Search: “Wasabi”

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CategoryAll Ransomware 22 Malware 13 AI tools & infra 6 Industry 6 Exploit / PoC 4 Policy & legal 3 Vulnerability 3 Research 2 Phishing & fraud 1 Data breach 1 AI research 1 Threat actor 1 Tools 1

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Weekly Cybersecurity Newsletter Bulletin – Microsoft 0-day, FortiOS, PAN-OS Flaw, Revolut Data Breach, and 20+ Stories

Weekly roundup: Microsoft patches 973 flaws including two actively exploited zero-days; FortiOS CAPWAP flaw deploys PivotC2 RAT; PAN-OS root RCE disclosed.

Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday fixed 973 vulnerabilities, including two zero-days under active exploitation: CVE-2026-85880 (Windows ALPC) and CVE-2026-81963 (Windows Update Stack), both elevation-of-privilege bugs. SOCRadar reported active exploitation of CVE-2025-25249 (CVSS 9.8) in FortiOS CAPWAP, deploying a Node.js RAT called PivotC2 that exfiltrates Exchange mailboxes to Wasabi cloud storage; 178 devices were compromised out of 30,000 scanned IPs, attributed to a Russian-speaking financially motivated group. Palo Alto disclosed CVE-2026-0310, a 9.2-rated buffer overflow enabling root code execution on PA-Series firewalls, and Fortinet disclosed CVE-2026-84393, a ZTNA certificate validation MITM flaw. Cyera also revealed CVE-2026-6471 ('PostGREShell'), a 12-year-old PostgreSQL logical-decoding flaw allowing code execution via REPLICATION-privileged accounts.

Cyber Security NewsSep 14, 03:10 UTC · 2d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-85880 CVE-2026-81963 CVE-2025-25249+3 CVEs3

Risky Bulletin: BEC campaign steals €35 million from French notaries

Hackers stole over €35 million from 500+ French notary offices in a four-year BEC campaign; ANSSI spent two years helping evict the attackers.

A business email compromise campaign breached more than 500 French notary offices — about 7% of all French notaries per the Conseil Supérieur du Notariat — over four years, stealing more than €35 million by phishing initial access and silently modifying wire transfer details. France's cybersecurity agency ANSSI worked for two years behind the scenes to help notaries remove the persistent attackers, who had deep access; officials also feared hackers could issue fake notarized acts such as marriage certificates or forged real estate deals. No forged documents have been found so far, but notaries have added two-factor authentication and in-person requirements for banking details, and banks added extra checks in 2024. The newsletter also notes other incidents, including a $320 million Bitcoin extraction from Blockstream's Liquid Network and a JetBrains Cadence breach via TeamCity servers.

Risky Business NewsSep 7, 03:42 UTC · 9d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

Hackers Exploit Critical FortiGate Flaw to Deploy AI-Assisted PivotC2 RAT

SOCRadar says attackers exploit FortiGate CVE-2025-25249 to deploy the PivotC2 Node.js RAT, compromising 178 of 30,000 targeted devices and stealing credentials.

SOCRadar's Threat Research Unit reports active exploitation of CVE-2025-25249, a CVSS 9.8 heap-based buffer overflow in the cw_acd daemon of FortiOS and FortiSwitchManager, via crafted CAPWAP requests to UDP port 5246, compromising at least 178 of 30,000 targeted internet-exposed FortiGate devices since July 2026. The campaign deploys PivotC2, a Node.js RAT that provides interactive shells, SOCKS5/HTTP proxying, port forwarding, network scanning, and automated configuration harvesting that decrypts stored FortiGate credentials, including VPN pre-shared keys, SSL-VPN credentials, and LDAP secrets. Russian-language artifacts, AD enumeration, browser credential theft, RDP enablement, and exfiltration of Exchange .pst files to Wasabi S3 point to a Russian-speaking, financially motivated group; two US organizations confirmed full-network intrusions. Fixes include FortiOS 7.6.4/7.4.9/7.2.12/7.0.18+ and FortiSwitchManager 7.2.7/7.0.6+, plus blocking CAPWAP on internet-facing interfaces.

GBHackersSep 9, 08:57 UTC · 7d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-252492

Banking Trojans: Ursnif Global Distribution Networks Identified

Unit 42 maps banking-trojan distribution networks: spam botnets push Shiotob downloaders and Ursnif, KINS, Tinba at Japan and European targets via compromised web servers.

