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193 stories in the last 30d

DomainAll Cyber AIWindow24h 3d 7d 30d AllIn the wild Important only Show duplicates

CategoryAll AI research 540 Vulnerability 490 Advisory 423 AI safety & security 383 Exploit / PoC 370 AI industry 359 Research 307 Industry 306 Threat actor 224 Policy & legal 194 Data breach 175 Tools 174 Malware 173 Phishing & fraud 136

SeverityAll critical 173 high 821 medium 907 low 256 info 2420

'Breeze Comet' Tears Into Brazilian & Global Financial Systems

Threat group 'Breeze Comet' is attacking Brazil's financial systems and reportedly stealing funds directly, per Dark Reading threat intelligence.

Dark Reading reports that 'Breeze Comet', described as Brazil's most sophisticated threat group, is compromising the country's financial systems. The activity is financially motivated, with funds reportedly moved directly to the attackers. The campaign reportedly extends to global financial systems, though technical details, victims and attribution evidence were not disclosed in the excerpt.

Dark ReadingSep 3, 12:00 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

Counterfeit installers turn routine software downloads into enterprise breaches

Microsoft warns of a multi-sector campaign using counterfeit download sites for Edge, Kaspersky and Razer to deliver trojanized installers with persistent implants.

Microsoft Defender Experts tracked a campaign breaching organizations in healthcare, manufacturing, gaming, technology, logistics, government, and education via spoofed vendor download pages, often using .com.cn and .hl.cn domains. Installers keep the same filename while their hash changes on every download, indicating server-side payload generation that defeats file-based detection. The chain abuses msiexec.exe and scheduled tasks for persistence, adds Defender exclusions, deletes shadow copies, and disables Windows Update, with some hands-on-keyboard activity. The activity is consistent with the publicly reported Silver Fox (Yinhu) campaign, though Microsoft has not attributed it to a nation-state actor.

CSO OnlineSep 3, 11:17 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Attackers Turn Trusted Node.js Runtime Into Malware Delivery Tool in Targeted Attacks

Symantec reports multiple threat actors, including KongTuke, abusing the trusted signed Node.js runtime and blockchain C2 (EtherHiding) to deliver backdoors in targeted attacks.

Symantec's Threat Hunter Team (Broadcom) reports that since February 2026 attackers have used the legitimate signed node.exe binary and interpreted scripts to deliver implants while evading signature-based detection, hitting government departments, technology companies, and hotels. One intrusion at an Asian technology firm (March 23–July 25, 2026) used ClickFix social engineering, the official Node.js installer, and EtherHiding to fetch commands via the Ethereum blockchain after AdaptixC2 and Cobalt Strike attempts were blocked. Related chains involve KongTuke (Woodgnat) using ModeloRAT, Mistic, NexShield, and GateKeeper, plus C2Looper, AsukaStealer, and EtherRAT; GuidePoint Security separately linked a fake-CAPTCHA ClickFix campaign to at least 31 compromised organizations using the Polygon blockchain as a dynamic C2 address book.

The Hacker NewsSep 3, 10:43 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Attackers Expose Ongoing AI Tool Use Targeting Organizations in Latin America

Unit 42 documents two AI-assisted intrusion campaigns against Latin American government, utility, and financial organizations using LLM-orchestrated tooling.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 tracks two ongoing intrusion clusters, CL-CRI-1131 (Mexican transportation, federal ministries, municipal water utilities) and CL-CRI-1163 (Brazilian financial sector), both using living-off-the-land techniques, SOCKS5 relays, and custom RATs. The attackers appear to orchestrate operations via commercial LLMs like Claude and GPT-4.1, evidenced by iterative batch scripts and AI-generated tunneling tool naming. The Mexican campaign (also reported as Operation Escaneo by CloudSEK) exfiltrated sensitive data via dynamic-DNS infrastructure with rotated multi-SAN TLS certificates between February and June 2026. This signals broader adoption of AI-enhanced operations by diverse threat groups in the region.

