Search: “grimwedge”

China-Linked Hackers Exploit Chrome-Windows Zero-Day Chain to Deploy GRIMWEDGE

Volexity attributes spear-phishing campaign exploiting Chrome-Windows zero-day chain to Chinese actors UTA0560 and APT31 deploying GRIMWEDGE and LONGTALE.

Volexity attributes a September 1, 2026 spear-phishing campaign targeting NGOs to China-linked UTA0560, which abused a reflected XSS flaw on a US university website to trigger a three-part exploit chain (CVE-2026-85046, CVE-2026-87491, CVE-2026-85880) escaping the Chrome V8 and browser sandboxes to deploy the GRIMWEDGE JavaScript backdoor with reconnaissance, file management, and command execution capabilities. The same chain was used near-simultaneously by JungleBamboo (APT31) to deploy SUPERSTOMP, installing the LONGTALE/GemStone credential-stealing Chrome extension masquerading as Google Gemini. The Chrome flaws were patched in Chromium but not yet in stable Chrome, creating an unusual patch-gap zero-day window attackers raced to exploit.

The Hacker News·updated Sep 15, 10:17 UTC · 1d ago·first Sep 15, 05:31 UTC · 1d agoThreat actor in the wild 23 sourcesCVE-2026-85046CVE-2026-87491CVE-2026-858801· 1 read

PAPERMILL Malware Campaign Abuses Signed Notepad++ to Deliver VenomRAT to Windows Users

JUMPSEC tracks PAPERMILL, a China-nexus phishing campaign using a signed Notepad++ binary, libcurl.dll sideloading, and Donut loaders to deploy VenomRAT against Indian tax-audit targets.

PAPERMILL delivers ISO disk images via tax-audit phishing emails that passed SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, containing a renamed Authenticode-signed Notepad++ executable and a malicious libcurl.dll that proxies curl functions while executing loader logic in DllMain. The chain uses Mark-of-the-Web bypasses, anti-sandbox sleeps, UAC elevation prompts, Registry persistence, and a Donut shellcode loader to reflectively load .NET VenomRAT v6.0.3 with HVNC and credential-stealing capability, with C2 at 154.36.188.201:4449. JUMPSEC assesses the campaign as China-nexus, financially motivated, and Silver Fox-adjacent rather than definitively Silver Fox-operated.

GBHackers·updated 12:23 UTC · 2h ago·first 09:36 UTC · 5h agoMalware in the wild 2 sources

Creepy crawlies

git.kernel.org spends more CPU rendering commit pages for abusive AI-era scrapers than on all legitimate access including git clones.

Konstantin Ryabitsev reports that abusive crawler 'background radiation' at git.kernel.org consumes more CPU cycles rendering commit HTML than all legitimate access, with 14 cores across five geo-distributed nodes dedicated to scraper traffic. Simon Willison highlights the implications for crawlable web services like Datasette.

Simon Willison·Sep 7, 23:08 UTC · 8d agoAI industry1

Campaign Evolution: pseudo

Unit 42 traces the pseudo-Darkleech campaign's 2016 shift from Angler to Neutrino to Rig exploit kits and rotating ransomware payloads.

Unit 42 documents how the pseudo-Darkleech exploit kit campaign evolved through 2016, switching from Angler EK to Neutrino EK in June and to Rig EK in September after Neutrino ceased operations. Payloads rotated from TeslaCrypt to CryptXXX, CrypMIC, and finally Cerber ransomware by October 2016. Injected script on compromised websites changed from 12,000-18,000 character obfuscated blocks to short, unobfuscated hidden iframes starting July 1, 2016.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 17, 09:54 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild

Home & Small Office Wireless Routers Exploited to Attack Gaming Servers

Unit 42 details an updated Gafgyt botnet variant exploiting Zyxel, Huawei, and Realtek router vulnerabilities to recruit devices for DoS attacks on gaming servers.

