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Toward an Empirical Probabilistic Risk Manifestation Model of Organizational Cybersecurity in SMEs

Empirical study of 22 SME security assessments builds a probabilistic risk model and shows assessments can be cut 24-45% while retaining most critical findings.

Researchers analyzed 281 validated security findings from 22 real-world SME cybersecurity assessments conducted over two years via a pro bono university clinic. They derived an empirical Risk Manifestation Model linking eight organizational security functions to two exposure conditions, five attack mechanisms, and six outcome categories, using probability propagation to identify dominant risk pathways. The dominant pathway runs from asset exposure to credential compromise to unauthorized access, stable under leave-one-organization-out analysis. Retaining six functions reduces assessment burden by 24% while preserving 97% of critical findings; five functions cut burden 45% while preserving 89% of critical findings.

arXiv cs.CR · 3d agoResearch

Smishing Triad Hackers Use JWR Phishing Kit to Steal Cards, OTPs and Bank Credentials

Group-IB attributes large-scale smishing using the JWR real-time phishing kit to the Smishing Triad's Outsider cluster, harvesting card data, OTPs, and bank credentials.

Group-IB attributes a large-scale SMS phishing campaign to Outsider, an operator sub-cluster within the Smishing Triad phishing-as-a-service ecosystem, using a kit dubbed JWR. The Vue 2-based platform maintains real-time WebSocket communication with operators, enabling them to adapt pages live and harvest roughly 70 PII fields, card data, PINs, OTPs, identity document images, and digital wallet credentials via a dedicated PayPal sub-funnel. Unit 42 previously tied 194,345 malicious domains across 136,933 root domains to the broader operation since January 2024. Defenders can hunt for /api/open/ endpoints, /webSocket/QT/ paths, JWR-prefixed storage artifacts, and a hard-coded WebSocket token.

GBHackersupdated · 23h agofirst · 1d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 2 sources

SonicWall SMA 1000 appliances under attack via zero-day flaws

SonicWall confirms active exploitation of zero-day SSRF (CVE-2026-83548) and command injection (CVE-2026-83549) flaws in SMA 1000 remote access appliances.

SonicWall confirmed attackers are actively exploiting two previously undisclosed vulnerabilities in SMA 1000 SSL VPN appliances, affecting physical and virtual models 6210, 7210, and 8200v but not SMA 100 appliances or SonicWall firewalls. CVE-2026-83548 is a pre-authentication SSRF in the Appliance Work Place interface allowing remote unauthenticated attackers to gain unauthorized access to sensitive functionality, while CVE-2026-83549 is an OS command injection in the Appliance Management Console that can yield remote code execution under specific conditions for authenticated admins. The vendor urged immediate hotfix deployment, IoC review with technical support, and re-imaging or redeployment plus password and TOTP token resets on confirmed compromise. This is the latest in a series of zero-day attacks against SMA 1000 appliances following waves in late 2025 and June-July 2026.

Help Net Security · 15d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-83548CVE-2026-83549

Cybersecurity jobs available right now: June 30, 2026

Help Net Security lists cybersecurity job openings across the US, UAE, France, Israel, Japan, Ireland, India, and Canada at major employers.

The roundup includes roles such as AI Offensive Security Engineer at AGAPI, Cloud Security Engineer at Spotify, IAM Engineer at Proton, DFIR in Israel, and a Senior Inspector overseeing NIS2 and AI regulation compliance in Ireland. Most listings were marked as no longer accepting applications, with a few still open including DFIR at Cye, IAM Engineer at Proton, and Detection Engineering at Saronic. The list covers employers across finance, infrastructure, and technology sectors.

Help Net Security · 28d agoIndustry1

Three smart ways SMBs can improve cybersecurity

Opinion piece urges small and midsize businesses to adopt proactive prevention, threat detection, and 24/7 MDR or XDR services.

