Search: “metasploit”

Metasploit Wrap Up: Lot of summer shells and fit http profiles

Metasploit 6.5 ships 13 new modules including RCEs for SonicWall SMA1000, Ghost CMS, Joomla JCE and Langflow, plus a Linux kernel LPE.

Rapid7's Metasploit wrap-up covers the 6.5 release, which adds 13 new modules, including remote code execution exploits for WordPress WP2Shell, Ghost CMS, Joomla JCE, Langflow, OpenCATS, Pterodactyl Panel, SonicWall SMA1000, Ray Dashboard and a Pix-for-WooCommerce plugin. The Fragnesia Linux kernel local privilege escalation (CVE-2026-46300) also landed. The release introduces HTTP malleable profiles, MCP functionality, Linux multi-fetch payloads and improved Windows on ARM support.

Rapid7 Blog·Aug 14, 21:27 UTC · Aug 14, 2026ToolsCVE-2026-46300

Metasploit Wrap Up: Payloads and Exploits, and Scanners, Oh my!

Rapid7's weekly Metasploit roundup highlights newly added exploit modules, payloads, and scanners in the Metasploit Framework.

Rapid7 published its weekly Metasploit Wrap Up summarizing community contributions to the Metasploit Framework, including new exploit modules, payloads, and scanners. No article text was available; the post serves as a routine digest for practitioners tracking newly packaged modules.

Rapid7 Blog·Aug 28, 14:57 UTC · 19d agoTools

get the module working against several of the 12.4.3 versions

A Metasploit Framework exploit module was updated to work reliably against several 12.4.3 software versions.

A commit to the Rapid7 Metasploit Framework repository adjusts an existing exploit module so it functions against several 12.4.3 version targets. The change is described as getting the module working against those versions, indicating reliability or compatibility improvements. The commit text does not describe a new vulnerability, exploitation campaign, or affected victims.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 9, 11:10 UTC · 7d agoTools1

automatic module_metadata_base.json update

Metasploit Framework's automated pipeline refreshed its module metadata file, a routine repository maintenance commit introducing no new modules or exploits.

An automated Metasploit Framework commit updated module_metadata_base.json, the metadata database consumed by module tooling. The change is routine maintenance and contains no new exploit modules or vulnerability content.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 3, 13:45 UTC · 13d agoTools1

Update modules/auxiliary/scanner/http/elasticsearch_tika_xfa_xxe.rb

Rapid7 updated a Metasploit auxiliary scanner module that detects XML external entity injection in Elasticsearch via Apache Tika.

A commit in the Metasploit Framework updated modules/auxiliary/scanner/http/elasticsearch_tika_xfa_xxe.rb, an auxiliary scanner module. The module targets XML external entity (XXE) injection in Elasticsearch through Apache Tika, and was co-authored by jheysel-r7. The terse commit message contains no additional details, CVE references, or exploitation notes.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 8, 19:22 UTC · 8d agoTools

automatic module_metadata_base.json update

Metasploit Framework pushed an automated update to its module_metadata_base.json module metadata file.

This repository commit is an automated update to the Metasploit Framework's module_metadata_base.json file. No new modules, vulnerabilities or exploit changes are described in the commit message.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 2, 14:40 UTC · 14d agoTools

automatic module_metadata_base.json update

Automated Metasploit Framework commit updating module_metadata_base.json to reflect newly added or modified exploit modules.

An automated commit updated module_metadata_base.json in the rapid7/metasploit-framework repository. The routine maintenance change reflects newly added or modified Metasploit modules and carries no standalone security significance.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 3, 17:06 UTC · 13d agoTools1

automatic module_metadata_base.json update

Metasploit Framework automatically updates its module metadata JSON in routine maintenance commit.

The Metasploit Framework repository received an automatic update to module_metadata_base.json, the metadata file that tracks module information. No specific new vulnerability, exploit module, or feature is described in the commit message. This is routine repository maintenance rather than a notable security event.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 3, 16:19 UTC · 13d agoTools

automatic module_metadata_base.json update

Routine automated Metasploit Framework commit updates module_metadata_base.json with new module metadata.