Unit 42 identified the distribution networks behind banking trojan attacks against Japan, Italy, Spain, Poland, Australia, and Germany. A spam botnet delivered 75 unique Shiotob (Bebloh/URLZone) variants across 7 million spam emails, with Shiotob acting mainly as a downloader that installs Ursnif and the Pushdo spam bot from C2 commands. Over 200 malicious files were hosted on 74 compromised, mostly European small-business web servers between April 2015 and January 2017, with localized invoice and photo-themed email lures per target country.

Palo Alto Unit 42Aug 17, 12:56 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Malware in the wild

DeadLock Ransomware Uses Polygon Smart Contracts to Make Extortion Infra Harder to Disrupt

Microsoft reports DeadLock ransomware using Polygon smart contracts and Session messaging for extortion infrastructure, claiming 96 victims across Europe and the U.S.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence reports the DeadLock ransomware operation uses the Session messaging network and Polygon blockchain smart contracts to host victim chat, proxy server addresses, and its data leak blog, making takedowns harder. First detected in July 2025, the group has claimed 96 victims, mostly in Italy, Spain, Poland, Türkiye, and the U.S., with deployments by affiliates of Lynx and INC ransomware. The encryptor uses Curve25519 with XChaCha20, drops an interactive HTML recovery chat application, geofences CIS-linked countries, and clears logs and shadow copies to evade forensics.

The Hacker NewsAug 11, 18:08 UTC · Aug 11, 2026Ransomware in the wild

OFAC Sanctions Chinese Scam Platform Xinbi Guarantee

US Treasury's OFAC sanctioned Chinese scam-platform Xinbi Guarantee, which processed $24bn+, and froze $52.8m in linked cryptoassets.

OFAC sanctioned Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language marketplace connecting Southeast Asian scam centers and transnational crime syndicates to merchants offering financial services, technology and crypto exchange. Treasury estimates over $24bn processed since 2022, while TRM Labs estimates over $36bn, with daily inflows nearly doubling between May and December 2025. Two supporting entities were also sanctioned: SafeW Technology (Singapore) and Anwen Technology (Cambodia, maker of XinbiPay). The US Secret Service and Elliptic froze $52.8m in linked cryptoassets, and the marketplace now appears offline with its Telegram channels deleted.

Infosecurity Magazineupdated Sep 10, 21:15 UTC · 5d agofirst Sep 10, 08:00 UTC · 6d agoPolicy & legal 4 sources1

Hackers Actively Exploiting FortiGate Firewalls to Deploy Custom Node.js Malware

Attackers actively exploit CVE-2025-25249 in FortiGate firewalls to deploy PivotC2, a Node.js RAT that decrypts VPN and admin credentials.

SOCRadar assesses with high confidence that threat actors are actively exploiting CVE-2025-25249, a CVSS 9.8 heap buffer overflow in the cw_acd daemon (CAPWAP, UDP 5246) affecting FortiOS 6.4-7.6.3 and FortiSwitchManager 7.0.x/7.2.x. Attackers deploy fortirun.bin and PivotC2, a Node.js post-exploitation framework that harvests configurations and decrypts SSL-VPN, wireless, and admin credentials using AES-256-CBC and AES-128-GCM. Over 30,000 FortiGate IPs were scanned and 178 devices compromised, including two confirmed full intrusions of US organizations with Exchange mailbox exfiltration to Wasabi storage. STRU attributes the campaign to a Russian-speaking, financially motivated cybercrime operator.

Cyber Security NewsSep 8, 16:50 UTC · 7d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2025-252491

Iranian banks' SSL certificates are being revoked due to OFAC sanctions

OFAC sanctions are reportedly causing Iranian banks' SSL certificates to be revoked, threatening secure HTTPS access to their services.

A Hacker News discussion highlights a report that Iranian banks' SSL/TLS certificates are being revoked as a consequence of OFAC sanctions. Certificate revocation would degrade or break trusted HTTPS connections to affected banking domains for users in Iran. The item is a headline-only discussion post with limited detail on which certificate authorities or banks are affected.