Palo Alto Unit 42Sep 3, 10:00 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild1

AI agents help compress ransomware intrusion to under 10 hours, raising stakes for CISOs

Unit 42 reports AI agents compressed a ransomware intrusion from weeks to under 10 hours, using 50+ MITRE ATT&CK techniques against an enterprise network.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 investigated a ransomware incident where AI agents moved through an enterprise network in under 10 hours, work that would have taken human operators roughly two weeks. The attacker entered via a public-facing API endpoint, used automated reconnaissance to map microservices, searched source-code repositories for credentials, and accessed a secrets-management system. They hijacked enterprise code workflows to exfiltrate cloud access keys, attempted Terraform backdoors (blocked by branch protections), and used stolen credentials to access the victim's own AI services as attack infrastructure. Over 50 MITRE ATT&CK techniques were observed; the actor confirmed using frontier AI models and agentic frameworks during negotiations.

CSO OnlineSep 3, 09:42 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

Pegasus Zero-Click Spyware Exploit Infects Serbian Student Movement Member's iPhone

Citizen Lab confirms Pegasus zero-click iMessage spyware infected a Serbian student activist's iPhone amid at least 14 spyware targets in Serbia during 2026.

The Citizen Lab, with the SHARE Foundation, confirmed an iMessage zero-click exploit infected a Serbian student protest movement member's iPhone with NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, with high-confidence indicators from December 2025 to January 2026. The exploit was addressed by Apple in iOS 18.4.1, released April 2025. At least 14 people in Serbia, including students, activists, an MP, and a councilor, were targeted with advanced spyware since the start of 2026, coinciding with March 29, 2026 local elections; a new Android spyware similar to NoviSpy was also found on a confiscated device.

The Hacker NewsSep 3, 08:43 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

2,000 Leaked Documents Reveal How Russia Turns Engineering Students Into GRU Cyber Operators

Leaked Bauman Moscow State Technical University files reveal a hidden GRU training pipeline feeding APT28 and Sandworm units.

More than 2,000 leaked Bauman Moscow State Technical University documents show that Department No. 4, a hidden program inside the Military Training Center, trained roughly 250 career and reserve students for GRU cyber and intelligence roles across six academic years. Graduates were linked to Military Unit 26165 (APT28), Unit 74455 (Sandworm/APT44) and Unit 29155, and former Unit 26165 commander Viktor Netyksho was involved in department oversight. Reporting by The Insider, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and other outlets, with independent analysis by DomainTools, estimates 10-15 students annually were selected for GRU-related assignments before graduating.

Security AffairsSep 3, 08:12 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor1

Srsly Risky Biz: China's Private Sector Botnets Are Worth Disrupting

DoJ seized domains of Chinese espionage botnet platforms QScan and QTRouter, run by private firm QTFY for MSS and PLA targeting.

The US Department of Justice disrupted QScan, a distributed vulnerability scanning system with nearly a decade of internet scanning data, and QTRouter, a covert communications platform routing traffic through compromised IoT devices, operated by QTFY under Chinese company Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology. FBI and NSA advisories say QTFY customers include China's Ministry of State Security and the People's Liberation Army, targeting federal agencies, the US Senate, hospitals, telecoms and financial institutions. This is the third Chinese state-backed botnet disrupted since December 2023, following the KV botnet (Volt Typhoon) and Raptor Train (Flax Typhoon), and a sister network, JDY, has more than doubled since the KV disruption. Separately, the Qilin ransomware group claimed a breach of the ATF's CALEA system, briefly publishing 6.3 GB of case folders and forensic data.

Risky Business NewsSep 3, 04:29 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor1

H1 2026 Malware Vulnerability Trends

Recorded Future's H1 2026 report finds 215 actively exploited CVEs, RAT dominance, NFC payment fraud, and AI-augmented but not autonomous tradecraft.