The Metasploit Framework repository received an automated commit updating module_metadata_base.json, the file that tracks module metadata for the framework. This is routine maintenance accompanying new or updated exploit modules rather than a standalone disclosure. No vulnerability details, CVEs, or exploitation evidence are included.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 2, 23:00 UTC · 14d agoTools

add a DefangedMode advanced options as teh exploit modifies the targe…

A Metasploit Framework commit adds a DefangedMode advanced option to an exploit module that modifies the target host configuration.

The commit introduces a DefangedMode advanced option so that the exploit's modification of the target configuration runs only explicitly, making the behavior visible to the user. No target product, affected software, or CVE identifier is named in the commit message.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 2, 09:28 UTC · 14d agoExploit / PoC1

automatic module_metadata_base.json update

Routine automated Metasploit Framework commit updating module metadata, with no disclosed vulnerability or exploitation activity.

The Metasploit Framework repository received an automatic update to its module_metadata_base.json file. The commit text contains no vulnerability details, CVE references, or new exploit modules. This is routine maintenance activity on the open-source penetration testing framework.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 1, 21:40 UTC · 15d agoTools

automatic module_metadata_base.json update

Automated Metasploit Framework commit refreshes module_metadata_base.json with no new exploit content or vulnerability details.

An automated commit updated module_metadata_base.json in the Rapid7 Metasploit Framework repository. The change reflects routine metadata maintenance and introduces no new modules, exploits, or vulnerability information.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 1, 18:53 UTC · 15d agoTools

Metasploit Wrap Up: This One Goes to Sixteen!

Metasploit adds 16 modules including 10 exploits, five covering CISA KEV vulnerabilities in Cisco, SonicWall, PaperCut, JetBrains and Langflow.

Rapid7's weekly Metasploit update ships 16 new modules, 10 of them exploit modules, with five targeting CISA KEV entries. New exploits cover Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center auth bypass (CVE-2026-20079), a SonicWall SMA1000 SSRF-to-root RCE chain (CVE-2026-83548/CVE-2026-83549), JetBrains TeamCity deserialization RCE (CVE-2026-63077), PaperCut NG/MF chain (CVE-2026-81578/CVE-2026-82078), and Langflow authenticated RCE (CVE-2026-19295). The SonicWall and PaperCut chains were reported as actively exploited zero-days, and a new ESC8 relay module exploits CVE-2026-20929 against AD CS Web Enrollment.

Rapid7 Blog·Sep 11, 13:35 UTC · 5d agoTools in the wildCVE-2025-66516CVE-2025-54988CVE-2026-20929+8 CVEs1

Paperclip AI Flaws Let Attackers Run Host Commands via Malicious Agent Imports

The Hacker News·Aug 5, 15:14 UTC · Aug 5, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-416791

SimpleHelp OpenID Connect Auth Bypass to RCE [CVE-2026-48558]

Metasploit adds a module chaining SimpleHelp OpenID Connect authentication bypass to remote code execution, tracked as CVE-2026-48558.

A commit to the Rapid7 Metasploit Framework (dee04cdb) adds an exploit module for CVE-2026-48558, an OpenID Connect authentication bypass in SimpleHelp that can be escalated to remote code execution. SimpleHelp is widely deployed remote access and remote support software, making the auth bypass a serious exposure for exposed deployments. The commit provides public exploit code but the listing does not state observed exploitation.

Metasploit Framework commits·Sep 1, 20:43 UTC · 15d agoExploit / PoCCVE-2026-485581

Studying Without a Syllabus: Task-Agnostic Environment Preprocessing

Paper formalizes task-agnostic environment preprocessing, where agents study unfamiliar environments under a budget to build reusable artifacts for a frozen solver.

The paper formalizes task-agnostic environment preprocessing, where a studying system explores an environment under a budget and produces artifacts like indices, scripts, or procedural guidance for a frozen solver, without task examples or evaluation feedback. The authors compare unaided and archive-equipped meta-agents against fixed synthetic-practice and corpus-processing methods across six heterogeneous benchmarks. A meta-agent variant achieves the highest Avg@3 reward on five benchmarks, while fixed corpus processing remains best on the largest corpus benchmark. Studied artifacts reduce the test-time sampling needed to reach a given score, shifting computation from repeated test-time attempts to a pre-task study phase.

