45
45
45
45
xHunt Campaign: Attacks on Kuwait Shipping and Transportation Organizations
xHunt deployed custom backdoors Hisoka, Killua, Gon, and EYE against Kuwait shipping and transportation organizations, using DNS tunneling and email-draft C2 channels.
Unit 42 observed the xHunt campaign targeting Kuwait transportation and shipping organizations between May and June 2019, installing backdoors named after characters from the anime Hunter x Hunter, including Hisoka, Killua, Sakabota, and Netero. The tools use HTTP and DNS tunneling for C2, and Hisoka v0.9 added an unusual email-based C2 channel that abuses Exchange Web Services with stolen credentials to exchange email drafts. The Gon tool provides port scanning, file transfer, screenshots, remote command execution, and RDP session creation, while EYE acts as a cleanup failsafe if a legitimate user logs in. Related activity targeting Kuwait between July and December 2018 was reported by IBM X-Force IRIS, suggesting the campaigns are likely related.
52
45
⚡ 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.
35
Iran-linked hackers expand infrastructure across Europe and Middle East, report says
Group-IB found Iran-linked Tortoiseshell expanding command-and-control infrastructure into the UK, Belgium, Saudi Arabia and the UAE with new malware tooling.
Group-IB researchers identified new Tortoiseshell command-and-control infrastructure, including servers named 'uk1' and 'uk2' hosted on UK IP addresses, plus systems in Belgium, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Iran-linked espionage group, active since at least 2018 and previously tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has historically targeted defense, aerospace, technology and military organizations in the Middle East and the United States. Researchers also uncovered new malware samples, including a backdoor resembling TwoStroke that enables command execution, file theft and system reconnaissance, and a tool establishing reverse SSH tunnels to attacker-controlled servers. Group-IB assesses that the group is expanding both its geographic reach and its capabilities and ranks it among the most active Iranian APTs of 2026.
55
xHunt Campaign: New Watering Hole Identified for Credential Harvesting
Unit 42 tied the xHunt campaign to a watering hole on a Kuwait government website used to passively harvest visitors' NTLM credential hashes.
Palo Alto Unit 42 identified a Kuwait government organization's webpage injected with hidden HTML referencing image paths on domains (microsofte-update.com, learn-service.com) tied to xHunt/Hisoka C2 infrastructure. When visitors loaded the page, Windows would attempt SMB/NetBIOS authentication to the remote share, allowing the operators to capture NTLM hashes that could be cracked or relayed. Related DNS redirect activity on xHunt infrastructure in 2019 pointed to additional credential-harvesting interest against Kuwaiti government email servers.
52
North Korean Remote Workers Are Infiltrating Government and Businesses: How to Expose Them Before Hiring
Researchers expose DPRK remote IT worker infiltration tactics, including forged identities and AI-assisted interview behavior.
A joint investigation by Mauro Eldritch, Heiner García, and ANY.RUN hired suspected DPRK developers linked to Lazarus Group into controlled sandboxes, revealing forged IDs, remote-access tools, AI-assisted workflows, and VPN/VPS infrastructure. The FBI is investigating a North Korean remote IT worker who reportedly worked for a U.S. federal agency. The article outlines verification steps and indicators including VPS and AstrillVPN exit node IPs.
48
New PATCHCORD Backdoor Targets Afghan Telecom and Indian Critical Infrastructure
Acronis links APT36 (Transparent Tribe) to new backdoors PATCHCORD and SHEETCORD targeting Afghan Telecom and Indian government, defense, and energy networks.
Acronis TRU described an ongoing Pakistan-aligned campaign attributed with moderate confidence to APT36, delivering a previously undocumented C/C++ backdoor named PATCHCORD via fake VPN installers impersonating Afghan Telecom (AFTEL) and telecom management tools. PATCHCORD persists by hijacking browser shortcuts for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, registers with a single C2 server, and executes shellcode and arbitrary cmd.exe commands. Infrastructure analysis revealed SHEETCORD, a Go backdoor combining SHEETCREEP and PATCHCORD features that uses Google Sheets for C2 and a PowerShell-based remote execution, delivered via a fake site mimicking India's National Informatics Center. APT36 has used PATCHCORD since at least March 2026, including a variant with anti-analysis features used against India's energy sector, and the toolkit includes antnium, GateSentinel, SuperShell, and exploits for CVE-2024-6387.
