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A Day In Cybercrime: May 22, 2026

Kirk
6 min read
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News

9-Year-Old Linux Kernel Flaw Enables Root Command Execution on Major Distros

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a vulnerability in the Linux kernel that remained undetected for nine years. (Source: The Hacker News (opens in new tab), 2026-05-21 08:02 UTC)

Cisco Patches CVSS 10.0 Secure Workload REST API Flaw Enabling Data Access

Cisco has rolled out updates for a maximum-severity security flaw impacting Secure Workload that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to access sensitive data. (Source: The Hacker News (opens in new tab), 2026-05-22 06:02 UTC)

Announcing Claude Compliance API support with Cloudflare CASB

Today, Cloudflare extended its cloud access security broker (CASB) to support the Claude Compliance API. (Source: Cloudflare (opens in new tab), 2026-05-21 17:02 UTC)

Police seize "First VPN" service used in ransomware, data theft attacks

A virtual private network service called 'First VPN,' used in ransomware and data theft attacks, has been taken offline in a joint international law enforcement operation. (Source: Bleeping Computer (opens in new tab), 2026-05-21 14:02 UTC)

Microsoft Warns of Two Actively Exploited Defender Vulnerabilities

Microsoft has disclosed that a privilege escalation and a denial-of-service flaw in Defender have come under active exploitation in the wild. (Source: The Hacker News (opens in new tab), 2026-05-21 11:02 UTC)

Content Delivery Exploit Opens Websites to Brand Hijacking

Dark Reading reported on Underminr, a domain-fronting-style content delivery issue that can let traffic resolve through a trusted domain while a CDN serves a different site behind the same edge IP. (Source: Dark Reading (opens in new tab), 2026-05-21 13:06 UTC)

Ransomware Claims

In the last 24 hours, Derp observed 18 ransomware claims across 7 groups, targeting 10 countries and 10 sectors. The affected countries include US (5), DE (2), AT, AR, TH, AU, MK, SG, EC, and IN. Sectors hit include Manufacturing (2), Agriculture and Food Production (2), Healthcare (2), Technology (2), Consumer Services (2), Construction, Public Sector, Business Services, Transportation/Logistics, and Hospitality and Tourism.

Group Claims
bashe 4
Payload 4
Qilin 3
Thegentlemen 3
Nova 2
Braincipher 1
Shadowbyt3$ 1

C2 Observations

Derp's C2 tracker recorded 1,182 C2 observations across 118 malware families, with 297 unique C2 hosts and 84 shared hosts.

Family C2s
asyncrat 93
remcos 63
cobaltstrike 36
vidar 32
quasar 26
nanocore 25
gh0strat 24
xworm 22
donutloader 20
sectoprat 20

Shared Hosts

Shared hosts are C2 hosts observed across multiple malware families. The following table lists the top shared hosts by family count.