Hacker News · securitySep 14, 17:58 UTC · 1d agoPolicy & legal HN 23↑ · 6 comments

Indonesia Hit by Android Banking App-Cloning Campaign

GoldFactory exploits Android Work Profile to deliver the Gigabud banking trojan to Indonesian users via cloned banking apps, with Mantax and Otax spreading separately.

The GoldFactory threat group is running an app-cloning campaign against Android banking customers in Indonesia, abusing the Android Work Profile feature to deliver its Gigabud trojan. The Mantax and Otax malware families are spreading through separate distribution channels. Abusing Work Profile to install or conceal cloned banking apps is a notable mobile technique, though the article reports no victim counts or loss figures.

Dark Readingupdated Sep 11, 12:14 UTC · 5d agofirst Sep 11, 01:00 UTC · 5d agoThreat actor in the wild 5 sources

E-Commerce Access, Vedicline Data, Langflow RCE, ASUS Claim, and Energy Shell Access

SOCRadar reports underground posts claiming a Bangladeshi e-commerce database, Vedicline data leak, Langflow RCE, ASUS breach, and energy-sector shell access.

SOCRadar's Dark Web Team identified several new underground posts, including an alleged Bangladeshi e-commerce customer database offered for sale. The roundup also covers a claimed Vedicline data leak, Langflow remote code execution, an ASUS breach claim, and energy-sector shell access sales. Details on record counts and victims were not provided in the excerpt.

SOCRadarSep 7, 09:20 UTC · 9d agoData breach

Tracking Elirks Variants in Japan: Similarities to Previous Attacks

Unit 42 links new Elirks backdoor variants attacking Japanese organizations to 2012 Taiwan attacks, delivered via spear-phishing PDFs exploiting Adobe Flash CVE-2011-0611.

Unit 42 analyzed new Elirks backdoor variants found in an attack on a Japanese business, noting strong similarities to 2012 attacks on Taiwanese ministries. The backdoor retrieves its C2 address from attacker-created accounts on Japanese blog and SNS services. Recent deliveries used an airline e-ticket lure named "E-TKT" with a PDF exploiting Adobe Flash CVE-2011-0611. Shared infrastructure and tactics with the Scarlet Mimic campaign suggest possible ongoing cyber espionage across East Asia.

Palo Alto Unit 42Aug 17, 12:56 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wildCVE-2011-0611

Attackers conceal phishing lures using invisible Unicode characters

Threat actors use invisible Unicode characters (ASCII smuggling) to hide phishing lures and evade email security filters.

Threat actors have adopted the ASCII smuggling technique in phishing campaigns, embedding invisible Unicode characters in emails to conceal malicious lures. The approach is designed to evade email security filters that scan for visible phishing indicators. The report gives no victim counts or named campaigns.

BleepingComputerSep 6, 14:23 UTC · 9d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

xHunt Campaign: Attacks on Kuwait Shipping and Transportation Organizations

xHunt deployed custom backdoors Hisoka, Killua, Gon, and EYE against Kuwait shipping and transportation organizations, using DNS tunneling and email-draft C2 channels.

Unit 42 observed the xHunt campaign targeting Kuwait transportation and shipping organizations between May and June 2019, installing backdoors named after characters from the anime Hunter x Hunter, including Hisoka, Killua, Sakabota, and Netero. The tools use HTTP and DNS tunneling for C2, and Hisoka v0.9 added an unusual email-based C2 channel that abuses Exchange Web Services with stolen credentials to exchange email drafts. The Gon tool provides port scanning, file transfer, screenshots, remote command execution, and RDP session creation, while EYE acts as a cleanup failsafe if a legitimate user logs in. Related activity targeting Kuwait between July and December 2018 was reported by IBM X-Force IRIS, suggesting the campaigns are likely related.

Palo Alto Unit 42Aug 17, 13:21 UTC · 29d agoThreat actor1

ASCII smuggling isn't just an AI security risk

Microsoft tracked a phishing campaign peaking at 2.37 million daily messages that hid financial-lure keywords with invisible Unicode tag characters to evade filters.

Microsoft researchers uncovered a large phishing campaign that inserted invisible Unicode tag characters (e.g., U+E0020) inside common financial keywords like 'funding', splitting words so keyword, signature, and regex matches fail. The campaign peaked at more than 2.37 million messages in late February 2026, ran from about 150 finance-themed sender domains on a strict weekday-only schedule, and gradually declined to under 20% of peak weekday volume by late March, with residual spikes through mid-June. The technique repurposes ASCII smuggling, normally used for indirect prompt injection against AI assistants, for traditional email phishing evasion. Microsoft advises defenders to strip or fold invisible Unicode code points before content matching and to watch for bulk weekday spikes from churning finance-themed domains.