This opinion article argues SMBs face outsized cyber risk due to limited budgets, small IT teams, and reactive security postures. It recommends proactive prevention, a defined threat detection and response strategy, and managed detection and response (MDR) or extended detection and response (XDR) services. It cites ransomware costs up to $10,000 per device and an attack every 39 seconds as motivation for adopting vendor-operated 24/7 monitoring.

Help Net Security · 21d agoIndustry

Cyberthreats are moving faster than SMBs: Readiness must accelerate

ESET's SMB Cyber Readiness Index 2026 finds 73% of SMBs adopting AI while 40% lack AI policy, and reports 3,000+ malicious AI agent skills.

ESET argues AI is accelerating cyberthreats while expanding the attack surface: its SMB Cyber Readiness Index 2026 found 73% of SMBs integrating AI and 40% of businesses lacking a proper AI policy. ESET analyzed 900,000 AI agent skills across popular repositories between March and May 2026, finding over 25,000 suspicious and more than 3,000 malicious skills that exfiltrate data, execute malware, or abuse prompt injection. The piece also cites AI-assisted reconnaissance, exploit development, and social engineering, plus PromptSpy, an Android spyware abusing Google Gemini at runtime for persistence.

ESET WeLiveSecurity · 1d agoIndustry

SonicWall's SMA1000 boxes under active attack again

SonicWall warns attackers are chaining two SMA1000 zero-days, a CVSS 10.0 SSRF and command injection, to compromise VPN gateways.

SonicWall says attackers are actively exploiting two chained zero-days in SMA 1000 appliances: CVE-2026-83548, a pre-authentication SSRF rated CVSS 10.0, and CVE-2026-83549, a post-authentication OS command injection (CVSS 7.8) in the Appliance Management Console. Hotfixes are available for SMA 6210, 7210, and 8200v appliances with no workarounds; SonicWall recommends reimaging compromised devices, rotating passwords, and resetting TOTP tokens. NHS England assesses further exploitation as almost certain, following a similar exploited pair in July when CISA added CVE-2026-15409 to its KEV catalog.

SonicWall SMA 1000 Zero-Days Enable Unauthenticated RCE

New SonicWall SMA 1000 zero-days enable unauthenticated remote code execution, with exploitation observed following earlier summer attacks on other SonicWall edge zero-days.

Zero-day vulnerabilities in SonicWall's SMA 1000 secure access appliances allow unauthenticated remote code execution, and exploitation activity is being observed. This follows attacks earlier in the summer that abused two other zero-day vulnerabilities in SonicWall edge devices. Internet-facing appliances used for remote access make this an urgent patching priority for defenders.

Dark Reading · 14d agoExploit / PoC in the wild

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, 2026Phishing & fraud in the wild1

Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) in FolkPatch due to Hardcoded Default SuperKey

A hardcoded default SuperKey in FolkPatch, an APatch-based kernel patching tool, enables local privilege escalation limited to FolkPatch's downstream code.

A disclosure posted to the oss-security mailing list describes a local privilege escalation (LPE) in FolkPatch caused by a hardcoded default SuperKey. FolkPatch is a downstream project based on APatch that utilizes its own custom KernelPatch. According to the post, the vulnerability is specific to FolkPatch's downstream modifications rather than upstream APatch or KernelPatch code.

oss-security · 4d agoVulnerability1

SonicWall Patches Two New Actively Exploited Zero

SonicWall patches two actively exploited SMA 1000 VPN zero-days: CVSS 10.0 pre-auth SSRF CVE-2026-83548 and post-auth command injection CVE-2026-83549, chained for RCE.

SonicWall released hotfixes for two zero-day vulnerabilities in its SMA 1000 VPN appliances, with SonicWall PSIRT confirming active exploitation in the wild. CVE-2026-83548 (CVSS 10.0) is a pre-authentication SSRF in the Appliance Work Place interface allowing unauthenticated unauthorized operations; CVE-2026-83549 (CVSS 7.8) is a post-authentication OS command injection in the Appliance Management Console enabling arbitrary command execution and RCE. The flaws affect models 6210, 7210 and 8200v running 12.4.3-03453 or earlier and 12.5.0-02835 or earlier, fixed in versions 12.4.3-03526 and 12.5.0-02952. This follows a July Volexity report on threat actor UTA0533 chaining two SMA 1000 zero-days to gain root access and deploy the KNUCKLEBALL Python backdoor.