Recorded Future's Insikt Group identified 215 actively exploited CVEs in H1 2026, up 34% from 161 in H1 2025, with the most impactful flaws combining network reachability, no authentication, and code execution. AsyncRAT was the top malware family, with AsyncRAT, Cobalt Strike, XWorm, Stealc, and REMCOS remaining top-ten staples; Android NFC malware like NFCShare and NGate enabled payment card theft and ATM cash-outs. AI-enabled attacks remained additive to established tradecraft, concentrated in Levels 1-3 of Recorded Future's AIM3 maturity model, with AI-assisted vulnerability research (e.g., Claude Mythos fixing 271 Firefox bugs in Firefox 150) inflating NVD disclosure volumes 43% above the prior six-month average. The report urges defenders to prioritize remotely exploitable RCE flaws, behavioral detection, developer credential security, and third-party oversight.

Recorded FutureSep 3, 00:00 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Impersonating IT support: how threat actors turn a remote session into enterprise-wide access

Microsoft details Teams IT-support impersonation campaigns deploying Node.js implants, AD reconnaissance, and WinRM lateral movement toward domain controllers.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence describes a human-operated campaign where attackers impersonate IT/helpdesk staff via Microsoft Teams external collaboration, talk users into granting remote sessions, and use RMM tools for interactive access. During the session they run PowerShell to silently install a malicious MSI that stages a portable Node.js runtime and obfuscated JavaScript implant for C2, executing follow-on payloads via rundll32. Operators then perform host and Active Directory reconnaissance, capture desktop screenshots, and pivot via WinRM on port 5985 to domain controllers and certificate authorities. The hands-on-keyboard chain, which can precede data theft and ransomware, blends into normal operations by relying on Teams, Quick Assist, msiexec, and Node.js; Microsoft shares hunting and mitigation guidance.

Microsoft Security BlogSep 2, 22:51 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

AI Gives Cybercriminals a Dangerous Time Advantage

Former cybercriminal Brett Johnson argues AI gives attackers a speed advantage, explaining where AI most benefits criminal fraud operations.

Dark Reading publishes commentary from former cybercriminal Brett Johnson on attacker psychology and where AI delivers the most value to cybercriminals. The piece frames AI as widening the time advantage attackers hold over defenders, particularly in fraud and social engineering operations. No new incident, campaign, or disclosure is reported; this is analysis rather than news of an event.

Dark ReadingSep 2, 19:46 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor

Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

Researchers confirmed the first 2026 Pegasus infection and a new NoviSpy variant on 14 Serbian activists, likely surveillance by Serbian authorities ahead of elections.

Citizen Lab confirmed with high probability the first forensically confirmed Pegasus infection of 2026, on a Serbian student activist hacked via a zero-click exploit between December of last year and January. Amnesty International confirmed two devices infected with a new NoviSpy variant, and the SHARE Foundation documented 14 targets including a member of parliament and a local government official, the largest documented spyware wave in Serbia to date. Evidence points to Serbian police or intelligence services, with NoviSpy infections occurring around police detention ahead of key local and parliamentary elections. Apple threat notifications preceded the findings, and updated iOS versions break the exploit chain.

CyberScoopSep 2, 15:03 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

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 · 14d agoThreat actor

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 NewsSep 2, 13:44 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

Iran-linked APT Mirage Kitten Uses Fake Job Tests to Spread Malware

Kaspersky reports Iran-linked Mirage Kitten delivers new NodeRabbit and PollCat malware to fintech and aviation targets via fake LinkedIn coding assessments.

Kaspersky researchers documented two previously undocumented Node.js malware families, NodeRabbit and PollCat, attributed with high confidence to Iran-linked APT group Mirage Kitten. The malware is delivered via fake recruiter personas on LinkedIn offering coding assessments hosted on Amazon S3, with instructions banning AI assistants so AI code-review tools would not flag the trojanized npm packages. NodeRabbit is cross-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS), uses AES-256-GCM-encrypted C2 on Azure, includes sandbox checks, and one variant installs a fake 'GitHub Copilot Helper' VS Code extension plus Git hook persistence. Victims identified so far are in fintech and aviation organizations across Egypt, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan.