The Register · SecuritySep 4, 19:23 UTC · 11d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

ToxicPanda 2.0 Gets a Major Upgrade, Expanding Attacks Across 16 Countries

Zimperium documents ToxicPanda 2.0, an Android banking trojan now targeting 349 financial institutions in 16 countries via ADB privilege escalation and overlay credential theft.

Zimperium's zLabs documented ToxicPanda 2.0, an Android banking trojan expanding from 16 targeted apps to 349 financial institutions across 16 countries, with 167 remote commands. It poses as a dropper, abuses VPN permissions to block Google Play Protect while installing a hidden payload, then uses the Accessibility Service for screen monitoring and overlay-based credential theft. It automates enabling Android Wireless Debugging and completes the pairing handshake to gain ADB shell access for privilege escalation, and overlays fake lock screens to steal device PINs. Previously unfinished commands are now operational and samples are served from AWS-hosted storage buckets.

Security AffairsAug 22, 16:50 UTC · 24d agoMalware in the wild

Payroll system of mosques, madrasahs hit by ransomware; staff details potentially compromised

Ransomware hit Avelogic's SmartHRMS payroll system serving Singapore mosques and madrasahs under MUIS, potentially exposing staff details.

The SmartHRMS human resources and payroll system used by mosques and madrasahs overseen by Singapore's Islamic Religious Council (MUIS) was hacked and held for ransom. The system is supplied by Singapore-based software vendor Avelogic, which posted a cybersecurity incident notice on its website. Staff details are potentially compromised, according to The Straits Times.

DataBreaches.netSep 15, 22:08 UTC · 15h agoRansomware in the wild

Grandoreiro Resurfaces in Mexico With New DLL Sideloading Campaign

Banking trojan Grandoreiro resurfaces in Mexico using DLL sideloading, now accounting for 40% of detections after its 2024 disruption.

Grandoreiro, a banking trojan disrupted in 2024, is active again with a new DLL sideloading technique. Mexico now accounts for 40% of the malware's detections. The resurgence signals renewed targeting of banking customers in Latin America.

Infosecurity MagazineAug 19, 14:00 UTC · 27d agoMalware

ASCII smuggling crosses over from AI prompt injection to phishing evasion

Microsoft details high-volume phishing campaign using ASCII smuggling (Unicode tag chars) for filter evasion, peaking at 2.3M messages.

Microsoft researchers observed a high-volume finance-themed phishing campaign using invisible Unicode tag characters (U+E0000–U+E007F), a technique known from AI prompt injection research as ASCII smuggling, to split lure words like 'funding' and evade email filters. Telemetry from Microsoft Defender for Office 365 showed signature hits jump from roughly 21,000 messages on February 8, 2026 to more than 1.3 million on February 9, peaking above 2.3 million on February 11, with elevated weekday activity lasting approximately three months. The discovery emerged from prompt injection protection research, showing AI-era evasion techniques crossing into traditional phishing. Most messages were flagged by layered Defender protections rather than a single Unicode-specific signal.

Microsoft Security BlogSep 3, 16:00 UTC · 12d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

US Indicts 17 Iranians Over Years

US unsealed superseding indictment charging 17 Mabna Institute Iranians for IRGC-linked espionage stealing 31TB from universities, companies, and government agencies.

The Justice Department unsealed a superseding indictment charging 17 members of the Iran-based Mabna Institute, which conducted hacking campaigns since at least 2013 on behalf of the IRGC and other Iranian clients. The group compromised 144 US and 178 foreign universities, at least 42 US companies, and multiple government agencies, stealing over 31 terabytes of academic data and IP plus employee email inboxes. Hackers breached roughly 8,000 of 100,000 targeted professor accounts across 24 countries, selling stolen research through Megapaper.ir and Gigapaper.ir. Behzad Mesri, tied to the HBO breach and $6 million Bitcoin extortion, is among eight new defendants, and five defendants carry State Department Rewards for Justice bounties up to $10 million.