Unit 42 researchers identified an updated Gafgyt variant derived from the JenX botnet that combines three remote code execution exploits: CVE-2017-18368 (Zyxel P660HN-T1A), CVE-2017-17215 (Huawei HG532), and CVE-2014-8361 (Realtek RTL81XX chipset). Shodan scans show more than 32,000 wireless routers worldwide potentially vulnerable to these exploits. The exploits act as droppers, pulling architecture-specific binaries from a malicious server (185.172.110.224), and the botnet performs denial-of-service attacks against gaming servers, most notably Valve Source engine servers.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 18, 04:46 UTC · 29d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2017-18368CVE-2017-17215CVE-2014-83611

GitHub Dependabot malware alerts now cover eight ecosystems

Help Net Security·Aug 10, 00:00 UTC · Aug 10, 2026Malware

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

FrostyGoop’s Zoom-In: A Closer Look into the Malware Artifacts, Behaviors and Network Communications

Unit 42 dissects FrostyGoop OT malware, which sent Modbus TCP commands to disrupt heating for 600+ apartment buildings in Ukraine.

Palo Alto Unit 42 analyzed new FrostyGoop/BUSTLEBERM samples, the ninth known ICS-centric malware, first used against a Ukrainian municipal energy company by sending Modbus TCP commands to ENCO control devices. The attack caused a two-day heating outage affecting over 600 apartment buildings during sub-zero temperatures. The Go-compiled malware accepts Modbus register operations and timing parameters via command-line arguments or a JSON configuration file, uses an obscure open-source Modbus library, and checks the Windows BeingDebugged flag to evade debuggers. Unit 42 telemetry recorded over 1 million Modbus TCP devices exposed to the internet between September and October 2024.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 19, 12:04 UTC · 28d agoMalware in the wild

Critical MapLibre GL JS Vulnerability Enables Zero-Click XSS Attacks

MapLibre GL JS 6.4.1 patches CVE-2026-85061, a critical zero-click XSS in DOM.sanitize() affecting versions 6.4.0 and earlier.

A critical cross-site scripting vulnerability, CVE-2026-85061 (GHSA-jrc7-96c5-q579), affects maplibre-gl versions 6.4.0 and earlier and is fixed in 6.4.1. The flaw stems from DOM.sanitize() iterating a live NamedNodeMap while deleting attributes, causing the sanitizer to skip adjacent dangerous event-handler attributes that later execute via innerHTML. GitHub rates the issue Critical with CVSS v3.1 vector AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N, exploitable without user interaction when untrusted attribution strings are rendered. Organizations should upgrade to 6.4.1 or later, rebuild affected bundles, and sanitize attribution fields as an interim measure.

GBHackers·Sep 9, 11:34 UTC · 7d agoVulnerabilityCVE-2026-850611

SloppyRAT: A New Tool For Ransomware Attacks

Zscaler details SloppyRAT, a new DLL backdoor delivered via ClickFix lures that stages CastleLoader and CastleRAT ahead of ransomware attacks.

Zscaler ThreatLabz analyzed SloppyRAT, a DLL-based backdoor distributed via ClickFix lures that abuses finger.exe over TCP port 79 to download a batch script. The malware copies curl.exe to download IronPython 3.4.2 from GitHub and executes zlib-compressed Base64-encoded Python to deploy CastleLoader and CastleRAT, then reflectively loads SloppyRAT in memory. It hinders analysis using XOR stack-string obfuscation, a modified affine cipher with modulus 127, and 13 runtime-decrypted code blocks, while communicating with C2 over a reverse SOCKS channel.

Zscaler ThreatLabz·updated Sep 11, 09:12 UTC · 5d ago·first Sep 10, 14:43 UTC · 6d agoMalware in the wild 3 sources

ClickFix Campaigns Abuse Legitimate Services for Persistent Access

Dark Reading reports two ClickFix social engineering campaigns abusing legitimate services to compromise organizations and maintain persistent access.

Dark Reading describes two separate attacks in which threat actors used the ClickFix social engineering tactic to compromise organizations. The campaigns abuse legitimate, trusted services to gain and maintain persistent access to victim environments. No specific victims, actors, or indicators were named in the available text.

Dark Reading·Sep 8, 17:25 UTC · 7d agoThreat actor in the wild

Cops, CrowdStrike disrupt Sality botnet by poisoning the network and diverting into sinkholes

Law enforcement and CrowdStrike disrupted the 23-year-old Sality P2P botnet, isolating 15,000+ infected machines and seizing linked domains.