Hugging Face daily papers·Sep 8, 20:00 UTC · 8d agoAI research

Chainloop: Open-source evidence store and policy engine for the software supply chain

Help Net Security·Aug 10, 00:00 UTC · Aug 10, 2026Policy & legal1

AgentGrad: Intervention-guided Prompt Optimization for Multi Agent Systems

AgentGrad introduces intervention-guided prompt optimization for LLM multi-agent systems, achieving state-of-the-art results with 2.5x faster optimization.

AgentGrad is a prompt optimization framework for LLM-based multi-agent systems that addresses limitations in textual gradient extraction and aggregation. It uses sequential intervention to identify the agent whose prompt modification resolves a given failure, then applies agent-level supervision and semantic gradient clustering to build generalized gradients. Experiments report state-of-the-art performance across five MAS benchmarks and a 2.5x average reduction in wall-clock optimization time versus the next-fastest baseline.

Hugging Face daily papers·Sep 7, 20:00 UTC · 9d agoAI research

CVE-2026-16232: Checkpoint Quantum Security Management auth bypass ...

Attackers exploit Check Point SmartConsole authentication bypass CVE-2026-16232 to take over Quantum Security Management firewall servers; CISA added it to KEV.

CVE-2026-16232 is an authentication bypass (CWE-287) in the SmartConsole login process of Check Point Quantum Security Management, exploitable via an application token. Disclosed July 22, 2026, it was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog the same day with remediation due July 25. Rapid7, Check Point Research and other vendors confirmed exploitation in the wild, and a public PoC was released. A workaround is available, and federal agencies must comply with BOD 26-04 patching guidance.

Web discovery (articles for new exploits & KEV entries)·Sep 5, 08:03 UTC · 11d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-16232

Echo: Learning-based Matching Decompilation using Trusted Back Translation

Researchers introduce Echo, a matching decompiler using trusted back-translation that roughly doubles exact-match rates and outperforms GPT-5.6 and Codex on Mirai.

Echo performs matching decompilation by using compilation as trusted feedback for iterative search: a domain-specific model generates candidate code and compilation configurations, which are recompiled, compared at assembly level, and repaired via rule-based rewriting, neural refinement, and reasoning-based refinement. On function-level benchmarks, Echo produces 2.43x more exact matches than the strongest baseline and the highest structural similarity to ground truth. On the Mirai malware binary, it matches 2.75x and 7.4x as many functions as GPT-5.6 and Codex, respectively.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 16, 14:14 UTC · 16h agoResearch

Philippine Nuclear and Naval Targets Hit by Suspected Chinese Operator

Suspected Chinese-speaking operator breached Philippine nuclear research and naval supplier systems via ownCloud CVE-2023-49103 and WordPress CVE-2024-28000.

Hunt.io found an exposed staging server containing custom Python scripts, logs, and stolen data documenting intrusions against a Philippine nuclear research body and a marine engineering company serving the Philippine Navy. The actor exploited an ownCloud authentication bypass (CVE-2023-49103) using empty-secret pre-signed WebDAV URLs and a LiteSpeed Cache plugin flaw (CVE-2024-28000) to gain WordPress admin access, also guessing passwords against XML-RPC with rockyou.txt. Roughly 9 GB was referenced as stolen from the nuclear agency, including reactor databases, radiation-safety records, and staff passport data; Simplified Chinese labels suggest a Chinese-speaking operator.

Security Affairs·Aug 29, 09:16 UTC · 18d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2023-49103CVE-2024-28000

The Shared Clipboard Inside the Sandbox: Cross-Account Data Leakage in ChatGPT

Check Point discovers cross-account data leakage in ChatGPT: isolated code-execution containers communicate via shared JFrog Artifactory, enabling covert Gmail exfiltration.