Host Family Count Selected Families AS / Country
120[.]79[.]181[.]138 55 44caliber, ades_stealer, amadey, asyncrat, blackmoon, blankgrabber, chaos, cobaltstrike, dcrat, destiny_stealer, discordrat, donutloader Hangzhou Alibaba Advertising Co.,Ltd. (AS37963) / CN
94[.]154[.]35[.]25 54 44caliber, ades_stealer, amadey, asyncrat, blackmoon, blankgrabber, chaos, cobaltstrike, dcrat, destiny_stealer, discordrat, donutloader Omegatech LTD (AS202412) / SC
154[.]91[.]34[.]165 54 44caliber, ades_stealer, amadey, asyncrat, blackmoon, blankgrabber, chaos, cobaltstrike, dcrat, destiny_stealer, discordrat, donutloader ChangLian Network Technology Co., Limited (AS137443) / HK
103[.]171[.]35[.]26 54 44caliber, ades_stealer, amadey, asyncrat, blackmoon, blankgrabber, chaos, cobaltstrike, dcrat, destiny_stealer, discordrat, donutloader XNNET LLC (AS932) / US
193[.]161[.]193[.]99 54 44caliber, ades_stealer, amadey, ammyyadmin, asyncrat, blackmoon, blankgrabber, chaos, cobaltstrike, dcrat, destiny_stealer, discordrat OOO GETWIFI (AS198134) / RU
api[.]telegram[.]org 53 44caliber, ades_stealer, agenttesla, amadey, angry_stealer, astasia, asyncrat, blackmoon, chaos, cobaltstrike, darkcloud, dcrat Telegram Messenger Inc (AS62041) / VG
165[.]227[.]31[.]192 49 44caliber, ades_stealer, amadey, asyncrat, blackmoon, blankgrabber, chaos, cobaltstrike, dcrat, destiny_stealer, discordrat, donutloader DigitalOcean, LLC (AS14061) / US
86[.]54[.]42[.]197 47 44caliber, ades_stealer, amadey, asyncrat, blackmoon, blankgrabber, chaos, cobaltstrike, dcrat, destiny_stealer, discordrat, donutloader N/A / N/A
45[.]200[.]148[.]216 47 44caliber, ades_stealer, amadey, asyncrat, blackmoon, blankgrabber, chaos, cobaltstrike, dcrat, destiny_stealer, discordrat, donutloader Wave Broadband (AS11404) / US
51[.]77[.]77[.]161 47 ades_stealer, amadey, asyncrat, blankgrabber, chaos, cobaltstrike, dcrat, destiny_stealer, discordrat, donutloader, dragonforce, gcleaner OVH SAS (AS16276) / FR

Quad9 DNS Activity

Blocked C2 events are infected systems attempting to reach command-and-control infrastructure, with Quad9 blocking that connection path.

Top 10 New Quad9 C2 Blocks (24hour)

Host Events Families Top Countries
bartnovo2026[.]duckdns[.]org 2346 remcos PY, AR
novobart2026[.]duckdns[.]org 2345 remcos PY, AR, US
novobart2026[.]ddns[.]net 2060 remcos PY, AR, CH, RU, US
bartnovo2026[.]ddns[.]net 1997 remcos PY, AR, US, RU
jahour7lamo1[.]duckdns[.]org 1251 remcos BR, CH, CA, US
firewai[.]biz 931 donutloader, hijackloader, phantom_stealer, remcos, remus, remus_stealer, stealc, vidar US, TR, RU, CH, ZA
callmechina[.]co 719 asyncrat VN, US, CH, RU, CA
woodfez[.]biz 624 hijackloader, remus, remus_stealer, stealc, vidar TR, RU, CH, BR, US
cryptosmartnow[.]io 616 asyncrat US, CH, RU, FR, ES
vn88[.]co[.]com 313 nanocore, remcos CO, CH, US, JP, NZ

Top 10 All C2 DB Quad9 C2 Blocks (24hour)

Host Events Top Countries
ff[.]nnmm234[.]com 185451 DE, US
ff[.]jjkk567[.]com 185442 DE, US
ff[.]aass654[.]com 185407 DE
ff[.]vvbb321[.]com 185366 DE
ff[.]xxcc789[.]com 185358 DE
hh[.]xxcc789[.]com 154011 LK, US
hh[.]jjkk567[.]com 153985 LK, US
hh[.]nnmm234[.]com 153950 LK
hh[.]aass654[.]com 153940 LK, US
v1[.]op17[.]ru 74482 RU, VE, CO, LA, MX

Infrastructure

304 malware download hosts mapped across 33 countries, 98 providers, and 5 infrastructure types. AsyncRAT (93) and Remcos (63) dominated the download-host footprint, followed by Cobalt Strike (36), Vidar (32), and Quasar (26).

Provider Download Hosts
Cloudflare 91
DigitalOcean 19
Great Flower 10
Google 10
Alibaba 9
Omegatech 8
Amazon 6
Contabo 6
OVH 6
RouterHosting 6

The US led with 183 download hosts, followed by Germany at 14, China at 13, the UK at 11, and Israel at 10. Hosting accounted for 270 hosts, ISP space held 23, with business, sinkhole, and unknown rounding out the rest.

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