Search: “exposure validation”

BlackHatSect0r Uses DeepSeek-Powered AI Agent to Automate Attacks and Harvest 16,834 Credentials

SOCRadar linked the BlackHatSect0r crew to a DeepSeek-powered AI agent that automated scanning and harvested 16,834 credentials from exposed systems.

SOCRadar researchers found an exposed operation server with 4.9 GB across 9,299 files, including the DXSCAN scanning platform, phishing tools, extortion material and a vault holding 16,834 credentials such as AWS keys, GitHub tokens and Stripe keys. The French-speaking crew ran a Nous Research Hermes agent against a DeepSeek model with safety features removed, queuing 2,759,860 domains and reaching 726,989 hosts. Access came from misconfigurations like public cloud buckets and exposed .env files, not new vulnerabilities.

Cyber Security News·09:59 UTC · 3h agoThreat actor in the wild 4 sources1

UAT-10147 Uses AI to Scale Server Attacks, Deploys SPECTRE With EDR Bypass and Linux Rootkit

Cisco Talos exposes UAT-10147, a Chinese-speaking group using AI tools to automate intrusions, deploy SPECTRE, BadIIS, and rootkits against web servers worldwide.

Cisco Talos detailed UAT-10147, a Chinese-speaking cybercrime group conducting SEO fraud and data theft against Windows and Linux web servers in education, media, technology, and gaming sectors, with most victims in Brazil, Bolivia, China, Canada, and Vietnam. The actor exploits publicly disclosed vulnerabilities for initial access, including Zimbra (CVE-2022-27925) and Alibaba Nacos (CVE-2021-29441), and abuses Linux LPE flaws like CVE-2022-0847 and CVE-2021-3156 for root. Its toolset includes AI-assisted frameworks DeepAudit and PentestGPT, plus implants such as SPECTRE, BadIIS, Quasar RAT, Gh0stCringe, and Noodle RAT. An exposed directory contained a target list of roughly 170,000 URLs, with the US, India, UK, Germany, and Netherlands as top destinations.

The Hacker News·Aug 27, 18:33 UTC · 20d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2022-0995CVE-2021-3156CVE-2015-5287+8 CVEs

⚡ 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 News·Sep 1, 16:45 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-81578CVE-2026-82078CVE-2026-74232+2 CVEs1

Hackers Deploy Agentic AI to Automate Exploitation and Mass Credential Harvesting

Google GTIG documents a financially motivated actor using a multi-agent AI framework to automate credential harvesting, compromising over 23,800 secrets within hours.

Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) documented a financially motivated actor that compromised an unnamed organization's cloud infrastructure and used a multi-agent AI framework to automate vulnerability scanning, credential harvesting, troubleshooting, and IP rotation. The operation went from planning to mass credential compromise in under six hours, harvesting more than 23,800 secrets including cloud and AI-service API keys via an exposed C2 dashboard called 'Recon'. The actor directed specialized agents using an AI coding chatbot and Markdown instruction files such as AGENTS.KNOWLEDGE.md and agentic_vuln_research.md. Google has not observed fully autonomous zero-day exploitation; the shift automates labor-intensive tasks like reconnaissance, account validation, and infrastructure management, sharply shrinking detection windows.

GBHackers·Sep 15, 07:46 UTC · 2d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Hackers Compromised 14,500+ Dahua Devices Using Credential Attacks, Auth Bypasses, and P2P

Hunt.io disclosed Operation CameraSwarm, compromising 14,500+ Dahua cameras via credential attacks, auth bypass CVEs, and P2P relay techniques across Ukraine and Russia.

Hunt.io reconstructed a campaign codenamed Operation CameraSwarm that compromised over 14,530 Dahua devices between June 17 and July 22, 2026. Attack paths included credential attacks against 12,324 IPs, exploitation of CVE-2021-33044 and CVE-2021-33045 affecting 1,923 cameras, and P2P relay access to 283 devices behind NAT. The operator, assessed as Russian-speaking, left behind 2,616 files including tooling and campaign logs, with confirmed compromises concentrated in Ukraine and Russia. Dahua advises factory resets and firmware updates; both 2021 CVEs remain in CISA's KEV catalog.

