ZeroHour
DashboardNewsCVEsExploitsIncidentsAIBriefAnalyticsEntitiesWatchlistIOCsAsk the feedSourcesFeeds & APIKiosk mode

Search: “JavaScript downloaders”

141 stories

Searchkeywordsmart Sortlatesthotimportancerelevance
DomainAllCyberAIWindow24h3d7d30dAllIn the wildImportant onlyShow duplicates
CategoryAllMalware 1007Vulnerability 335Ransomware 192Threat actor 143Exploit / PoC 133Phishing & fraud 72Data breach 67Advisory 18Industry 18Research 12Policy & legal 10AI tools & infra 6AI safety & security 5Tools 1
SeverityAllcritical 412high 1017medium 519low 55info 16

Russian APT BlueDelta Uses HOOKEDGE to Target Defense and Diplomatic Organizations

Russian GRU-linked BlueDelta (APT28) deployed HOOKEDGE backdoor via macro Word lures against European governments using webhook.site and Microsoft Edge for stealthy C2.

Recorded Future's Insikt Group documented a BlueDelta (APT28/Fancy Bear/Forest Blizzard) espionage campaign from late September 2025 through early April 2026 targeting government and diplomatic organizations in Romania, Spain and Türkiye. The group delivered HOOKEDGE, a lightweight Windows batch-script backdoor, via macro-enabled Word documents with diplomatic lures, including one impersonating Spain's Ministry of the Presidency after a Spanish-Moldovan meeting. HOOKEDGE uses webhook.site as C2, a scheduled task every 30 minutes that downloads commands through Microsoft Edge, and canary pixels like docopened.jpg to track phishing funnel progress. A second tier with 5-minute check-ins served high-value victims, and beaconing intervals were stretched to 61 minutes to evade sandboxes; code overlap ties HOOKEDGE to BlueDelta's earlier HEADLACE backdoor.

Security Affairs · 18d agoThreat actor in the wild1

ThreatsDay: CEO Phishing Kits, 5K Dropbox Account Hacks, OAuth Traps + 17 More Stories

Microsoft warns of Teams IT-impersonation intrusions deploying Node.js implants; Spring Ring vishing hit 150+ employees across 10 companies; The Gentlemen ransomware claims 683 victims.

Microsoft warned of a human-operated campaign abusing Teams external collaboration to impersonate IT help desk staff, deploy malicious MSI packages staging Node.js runtimes and obfuscated JavaScript implants, then pivot to domain controllers over WinRM. Unit 42 documented the Spring Ring vishing operation targeting over 150 employees across at least 10 companies using 26 attacker identities, including an NTLM relay variant against domain controllers. Sophos reported The Gentlemen ransomware (Gold Sherwood) reached 683 total victims by end of July 2026, adding 169 in July, with a playbook using BYOVD-based EDR killers and backup tampering. Group-IB found the Outsider phishing-as-a-service platform created 700+ new phishing pages within a month despite law enforcement takedowns.

The Hacker News · 12d agoThreat actor in the wild1

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 News · 13d agoThreat actor

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 Newsupdated · 21h agofirst · 1d agoThreat actor in the wild 20 sourcesCVE-2026-85046CVE-2026-87491CVE-2026-858801· 1 read

"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 · 29d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Iran-Linked Hackers Use Fake LinkedIn Job Offers to Deploy NodeRabbit and PollCat RATs

Iran-linked Mirage Kitten targets software engineers with fake LinkedIn recruiter coding tests deploying new NodeRabbit and PollCat RATs.

Kaspersky researchers link the campaign to Mirage Kitten (also tracked as UNC1549, Smoke Sandstorm, Nimbus Manticore), with victims in aviation, aerospace and fintech in Egypt, Ethiopia and Afghanistan. Trojanized npm dependencies (colorized_terminal, pretty-log) bundled in coding-challenge archives launch the Node.js implants across Windows, Linux and macOS. NodeRabbit uses AES-256-GCM-encrypted C2 via Azure, and its third variant persists through a fake GitHub Copilot Helper VS Code extension plus Git post-merge/post-checkout hooks. PollCat is an obfuscated JavaScript RAT that registers with C2 before OTP authentication and inventories tools from 24 security vendors.

GBHackersupdated · 6d agofirst · 6d agoThreat actor in the wild 2 sources1

China-Linked Hackers Exploit Sogou One-Click RCE to Deploy GRAYRABBIT Backdoor

China-linked UNC3569 exploited CVE-2026-51990 in Sogou Input Method to deploy the GRAYRABBIT backdoor in active espionage intrusions.

Gen Threat Labs discovered UNC3569 exploiting CVE-2026-51990, a one-click RCE in Tencent's Sogou Input Method for Windows that chains an insecure sgbiz: protocol handler with an unsandboxed Chromium 80 CEF webview. The chain weaponizes CVE-2021-38003 (V8 type confusion) to run shellcode that DLL-sideloads via 7z.exe/7z.dll and deploys the GRAYRABBIT backdoor, which beacons over RC4-encrypted raw TCP 443 to mail.uaiubifas[.]top. Tencent patched the issue in version 16.3.0.3498, released via automatic updates on April 21, 2026. UNC3569 is a PRC-nexus espionage actor targeting government, education, technology, and financial sectors across East and Southeast Asia.

GBHackersupdated · 1d agofirst · 1d agoThreat actor in the wild 3 sourcesCVE-2026-51990CVE-2021-380031