61
Gaming the system: how a Chinese-speaking actor turned Brazilian government sites into an SEO weapon
Check Point identifies Chinese-speaking group Gambling Goblin hijacking Brazilian government domains via malicious Apache modules for SEO-manipulated gambling phishing.
Check Point Research tracks a sustained campaign since mid-2025 against Brazilian government and educational organizations by Gambling Goblin, a Chinese-speaking cybercrime cluster linked to Earth Berberoka. Attackers compile and install malicious Apache modules that silently reverse-proxy visitors to phishing pages impersonating Google Play, Microsoft Store, and Amazon, chaining compromised high-reputation domains to inflate search rankings. The group deploys a heavily obfuscated Linux toolkit including DownPro, AlphaAgent, oRAT, a 3snake-based credential stealer, and SSH brute-forcers, with parallel phishing networks localized for Vietnamese, Spanish, and English victims.
55
45
45
GTIG AI Threat Tracker: From Prompting to Autonomy – The Evolution of Adversarial AI
GTIG's Q2 2026 tracker shows adversaries adopting agentic AI workflows, including credential harvesting in under six hours and supply chain attacks by UNC6780.
Google Threat Intelligence Group's Q2 2026 report documents adversaries moving from basic prompting to agentic AI workflows and automation, including a cloud compromise followed by agent-enabled mass credential harvesting executed in under six hours. It tracks financially motivated actor UNC6780 (TeamPCP) conducting large-scale open source supply chain compromises across PyPI, npm, and Docker Hub since March 2026, deploying credential stealers. The report also highlights growing targeting of proprietary AI models, source code, prompts, and API credentials, plus LLMJacking practices where adversaries steal developer credentials or hijack cloud infrastructure to run unauthorized AI workloads.
65
Hackers Spend Nearly $7 Million on Expired Domains to Redirect Traffic to Scams and Malware
Infoblox reports Sable Squirrel spent nearly $7 million on expired domains to redirect traffic to illegal sports streaming, gambling, and malware infrastructure.
Infoblox tracked 50,400 dropcatch domains re-registered daily in gTLDs during H1 2026, nearly 20% of all registrations, with .net and .xyz leading. The threat actor Sable Squirrel has acquired more than 10,000 expired domains supporting Asian sports piracy brands such as Xoilac, Cakhia, 90phut, Socolive, and MiTom while promoting betting services like VSBet, ColaScore, and 8xbet. The operation, assessed as Vietnam-based and overlapping the dismantled Xoi Lac TV streaming network, targets users in Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Australia via a traffic distribution system, publishes Android apps through suspected compromised Google Play developer accounts, and deployed over 31,000 malware samples including Quasar RAT, AsyncRAT, DCRat, NanoCore, Remcos RAT, and njRAT.
55
Hackers Use LLMs to Generate Exploit Scripts and Automate Post-Exploitation Across Latin America
Unit 42 says Latin American attackers used LLMs to automate post-exploitation in campaigns hitting Mexican government, water utilities, and Brazilian financial firms.
Unit 42 identified two campaigns in Latin America whose operators used commercial LLMs (Claude, GPT-4.1) behind a self-hosted NextChat interface to generate and debug post-exploitation scripts. Cluster CL-CRI-1131 compromised a transportation organization, Mexican federal ministries, and water utilities in Mexico and Ecuador, using native Windows tools and Volume Shadow Copies to dump the SAM registry hive and NTDS.dit. Cluster CL-CRI-1163 targeted Brazilian financial organizations with job-themed phishing, custom RATs, and a Go-based reverse SOCKS5 tunneling utility called SockTz, with nine versions deployed within roughly two hours. Trend Micro tracks related AI-augmented activity as SHADOW-AETHER-040 and SHADOW-AETHER-064.
58
Nimbus Manticore Expands Toolset With TWOSTROKE
Group-IB found new infrastructure and TWOSTROKE-like malware used by IRGC-linked Nimbus Manticore, indicating expanded Middle East and Europe targeting.