Security Affairs · 14d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-83548CVE-2026-83549CVE-2026-15409+1 CVEs1

US Finance Under Phishing Pressure: What the SOC Data Reveals?

ANY.RUN SOC telemetry shows escalating phishing campaigns against US finance, including Vercel-hosted RMM attacks abusing legitimate services.

ANY.RUN analyzed SOC telemetry data on phishing targeting the US financial sector, concluding that the scale and security impact should not be understated. The analysis highlights modern campaigns such as Vercel-hosted attacks that deliver remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools. It notes that attackers increasingly abuse legitimate services and everyday workflow tools to deliver phishing, making detection harder for SOC teams.

ANY.RUN · 22d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

CISA Warns of SonicWall SMA1000 Vulnerabilities Active Exploitation (CVE-2026-83548 & CVE-2026-83549)

CISA added two actively exploited SonicWall SMA1000 flaws to KEV: pre-auth SSRF CVE-2026-83548 (CVSS 10) and post-auth RCE CVE-2026-83549; patch by September 5.

CISA added CVE-2026-83548 and CVE-2026-83549 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog with a September 5, 2026 patch deadline. CVE-2026-83548 is a critical (CVSS 10.0) pre-authentication SSRF in the SMA1000 Appliance Work Place interface; CVE-2026-83549 is a high (CVSS 7.8) post-authentication OS command injection leading to RCE in the Appliance Management Console. SMA1000 models 6210, 7210, and 8200v running 12.4.3-03453 or 12.5.0-02835 platform-hotfix and older are affected; fixes ship in 12.4.3-03526 and 12.5.0-02952. Qualys customers can detect vulnerable assets via QID 388624.

Qualys ThreatPROTECT · 14d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-83548CVE-2026-83549

Attackers Exploit Two SonicWall SMA 1000 Zero-Days That May Form an Attack Chain

SonicWall patches two actively exploited zero-days (CVE-2026-83548, CVE-2026-83549) in SMA 1000 VPN appliances, likely chained for code execution.

SonicWall fixed CVE-2026-83548 (CVSS 10.0), a pre-authentication SSRF in the Appliance Work Place interface, and CVE-2026-83549 (CVSS 7.8), a post-authentication OS command injection in the Appliance Management Console. The company investigated a case indicating active exploitation, suggesting attackers chained both bugs to execute arbitrary code on susceptible devices. Affected SMA 1000 models 6210, 7210, and 8200v require hotfixes 12.4.3-03526 or 12.5.0-02952; customers are urged to hunt for IoCs and re-image, reset credentials, and rotate TOTP if found.

The Hacker News · 15d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-83548CVE-2026-83549CVE-2026-15409+1 CVEs

When the prompt becomes the payload: A practical pen-testing guide for GenAI, LLM and RAG applications

CSO Online publishes a practical penetration-testing guide for GenAI, LLM, and RAG applications, covering prompt injection, retrieval poisoning, and tenant isolation testing.

The guide frames LLM applications as attack graphs spanning prompts, retrieval layers, vector stores, tools, identities, and downstream APIs, arguing that conventional web testing misses instruction-vs-data channel risks. It builds on OWASP prompt injection guidance (direct vs. indirect injection) and NIST's 2025 adversarial machine-learning taxonomy, noting that RAG and fine-tuning do not remove injection risk. Recommended practices include documenting trust transitions across components, using canaries and synthetic records to avoid test side effects, running multi-turn and obfuscated injection campaigns, and verifying chains from poisoned documents to observable state changes. It also details testing RAG pipelines via controlled document poisoning across metadata, OCR layers, and code comments, plus cross-tenant isolation checks on retrieved document IDs.