International law enforcement, working with CrowdStrike and the Shadowserver Foundation, executed a peer-to-peer sinkhole operation against Sality, a botnet active since 2003 that delivered malware to more than 15,000 machines worldwide. Sality's primary payload for eight years was EggJagger, a clipboard hijacker that swaps copied bitcoin and ethereum wallet addresses with attacker-controlled ones, yielding at least $150,000 in stolen cryptocurrency. The US Justice Department, FBI, and DoD Office of Inspector General's Defense Criminal Investigative Service seized Sality-linked domains, with parallel action in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. The Shadowserver Foundation is coordinating with ISPs and CSIRTs to identify infections and notify victims.

The Register · Security·Sep 1, 23:54 UTC · 14d agoMalware in the wild

CVE-2026-77147: Apache Syncope: Groovy Sandbox escape for empty CommandArgs

Apache Syncope patches an important Groovy sandbox escape (CVE-2026-77147) allowing administrators to achieve code injection via empty CommandArgs.

CVE-2026-77147 is an important-severity improper control of code generation vulnerability in Apache Syncope, rated as a Groovy sandbox escape for empty CommandArgs. An administrator with adequate privileges can exploit the flaw to achieve code injection. Affected versions include syncope-core-spring 3.0.0-M0 through 3.0.16, 4.0.0-M0 through 4.0.7, and 4.1.0-M0 through 4.1.2.

oss-security·Sep 14, 15:43 UTC · 1d agoVulnerabilityCVE-2026-77147

Guildma (Astaroth) malware infection from Brazilian Portuguese email, (Tue, Sep 1st)

Guildma (Astaroth) malware spread via geofenced Brazilian Portuguese phishing emails, using zip archives, shortcuts, and AutoIt loaders.

SANS researchers documented a Guildma (Astaroth) malware infection initiated on 2026-08-31 by a malicious Brazilian Portuguese email offering a DocuSign-themed PDF. The delivery link is geofenced to Brazil and requires Brazilian Portuguese browser and OS language settings, otherwise serving a legitimate installer. The infection chain uses a zip archive containing a Windows shortcut that retrieves a DLL saved as an alternate data stream, which installs a compiled AutoIt package for persistence. Unique SHA-256 indicators and HTTPS traffic to Azure-hosted and .cfd domains were observed, with prior reports noting the campaign's abuse of GitHub.

SANS Internet Storm Center·Sep 1, 21:30 UTC · 14d agoMalware in the wild

Week in review: Salesforce and ServiceNow portals exposed for 17 months, exploited Metabase 0-day

Weekly digest: exploited Metabase zero-day breached Framework; Salesforce/ServiceNow portals read for 17 months; Microsoft patched 400+ flaws.

Help Net Security's week in review aggregates top stories: a 'City-Forum' campaign tracked by Reco has been pulling records from Salesforce and ServiceNow portals worldwide for 17 months, and Framework suffered a breach via an exploited Metabase zero-day exposing customer contact and IP data. It also covers Microsoft's August 2026 Patch Tuesday fixing 400+ flaws including exploited zero-day CVE-2026-68820, Cisco's fix for exploited firewall DoS bug CVE-2026-20349 (added to CISA KEV), and a second N-able N-central hotfix for actively exploited CVE-2026-18577. Other items include GitHub expanding Dependabot malware alerts to eight package ecosystems and EU AI Act enforcement beginning on 2 August 2026.

Help Net Security·Aug 16, 00:00 UTC · Aug 16, 2026Industry in the wildCVE-2026-18577CVE-2026-68820CVE-2026-203491

Malicious Apache Modules Hijack Brazilian Government Site Traffic to Push Betting Pages

Check Point links Gambling Goblin, a Chinese-speaking cluster, to malicious Apache modules hijacking Brazilian government servers to promote betting sites.