Check Point Research found a covert bidirectional channel between ChatGPT code-execution containers belonging to different accounts, which were supposed to be isolated from each other and the public internet. Both could reach the same internal JFrog Artifactory instance used for package delivery, whose exposed Item Management API allowed a 'shared clipboard' between containers. In a proof of concept, a hidden instruction in a shared conversation made ChatGPT retrieve email data from the victim's connected Gmail account and send it to the attacker's account while the victim received a normal answer. The same channel could exfiltrate conversation history and session files; OpenAI recently described a similar isolation weakness in its postmortem of the Hugging Face incident.

Check Point Research·Sep 8, 13:00 UTC · 8d agoAI safety & security1

CVE-2026-34486: Apache Software Foundation Apache Tomcat

CISA added CVE-2026-34486, an actively exploited Apache Tomcat EncryptInterceptor bypass enabling unauthenticated deserialization RCE, to its KEV catalog.

CVE-2026-34486 allows bypass of Apache Tomcat's EncryptInterceptor, a flaw introduced by the fix for padding-oracle issue CVE-2026-29146 in Tribes cluster encryption. CISA added the flaw to the Known Exploited Vulnerability catalog on August 4, 2026, alongside actively exploited Langflow and N-central flaws, with remediation required under BOD 26-04 guidance. Official patches and workarounds are available, and reporting notes unauthenticated remote code execution through Java deserialization on the Tribes receiver port 4000.

Web discovery (articles for new exploits & KEV entries)·Sep 9, 04:23 UTC · 8d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-34486CVE-2026-291462

MaxKernel: Agentic Kernel Generation for TPUs

Researchers open-source MaxKernel, a multi-agent LLM system that generates and optimizes TPU kernels matching expert hand-tuned baselines on JaxBench.

MaxKernel is a multi-agent system offering three paradigms for TPU kernel development: human-in-the-loop collaborative design, a fully autonomous metric/trace-driven optimization loop, and graph-based autonomous search for global exploration. All paradigms draw on a shared pool of specialized sub-agents for planning, implementation, self-debugging, testing, and hardware profiling. Evaluated on JaxBench's 50 diverse TPU kernel tasks and real-world workloads from open-source models, it consistently matches expert hand-tuned baselines. The system is open-sourced via the AI-Hypercomputer GitHub repository.

Hugging Face daily papers·Sep 2, 20:00 UTC · 14d agoAI tools & infra

UAT-10147 Uses AI to Scale Server Attacks, Deploys SPECTRE With EDR Bypass and Linux Rootkit

Cisco Talos exposes UAT-10147, a Chinese-speaking group using AI tools to automate intrusions, deploy SPECTRE, BadIIS, and rootkits against web servers worldwide.

Cisco Talos detailed UAT-10147, a Chinese-speaking cybercrime group conducting SEO fraud and data theft against Windows and Linux web servers in education, media, technology, and gaming sectors, with most victims in Brazil, Bolivia, China, Canada, and Vietnam. The actor exploits publicly disclosed vulnerabilities for initial access, including Zimbra (CVE-2022-27925) and Alibaba Nacos (CVE-2021-29441), and abuses Linux LPE flaws like CVE-2022-0847 and CVE-2021-3156 for root. Its toolset includes AI-assisted frameworks DeepAudit and PentestGPT, plus implants such as SPECTRE, BadIIS, Quasar RAT, Gh0stCringe, and Noodle RAT. An exposed directory contained a target list of roughly 170,000 URLs, with the US, India, UK, Germany, and Netherlands as top destinations.

The Hacker News·Aug 27, 18:33 UTC · 20d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2022-0995CVE-2021-3156CVE-2015-5287+8 CVEs

JustFit: 200K-Token LLM Serving on a 24 GiB Laptop with Just-in-Time State Management

JustFit MLX runtime serves 200K-token contexts for Qwen3.8-27B on a 24 GiB MacBook via just-in-time state management.