CSO Online · 8d agoAI safety & security1

Critical SonicWall SMA1000 Vulnerabilities CVE-2026-83548, CVE-2026-83549 Exploited in the Wild

SonicWall SMA1000 appliances face active exploitation of chained CVE-2026-83548 and CVE-2026-83549 enabling unauthenticated RCE; hotfixes released.

SonicWall disclosed on September 1, 2026 that CVE-2026-83548, a critical pre-authentication SSRF in the SMA1000 Appliance Work Place interface (CVSS 10.0), and CVE-2026-83549, an authenticated OS command injection in the Appliance Management Console, can be chained for unauthenticated remote code execution. Both vulnerabilities are confirmed exploited in the wild and were added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Affected SMA1000 models 6210, 7210 and 8200v on versions 12.4.3-03453 and 12.5.0-02835 platform-hotfix or earlier require upgrades to 12.4.3-03526 or 12.5.0-02952 platform-hotfixes.

Rapid7 Blog · 14d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-83548CVE-2026-83549

Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Two actively exploited SonicWall SMA 1000 zero-days chain to unauthenticated RCE; patches released and CISA added both to KEV.

SonicWall disclosed and patched two zero-days in SMA 1000 appliances: CVE-2026-83548, a maximum-severity pre-authentication SSRF, and CVE-2026-83549, a high-severity OS command injection. Rapid7 said chaining the flaws yields unauthenticated remote code execution, and CISA added both to its KEV catalog Wednesday. The vendor provided no IOCs or victim counts, urging customers to hunt for compromise, reimage or redeploy appliances, and reset all passwords and tokens. The product has faced repeated exploitation, including ransomware-linked flaws used by INC and Akira.

CyberScoop · 13d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-83548CVE-2026-83549

Nebulon Enterprise Simulated Threats for Phishing Research (NEST-Phish): A Synthetic Enterprise Phishing Email Dataset for Behavioral and Machine-Learning Research

Researchers release NEST-Phish, a synthetic enterprise phishing email dataset with matched legitimate and phishing emails and cue annotations for detection research.

Academic researchers introduce NEST-Phish, a publicly released synthetic enterprise phishing email dataset built around a fictitious organization named Nebulon. It contains matched synthetic legitimate and phishing emails across a broad set of workplace communication themes, each with interpretable phishing-cue annotations. Human-subject categorizations and supervised classifier evaluations indicate the dataset supports meaningful variation in phishing judgments and provides learnable signal for detection models. It is intended to support work on phishing detection, human susceptibility, explainability, and benchmark development.

arXiv cs.CR · 13d agoResearch

Enterprise Threat Intelligence Buying Guide: How to Choose the Right Solution

ANY.RUN published a buyer's guide for enterprise threat intelligence platforms, outlining evaluation criteria and promoting its own TI products.

ANY.RUN, whose sandbox, TI Lookup, and TI Feeds products are featured throughout, published guidance for selecting an enterprise threat intelligence provider. The guide recommends defining SOC or MSSP requirements first, then weighing intelligence quality and freshness, integrations including STIX/TAXII support, privacy, scalability, and proof-of-concept testing with real alerts. It emphasizes context and enrichment over raw data volume, citing figures such as TI Lookup results in about 2 seconds and 99% validated IOCs in its feeds.

ANY.RUNupdated · 5h agofirst · 5h agoIndustry 3 sources

On Identifying Sound Conditions for Frontrunning Resistance

Researchers formally define smart-contract frontrunning resistance, showing 55% of 393 audited vulnerabilities escape state-of-the-art detection, and find two undisclosed Ethereum flaws.