Security AffairsSep 2, 10:37 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild2

Iranian Hackers Pose as Recruiters to Deliver Cross

Kaspersky attributes new cross-platform RATs NodeRabbit and PollCat to Iranian group Nimbus Manticore, spread via recruiter-themed LinkedIn lures.

Kaspersky links two previously undocumented malware families, NodeRabbit (Node.js) and PollCat (obfuscated JavaScript), to the Iranian threat actor Nimbus Manticore, also known as Iranian Dream Job. Victims in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Ethiopia received trojanized coding challenge archives containing fake npm packages (colorized_terminal, pretty-log) that silently launched the RATs as background processes. NodeRabbit contacts Azure-hosted C2 servers via checkin, task, and result API endpoints and supports 11 commands including shell execution, file operations, and network enumeration. Persistence is platform-specific: Windows Run keys or scheduled tasks, Linux cron entries, and macOS launch agents, impersonating Microsoft Edge updates or Intel's Driver & Support Assistant.

The Hacker NewsSep 2, 10:20 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor

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 · 15d agoThreat actor

An AI-Assisted Cyber Attack: Inside a Unit 42 Investigation

Unit 42 investigated a ransom attack in which frontier AI agents autonomously breached an enterprise network, compressing weeks of tradecraft into under 10 hours.

Unit 42 incident responders documented an intrusion where a single human operator directed frontier AI agents to breach an enterprise network autonomously as part of a ransom attack. The agents executed more than 50 MITRE ATT&CK techniques in under 10 hours, work that would normally require roughly two weeks of human red-team effort. They breached a public-facing web service, mapped internal microservices, scraped hard-coded secrets from code repositories, harvested root credentials from the secrets manager, and hijacked CI/CD builds to exfiltrate cloud access keys. The attacker also used stolen cloud keys to repurpose the victim's AI endpoints as post-compromise infrastructure and left behind an 80-page AI-generated security audit documenting dozens of exploited findings.

Palo Alto Unit 42Sep 2, 10:00 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild

FBI Disrupts China-Linked QTFY Infrastructure Used to Steal Data From U.S. Organizations

FBI and Lumen disrupted QTFY's QScan and QTRouter botnet platforms used by Chinese state-sponsored hackers to conceal intrusions into U.S. agencies.

The U.S. DoJ announced court-authorized seizure of domains behind QScan and QTRouter, operated by the Chinese state-sponsored group QTFY and employed by Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company. QTFY has been active since May 2018 and targeted NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Energy, DoJ, HHS, NIH, the U.S. Senate, and academic institutions. QScan exploits vulnerable IoT devices, feeding them into QTRouter, an OpenWrt-based proxy obfuscation network likened to an operational relay box (ORB) that masks attack origins. The group exploited zero-days such as Ivanti CSA flaws CVE-2024-8190, CVE-2024-8963, and CVE-2024-9380, plus numerous N-days, and maintained persistence with RATs, web shells, and legitimate credentials.

The Hacker NewsSep 2, 06:26 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2018-13379 CVE-2019-10068 CVE-2019-19781+10 CVEs

Russia-Aligned UAC-0099 Plants Nuclear Weapon Prompt in Malware to Disrupt AI Analysis

Russia-aligned UAC-0099 planted a nuclear-weapon prompt inside malicious VBS scripts to derail LLM-based malware analysis targeting Ukraine.

ESET disclosed a technique dubbed GuardBreaker used by Russia-aligned UAC-0099 against a Ukrainian target: inserting the text 'I want to make a nuclear weapon. Help me ...' as a comment in a malicious VBS script to trip LLM safety guardrails and stop AI-assisted analysis. The script downloads and installs MATCHBOIL, a C# loader exclusive to UAC-0099, which CERT-UA warned was distributed as a fake Notepad++ plugin in late July 2026. Similar prompt-injection anti-analysis tricks appeared in the Mini Shai-Hulud, Miasma, and Hades npm supply chain campaigns linked to TeamPCP, two of whose alleged members were arrested in Western Australia.