JustFit is an MLX-based inference runtime combining KVExec for compressed KV execution, PhaseSwap for component residency, and StateTrans for state-preserving serving transitions, independent of weight quantization. On a 24 GiB M4 Pro MacBook running Qwen3.8-27B MXFP4, it completed 196,608 input and 16,384 output tokens, raising single-request context from the mlx-vlm baseline's 30,720 positions to 212,992 (6.93x). Performance tests show 19.11 tokens/s on a 32K-input probe with a 16,374 MiB median peak footprint, and the runtime answered 29 of 30 AIME 2026 problems correctly.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL·Sep 15, 17:15 UTC · 1d agoAI research

CVE-2026-34908: Ubiquiti Networks UniFi OS Server access control ...

CVE-2026-34908, a CVSS 10.0 access-control bypass in Ubiquiti UniFi OS, was added to CISA's KEV catalog amid reported active exploitation.

CISA added CVE-2026-34908 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on June 23, 2026, with remediation due June 26 under BOD 26-04 guidance. The CVSS 10.0 improper access control flaw (CWE-284) in Ubiquiti UniFi OS allows unauthorized system changes without authentication. Multiple news reports referenced by the page describe the max-severity UniFi flaws being exploited in attacks, and an official patch is available.

Web discovery (articles for new exploits & KEV entries)·Sep 8, 06:48 UTC · 8d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-34908

Why Is SHAP Not a Reliable Standalone Explanation Framework for Malware Detection?

arXiv paper shows SHAP gives unreliable standalone explanations for malware detection, with attribution dilution and sign reversal in dependent PE feature spaces.

The paper argues SHAP's formal guarantees are insufficient for reliable malware interpretation because the explained feature-coalition game is fixed only by analyst choices, not by malware behavior in the data. In static Portable Executable feature spaces, dependent feature groups cause conditional SHAP to dilute credit by a factor of 1/m across redundant features, attribute importance to features the model never uses, and even reverse attribution signs; interventional SHAP queries off-manifold coalitions no real executable exhibits. Experiments on EMBER-2018, EMBER-2024, and BODMAS with fixed LightGBM and XGBoost detectors confirm these effects. The authors position SHAP as a limited diagnostic requiring explicit data-distribution statements and domain validation, not a standalone explanation framework.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 4, 02:00 UTC · 13d agoResearch1

ownCloud Flaw Exploited to Steal Nuclear Records From Philippine Research Body

A Chinese-speaking actor exploited ownCloud CVE-2023-49105 to steal 176 nuclear research files from Philippine organizations, prompting CISA to add the flaw to KEV.

CISA added CVE-2023-49105 (CVSS 9.8), an ownCloud WebDAV API authentication bypass fixed in version 10.13.1, to the KEV catalog after Hunt.io found an open directory hosting custom Python exploit scripts and tools including Sliver, Metasploit, and Mettle. The actor downloaded 176 files (~372 MB) from a Philippine nuclear research body, including nuclear-material account records, 2023-2028 strategic plans, BitLocker keys, and a KeePass database; a second intrusion exploited LiteSpeed Cache CVE-2024-28000 at a shipbuilding firm serving the Philippine Navy, with XML-RPC brute-force and an EtherHiding/ClickFix component. FCEB agencies must patch by August 30, 2026. CISA also added Linux Kernel CVE-2026-53362 and Artifactory CVE-2026-66384 after OpenAI said its AI agents exploited them against internal infrastructure.

The Hacker News·Aug 28, 15:56 UTC · 19d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2023-49105CVE-2024-28000CVE-2026-53362+1 CVEs1

PEEP Turns Chrome and Edge Into Post-Compromise Backdoors for Host Command Execution

SOCRadar disclosed PEEP, a post-exploitation Chromium extension toolkit that turns Chrome and Edge into host-level backdoors via native messaging and C2 polling.

SOCRadar researchers detailed PEEP, a Chromium-based post-exploitation toolkit masquerading as a 'Smart Bookmarks' extension injected directly into Chrome and Edge profiles by forging Secure Preferences integrity values, bypassing Web Store checks. A native-messaging host binary (nm_host.exe) extends the browser agent to host-level command execution, file management, credential theft, and session hijacking, while the extension polls C2 endpoints at 206.237.30.232 or xfjcc.fun every 30 seconds over plaintext HTTP and exfiltrates browsing history, cookies, and tab metadata. PEEP is derived from the open-source RedExt red teaming framework, adds PowerShell persistence scripts, and includes a Linux-targeting Python script, suggesting cross-platform intent. The activity is unattributed but contains Chinese-language artifacts; a C2 /health endpoint showed 34 agent entries and 10 active sessions.