The paper gives the first formal definition of frontrunning vulnerability for smart contracts, grounded in how honest users interact with contracts rather than contract code alone. In a large-scale study of 287 smart contract audits, 55% of the 393 vulnerabilities reported by leading auditors fall outside the scope of state-of-the-art dynamic detection criteria. The authors present a sound algorithm for synthesizing secure interaction conditions and apply it to real-world contracts, uncovering previously undiscovered vulnerabilities in two Ethereum contracts.

arXiv cs.CR · 6d agoResearch

Hackers Chain Two New SonicWall Zero-Day Vulnerabilities

SonicWall warns two zero-days (CVE-2026-83548 SSRF, CVE-2026-83549 post-auth RCE) in SMA1000 appliances are being actively exploited.

A September 1 SonicWall advisory discloses actively exploited zero-days in SMA1000 appliance models 6210, 7210 and 8200v, affecting platform-hotfix versions 12.4.3-03453 and 12.5.0-02835 and older. CVE-2026-83548 (CVSS 10.0) is a pre-authentication SSRF in the Appliance Work Place interface via an unintended alternate access path; CVE-2026-83549 (CVSS 7.8) is post-authentication OS command injection enabling RCE in the Appliance Management Console. SonicWall urges hotfix upgrades, IOC checks with SonicWall support, and re-imaging plus credential and TOTP resets if compromise is found.

Generative Marketing Mix Modeling: A Causal Inference Framework Linking GEO and GEM to Business Impact

Paper proposes Generative Marketing Mix Modeling to causally estimate Generative Engine Optimization and Marketing effects on business outcomes.

The authors develop GMMM, a causal inference framework for measuring how often users see and notice a firm's name in generated answers, which standard marketing data ignore. For GEO it combines repeated generated answers with question counts, shares of generative-system usage and notice probabilities; for GEM it uses sponsored placement records with notice probabilities. The framework compares expected business responses under alternative treatment sequences, establishes identification conditions, and is evaluated on simulated product-recommendation answers in English and Japanese.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 6d agoAI research

7th September – Threat Intelligence Report

Check Point weekly bulletin: exploited SonicWall SMA 1000 zero-days (CVE-2026-83548/49), JFrog Artifactory auth bypass, and a 2.8M-patient Baylor Genetics breach.

Check Point's weekly bulletin covers breaches including Thomson Reuters' C-Track platform (court records across 11 US states and Canada), Baylor Genetics (2.8M patients and employees, SSNs included), Hit casinos in Slovenia, and Dropbox (~5,000 accounts via abused Lenovo email verification). SonicWall patched two exploited SMA 1000 zero-days, including CVE-2026-83548, a CVSS 10.0 pre-authentication SSRF, while JFrog fixed exploited authentication bypass CVE-2026-82329 (CVSS 9.8). Malware and actor coverage includes Gambling Goblin, JSCeal, Mirage Kitten's NodeRabbit/PollCat campaign, and DPRK Contagious Interview macOS activity, plus a FalconFlank privilege-escalation PoC against CrowdStrike Falcon.

Engineered Persuasion: Evaluating Personalized Pretexts in LLM-Generated Spear Phishing

A study of 180 US workers found each LLM phishing personalization level raised click-intention odds by 28%, but credibility depends on context fit.

The arXiv paper evaluates how personalized pretexts in LLM-generated spear phishing affect perceived credibility, using 180 US working adults across 1,436 evaluations of emails with four cumulative personalization levels, from workplace context to shared-project details. Convincingness rose 2.40 points per level in sensitivity analysis and click-intention odds increased 28% per level, while non-clickers shifted toward deleting rather than reporting. Qualitative coding showed details matching the recipient's role and routines supported credibility, whereas incorrect, vague, or channel-inappropriate details raised suspicion. The authors argue personalization effectiveness depends on pretext fit, with implications for workplace security training.

arXiv cs.CR · 13d agoResearch

Veeam Released Patches for Critical Vulnerability (CVE-2026-65641)

Veeam patched critical CVE-2026-65641 (CVSS 9.3) in Veeam ONE, exploitable by unauthenticated network attackers to coerce SMB authentication from the service account.

