Romania’s Oil Pipeline Operator Hacked: How an Infostealer Infection Paved the Way for Qilin’s Ransomware Attack

**Conpet breach (Feb 2026):** An Infostealer infected a Conpet IT employee's personal/device on Jan 11, 2026, exfiltrating 268 credentials and ~1 TB of sensitive data; those credentials (notably WSUS admin access) provided Qilin ransomware with the capability to push a malicious update and achieve widespread network compromise and data theft.