. ShinyHunters told reporters it reached Crunchbase through voice phishing aimed at Okta single sign-on codes, the same campaign it used against Betterment and other firms. Crunchbase said it engaged outside cybersecurity experts, contacted federal law enforcement, contained the intrusion, and that no business operations were disrupted. The data was published after Crunchbase declined to pay.
ShinyHunters SSO vishing campaign hits 100+ organizations
100+ organizations across technology, finance, biotech, energy, healthcare, logistics, retail and insurance · Global
Through January 2026 researchers at Okta, Mandiant, Sophos and Silent Push tracked an ongoing campaign in which callers impersonating IT support walked employees into fake single sign-on portals. More than 100 organisations were targeted and roughly 150 malicious lookalike domains were registered. Silent Push named Atlassian, Adyen, Canva, Epic Games, HubSpot, Moderna, ZoomInfo, GameStop, WeWork, Halliburton, Sonos and Telstra among those targeted; Betterment, Crunchbase and SoundCloud were confirmed breached.
ShinyHunters claim 14M Panera Bread records after Entra SSO vishing
Panera Bread · United States
ShinyHunters listed Panera Bread on its leak site in late January 2026, claiming roughly 14 million customer records totalling about 760MB compressed. Reporting attributes the access to a Microsoft Entra single sign-on compromise achieved through voice phishing. Panera Bread has not publicly confirmed the incident, and the claimed record count is unverified.
CrashFix: fake ad blocker crashes browsers to trigger ClickFix commands
Users of malicious Chrome extension impersonating uBlock Origin Lite · Global
Microsoft Threat Intelligence documented a ClickFix variant it named CrashFix, identified in January 2026. Malicious search ads for ad blockers led users to a convincing fake Chrome Web Store page hosting an extension impersonating uBlock Origin Lite. After a delay the extension deliberately crashed the browser and displayed a fake security warning, tricking users into running attacker-supplied commands that installed the Python-based ModeloRAT.
Entry types: Incident, Campaign, Benchmark. Aggregate agency statistics are kept as benchmarks and are never summed into the counters. Methodology. Machine-readable version of this page: global-social-engineering-impact-da.vercel.app/api/incidents.