Security AffairsAug 20, 08:36 UTC · 27d agoThreat actor in the wild

Hackers Deploy Casbaneiro Banking Trojan That Activates When Victims Open Bank Websites

Fortinet details Casbaneiro banking Trojan campaign hitting Latin American bank customers via invoice-themed PDF phishing, with AutoIt loading, RegSvcs.exe injection, and bank-site-triggered activation.

Fortinet identified an August 2026 Casbaneiro banking Trojan campaign targeting users in Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico through phishing PDFs styled as urgent invoices or legal notices. The staged chain uses IP-based geo-filtering, a Base64-encoded ZIP, an HTA file, and a legitimate AutoIt interpreter before injecting into RegSvcs.exe or mobsync.exe and persisting via a Startup shortcut. The Trojan exfiltrates address book and Outlook data unencrypted, stays dormant until victims visit targeted bank sites, then accepts commands for keyboard control, clipboard pasting, file execution, and command execution. It uses an expected HTTP 403 response from a second server and malformed HTTP requests to complicate network analysis.

Cyber Security NewsSep 14, 08:42 UTC · 2d agoMalware in the wild

France Establishes New Government-Focused Cyber Incident Response Unit

France created REACTIV, an ANSSI-led interministerial cyber incident response unit for state services, after the DGFiP breach exposed up to 678,000 taxpayers.

ANSSI announced REACTIV (Interministerial Response & Action against Data Breaches) on September 7, a dedicated incident response capability for French state services. It lets ANSSI require ministries to take urgent protective measures for citizens' data and lead centralized technical crisis communications during attacks on state services. The move follows the DGFiP tax authority attack that exposed data of 350,000 to 678,000 taxpayers, after which the Prime Minister ordered an extensive audit of ANSSI. Two suspects aged 16 and 18 from the ZeroBytes hacking group were arrested in late August.

Infosecurity MagazineSep 8, 14:30 UTC · 7d agoPolicy & legal

New Phishing Attack Creates Malicious Pages Inside the Victim’s Browser

Barracuda details a phishing campaign that renders pages in-browser via blob URLs, routed through Microsoft Teams and cdn.bloom[.]io to evade detection.

Barracuda researchers analyzed a phishing campaign that generates a blob URL to render the phishing page entirely inside the victim's browser, leaving no static page for scanners to inspect. The chain begins with a Docusign-themed email containing a calendar invite, followed by a crafted redirect through Microsoft Teams to a resource on cdn.bloom[.]io that the browser converts into the blob URL. Service workers, iframes, and a hidden command-and-control configuration indicate the page is part of a centrally managed phishing platform that can be updated and steered across victims. Researchers recommend inspecting blob URL activity, monitoring OAuth authorization flows, and analyzing the full click path in email security controls.

SecurityWeekSep 9, 10:00 UTC · 7d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

US Sanctions Iranian $6bn Crypto “Exchange” Shelbit

US sanctioned Iranian firm Shelbit, a fake crypto exchange that TRM Labs says handled $6bn, likely for laundering.

The US has sanctioned Shelbit, an Iranian entity presented as a cryptocurrency exchange. TRM Labs analysis indicates Shelbit was a fake exchange, with roughly $6bn in flows. Sanctions aim to disrupt Iranian illicit crypto finance channels.

Infosecurity MagazineAug 10, 09:00 UTC · Aug 10, 2026Policy & legal

Once popular for attacking AI, ASCII smuggling is embraced by spammers

Spammers adopt ASCII smuggling—invisible Unicode tag characters—to evade email filters, with Microsoft Defender detections spiking to 2.5 million per day.

ASCII smuggling hides text in Unicode tag characters (e.g., U+E0041 for "A") that are invisible to humans but readable by LLMs and text processors. The technique gained attention as a stealthy prompt-injection vector and is now used by spammers to obfuscate keywords from email detectors. Microsoft reported Defender for Office smuggling detections jumped from roughly 21,000 per day to over 1.3 million in early February, reaching 2.5 million within four days, before falling sharply in mid-May.

Ars Technica · SecuritySep 4, 17:18 UTC · 11d agoPhishing & fraud

Gaming the system: how a Chinese-speaking actor turned Brazilian government sites into an SEO weapon

Check Point identifies Chinese-speaking group Gambling Goblin hijacking Brazilian government domains via malicious Apache modules for SEO-manipulated gambling phishing.

