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.
Exposed server reveals three Evilginx operations phishing Microsoft 365 accounts
Corporate Microsoft 365 users across a dozen countries · Global
French security firm Lexfo found a misconfigured server in Budapest in late April 2026 that exposed the operations of three separate actors running custom forks of the Evilginx reverse proxy against Microsoft 365. The findings were published in July 2026. One operator, saroula01, captured 218 distinct accounts between June 2025 and July 2026, roughly 94 percent of them corporate mailboxes across a dozen countries, using Microsoft's device code sign-in flow rather than proxy interception. One stolen cookie carried an expiry of 30 June 2027.
UNC6671 vishing crew rebrands and banks $10.6M after help-desk impersonation calls
Organisations in manufacturing, real estate, healthcare, insurance, technology, transportation, hospitality, financial and legal services · Global
Google Threat Intelligence reported that UNC6671, the vishing extortion crew previously known as BlackFile, retired that brand in May 2026 and continued under four names: Redact, Pink, Helix and Falcon. Between January and May 2026 the group received more than $10.6 million in Bitcoin across 18 wallet addresses. Opening demands ran from $1 million to $3 million, typically negotiated down 50 to 75 percent, with more than half of tracked cases settling near $750,000. Targeting moved from manufacturing, real estate, healthcare and insurance in spring to technology, transport and hospitality by mid-year and to financial and legal firms by July.
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.
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.
US and UK charge Scattered Spider pair tied to $115M in ransom payments
47 US organisations including healthcare, transport and technology firms · United States
On 18 September 2025 US prosecutors unsealed charges against British nationals Thalha Jubair and Owen Flowers, alleging involvement in Scattered Spider intrusions at 47 US organisations and at least $115 million in ransom payments. UK authorities separately charged the pair in connection with the September 2024 attack on Transport for London. The charging documents described a campaign built on impersonating employees to IT help desks.
Claude Code used to automate extortion of at least 17 organisations
At least 17 organisations across healthcare, emergency services, government and religious institutions · United States
Anthropic's August 2025 threat intelligence report described a cybercriminal who used Claude Code to conduct data extortion against at least 17 organisations in healthcare, emergency services, government and religious institutions within a single month. Rather than encrypting systems, the actor exfiltrated data and threatened public exposure, with ransom demands sometimes exceeding US$500,000. Anthropic said the AI was used across the operation, including analysing stolen financial data to calibrate demands and drafting extortion notes tailored to each victim's pressure points.
Interpol Operation Serengeti 2.0 nets 1,209 arrests over BEC and romance fraud
Approximately 88,000 victims across 18 African countries and the UK · Multiple
Interpol announced in August 2025 that Operation Serengeti 2.0, conducted from June to August across 18 African countries and the UK, led to 1,209 arrests, the dismantling of 11,432 malicious infrastructures and the recovery of about $97.4 million. The operation targeted ransomware, business email compromise, online scams and investment fraud affecting some 88,000 victims, with total losses estimated at roughly $485 million.
Scattered Spider talks help desks into resets to reach VMware ESXi and deploy ransomware
US retail, airline, transportation and insurance organisations · United States
Google's threat intelligence team published detail in July 2025 on how UNC3944, also known as Scattered Spider, was targeting VMware vSphere and ESXi environments at US retail, airline, transportation and insurance organisations. The group did not exploit a software vulnerability; it phoned IT service desks, impersonated employees to obtain credential and MFA resets, and escalated to hypervisor administration before encrypting virtual machines from the ESXi layer.
UNC6040 vishes Salesforce customers into installing a rebranded Data Loader app
Approximately 20 Salesforce customer organisations, later including Google · Multiple
Google Threat Intelligence disclosed in June 2025 a campaign by UNC6040 in which callers impersonating IT support telephoned employees and talked them into authorising a modified version of Salesforce's Data Loader tool, often rebranded as 'My Ticket Portal', against their company's Salesforce tenant. Around 20 organisations across hospitality, retail and education in the Americas and Europe were affected; Google later confirmed one of its own corporate Salesforce instances was among them.
3AM ransomware affiliate used email bombing plus spoofed IT support calls
Unnamed Sophos client · Unknown
Sophos disclosed on May 21, 2025 that a 3AM ransomware affiliate had attacked one of its clients earlier in 2025 using a combination of email bombing and phone-based impersonation of the victim's own IT department. Sophos observed at least 55 attacks using this technique between November 2024 and January 2025. In the documented case the attackers stole 868 GB of data but were stopped before encryption.