Check Point Research tracks Gambling Goblin, a Chinese-speaking cluster, installing malicious Apache reverse-proxy modules on compromised Brazilian government and education web servers since mid-2025. The modules divert visitors to gambling and fake app-store pages while stripping the site's security headers, likely for large-scale SEO manipulation. The group's Linux arsenal includes DownPro, AlphaAgent, oRAT, a 3snake-based credential stealer, and SSH brute-forcing tools, and it is tied to Trend Micro's Earth Berberoka. Related SEO-fraud campaigns on .gov.br domains were documented by ESET (GhostRedirector), Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, and Hunt.io.

The Hacker News·Sep 2, 13:44 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

Bulk AbuseIPDB reporting using command-line tools

A blogger shows how to bulk-report distributed botnet IPs scraping a self-hosted Gitea instance to AbuseIPDB using bash, awk, and jq.

The author's self-hosted Gitea instance was scraped by distributed bots using random IPs worldwide and randomized, often nonexistent User-Agent strings, generating heavy request load for days. The write-up demonstrates filtering Traefik access logs (CLF and JSON) with grep, awk, and jq to extract offending IPs, tagging them with AbuseIPDB category 19 (Bad Web Bot), deduplicating them, and building a CSV for the Bulk Reporter tool. Reports can then be submitted through the AbuseIPDB bulk-report API, respecting the 5,000-report daily limit.

Lobsters · security·Sep 9, 20:26 UTC · 6d agoTools1

"Blank Slate" Campaign Takes Advantage of Hosting Providers to Spread Ransomware

Unit 42 profiles the Blank Slate malspam campaign: blank emails with double-zipped attachments delivering Cerber ransomware while cycling abused hosting provider domains.

The Blank Slate campaign sends empty emails containing double-zipped archives with macro-enabled Word documents or JavaScript files that launch PowerShell to download ransomware, primarily Cerber, and occasionally Sage 2.0 or Locky. Unit 42 observed 555 campaign domains over seven months, with actors repeatedly registering new domains and cycling abuse of legitimate hosting providers after takedowns. In a five-day January-February 2017 window, at least eight domains across seven IP addresses were observed hosting Cerber payloads.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 17, 09:53 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild1

How to Keep Malware’s Rotating Infrastructure From Becoming a Detection Gap

ANY.RUN marketing piece argues SOC detection lags rotating malware and phishing infrastructure, citing a 46-country campaign and 3DBlast kit to promote TI feeds.

ANY.RUN describes how malware and phishing campaigns rotate domains and hosting, making single-IOC blocking ineffective for SOC teams. One investigated phishing campaign spanned 46 countries with 425 kit URLs across 240 hosts, 94% of which were seen for only a single day. A phishing kit dubbed 3DBlast impersonates Microsoft 365 and Google using BitB, AiTM, OAuth device-code phishing and DOM relay techniques. The article is primarily a promotion for ANY.RUN TI Feeds and TI Lookup products.

Cyber Security News·Sep 15, 15:36 UTC · 23h agoIndustry

The Smishing Deluge: China-Based Campaign Flooding Global Text Messages

Unit 42 attributes a global smishing campaign with 194,000+ phishing domains impersonating tolls, banks, and couriers to the Smishing Triad.

Palo Alto Unit 42 attributes ongoing smishing texts about toll violations and package misdelivery to the Smishing Triad, targeting U.S. residents since April 2024. Researchers identified 194,345 FQDNs across 136,933 root domains registered since January 2024, mostly via Hong Kong registrar Dominet (HK) Limited with Chinese nameservers and hosting concentrated on U.S. cloud services. The decentralized campaign impersonates banking, cryptocurrency, e-commerce, healthcare, law enforcement, and social media services, and its scale points to a large phishing-as-a-service operation. Phishing pages harvest national ID numbers such as Social Security numbers, home addresses, payment details, and login credentials.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 17, 12:45 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Phishing & fraud in the wild1

Tracking OceanLotus’ new Downloader, KerrDown

Unit 42 identifies KerrDown, a new OceanLotus (APT32) downloader active since 2018 targeting Vietnamese speakers via malicious macros and DLL side-loading.