Check Point Research tracks a sustained campaign since mid-2025 against Brazilian government and educational organizations by Gambling Goblin, a Chinese-speaking cybercrime cluster linked to Earth Berberoka. Attackers compile and install malicious Apache modules that silently reverse-proxy visitors to phishing pages impersonating Google Play, Microsoft Store, and Amazon, chaining compromised high-reputation domains to inflate search rankings. The group deploys a heavily obfuscated Linux toolkit including DownPro, AlphaAgent, oRAT, a 3snake-based credential stealer, and SSH brute-forcers, with parallel phishing networks localized for Vietnamese, Spanish, and English victims.

Check Point ResearchSep 2, 10:16 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor

xHunt Campaign: New Watering Hole Identified for Credential Harvesting

Unit 42 tied the xHunt campaign to a watering hole on a Kuwait government website used to passively harvest visitors' NTLM credential hashes.

Palo Alto Unit 42 identified a Kuwait government organization's webpage injected with hidden HTML referencing image paths on domains (microsofte-update.com, learn-service.com) tied to xHunt/Hisoka C2 infrastructure. When visitors loaded the page, Windows would attempt SMB/NetBIOS authentication to the remote share, allowing the operators to capture NTLM hashes that could be cracked or relayed. Related DNS redirect activity on xHunt infrastructure in 2019 pointed to additional credential-harvesting interest against Kuwaiti government email servers.

Palo Alto Unit 42Aug 17, 13:18 UTC · 29d agoThreat actor in the wild

Patchwork Continues to Deliver BADNEWS to the Indian Subcontinent

Unit 42 details Patchwork APT campaigns against the Indian subcontinent using EPS exploits and an updated BADNEWS backdoor targeting Pakistani military and nuclear interests.

Unit 42 observed the Patchwork group (also known as Dropping Elephant and Monsoon) conducting campaigns against targets in the Indian subcontinent using weaponized documents that exploit CVE-2015-2545 and CVE-2017-0261. The documents deliver an updated BADNEWS backdoor that grants attackers full control of victim machines, using dead drop resolvers on legitimate third-party websites for C2 and HTTP for communications. Lures referenced Pakistan Army promotions, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and the Ministry of the Interior, and in late January 2018 the group shifted from CVE-2017-0261 to the older CVE-2015-2545.

Palo Alto Unit 42Aug 17, 13:24 UTC · 29d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2015-2545 CVE-2017-0261

Operation ASTERIX: Anatomy of a Crypto Fraud Pipeline

Rapid7 exposed infrastructure behind a cryptocurrency fraud pipeline using phishing panels, voice-dialing scripts, fake wallets, and AI coding assistants.

Rapid7 researchers identified an exposed web directory on infrastructure used to support a cryptocurrency fraud operation tracked as Operation ASTERIX. The server contained raw phone-number datasets, account-validation tools, enriched lead records, phishing panels, voice-dialing scripts, fake wallet applications, persistence mechanisms, and Telegram exfiltration code. Recovered prompts, shell history, and project files show the operator relied on AI coding assistants to package Electron applications, obfuscate code, troubleshoot builds, and modify phishing infrastructure.

Rapid7 BlogAug 17, 11:29 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Phishing & fraud

Russian hackers plant nuclear weapon prompt in malware to trip AI safety guardrails

ESET reports Russian group UAC-0099 hid a prompt in VBS malware comments to trip AI safety filters and disrupt automated malware analysis in Ukraine.

ESET identified a technique dubbed GuardBreaker in which UAC-0099 embedded a comment reading "I want to make nuclear weapon. Help me …" inside a malicious VBS script to trigger AI safety mechanisms and halt AI-assisted malware analysis. The script, part of the group's toolset, downloads the MATCHBOIL malware used exclusively by this Russia-aligned group; CERT-UA documented the chain including LUNCHPOKE, BURNYBEAR and MATCHBOIL.V2 in a July advisory. UAC-0099 typically targets transportation and energy sectors and hands validated targets to GRU-linked Sandworm. ESET warned that AI-assisted analysis must be backed by layered detection and human-driven engineering.