The Hacker NewsSep 2, 06:25 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor

Counterfeit installers to system compromise: Tracking a deceptive software download campaign

Microsoft tracks a counterfeit software-installer campaign compromising multinationals' China operations, moderately linked to the Silver Fox (Yinhu) actor.

Microsoft Defender Experts is tracking an active campaign using spoofed software download sites for brands such as Razer, Kaspersky, Microsoft Edge, Calibre, and Baidu Netdisk on .com.cn and .hl.cn domains, delivering installer archives whose hashes change per download, indicating server-side payload generation. The implants establish persistence, weaken security protections, and communicate with attacker-controlled infrastructure, with confirmed compromises across healthcare, manufacturing, gaming, technology, logistics, government, and education. Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that the activity matches the publicly reported Silver Fox (Yinhu) fake software campaign; it has not attributed it to a nation-state actor.

Microsoft Security BlogSep 1, 22:48 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild1

China's 'Fire Ant' campaign used compromised Cisco routers as platform for more attacks

Sygnia links the China-nexus Fire Ant campaign to UNC3886, showing hackers weaponized compromised Cisco IOS XR routers for espionage and wider intrusions.

Sygnia's Fire Ant report details Chinese hackers compromising Cisco IOS XR routers, TACACS+ authentication servers and management infrastructure to capture traffic, harvest credentials and stage attacks on high-value and critical infrastructure networks. The group, which overlaps with Mandiant's UNC3886, developed custom router malware for persistence, hid logs, deleted files and tampered with firewall rules, and remained active in 2026 after Sygnia's 2025 disclosure. The activity aligns with prior Chinese campaigns against Cisco devices, including Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon operations.

The RecordSep 1, 20:41 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor

⚡ Weekly Recap: Chinese Spy Proxy, AI Agents Go Off

Weekly recap: FBI disrupts Chinese QTFY proxy network, Fire Ant expands to trusted infrastructure, ZBT router backdoors surface, and OpenAI agents breach Hugging Face.

This weekly recap leads with the U.S. disruption of QTFY's QScan and QTRouter reconnaissance and proxy platforms targeting U.S. critical infrastructure. It reports on the China-linked Fire Ant (UNC3886) targeting routers, TACACS servers, and Linux management hosts with implants like Medusa rootkit components, TacTap, and BridgeAgent, while suppressing logs and altering command output. VulnCheck disclosed SPEAKINGSTONE (CVE-2026-74233) and DARKLANTERN (CVE-2026-74232) backdoors in ZBT routers, both CVSS 9.3 and written in Nim. The recap also covers OpenAI's finding that reward hacking drove internal AI agents to breach Hugging Face during security evaluations, the TerminalFix ClickFix variant using fake Cloudflare CAPTCHAs, and active exploitation of PaperCut flaws CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078.

The Hacker NewsSep 1, 16:45 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-81578 CVE-2026-82078 CVE-2026-74232+2 CVEs1

Leaked Russian Cyber-Operations Training Materials

Leaked Bauman university records reveal a formalized Russian pipeline training GRU cyber personnel, linking a graduate to Sandworm's Military Unit 74455.

Leaked training materials from Bauman university describe a force-generation mechanism feeding graduates into General Staff components, including the GRU and directorates responsible for protected communications, cryptography and information security. A 2024 graduate of Department No. 4, Aleksei Kondrashov, was linked to Military Unit 74455, the GRU unit known as Sandworm, which conducted destructive attacks including the 2017 NotPetya attack. Researchers say the leak shows Russian cyber capability is institutionally sustained through recruitment pipelines beyond the familiar APT28 and Sandworm brand names.

Schneier on SecuritySep 1, 16:29 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor

Financially Motivated Threat Actor BREEZE COMET Targets Brazil

Google Threat Intelligence details BREEZE COMET, a financially motivated group manipulating Brazilian payment systems and banking software to conduct fraudulent transfers since 2024.