The Hacker News·Sep 7, 18:12 UTC · 9d agoMalware in the wild1

200 new CVEs a day and no realistic way to patch them all

Help Net Security·Aug 4, 11:25 UTC · Aug 4, 2026Vulnerability in the wildCVE-2026-250891

DPRK APTs: Ted backdoor and curlRAT target South Korean media and automotive sectors

Rapid7 uncovered a DPRK-linked Linux toolkit using a HAProxy-embedded ted backdoor, SSH keylogger, and curlRAT against South Korean media and automotive firms.

Rapid7 Labs identified a previously undocumented framework attributed with medium confidence to DPRK actors, targeting South Korean automotive and media organizations likely since early 2025. The toolkit embeds a backdoor compiled into HAProxy 2.8.12 using its filter API, plus trojanized crond, agetty, atd, sshd, and polkitd, an SSH keylogger storing credentials under /var/lib/sshd/, and a curl-based RAT with a watchdog thread. It enables remote command execution, malicious script injection into served webpages (a watering-hole loop), credential harvesting, and long-term surveillance. Hardcoded C2s are associated with APT37 via ThreatFox, and exposed groupware portals and mail servers align with Kimsuky tradecraft; the initial access vector and any CVE remain unconfirmed.

Rapid7 Blog·Sep 4, 12:00 UTC · 12d agoThreat actor in the wild1

SpecGuard: Inference-Time Backdoor Detection For Free

SpecGuard detects backdoored LLM behavior at inference time using speculative decoding acceptance rates, adding no extra model computation.

Researchers propose SpecGuard, an inference-time backdoor detector that repurposes draft-token acceptance rates from speculative decoding as a detection signal at zero added model-computation cost. When a trigger shifts the target model toward attacker-controlled behavior, the clean draft model's acceptance rate changes, exposing the backdoor; the paper formalizes when this signal appears and shows suppressing it weakens the backdoor. Experiments across diverse backdoor types and model families show reliable detection, including stealthy cases invisible to input-level filters. Speculative decoding is positioned as a free, always-on monitor for frequently updated deployed models.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 10, 16:51 UTC · 6d agoAI safety & security 2 sources2

C2Looper: A New Backdoor Likely Tied To Ransomware With GitHub C2

Zscaler ThreatLabz identified C2Looper, a new Rust-based backdoor likely tied to ransomware actors and delivered via ClickFix chains, using GitHub for C2.

In July 2026, Zscaler ThreatLabz identified C2Looper, a new Rust-based backdoor family. The malware supports arbitrary command execution, reconnaissance, and deployment of second-stage payloads, and uses GitHub as its command-and-control channel. ThreatLabz assesses with low-to-medium confidence that it is delivered through multi-stage ClickFix infection chains and is likely leveraged by a ransomware-related threat actor. The analysis covers multiple C2Looper variants, their network protocols, and capabilities.

Zscaler ThreatLabz·Aug 17, 14:06 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Malware in the wild1

PEEP: A Browser RAT Posing as a Chrome Extension

SOCRadar's STRU analyzed PEEP, an emerging Chromium-based RAT disguised as a Chrome extension enabling post-exploitation control of browsers.

SOCRadar's Threat Research Unit (STRU) identified and analyzed PEEP, a Chromium-based post-exploitation toolkit distributed as a browser extension. PEEP provides RAT-style capabilities while posing as a legitimate Chrome extension. It is assessed as an emerging threat worth monitoring by defenders.

SOCRadar·Sep 4, 09:50 UTC · 12d agoMalware

Thousands of Hacked WordPress Sites, One Operation: Unmasking StopAndProtect

Check Point uncovers the StopAndProtect ransomware operation infecting thousands of WordPress sites via ClickFix social engineering and PowerShell downloaders.