Group-IB reported new Tortoiseshell infrastructure spanning Europe and the Middle East and two previously undocumented tools from IRGC-linked Nimbus Manticore (UNC1549): a reverse SSH tunneling utility connecting to 172.86.98.113 on port 443, and a C++ backdoor masquerading as wtsapi32.dll with three hard-coded C2 servers. The backdoor overlaps with TWOSTROKE and supports file transfer, execution, host information gathering, and persistence. Findings build on Kaspersky's report of the NightLedger backdoor and WebSocket tunnelers BridgeHead and ArcBridge, and suggest expanded targeting beyond the Middle East into Europe.
60
China Is Strapping ‘Digital Bombs’ to Civilian Infrastructure—Is the US Ready?
WIRED examines Volt Typhoon pre-positioning 'digital bombs' in US civilian infrastructure via a war game simulation discussion.
WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast features reporter Andy Greenberg discussing a war game simulating a cyberattack by Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon. The episode examines Volt Typhoon's practice of planting persistent access in US civilian infrastructure that could be activated during conflict, and questions whether the US is prepared.
45
Stately Taurus Activity in Southeast Asia Links to Bookworm Malware
Unit 42 links Stately Taurus APT activity in ASEAN region and Myanmar to the decade-old Bookworm malware family via infrastructure overlaps.
Unit 42 connected Stately Taurus (aka Mustang Panda) espionage activity targeting ASEAN-affiliated organizations and Myanmar to the Bookworm malware family, first published in 2015. Earlier attacks delivered the PubLoad stager via DLL sideloading, with a PubLoad variant communicating with C2 at 123.253.32[.]15 while mimicking Windows Update URLs. Three previously unreported loader samples from 2021-2022 used UUID-decoded shellcode loaded via heap allocation and API callbacks, ultimately decrypting and loading Bookworm DLLs. A ToneShell backdoor variant shared debug paths with Bookworm loaders, and the January 2024 CSIRT CTI post corroborated the Myanmar attacks.
65
45
45
45
45
Suspected Iran-linked attack knocked UK power plant offline for days
Suspected Iranian hackers knocked a small UK power plant offline for four days in July 2026, with no noticeable impact on the national grid.
Sources told The Telegraph that a British power plant was offline for four days in July 2026 following a suspected Iranian cyberattack, reported to the National Cyber Security Centre. The UK energy minister said the incident affected a small-scale energy generator with no noticeable effect on the power supply, and energy CEOs were briefed and given further advice afterward. The attack followed warnings about Iranian cyber activity against US energy, water, and government networks, including a coordinated attack on 30+ US community water utilities.
58
“Tick” Group Continues Attacks
Unit 42 tracks the Tick espionage group attacking Korean and Japanese defense and high-tech targets with Daserf, Minzen, 9002, Invader, and custom Gh0st RAT variants.
The Tick group has conducted long-running espionage attacks against organizations in the Republic of Korea and Japan, focusing on defense and high-tech companies holding intellectual property, and repeatedly attacked one high-profile Japanese target for three years. Unit 42 links the Daserf backdoor, the 9002 RAT, and the Invader backdoor through shared C2 infrastructure used between July 2012 and April 2013. Minzen samples install a "NamelessHdoor" backdoor derived from publicly available code over a decade old, modified with ReflectiveDLLLoader DLL injection, and the group also uses custom Gh0st RAT variants. Tick has shifted from privacy-protected domain registration to compromised websites for C2 infrastructure.
50
45
45
45
45
45
China-Aligned Hackers Hide PeckBirdy Malware C2 Inside Casino and Adult Websites
Infoblox found China-aligned actors hiding PeckBirdy malware C2 inside fake Chinese-language casino and adult websites, evading security scans via service workers and WebSockets.
Infoblox reported that China-aligned actors behind the PeckBirdy JScript C2 framework conceal command-and-control inside low-quality Chinese-language casino and adult websites, extending Trend Micro's earlier findings that tied the framework to backdoors including MKDOOR and HOLODONUT. One decoy, vip311[.]cc, embedded JavaScript linked to cache-mcp[.]com and registered a service worker connecting to mcp-source[.]online over WebSocket; at publication mcp-source[.]online had zero VirusTotal detections, showing how the layered design evades conventional scanning. The campaign has been active since at least 2023, and just over 3% of Infoblox enterprise customers resolved at least one PeckBirdy C2 domain, with education, IT, banking and government among observed sectors.