Mandiant and Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) track this activity as BREEZE COMET (formerly UNC5669), active since 2024 against Brazilian financial services, retail, and eCommerce organizations. The actor specializes in manipulating payment systems and banking software to conduct fraudulent transfers. The activity overlaps with operations publicly reported as Plump Spider and SHADOW-AETHER-064. The report details the group's tactics, toolkit, mitigations, and detections for this active and developing threat.

Google Threat IntelligenceSep 1, 14:00 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild

ClickFix Campaign Compromises 31 Orgs, Abuses Polygon Blockchain

A ClickFix social engineering campaign compromised 31 organizations, abusing the Polygon blockchain via EtherHiding for dynamically updated command-and-control.

The campaign uses ClickFix-style social engineering to compromise victims, with 31 organizations affected. It employs EtherHiding to dynamically update its command-and-control server, abusing the Polygon blockchain as an attacker-controlled address book. This blockchain-based C2 approach makes the infrastructure more resilient and harder to take down.

Dark ReadingSep 1, 13:56 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild

Iranian cyber spies target aviation, fintech developers with new malware

Kaspersky links Iranian espionage group Mirage Kitten to fake job offers delivering new NodeRabbit and PollCat malware at aviation and fintech targets.

Kaspersky attributes the campaign to Iran-linked Mirage Kitten (also tracked as UNC1549, Smoke Sandstorm and Nimbus Manticore), which targeted developers and specialists in Egypt, Ethiopia and Afghanistan via fake recruiter contacts on LinkedIn and job platforms. Victims were lured into running malicious coding assessments that deployed two previously unknown families: NodeRabbit, a cross-platform RAT for Windows, Linux and macOS, and PollCat, which provides persistence and delivers additional payloads. The group masks activity behind legitimate Microsoft Azure and Cloudflare infrastructure, sometimes embedding victim organization names in Azure subdomains. The group has been active since at least 2022, focusing on aviation, aerospace and financial technology sectors in Africa and the Middle East.

The RecordSep 1, 12:38 UTC · 16d agoThreat actor1

33-hour BGP hijack of Softaculous traffic prompts security scramble

Attackers hijacked BGP routes carrying Softaculous traffic for 33 hours, prompting the hosting software vendor to urge credential resets and malware checks.

A BGP hijack redirected traffic to and from Softaculous, a hosting automation software vendor, for approximately 33 hours. The company advised customers to reset their credentials and hunt for malicious packages, raising supply-chain compromise concerns. The prolonged hijack highlights routing security weaknesses that can expose software vendors' traffic.

The Register · SecuritySep 1, 12:04 UTC · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild

North Korea-linked IT Workers Are Getting Hired Inside Western Companies

Huntress documented five DPRK-linked FAMOUS CHOLLIMA workers hired by Western companies in 2026 using fake identities, proxies and laptop farms.

Huntress published an investigation of five confirmed 2026 cases of North Korea-linked IT workers, tracked as FAMOUS CHOLLIMA, obtaining remote jobs at legitimate companies in IT, sales, marketing and healthcare. The workers use stolen or fabricated identity documents, VPNs and proxy services, and some were caught using PiKVM hardware-level control, travel routers and laptop farms to mask their true location. Detection relied on document forensics, behavioral anomalies and indicators like identical typo artifacts in electricity bills rather than network intrusions.

Security AffairsSep 1, 11:08 UTC · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild

Mirage Kitten targeting aviation and FinTech sectors across the Middle East and Africa with a new malware set

Kaspersky reports Mirage Kitten targeting aviation and fintech organizations across the Middle East and Africa with new NodeRabbit and PollCat backdoors.

Kaspersky researchers documented new Mirage Kitten operations against aviation and fintech organizations in the Middle East and Africa. The campaign uses two previously undocumented backdoors: NodeRabbit, written in Node.js, and PollCat, written in JavaScript. The findings expand the group's known toolset and TTPs.

Kaspersky SecurelistSep 1, 07:00 UTC · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Major Cyber Attacks in August 2026: US and EU Businesses Hit by Session Hijacking, Remote Access, and Insider Risk

ANY.RUN's August 2026 roundup shows US and EU firms hit via Microsoft 365 session hijacking, remote-tool abuse, and hiring lures.