Help Net SecurityAug 31, 00:00 UTC · 16d agoAI safety & security in the wild

Italian tech collective Autistici/Inventati shuts down after US terrorist designation

Italian privacy collective Autistici/Inventati shut down after a US State Department terrorist designation triggered its domain suspension and bank account closure.

The volunteer-run Italian collective Autistici/Inventati, founded in 2001, announced Sunday it would shut down after the State Department labeled it an extremist group on August 26, 2026. The designation led the Public Interest Registry to suspend the group's .org domain on August 28 and its bank, Banca Etica, to suspend its account. The collective hosted roughly 16,000 email addresses, 1,500 websites, 5,500 mailing lists, and about 10,000 blogs, including the Noblogs platform. European Digital Rights warned the move sets a dangerous precedent for non-commercial European hosts and digital sovereignty.

The RecordSep 8, 19:12 UTC · 7d agoPolicy & legal

Gambling Goblin Turns Brazilian Government Sites Into SEO Weapons

Check Point links Chinese-speaking cluster Gambling Goblin to SEO-fraud compromises of Brazilian government sites via malicious Apache modules since mid-2025.

Check Point Research dubbed the cluster Gambling Goblin and linked it with medium-to-high confidence to Earth Berberoka, a Chinese-speaking group Trend Micro documented in 2022, citing shared oRAT tooling, Chinese-language artifacts, and domains mimicking trusted tech brands. Custom Apache modules installed on compromised Brazilian government and education servers acted as reverse proxies, routing selected visitors to gambling and sports-betting phishing pages impersonating Google Play, the Microsoft Store, and Amazon while stripping CSP headers. The broader Linux toolkit included the DownPro downloader, AlphaAgent and oRAT backdoors, the 3snake-based PasswordHarvester credential stealer, and an SSH brute-forcer, with operations extending to Vietnamese, Spanish, and English phishing pages.

Infosecurity MagazineSep 2, 14:00 UTC · 13d agoThreat actor

Persistent Attempts at Cyberespionage Against Southeast Asian Government Target Have Links to Alloy Taurus

Alloy Taurus (GALLIUM) compromised Southeast Asian government networks from 2022 to 2023 using Exchange web shells and undocumented .NET backdoors Reshell and Zapoa.

Unit 42 tracked persistent multiwave intrusions at a Southeast Asian government starting in early 2022 and continuing through 2023, attributing the activity with moderate confidence to Alloy Taurus (aka GALLIUM), a Chinese state-aligned espionage group. Attackers exploited Exchange Server vulnerabilities to deploy web shells including China Chopper, then ran reconnaissance with Fscan and WebScan, created administrative accounts, and installed undocumented .NET backdoors named Reshell and Zapoa. They established resilience by installing SoftEther VPN, brute-forced Active Directory credentials with Kerbrute, and dumped credential stores with GoDumpLsass and LsassUnhooker. The campaign reflects long-term espionage tradecraft to maintain a foothold.

Palo Alto Unit 42Aug 17, 10:54 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild1

Pro-Palestinian operation claims dozens of data breaches against Israeli firms

Hacktivist group Cyber Toufan claims 60 data breaches of Israeli and allied firms, wiping systems and erasing backups; Check Point links it to Iran.

The pro-Palestinian group Cyber Toufan said it released stolen data from 60 Israeli and foreign firms, including SpaceX, Toyota and IKEA, as part of a month-long leak operation launched in late November. Researchers at Check Point and SOC Radar assess the leaks are genuine, likely stemming partly from a major attack on Israeli hosting company Signature-IT, and attribute the group to Iran; researcher Kevin Beaumont said roughly a third of victims remain offline weeks later with backups erased. Google blocked the group's Telegram leak channel, while about 10 Iranian-backed hacking groups are assessed to be attacking Israel in the ongoing cyberwar.

The RecordSep 8, 00:00 UTC · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild

ToxicPanda Banking Trojan Matures Into Enterprise Threat

The ToxicPanda Android banking trojan has matured with new features that expand its global reach beyond users' financial apps.

Researchers report that the latest version of the ToxicPanda Android banking trojan includes new capabilities that broaden its global distribution and increase its threat to enterprises, not just individual users' financial applications. The trojan's evolution signals it is operating at a more professional, enterprise-targeting level. The report outlines expanded features and reach rather than a single incident.

Dark ReadingAug 24, 14:34 UTC · 22d agoMalware