62
Gambling Goblin Turns Brazilian Government Sites Into SEO Weapons
Check Point links Chinese-speaking cluster Gambling Goblin to SEO-fraud compromises of Brazilian government sites via malicious Apache modules since mid-2025.
Check Point Research dubbed the cluster Gambling Goblin and linked it with medium-to-high confidence to Earth Berberoka, a Chinese-speaking group Trend Micro documented in 2022, citing shared oRAT tooling, Chinese-language artifacts, and domains mimicking trusted tech brands. Custom Apache modules installed on compromised Brazilian government and education servers acted as reverse proxies, routing selected visitors to gambling and sports-betting phishing pages impersonating Google Play, the Microsoft Store, and Amazon while stripping CSP headers. The broader Linux toolkit included the DownPro downloader, AlphaAgent and oRAT backdoors, the 3snake-based PasswordHarvester credential stealer, and an SSH brute-forcer, with operations extending to Vietnamese, Spanish, and English phishing pages.
64
Crooks Are Buying Your Expired Domains and Using Them to Deliver Malware
Infoblox finds dropcatch expired domains fuel malware delivery and C2, with actor Sable Squirrel spending ~$7M on 10,000+ domains.
Infoblox Threat Intel reports that in H1 2026 dropcatch (re-registered expired) domains made up nearly 20% of all new registrations, about 65,000 per day, inheriting reputation and traffic that attackers exploit. Threat actor Sable Squirrel spent nearly $7 million on 10,000+ expired domains, running Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and Australian streaming platforms (Xoilac, Cakhia, 90phut) that double as C2 servers for Quasar RAT, AsyncRAT, DCRat and Remcos RAT. Scavenger actors like Shady Squirrel acquire previously compromised domains and feed inherited traffic to SocGholish and tech support scam networks.
58
BengalSEO Poisons Bing Search Results to Deliver MayaBot and Tech Support Scams
DFIR Report exposes BengalSEO, an India-based SEO-poisoning operation running since 2015, delivering MayaBot malware and tech support scams via Bing results.
The DFIR Report details BengalSEO, a financially motivated cluster operating from Rajasthan, India, since at least 2015, run through two IT service providers: WeConnect Solutions LLC and Garage2Global. The group uses black-hat SEO techniques—backlinks, DOM injection, DOM shuffling, keyword stuffing—to push lure pages to the top of Microsoft Bing results, routing victims through a traffic distribution system to either the custom MayaBot malware (which delivers an XMRig cryptominer and enables C2) or tech support scam call centers. A Vizio decoy page had 2,000 backlinks from 167 unique external domains, and Matomo analytics is used for victim fingerprinting, with the tracking domain appearing in 1,112 urlscan.io results.
50
Dark Caracal Deploys New Go Malware With Ethereum-Based C2 Fallback
Dark Caracal targeted a Venezuelan communications organization with new Go-based GoCaracal malware and an updated Bandook backdoor using Ethereum smart-contract C2 fallback.
Arctic Wolf Labs linked a June 2026 intrusion against a communications organization in Venezuela to Dark Caracal, an espionage group associated with Lebanon's General Directorate of General Security (GDGS). The group deployed a previously undocumented Go-based framework called GoCaracal in lightweight and extended builds alongside a Delphi-loaded Bandook backdoor, with delivery via phishing emails carrying weaponized SVG attachments through URL shorteners. The extended build uses a custom Solidity contract, BulletproofC2, on Ethereum to retrieve replacement C2 addresses without redeploying malware, and Arctic Wolf traced 249 related samples from January to July 2026 showing a modular evolution arc.
58
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.
48
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.
55
RANCOR: Targeted Attacks in South East Asia Using PLAINTEE and DDKONG Malware Families
Unit 42 names RANCOR, a previously unidentified espionage group targeting Southeast Asian political entities with newly discovered PLAINTEE and DDKONG malware families.
Unit 42 tracks a previously unidentified group it dubs RANCOR conducting highly targeted espionage attacks in Singapore and Cambodia using two custom malware families, DDKONG and PLAINTEE. Attacks appear to have begun with spear phishing, with decoy political news documents hosted on legitimate sites including a Cambodian government website and Facebook. Infrastructure links to IP 89.46.222[.]97 and KHRAT-associated domains such as facebook-apps[.]com, and the activity is grouped into two clusters tied together by PLAINTEE usage and similar targeting.
56
45