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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.
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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.
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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.
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StopAndProtect Uses Nearly 2,000 Hacked WordPress Sites to Spread Malware and Steal Data
Check Point details StopAndProtect: ~2,000 compromised WordPress sites deliver ClickFix fake-CAPTCHA malware toolkit combining ransomware, credential theft, screenshots, and WhatsApp surveillance.
Check Point researcher Jaromír Hořejší reports the campaign begins with ClickFix fake-CAPTCHA prompts that trigger a PowerShell command, then two .NET downloader stages that launch six components: SilentEncryptor, NetworkShareScanner, a VBS spreader, LockScreen, SimpleChatProxy, and SilentDataCollector. Hacked WordPress sites host malware stages, serve C2 commands, and receive exfiltrated logs; the actors installed a self-deleting WordPress plugin enabling arbitrary PHP upload anywhere under the WordPress root. From mid-May to late July 2026 the operators exfiltrated more than 700 archives including screenshots every 30 seconds, keylogger output, and WhatsApp contact data, and opsec failures exposed their Visual Basic automation tooling and lists of nearly 2,000 compromised domains.
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ThreatsDay: Gogs 10.0 RCE, n8n Workflow-to-RCE, $10M Reward, GLM
Hacker News ThreatsDay roundup: Defender BTR.sys driver abuse, DoJ charges 17 Mabna Institute members over IRGC-linked intrusions, Grandoreiro sideloading, OpenAI monitoring.
Check Point researchers showed Microsoft's signed Defender Boot-Time Removal driver (BTR.sys) can be repurposed as a universal kernel operation engine to bypass endpoint security without BYOVD. The DoJ charged 17 members of Iran's Mabna Institute, which on behalf of the IRGC stole over 31 TB of academic data from 144 US universities and compromised roughly 8,000 of 100,000 targeted professor accounts; the State Department offered a $10 million reward for five defendants. Separately, Acronis tracked a Grandoreiro campaign abusing DLL sideloading in the Duplicate Files Finder app across Latin America and Spain, while ErrTraffic ClickFix campaigns deliver Cruciferra (BYOVD) and Remus Stealer. OpenAI also previewed Private Safety Processing, a privacy-centric approach to monitoring model misuse without retaining customer content.
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StopAndProtect Turns 2,000 Hacked WordPress Sites Into a Criminal Network
Check Point uncovered StopAndProtect, a cybercrime operation using ~2,000 hacked WordPress sites for ClickFix-driven malware delivery, data theft, surveillance, and ransomware.
Check Point Research identified the StopAndProtect operation in May 2026; it abuses close to 2,000 compromised WordPress sites, many running outdated software, to host malware stages, act as C2, and store stolen data. Infection starts with fake CAPTCHA ClickFix prompts that trick visitors into running a PowerShell command, followed by .NET downloaders deploying ransomware, SMB/USB worm, lockscreen, chat, and credential-stealing components. Rather than always encrypting, operators selectively exfiltrate file lists and specific files; researchers found 700+ stolen-data archives, roughly 31,000 screenshots, and 6,000+ unique victim IP addresses, including WhatsApp activity monitoring.
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'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.
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Russian State-Sponsored Hackers Use Claude to Rebuild Malware After Detection
Anthropic disrupted APT29-linked GTG-20006, which used Claude to autonomously rebuild malware, hijack hotel Wi-Fi DNS, and target 20-plus Ukrainian, European, and US-linked organizations.
Anthropic attributed the campaign to GTG-20006, aligned with Midnight Blizzard (APT29/Cozy Bear), which developed an AI-driven process that monitors its implants against security products and autonomously rebuilds and redeploys detected malware. Targets included military intelligence, diplomatic, and defense organizations in Ukraine and Europe, plus Middle East and Asian maritime agencies; the actor compromised at least three hotel Wi-Fi vendors via DNS hijacking and served ClickFix lures delivering Windows, Android, and iOS malware such as PowerChrome, GiftDrop, and DarkSword. Operations also included a North African breach exfiltrating over 300,000 national identity records and 500,000-plus company registry entries, an Embassy Kit device-code phishing campaign stealing Microsoft 365 tokens from at least eight organizations, and WhatsApp account takeover using headless browsers. The campaign overlaps with CaptiveCrunch reporting from ReliaQuest, Microsoft, Google, and Lumen Black Lotus Labs.
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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.
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Attackers impersonate popular AI brands to spread malware
Sophos documented 38 MDR cases where attackers impersonated AI brands like Claude and Perplexity to deliver infostealers and backdoors.
Sophos X-Ops analyzed 12 months of MDR cases and confirmed 38 incidents involving AI. Software impersonation accounted for 30 cases, with Claude impersonated in 26; fake installers used an 'InstallFix' technique delivering mshta commands, in-memory payloads, and process hollowing. Malicious browser extensions posing as AI assistants, including a fake Perplexity extension with 10,000 installs, acted as infostealers. In one case, attackers used a Claude coding agent to develop a Rust remote access trojan communicating over Slack after an SQL injection compromise.
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The Top 4 Threats We Found by Investigating Every Alert for a Quarter
Prophet Security's quarterly threat report finds identity attacks made up roughly half of confirmed malicious activity, with stolen authenticated sessions bypassing conditional access controls.
