Human Trust: The New Frontier in Data Extortion

When high-profile campaigns by groups like LAPSUS$ and Scattered Spider make headlines, they often leave the strong impression of technical wizardry: zero-days, clever malware, intricate breaches. But according to research from Flashpoint, that narrative misses the more profound evolution underway. Gone are the days when data extortion simply meant bulk-stealing databases: the playbook has matured to target the single most vulnerable link in modern enterprise security—human identity and trust.

From Brute Volume to Precision Leverage

Flashpoint’s analysis charts a four-era lifecycle of data-extortion tactics. The shift may seem gradual, but its implications are seismic.

Era	Time Period	Primary Vectors	Monetization Style	Key Drivers
Era 1	2015–2018	SQL injection, exposed DBs, credential dumping	Bulk data sales	Low sophistication, weak defenses
Era 2	2018–2020	Third-party compromise, RDP, public pressure leaks	Targeted extortion + drip leaks	Demand for higher yields, reputational harm
Era 3	2020–2023	SaaS token abuse, supply-chain mis-configs	Private access, resale markets	Cloud adoption, supply-chain complexity
Era 4	2024–2025	Social engineering, MFA-fatigue, identity abuse	Access brokering, RaaS, extortion	Human vulnerabilities, identity trust erosion

In effect, attackers have migrated from “break the code” to “break the person”.

Why This Shift?

1. Stronger Perimeters = fewer easy wins. As companies ramped up firewalls, endpoint defenses and zero-trust strategies, the technical surface for opportunistic attacks shrank.

2. Identity is the new perimeter. In a world of cloud apps, single-sign-on (SSO), and interconnected partners, the access token of a contract engineer can become a master key. Flashpoint observes MFA fatigue and vishing as core tools in the new tradecraft.

3. Psychological leverage trumps raw data. Whereas Era 1 sold records, Era 2 and beyond sell fear: reputational damage, regulatory exposure, public leaks. The demand is no longer just “how many gigabytes?” but “how badly can we hurt you?”

4. The supply chain is a hacking ecosystem. In Era 3 and beyond, attackers capitalized on trusted integrations and cloud reliance—often via SaaS APIs or partner credentials—rather than relying solely on network vulnerabilities.

Real-World Impact

Consider a modern scenario: a contract worker at a SaaS integrator suffers an infostealer infection. Credentials are lifted, and attackers log in via the legitimate OAuth flow into a major enterprise system like Salesforce or Workday. A clever social-engineering call then convinces a higher-level admin to grant “temporary access” to a malicious application. Access is used to exfiltrate sensitive data—>and the attacker now has a foothold for further moves. That’s what Flashpoint labels the “identity abuse chain.”

In one documented case, what began as a leak-threat to Salesforce-using firms led to a claim of 1 billion compromised records—highlighting how quickly scale and reputation can accelerate when structure meets psychology.

What This Means for Defenders

For CISOs and board-level stakeholders, the takeaway is stark: layered defenses still matter, but the greatest risk is no longer if your firewall fails—it’s when your people face relentless prompts, whispers and interruptions.

• Prioritize identity hygiene. MFA is no longer a checklist item—it’s a battleground. Without risk-based flows and behavioral analytics, MFA prompts become modal fatigue tools rather than shields.

  
  

• Segment and monitor third-party access. Every contractor, vendor or partner app is a potential Trojan carriage. Visibility and governance around OAuth, SSO, and token issuance are critical.

• Adopt threat-intel-led posture. As Flashpoint explains, the intelligence advantage now resides in knowing what attackers plan before they hit the door, not simply reacting afterwards.

• Train beyond phishing. Vishing, smishing, MFA fatigue—these are human tactics that require scenario-based drills, not just click-the-link training.

• Don’t forget physical-digital convergence. In its report, Flashpoint warns that extortion is crossing into real-world violence, with attackers willing to bring physical harm to reinforce digital threats.

What’s Next?

The next evolution may arrive sooner than many expect. Industry watchers already point to:

• Generative-AI-augmented social engineering, where attackers craft credible voice or video impersonations of internal employees or executives.

• Identity-supply-chain complexity, where malicious apps embedded in widely-used SaaS platforms enable a single compromise to cascade across multiple enterprises.

• Hybrid physical-digital extortion models, where threat actors combine digital data levers with real-world harassment or disruption, raising the stakes beyond mere data disclosure.

Final Take

We’ve entered an era where the headline isn’t “database hacked” but “trusted user coerced”. The adversary isn’t merely exploiting code—they’re exploiting relationships, attention, fatigue. The perimeter has shifted from network to individual. As organizations pivot to this new reality, the war-game has changed: it’s no longer about the zero-day you missed—but about the human you trust.

If your security strategy still treats identity as an after-thought, the balance has already tilted. The adversary isn’t a lone coder hiding in the dark—they’re a human whisper away from your next crisis.

Disclosure: This article references research from Flashpoint. For more detail on their data-extortion era analysis, see their October 2025 blog post.