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Passkey-themed social engineering leads to identity and cloud compromise
Microsoft tracks ongoing cloud intrusions where passkey-themed helpdesk lures enable AiTM credential theft, MFA persistence, and SharePoint data theft.
Microsoft Security Research is tracking active cloud-based intrusions, observed since May 2026, that begin with helpdesk impersonation calls and SMS lures urging urgent passkey, MFA, or SSO updates. The lures lead to adversary-in-the-middle phishing or device-code authentication flows that capture credentials and session tokens or grant actor access, after which the actors add authentication methods, conduct Microsoft Graph reconnaissance, and download SharePoint and OneDrive content via REST APIs. Phishing domains embed victim organization names as subdomains (e.g., contoso.add-passkey[.]com), are often registered with Nicenic, and go operational within hours. Microsoft advises revoking sessions and removing unauthorized authentication methods for confirmed compromises.
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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.
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Operation QUICSILVER Targets Myanmar Government and IT with QUICAgent Backdoor
Seqrite Labs details Operation QUICSILVER, a China-nexus espionage campaign targeting Myanmar government and IT with graduation-invite lures deploying QUICAgent backdoor.
Seqrite Labs reported Operation QUICSILVER, a cyber espionage campaign against Myanmar's government and IT sectors attributed with moderate confidence to a China-nexus actor. Since April 2026, attacks used fake Belgian-Myanmar holiday and Burmese graduation ceremony invitation lures delivered via VHD/LNK files that abuse ftp.exe (LOLBAS) to assemble and launch QUICAgent, a Go backdoor communicating over QUIC on UDP 443 with five commands and Startup-folder persistence. Separately, China-linked Mustang Panda was observed using an updated COOLCLIENT backdoor with a signed kernel-mode driver across Myanmar, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Russia.
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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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Three Threat Groups Target Russian Enterprises With Backdoors, Ransomware, and Wipers
Kaspersky details NightEagle, Hacking Cat, and Toy Ghouls targeting Russian enterprises with Exchange backdoors, Gorilla RAT, and destructive Monkey ransomware.
Kaspersky reports three threat clusters targeting Russian enterprises: NightEagle (APT-Q-95), the pro-Ukrainian hacktivist group Hacking Cat, and Toy Ghouls. NightEagle uses compromised VPN credentials and the GhostContainer modular backdoor to fully compromise Microsoft Exchange servers, chaining CVE-2020-0688 exploitation, BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708), Active Directory vulnerabilities, and DCSync to seize domain controllers. Hacking Cat exploits Exchange flaws including CVE-2021-26855 and CVE-2026-42897 to deliver the Gorilla RAT and multiple Monkey ransomware variants written in Rust, .NET, C++, and Golang targeting Windows, Linux, and VMware ESXi, with some variants acting as wipers that never store the encryption key.
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