Between May 1 and July 31, 2026, Prophet Security investigated every alert in customer environments immediately on arrival; about 7% of completed investigations were confirmed malicious. Direct account/session attacks made up roughly 18% of confirmed activity, with replayed authenticated sessions bypassing conditional access since no re-authentication occurs. Infostealer activity affected about a quarter of investigated organizations, mostly delivered via browsers through compromised websites, malicious ads, sponsored search results and ClickFix fake CAPTCHA gates, with payloads including Lumma Stealer, Vidar, HijackLoader and AsyncRAT. Credential phishing was the largest category at about 28%, with adversary-in-the-middle relays revealed by seconds-long MFA approvals from distant countries and MFA fatigue attacks exploiting automatic unlock policies.
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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.
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⚡ 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.
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Philippine Nuclear and Naval Targets Hit by Suspected Chinese Operator
Suspected Chinese-speaking operator breached Philippine nuclear research and naval supplier systems via ownCloud CVE-2023-49103 and WordPress CVE-2024-28000.
Hunt.io found an exposed staging server containing custom Python scripts, logs, and stolen data documenting intrusions against a Philippine nuclear research body and a marine engineering company serving the Philippine Navy. The actor exploited an ownCloud authentication bypass (CVE-2023-49103) using empty-secret pre-signed WebDAV URLs and a LiteSpeed Cache plugin flaw (CVE-2024-28000) to gain WordPress admin access, also guessing passwords against XML-RPC with rockyou.txt. Roughly 9 GB was referenced as stolen from the nuclear agency, including reactor databases, radiation-safety records, and staff passport data; Simplified Chinese labels suggest a Chinese-speaking operator.
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TerminalFix campaign deploys a reverse tunnel through multistage intrusion
Microsoft Threat Intelligence details the TerminalFix campaign, which uses fake CAPTCHA prompts, DLL sideloading, and reverse tunnels in multistage intrusions.
Microsoft Threat Intelligence published analysis of a ClickFix-style campaign dubbed TerminalFix. The intrusion chain relies on fake CAPTCHA social engineering and DLL sideloading, and the attackers deploy a reverse tunnel to maintain access through a multistage intrusion. Microsoft released detections and threat hunting guidance for defenders.
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Suspected Russian Hackers Abuse Google OAuth and WhatsApp Linking to Hijack Accounts
Google tracked three suspected Russian espionage clusters abusing OAuth flows, app passwords, and WhatsApp linking to hijack accounts of diplomats and defense targets.
Google Threat Intelligence Group detailed three suspected Russian espionage clusters, UNC6293, UNC7005 (Storm-2945), and UNC5976, targeting academia, aerospace, defense, governments, and think tanks in Europe, the US, Ukraine, and Armenia. UNC6293, assessed as a sub-cluster of APT29/Ice Relic, conducted OAuth and application-specific password phishing while impersonating State Department officials. UNC5976 registered file-sharing-themed domains hosting fake OAuth login pages and deployed a malicious Excel plugin codenamed HEADRUSH, while UNC7005 abused WhatsApp device linking to hijack accounts and record victims' audio and video.
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Ransom Busters Claims It Hacked Ransomware Servers, Asks Victims for Up to $60,000
GuidePoint reports a ransomware affiliate posing as 'Ransom Busters' charges victims $20,000-$60,000 to delete stolen data, and details UNC6671's $8M AitM extortion wave.
GuidePoint's GRIT team reports that 'Ransom Busters', likely a ransomware affiliate active across multiple RaaS operations including DragonForce, Settra and Anubis, proactively emails victims claiming it deleted their stolen data and backups for a $20,000-$60,000 fee, citing claimed access to RaaS administrative panels for over three years. Two analyzed intrusions shared tooling: SoftPerfect Network Scanner for reconnaissance, s5cmd-based exfiltration to AWS cloud storage, an RMM tool installed via PowerShell, a backdoor account with password 'Numlock!123' and the same attacker hostname DESKTOP-BBETH6K. Separately, GRIT detailed UNC6671's (Cordial Spider) adversary-in-the-middle vishing operation running since April under five extortion brands, with more than $8 million across 15 Bitcoin wallets, an average of $600,000 per payment, and 78 phishing sub-domains across 76 organizations, 40% in financial services.
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Sandworm-Linked UAC-0145 Uses Fake Job Interviews to Push VPN That Can Run Commands
CERT-UA says Sandworm-linked UAC-0145 poses as recruiters in fake job interviews to deliver a trojanized WireGuard VPN that runs attacker commands on victims' hosts.
CERT-UA attributes the campaign, ongoing since May 2026, to UAC-0145, a subgroup within GRU-affiliated Sandworm (APT44). Posing as HR staff of firms like ATLAS Business Group and Sopra Steria Bulgaria, attackers lure Ukrainian IT specialists into Zoom interviews, then share failing WireGuard configs and push a custom SopraVPN client from SourceForge. The modified WireGuard build supports a non-standard SymmetricKey option holding AES-256-GCM-encrypted PowerShell, decrypted with the decoded PrivateKey and executed via runScriptCommand. A scheduled task then downloads a second-stage payload on Windows, while the Linux variant fetches it via cURL.
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