Singapore firm's finance director wires US$499,000 after deepfake Zoom with fake CFO
Unnamed multinational firm, Singapore office · Singapore
On 24 March 2025 the finance director of a multinational firm's Singapore office received a WhatsApp message purporting to be from the company's chief financial officer, inviting him to a Zoom conference about a regional restructuring. On the call, deepfaked versions of the CFO, CEO and other executives instructed him to make a transfer, and a supposed lawyer had him sign a non-disclosure agreement. He transferred over US$499,000 and became suspicious only when asked for a further US$1.4 million. HSBC and the Singapore Police Anti-Scam Centre, working with Hong Kong's Anti-Deception Coordination Centre, recovered the funds by 28 March.
ClickFix fake-CAPTCHA social engineering floods the threat landscape
Multiple organisations and consumers (technique) · Multiple
Proofpoint documented ClickFix as a social engineering technique that became pervasive from 2024 into 2025: web pages, fake CAPTCHA gates, fake browser or document error dialogs and phishing emails instruct the user to copy a supplied string, open the Windows Run dialog or a terminal, and execute it. The technique has been adopted by financially motivated criminals and state-aligned actors alike to deliver infostealers, loaders and remote access tools.
Storm-1811 email-bombs targets then poses as IT support to deploy Black Basta
Multiple organisations (campaign) · Multiple
Microsoft published research in May 2024 on Storm-1811, a financially motivated group that flooded targets' inboxes with subscription confirmations, then telephoned the overwhelmed user posing as their IT help desk offering to fix the problem. Victims were talked into granting remote control through Windows Quick Assist, after which the attackers deployed remote monitoring tools, Qakbot, Cobalt Strike and ultimately Black Basta ransomware. By late May 2024 the group had extended the same approach to Microsoft Teams.
FBI IC3 reports $2.77 billion in BEC losses for 2024 (context baseline)
Aggregate: U.S. and international BEC victims reporting to FBI IC3 · United States
The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center's 2024 annual report recorded 21,442 business email compromise complaints with adjusted losses of $2,770,151,146, keeping BEC among the costliest reported cybercrime categories. A separate IC3 public service announcement in June 2023 put cumulative global BEC exposure at approximately $50.9 billion across 277,918 incidents between October 2013 and December 2022, and reported that real estate-sector BEC losses reached $446.1 million in 2022, up 72 percent from 2020.
Ramon 'Hushpuppi' Abbas sentenced for laundering BEC and cyber-heist proceeds
Multiple (New York law firm, a Maltese bank, a Qatari businessman, others) · United States
Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, the Instagram figure known as Ray Hushpuppi, was arrested in Dubai in June 2020, pleaded guilty in April 2021 and was sentenced on November 7, 2022 to 135 months in federal prison with $1,732,841 in restitution. He laundered proceeds of business email compromise frauds, bank cyber-heists and school-financing scams, including about $922,857 induced from a New York law firm and funds from a January 2019 attack on a Maltese bank.
Operation Eagle Sweep: 65 arrests in global BEC disruption
Multiple businesses and individuals (500+ U.S. victims) · United States
Operation Eagle Sweep, announced by the FBI and Justice Department on March 30, 2022, was a three-month coordinated action against business email compromise networks. It produced 65 arrests, including 12 in Nigeria, eight in South Africa, two in Canada and one in Cambodia, with parallel operations by Australia, Japan and Nigeria. The targeted actors were linked to more than 500 U.S. victims and over $51 million in losses. Cases included a Houston laundering network that moved at least $4.5 million to Nigeria.
Operation reWired: 281 arrested worldwide in BEC crackdown
Multiple businesses and individuals (global) · United States
Announced on September 10, 2019, Operation reWired was a four-month international action against business email compromise. It resulted in 281 arrests, 74 in the United States and 207 abroad, including 167 in Nigeria, 18 in Turkey and 15 in Ghana. Authorities seized approximately $3.7 million and disrupted around $118 million in fraudulent transfers. One case involved a community college and an energy company that lost about $5 million, of which banks froze roughly $3.6 million.
Dublin Zoo defrauded of about €500,000 in invoice redirection scam
Dublin Zoo · Ireland
Dublin Zoo was the victim of an invoice redirection fraud in 2017 in which criminals intercepted genuine supplier invoices and had payments totaling roughly €500,000 sent to accounts they controlled. The zoo reported the matter to Gardaí at Cabra Garda Station, which referred it to the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, and most of the money was recovered with the assistance of financial institutions. The zoo said no customer data was compromised.
Scoular Company wires $17.2 million after fake CEO and auditor emails
The Scoular Company · United States
In June 2014 the corporate controller of Omaha-based commodities trading firm The Scoular Company wired $17.2 million to a Chinese bank in three installments after receiving emails impersonating chief executive Chuck Elsea and the company's outside auditor at KPMG. The messages described a confidential international acquisition and demanded secrecy. The emails were sent from accounts associated with Germany, France and Israel using servers in Moscow.
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?sector=Other.