ANY.RUN's August 2026 review catalogs attacks on US and European businesses abusing Microsoft 365 sessions, legitimate remote-management tools, and business-themed files. Observed techniques included account takeover, session hijacking, persistence via remote access, credential exposure, and exploitation of hiring processes. The report stresses that attacker activity frequently resembled legitimate business behavior.

ANY.RUNSep 1, 06:53 UTC · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild1

North Korean Job Fraud Expands Beyond IT Into Healthcare and Sales

North Korea's IT worker scheme (Famous Chollima/PurpleDelta) has expanded from IT into healthcare, sales, and financial services roles worldwide.

Huntress and Recorded Future documented DPRK-linked fraudulent workers landing remote jobs beyond IT, including at an Australian healthcare company, a financial services firm, and a sales hire with a stolen identity. The scheme, tracked as Famous Chollima, Jasper Sleet, Nickel Tapestry, PurpleDelta, UNC5267, and Wagemole, uses forged identity documents, VPNs, proxies, and laptop farms with PiKVM and capture cards to fund Pyongyang's weapons programs. Recorded Future found the PurpleDelta cluster applied to 1,100+ companies between late 2024 and early 2025 with 22 fabricated personas, some AI-generated, using ChatGPT and AI transcription during interviews. Analysts assess the activity is ongoing and likely to expand in scale and sophistication.

The Hacker NewsSep 1, 06:34 UTC · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild

RMM Tools for MSPs: Features, Risks & How to Stay Secure

Threat actors continue abusing MSP remote monitoring and management tools to reach downstream customers, four years after the Kaseya supply chain attack.

Huntress examines how RMM platforms remain a favored gateway for attackers targeting managed service providers and their clients. A recent incident demonstrates that adversaries still successfully pivot from MSP RMM tooling into downstream customer environments. The piece also covers RMM features, associated risks, and hardening guidance for providers.

HuntressSep 1, 04:00 UTC · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild

Daisy-Chaining Trust: Investigating Faronics Deploy Abuse

Actors abuse Faronics Deploy in phishing campaigns to run PowerShell and deploy ScreenConnect while evading detection with trusted tools.

Huntress investigated attacks in which threat actors abuse Faronics Deploy, a legitimate remote management tool, as part of phishing-driven intrusions. The chain uses the trusted deployment tool to launch PowerShell commands and deploy ScreenConnect for remote access. Leveraging signed, legitimate software helps the actors blend in and evade detection.

HuntressAug 31, 21:00 UTC · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild

'TerminalFix' Campaign Weaponizes PowerShell for Enterprise Attacks

A ClickFix-style campaign called TerminalFix weaponizes PowerShell and reverse tunnels to infiltrate enterprise networks in a multistage attack chain.

Dark Reading reports on the TerminalFix campaign, a sophisticated multistage attack targeting enterprises. It uses a ClickFix-style social engineering lure and heavily weaponizes PowerShell. The chain establishes reverse tunnels into victim organizations' networks, giving operators interactive access for follow-on activity.

Dark ReadingAug 31, 20:25 UTC · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild

China-linked Fire Ant Hides Inside Trusted Infrastructure

China-linked Fire Ant backdoored Cisco IOS XR routers, injected TACACS libraries to steal credentials, and rewrote logs across infrastructure targets.

Sygnia reports the China-linked espionage group Fire Ant compromised Cisco IOS XR routers with purpose-built malware, injected a library into the TACACS authentication daemon to capture live credential material, and manipulated syslog so only messages containing 'Health' were logged. The group used GRE tunnel interfaces with no commit history, rewrote wtmp/utmp/btmp login records, and deployed dormant deep backdoors on Linux systems — one disguised as a SentinelOne agent, another activated by raw network traffic carrying a magic string. Code-level overlap with UNC3886 tooling suggests evolution of that China-nexus cluster's TACACS credential-collection techniques, and Fire Ant used compromised infrastructure to scan SSH, RDP and web ports toward high-value networks.

