The Justice Department announced indictments stemming from Operation Ghostbusters, a probe into a scheme using stolen identities and AI tools to fake enrollment in online classes and obtain federal student loans. Officials say the government lost over $200 million, with more than 40 open cases spanning 26 FBI field offices and 20 U.S. Attorney's offices; five defendants have been charged and over $750,000 in cryptocurrency seized.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-31
Florida officer Brian Louis Sguros, 35, has been arrested on multiple felony charges after allegedly taking unlawful possession of a Lauderhill home belonging to Dennis West, a 71-year-old man he found dead during a 2022 welfare check. Investigators say Sguros falsely claimed to be West's friend, misrepresented his family status, and spent over $214,000 renovating the property while paying its taxes and utilities in West's name through early 2025.
nbcnews.com
· 2026-10-23
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles confirmed that a hacker used compromised login credentials to access driver's license and motor vehicle records, including document images, on September 4, 2026. The agency is notifying affected residents and offering one year of free credit monitoring, though it says it lacks current contact information for some former Florida residents whose data was exposed.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-19
California's Department of Education disclosed that a stolen login credential was used to access and copy personal data—names, birth dates, and addresses—of millions of current and former public-school students who took state standardized tests. The breach, tied to testing vendor Educational Testing Service, affected files dating back to 2006 and involved unauthorized access occurring over several months in 2026. Officials are offering affected individuals free identity-protection and restoration services, and recommend credit freezes for minors.
news.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-17
The Department of Justice says it has indicted and arrested two Americans and seized over 180 computers from more than 40 laptop farms across Texas, which North Korean operatives allegedly used to remotely access jobs at U.S. companies under stolen identities. Prosecutors say at least 70 companies across 17 states and DC—spanning healthcare, retail, manufacturing and other sectors—were infiltrated, generating roughly $3 million in illicit proceeds.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-14
Ardit Kutleshi, 28, has pleaded guilty to running Rydox, an online marketplace that sold stolen identities, login credentials, credit card data and cybercrime tools. Court documents show Rydox facilitated over 7,600 sales of stolen personal data and offered more than 321,000 other cybercrime products to over 18,000 users between 2016 and its 2024 shutdown. Kutleshi was extradited from Kosovo to the US in 2025 after a joint law enforcement operation seized the site's domain and servers in Kuala Lumpur.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-09-25
A newly launched dark web marketplace called Nexus is offering digital scans of more than 153 million drivers licenses from people in the U.S. and Canada, along with millions of ID cards, travel documents, and medical cards. Investigators suspect the data was siphoned from a Louisiana-based identity verification firm, and the FBI's New Orleans field office has opened an inquiry into the source of the leaked images.
krebsonsecurity.com
· 2026-09-01
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