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NewsBriefs

This article contains summaries of news stories recently posted under rency Association and PayPal. Researchers surveyed 619
Breaking Industry News on our homepage. For links to these and other payment decision-makers in October 2025 and found that
full news stories, please visit www.greensheet.com/breakingnews.php. 84 percent of merchants believe crypto will become com-
monplace within five years.

Customer demand is driving adoption. Nearly 88 percent
of merchants reported customer inquiries about paying
Ransomware gangs expand insider with crypto, and 69 percent said customers request it at
recruitment to fuel growth least monthly. For many businesses in the survey, offer-
ing crypto is becoming a competitive differentiator rather
Ransomware groups are increasingly operating like struc- than a novelty feature.
tured commercial enterprises, adopting formal recruit-
ment tactics, incentive models and growth strategies, ac- Among respondents already accepting crypto, digital as-
cording to NCC Group's latest Cyber Threat Intelligence sets account for 26 percent of total sales on average, and 72
Report. The firm found ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) percent reported year-over-year growth in crypto trans-
activity rose 13 percent month over month in December actions. Large enterprises lead adoption, with 50 percent
2025, a period that often sees heightened attacks as organi- of companies generating more than $500 million annually
zations run leaner staffing models during the holidays. A from accepting crypto. Still, 34 percent of small business-
notable shift is the growing focus on insider recruitment. es and 32 percent of midsize companies have also imple-
Rather than relying solely on phishing campaigns or tech- mented it, signaling broad-based interest across segments.
nical exploits, gangs are targeting employees, contractors
and even cybersecurity professionals who already possess Merchants cited faster transaction speeds (45 percent),
legitimate system credentials. new customer acquisition (45 percent), enhanced secu-
rity (41 percent) and greater privacy (40 percent) as key
IT and technical staff are especially attractive targets, as a benefits. Many also said they see crypto as a way to reach
single compromised account can provide visibility across global customers and access funds more quickly. Inter-
cloud environments, internal networks and identity man- est skews younger. Merchants reported the strongest de-
agement systems. Financial incentives, including com- mand from millennials (77 percent) and Gen Z consumers
missions, profit-sharing arrangements and guarantees of (73 percent). Only 4 percent of baby boomers use crypto
anonymity are used to present participation as a low-risk, for payments. Hospitality and travel (81 percent), digital
high-reward opportunity. goods and gaming (76 percent), and retail and ecommerce
(69 percent) show the highest acceptance rates.
In one example, the Medusa gang attempted to recruit a
BBC employee in September 2025, offering up to 25 per- Usability remains critical. Ninety percent of merchants
cent of a future ransom payout in exchange for internal ac- said they would try crypto if it matched the ease of card
cess. Separately, two cybersecurity professionals pleaded payments, underscoring that simplicity and seamless in-
guilty in December 2025 to assisting BlackCat/ALPHV in tegration may ultimately determine how quickly crypto
attacks on U.S. healthcare and manufacturing organiza- becomes a mainstream payment option.
tions, marking one of the first documented cases of securi-
ty practitioners directly supporting RaaS operations with Socure launches SocureGov RiskOS
their expertise. amid escalating fraud threats
As fraud against public sector programs accelerates and
The report highlights how ransomware groups now func- more government services shift online, agencies are under
tion much like businesses, with affiliate programs, brand-
ing strategies and structured revenue-sharing models. increasing pressure to verify identities quickly without
adding friction for legitimate users. In response, Socure
In December 2025, consumer discretionary companies
accounted for 22 percent of attacks, while IT companies launched SocureGov RiskOS, a FedRAMP Moderate–au-
thorized digital identity and fraud prevention platform
represented 10 percent. North America remained the most
targeted region, responsible for roughly half of reported built for federal, state, local and education agencies.
incidents. NCC Group said organizations must strength-
en insider threat monitoring, access governance and off- Fraud within the government sector has grown more com-
plex with the rise of generative AI, which enables crimi-
boarding controls, as human risk increasingly rivals tech-
nical vulnerabilities in today's threat landscape. nal networks to create synthetic identities and automate
attacks across fragmented systems. Oversight bodies have
Crypto advancing at the point of sale estimated that fraud costs taxpayers hundreds of billions
of dollars annually, a figure expected to rise as digital-first
Cryptocurrency payments are gaining traction at check- delivery expands. SocureGov RiskOS consolidates identi-
out counters, with 39 percent of merchants now accepting ty proofing, fraud detection and program integrity into a
crypto at the POS, according to new research conducted single platform, Socure stated, adding that it supports the
by the Harris Poll on behalf of the National Cryptocur- full lifecycle of constituent interactions, from onboarding

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