Veeam released patches for its Veeam ONE monitoring, reporting, and capacity planning software addressing CVE-2026-65641, rated critical with a CVSS score of 9.3. Successful exploitation allows an unauthenticated network attacker to coerce SMB authentication from the Veeam ONE service account, creating relay-style attack opportunities. Qualys ThreatPROTECT relayed the vendor advisory; administrators should apply the patches promptly. No in-the-wild exploitation is noted in the advisory.

Sequoia doubles down on Cymphony as AI agents create new enterprise security risks

Cymphony emerges with $30M from Sequoia and SMBC to give security teams unified visibility into AI agent and non-human identities.

Cymphony, a New York- and Tel Aviv-based startup, raised a $25 million Series A co-led by Sequoia and SMBC Fin Atlas Beyond Fund, valuing it above $100 million. Its platform builds a "workforce graph" unifying identity, data, and activity signals for employees, AI agents, and other non-human identities. The company says it found roughly 85,000 files exposed to AI tools at one US public company and reached seven-figure ARR in its first year of sales with customers including KKR and Syngenta. Sequoia previously led its undisclosed seed round, betting on Israeli Talpiot program alumni founders.

TechCrunch · Security · 8d agoIndustry1

Meme Coin Factories: Uncovering Large-Scale Manipulations on pump.fun

Large-scale pump.fun study of 15 million meme coins identifies five manipulation classes including wash trading and a Market-Manipulation-as-a-Service ecosystem.

Researchers analyzed all 15 million coins launched on pump.fun over the last two years plus large random samples of transaction data, identifying five manipulation classes: wash trading, creator address obfuscation, coordinated sells, copycat coins, and social media manipulation. Strategic actors bypass the platform interface and implement strategies in a highly automated, low-latency way by interacting directly with the blockchain. The study also uncovers Market-Manipulation-as-a-Service (MMaaS) third-party tools that let non-technical users run these manipulations, and proposes mitigations for traders, pump.fun, and regulators.

arXiv cs.CR · 7d agoResearch

Best Practices for Good Endpoint Hardening | Huntress

Huntress outlines endpoint hardening best practices, citing exposed RDP, RMM tool abuse, and ClickFix social engineering as common SMB intrusion paths.

Huntress published defensive guidance on endpoint hardening for small and mid-sized businesses, drawing on observations from its SOC. The post describes common intrusion vectors: internet-exposed RDP brute-forced by automated scanners, phishing emails delivering attacker-controlled remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, with Huntress reporting a 277% spike in RMM abuse in 2025, and ClickFix attacks using fake CAPTCHA pages that trick users into running malicious commands. Recommended controls include scanning for exposed RDP, SSH, and VPN interfaces, removing unneeded local admin rights, enabling Windows Defender tamper protection, disabling SMBv1, and standardizing on one approved remote access tool, guided by CIS and NIST frameworks.

Huntress · 6d agoAdvisory

Download: The IT leader’s guide to AI code sprawlnew

Tines publishes a vendor guide on governing AI code sprawl, covering exposure assessment and IT governance frameworks.

Tines released a guide drawing on CIO and security leader insights about AI code sprawl, as employees across departments build apps, agents and automations faster than IT teams can track. It covers the business cost of ungoverned AI-generated code, how to assess organizational exposure, and how to make IT an enabler rather than a blocker.

Help Net Security · 19m agoIndustry

Governing Bring Your Own AI: A Parameterized Maturity Model

Researchers propose a parameterized governance model and maturity ladder for Bring Your Own AI, finding data exposure and compliance dominate BYOAI risks.

The paper studies Bring Your Own AI (BYOAI), where employees use personal generative AI accounts such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude outside enterprise identity and security controls. Drawing on a curated corpus of 30 records (24 studies and 6 framework documents), the authors build a risk taxonomy, a five-level governance maturity ladder, and a parameterized model linking control-layer coverage to residual risk. Findings highlight data exposure and compliance as the most prominent risks, inconsistent framework engagement, and evidence that layered technical controls reduce modeled exfiltration risk more than prohibition-based approaches.

arXiv cs.CR · 12d agoResearch