Unit 42 tracks KerrDown, a previously undocumented downloader family used by OceanLotus (APT32) since at least early 2018, primarily targeting Vietnam or Vietnamese-speaking individuals. Delivery uses macro-laced Microsoft Office documents embedding base64-encoded 32-bit and 64-bit DLLs, and RAR archives containing a legitimate program abused for DLL side-loading. KerrDown is dropped as main_background.png, downloads a DES-encrypted payload from a URL, and executes it directly in memory. Researchers used Jaccard-index similarity analysis to identify the new family, connect campaign samples, and infer patterns in the group's working hours and days.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 17, 12:53 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Malware in the wild1

How the EITest Campaign's Path to Angler EK Evolved Over Time

Unit 42 documents how the EITest campaign's gate URLs and infrastructure evolved since 2014 while still routing victims to Angler EK and diverse malware.

Unit 42 traced network traffic changes in the EITest campaign, which Malwarebytes identified in October 2014 across thousands of compromised websites. The campaign's injected script patterns have remained consistent, but its gate URLs changed repeatedly, and since January 2016 gates used the 85.93.0.0/24 IP block, often with .tk domains. The gate returns a Flash file that redirects victims to Angler EK, which delivered malware including Vawtrak, Tinba, TeslaCrypt, Bedep, Kovter, Ursnif, and Zeus variants from 2014 through 2016.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 17, 09:51 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild

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.

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

IT help-desk vishing tricks executives into handing over Microsoft 365 access

Arctic Wolf tracks PREY-0058 (linked to UNC6671), a vishing campaign stealing Microsoft 365 session tokens via AiTM panels for SaaS data theft and extortion.

Arctic Wolf is tracking a campaign, PREY-0058, sharing tradecraft with Google Threat Intelligence Group's UNC6671, in which callers posing as internal IT talk employees through fake passkey/MFA setups. Operator-controlled adversary-in-the-middle pages harvest passwords and MFA approvals to seize session tokens, then actors enumerate and bulk-exfiltrate data from SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, and Box. Extortion brands include BlackFile, Pink, Helix, Cinder, and Redact; targets are mostly US-based executives in construction, healthcare, real estate, finance, and professional services, with exfiltration shifting to residential proxies like NodeMaven.

Help Net Security·Sep 8, 11:17 UTC · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Threat Gang 'Springs' Vishing Attacks on Microsoft Teams Users

The 'Spring Ring' operation uses vishing attacks against Microsoft Teams users to hijack sessions, deploy malware, and take over infrastructure.

Dark Reading reports on the Spring Ring threat gang conducting voice-phishing (vishing) attacks against users of Microsoft Teams. The operation aims to compromise collaboration-suite accounts to gain remote access to victim sessions, distribute malware, and potentially seize control of infrastructure. Further technical details were not provided in the available text.

Dark Reading·Sep 2, 16:51 UTC · 13d agoPhishing & fraud1

Spring Ring: An Inside Look at Voice Phishing Campaigns in Microsoft Teams

Unit 42 details the Spring Ring voice phishing campaign abusing Microsoft Teams to deploy malware and target enterprise domain controllers.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 analyzed the Spring Ring campaign, which abuses Microsoft Teams and voice phishing (vishing) to compromise enterprise users. Attackers use Teams calls to social-engineer victims, then deploy malware and advance toward enterprise domain controllers. The report documents the campaign's tactics and provides detection guidance for defenders.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 31, 10:00 UTC · 16d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

MapLibre Vulnerability Exposes 2.7M Users to Zero-Click Attacks

Critical XSS CVE-2026-85061 in MapLibre GL JS enables zero-click attacks on an estimated 2.7 million users; fixed in maplibre-gl 6.4.1.

A flaw in MapLibre GL JS's DOM.sanitize() iterates a live NamedNodeMap while removing attributes, skipping malicious attributes placed adjacent to removed ones, letting event handlers like onload and ontoggle survive and execute via innerHTML in the attribution control. Tracked as CVE-2026-85061 and GHSA-jrc7-96c5-q579, the flaw affects maplibre-gl versions 6.4.0 and earlier, is rated critical under CVSS v3.1 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N), and requires no user interaction, privileges, or authentication. Exploitation could enable session theft, unauthorized actions, phishing redirects, or map content manipulation; the patch in 6.4.1 snapshots attributes with Array.from before iterating.

Cyber Security News·Sep 9, 14:05 UTC · 7d agoVulnerabilityCVE-2026-85061