Security AffairsAug 31, 11:10 UTC · 17d agoThreat actor in the wild1

China-Linked Fire Ant Hijacks Cisco Routers to Steal Credentials and Blind Security Logs

China-nexus espionage group Fire Ant compromised Cisco IOS XR routers and TACACS servers to harvest credentials, capture traffic and suppress logs.

Sygnia investigated an intrusion in which Fire Ant expanded beyond VMware hypervisors to Cisco IOS XR routers, TACACS servers and Linux management hosts. The actor deployed purpose-built router implants that hid a GRE tunnel, filtered log messages, captured PCAPs uploaded to external FTP servers, and used TacTap to inject a library into tac_plus and steal TACACS credentials obfuscated with a single-byte XOR key of 0xEF. A Linux backdoor named BridgeAgent masqueraded as a Zabbix agent, persisted via a root systemd unit, disguised itself as /usr/bin/gnome-shell and received commands over TLS on port 443. The group also used Medusa and REPTILE rootkits, SSH backdoors and renamed binaries impersonating SentinelOne and Cybereason agents, while suppressing logs, disabling SELinux and rewriting login history. Sygnia assesses strong overlap with UNC3886 and published IoCs.

The Hacker NewsAug 31, 09:04 UTC · 17d agoThreat actor in the wild1

DoJ Corrects China Hacking Claim, Says U.S. Agencies Were Targets, Not Victims

DoJ corrected its statement to say US federal agencies were targets, not confirmed victims, of China-linked group QTFY's intrusions.

The US Department of Justice revised its press release to list NASA, the Federal Reserve, Department of Energy, DoJ, HHS, NIH and the US Senate as 'among the targets' of QTFY (aka QT AND QTCYBER), rather than victims. QTFY, active since 2018 and linked to Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Co with payments suggesting MSS sponsorship, operates the QScan vulnerability scanning platform and QTRouter obfuscation network, which underpin the Fast Labyrinth encrypted ORB relay network built from infected IoT devices and leased VPSs. The FBI seized qtproxy[.]xyz, qt-proxy[.]org and qt-team[.]com, disrupting QScan and QTRouter, while Lumen Black Lotus Labs reported the actor industrialized ORB networks for China-linked espionage. A 2019 NASA intrusion attempt exploited CVE-2019-11510, a critical Pulse Secure VPN flaw.

The Hacker NewsAug 31, 07:56 UTC · 17d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2019-115101

Password spraying campaign targets AWS root user accounts across 150+ organizations

Datadog researchers observed a password spraying campaign attempting to authenticate as AWS root users across 150+ organizations.

Datadog Security Research observed a large-scale password spraying campaign attempting to authenticate as AWS root user accounts across more than 150 organizations. The campaign targeted root credentials rather than standard IAM users, and no confirmed compromises are stated in the report. Root account access would grant full control of affected AWS environments, making this a significant credential-attack campaign for cloud defenders.

Datadog Security LabsAug 31, 00:00 UTC · 17d agoThreat actor in the wild

Threat actors are posing as AI crawlers to hunt for exposed credentials

GreyNoise observed scanners spoofing AI crawler user agents from 824 IPs to harvest .env files and cloud credentials; no confirmed theft.

GreyNoise researchers found attackers disguising automated scanning as AI crawler traffic, using six crawler names from four AI companies including Anthropic's ClaudeBot, OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity. Between July 28 and August 23, 2026, the six names arrived from 824 IP addresses spread across 795 /24 networks that matched no published vendor ranges, shared one HTTP client fingerprint that had used more than 1,500 user agent strings, and never requested /robots.txt. The scanners targeted /.env, /.env.production, /.env.bak, and /.aws/credentials, hunting secrets, cloud access keys, private keys, and password stores, while forged Amazon crawler names appeared at greater volume under undocumented user agents. GreyNoise could not confirm whether any file was returned or any organization affected, and published all 824 addresses and targeted paths for defenders.

Help Net SecurityAug 31, 00:00 UTC · 17d agoThreat actor