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Agents Gone Wild: An AI-Orchestrated Global Campaign Against PaperCut NG/MF

AI-orchestrated campaign exploited PaperCut NG/MF RCE (CVE-2026-81578/82078), compromising 440+ instances at 395 organizations in 48 countries.

GreyNoise tracked a likely Russian-speaking actor using AI (OpenAI Codex harness plus a DeepSeek model) to develop, test, and deploy exploits for PaperCut NG/MF (CVE-2026-81578, CVE-2026-82078) starting 31 August 2026. The actor compromised at least 440 PaperCut instances across 395 organizations in 48 countries, achieving domain admin at 12 victims — fastest time to domain admin was five minutes and a US high school was fully compromised in seven minutes. Attack paths involved LSASS memory and registry secret harvesting, pass-the-hash to domain controllers, noPac attacks, account additions to Domain Admins, and DCSync to exfiltrate full NTDS.DIT credential dumps. Impact scope suggests access development potentially for handoff, with prior PaperCut intrusions historically leading to extortion.

GreyNoise · 8d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-81578CVE-2026-82078CVE-2021-42278+1 CVEs1

North Korean Job Fraud Expands Beyond IT Into Healthcare and Sales

North Korea's IT worker scheme (Famous Chollima/PurpleDelta) has expanded from IT into healthcare, sales, and financial services roles worldwide.

Huntress and Recorded Future documented DPRK-linked fraudulent workers landing remote jobs beyond IT, including at an Australian healthcare company, a financial services firm, and a sales hire with a stolen identity. The scheme, tracked as Famous Chollima, Jasper Sleet, Nickel Tapestry, PurpleDelta, UNC5267, and Wagemole, uses forged identity documents, VPNs, proxies, and laptop farms with PiKVM and capture cards to fund Pyongyang's weapons programs. Recorded Future found the PurpleDelta cluster applied to 1,100+ companies between late 2024 and early 2025 with 22 fabricated personas, some AI-generated, using ChatGPT and AI transcription during interviews. Analysts assess the activity is ongoing and likely to expand in scale and sophistication.

The Hacker News · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild

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.

Security Affairs · 20d agoThreat actor in the wild

Operation Jackal: 58 Arrests Expose the Money Laundering Machine Behind Global Scams

INTERPOL's Operation Jackal IV made 58 arrests across 22 countries, disrupting Black Axe-linked networks laundering scam, BEC and sextortion proceeds.

INTERPOL's Operation Jackal IV (November 2025–June 2026) involved 22 countries and led to 58 arrests and 263 suspects identified tied to West African organized crime networks such as Black Axe. Key actions included 39 arrests in South Africa with $2.67 million seized and 257 bank accounts frozen, 17 arrests in Argentina against a crime-as-a-service laundering network, and a Romanian call-center investment scam with estimated global losses around €143 million. The operation also flagged rising sextortion of minors as young as 14 by these networks.

Security Affairs · 22d agoThreat actor

Interpol targets Black Axe’s illicit financial web in latest international sting

Interpol's Operation Jackal IV made 58 arrests across four continents, disrupting Black Axe money-laundering, BEC, and sextortion networks and seizing millions.

Interpol-coordinated Operation Jackal IV produced 58 arrests and identified 263 suspects across Africa, Europe and South America, targeting Black Axe and other West African organized crime financial networks. Romanian authorities dismantled a call-center investment scam valued at roughly 143 million euros, while South African police made 39 arrests, seized $2.67 million and blocked 257 bank accounts tied to romance and investment scams targeting retirees. Argentine investigators identified 196 people in a Crime-as-a-Service network supplying website domains and laundering support, and Interpol noted the groups' growing focus on sextortion of victims as young as 14.

CyberScoop · 22d agoThreat actor

INTERPOL crackdown on West African crime rings uncovers troubling new trend

INTERPOL's Operation Jackal IV arrested 58 suspects across 22 countries targeting Black Axe-linked West African fraud networks, flagging a rising trend of sextortion against minors.

Operation Jackal IV (November 2025 to June 2026) coordinated arrests across 22 countries against West African organized crime groups such as Black Axe, which INTERPOL links to a large share of global cyber-enabled fraud. Johannesburg raids on a romance and investment scam syndicate targeting retirees yielded $2.67 million seized, 257 bank accounts frozen and 39 arrests, while Argentina exposed a 196-member Crime-as-a-Service network with 17 arrests. Romanian police dismantled a call-center investment scam with roughly €143 million stolen and laundered, and INTERPOL warned these groups increasingly sextort minors as young as 14 and procure Crime-as-a-Service via the dark web.

Help Net Security · 23d agoThreat actor

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.

The Hacker News · 27d agoThreat actor1