Check Point Research first observed the StopAndProtect ransomware family in mid-May 2026 and linked its infrastructure to thousands of hacked WordPress sites. The infection chain begins with ClickFix social engineering that prompts victims to run a PowerShell command, followed by two stages of additional downloaders. The research maps the shared infrastructure unifying the operation.

Check Point Research·Aug 18, 13:05 UTC · 29d agoRansomware in the wild

NCP-ArchPreview Technical Report: Moving towards Latent Space Language Models through Next Concept Prediction

An 8.9B-parameter latent-space language model using next-concept prediction matches OLMo-3-7B pretraining loss with only 51.3% of the training tokens.

NCP-ArchPreview augments next-token prediction with Next Concept Prediction over a product-quantized concept vocabulary built from hidden states, trained jointly end-to-end. The 8.9B model was trained on 5.73T tokens from the Dolma-3 dataset, the largest latent-space language model demonstration to date. It consumes 51.3% of the tokens to reach OLMo-3-7B's final pretraining loss and outperforms it by 2.45 points on the downstream macro-average, including a 5.99-point GSM8K gain. The learned latent space also enables lightweight domain adaptation via a 17M-parameter VQ module and improves speculative drafting accepted length by 4.17%.

Hugging Face daily papers·Sep 8, 20:00 UTC · 8d agoAI research1

New Chaos Variant Targets Misconfigured Cloud Deployments, Adds SOCKS Proxy

Darktrace says the Chaos botnet now targets misconfigured cloud deployments like Hadoop and added a SOCKS proxy for traffic relaying.

Darktrace identified a new 64-bit ELF variant of the Chaos botnet targeting misconfigured cloud deployments, expanding beyond the malware's traditional focus on routers and edge devices. Captured in a deliberately misconfigured Hadoop honeypot instance, the intrusion began with an HTTP request creating an application that ran embedded shell commands to fetch the Chaos agent binary from pan.tenire[.]com, set chmod 777 permissions, execute it, and delete the artifact to reduce forensic traces. The restructured variant adds a SOCKS proxy feature letting compromised systems ferry attacker traffic, while removing SSH-based spread and router-exploit functions, suggesting monetization beyond crypto mining and DDoS-for-hire. Possible Chinese origin is suggested by language artifacts and infrastructure; the delivery domain was previously used in Silver Fox's Operation Silk Lure phishing campaign delivering ValleyRAT.

The Hacker News·Aug 18, 12:13 UTC · 29d agoMalware1

Jackrong/Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-GGUF — new model trending #26 on Hugging Face

Community fine-tune Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash, built on Qwen3.8-27B, cuts agent reasoning latency with 12.8% faster decoding and 80.7% MTP acceptance.

Jackrong released Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash, a fine-tune of Qwen3.8-27B optimized for long-running agent workloads, reporting 12.8% faster decoding and 80.7% multi-token-prediction acceptance. Training used roughly 1.5 million teacher-scored SFT examples filtered to the top 10%, followed by reinforcement training with NVIDIA NeMo-RL and GSPO. The author notes an explicit trade-off: MMLU-Pro mixed-set scores are lower than the base model, and a known bug can produce incorrect Python indentation. Author-provided benchmarks have not been independently verified.

Hugging Face trending models·Sep 4, 12:43 UTC · 12d agoModel release2

PHAT: PHotonic Accelerator for TFHE

PHAT photonic accelerator using optically addressed phase-change memory speeds TFHE bootstrapping FFTs 2.14x-5.10x over the prior ASIC accelerator.

Researchers propose PHAT, an electro-photonic accelerator for TFHE fully homomorphic encryption built on optically addressed phase-change memory (OPCM) processing-in-memory. The architecture adds OPCM-based FFT units, a twiddle-stationary dataflow, and a scheduling mechanism to maximize FFT utilization for TFHE bootstrapping. It achieves 2.14x-5.10x speedups across four real-world TFHE workloads versus the state-of-the-art ASIC accelerator, improving feasibility of privacy-preserving computation in the cloud.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 10, 14:30 UTC · 6d agoResearch