The Hacker News·Aug 25, 15:59 UTC · 22d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2021-33044CVE-2021-33045CVE-2024-39943+1 CVEs1

Hackers Use Autonomous AI Agents to Harvest Thousands of Credentials in Under 6 Hours

Google Cloud documents a financially motivated actor using autonomous AI agents on a compromised cloud tenant to harvest 23,800+ credentials in under six hours.

Google Cloud reports that an attacker compromised a victim's cloud environment and deployed a multi-agent framework driven by preconfigured Markdown playbooks to autonomously handle vulnerability scanning, credential collection, error troubleshooting, and IP rotation. An exposed command-and-control server hosted the 'Recon' framework with a live dashboard managing over 23,800 harvested secrets, including cloud and AI-service API keys. The report also ties DUSTMAKER to UNC6780/TeamPCP, targeting AI development tools and CI/CD systems via trojanized MCP packages such as tiktoken_mcp. Google has disabled linked assets and updated protections after the actors' operational security failures.

Cyber Security News·Sep 15, 09:28 UTC · 2d agoThreat actor in the wild

NightEagle Hackers Abuse Microsoft Dev Tunnels and GhostContainer to Breach Russian Companies

NightEagle (APT-Q-95) breached Russian firms using stolen VPN credentials, a GhostContainer Exchange backdoor, Dev Tunnels abuse, and DCSync.

Kaspersky's Securelink analysts, via Securelist, documented NightEagle (APT-Q-95) attacks on Russian companies that begin with VPN logins using stolen valid credentials from Cloudflare WARP and European infrastructure. On Exchange servers the group deployed GhostContainer, a .NET backdoor built from public components including Neo-reGeorg tunneling, CVE-2020-0688 logic, and the GhostWebShell class, controlled through Exchange web headers. The operators exposed RDP through Microsoft Dev Tunnels paired with rdp2tcp, staged tools in GitHub repositories, and exploited BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708) to create admin accounts before running DCSync against Active Directory.

Cyber Security News·07:55 UTC · 5h agoThreat actor in the wild 5 sourcesCVE-2020-0688CVE-2019-0708

Warning: Over 2,000 Palo Alto Networks Devices Hacked in Ongoing Attack Campaign

The Hacker News·Nov 23, 06:38 UTC · Nov 23, 2024Threat actor in the wildCVE-2024-0012CVE-2024-9474

Clop-Linked Windchill Web Shell Decrypts Credentials and Maps Engineering Data

ReliaQuest details a bespoke JSP web shell that Clop deploys on hacked PTC Windchill and FlexPLM servers after exploiting CVE-2026-12569.

ReliaQuest analyzed a custom Java web shell planted on vulnerable PTC Windchill and FlexPLM servers following exploitation of CVE-2026-12569 (CVSS 9.3). The implant decrypts Windchill keystore credentials including the LDAP manager password, enumerates the file vault for engineering data, and loads attacker-supplied Java classes in memory for post-exploitation. Commands let operators read and delete files, exfiltrate results, and deliver follow-on payloads such as ransomware. Ransom-ISAC, eCrime.ch and Defused previously attributed the campaign to the Clop data-theft extortion group.

The Hacker News·Aug 19, 15:27 UTC · 28d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-12569

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 Future·Sep 3, 00:00 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Hackers Weaponize Agentic AI to Automate Reconnaissance, Exploitation and Post-Exploitation

Google GTIG reports threat actors using agentic AI to automate reconnaissance, exploit selection, and credential harvesting, compromising thousands of secrets.

Google Threat Intelligence Group's Q3 2026 AI Threat Tracker documents threat actors operationalizing agentic AI: in one Mandiant investigation, a financially motivated actor built and executed a credential-harvesting operation in under six hours, with an exposed 'Recon' framework managing more than 23,800 harvested secrets including cloud and AI-service API keys. A Chinese-speaking actor tracked as knaithe used a DeepSeek-powered Hermes Agent for automated reconnaissance and vulnerability enumeration, pivoting from Langflow to n8n and enabling manual exploitation of exposed Citrix NetScaler, Marimo, Apache Tomcat, and VPN infrastructure. Operators harvested Citrix session cookies from process memory to bypass MFA, obtained AWS credentials from compromised Marimo instances, and deployed the Go-based NKAbuse backdoor, with reported RCE and data exfiltration. Google notes fully autonomous end-to-end AI attack pipelines have not yet been observed in the wild.

GBHackers·Sep 9, 09:12 UTC · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild2