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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.

Malicious Apache Modules Hijack Brazilian Government Site Traffic to Push Betting Pages

Check Point links Gambling Goblin, a Chinese-speaking cluster, to malicious Apache modules hijacking Brazilian government servers to promote betting sites.

Check Point Research tracks Gambling Goblin, a Chinese-speaking cluster, installing malicious Apache reverse-proxy modules on compromised Brazilian government and education web servers since mid-2025. The modules divert visitors to gambling and fake app-store pages while stripping the site's security headers, likely for large-scale SEO manipulation. The group's Linux arsenal includes DownPro, AlphaAgent, oRAT, a 3snake-based credential stealer, and SSH brute-forcing tools, and it is tied to Trend Micro's Earth Berberoka. Related SEO-fraud campaigns on .gov.br domains were documented by ESET (GhostRedirector), Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, and Hunt.io.

The Hacker News · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

GhostCode Phishing Kit Bypasses Microsoft 365 MFA to Hijack Accounts in 78 Seconds

eSentire identified GhostCode, a phishing kit abusing Microsoft 365 OAuth device-code sign-in to steal tokens and take over accounts in seconds.

eSentire analysts identified GhostCode in late August, a phishing kit that uses business contact-form messages and an NDA pretext to deliver a password-protected HTML attachment leading victims to a Microsoft device-code sign-in. Victims authenticate on legitimate Microsoft pages, letting the kit obtain a Primary Refresh Token in 32 seconds and register three devices in 78 seconds, with residential proxies matching the victim's location. The kit hides its redirect with encrypted addresses, junk data, and scanner-filtering challenges, and uses GHOSTnet-linked infrastructure during device enrolment. eSentire recommends blocking device-code authentication via Conditional Access, invalidating tokens, and reviewing newly enrolled devices.

Cyber Security News · 21h agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 9 sources5

GhostCode Abuses Microsoft Entra Device Enrollment to Maintain Access After Token Revocation

eSentire exposes GhostCode, a device-code phishing kit that abuses Microsoft Entra device enrollment to persist even after stolen tokens are revoked.

eSentire's Threat Response Unit observed GhostCode campaigns in late August 2026, using BEC-style social engineering that impersonated procurement staff, including BJ's Wholesale Club, via Salesforce contact forms. Victims received password-protected HTML lures disguised as a FlipBook document portal, with junk-data padding, HTML comment injection, and AES-256-GCM encrypted redirects gated by anti-bot checks. The kit exploits the OAuth 2.0 device authorization grant, prompting victims to approve real Microsoft device-code sign-ins with MFA. Within 78 seconds of approval, attackers registered three Entra devices and obtained a Primary Refresh Token, so rogue device registrations persist even after session token revocation.

GBHackers · 22h agoPhishing & fraud in the wild2

A rant about phishing: It's not the user's fault (and not DNS either)

Opinion piece argues multi-domain login redirects make legitimate flows indistinguishable from phishing, urging organizations to standardize on one recognizable root domain.

The author shows a real-world login flow that chains through numerous third-party domains (identity providers, cloud auth endpoints, OAuth APIs, 2FA pages), none on the company's own domain, so credentials and 2FA prompts are trivially impersonable. The piece argues URLs are inherently confusing because the security-relevant second-level domain sits mid-string, and that users trained to ignore URLs cannot distinguish legitimate pages from scams. It proposes RFC 2119-style requirements: single recognizable root domain, internal services on its subdomains, emailed or SMS links on that domain, and local redirects instead of third-party hosted pages.

Lobsters · security · 6d agoPhishing & fraud

Google’s New Search Redirects Make It Harder to Check Where Links Lead Before Clicking

Malwarebytes reports Google's new encoded google.com/goto?url= redirects break hover-preview link checking, weakening a common phishing defense.

Google now routes some search results through opaque google.com/goto?url= redirects using custom encoding, so browser link previews no longer reveal the true destination, only the claimed label above the result. Malwarebytes found the final destination is visible only in the redirect response's Location header, complicating hover-based safety checks as well as scraping, archiving, and audit tools. The change arrives amid malvertising, search-result poisoning, and fake installer campaigns like the recent Node.js infostealer lure. Google says it deploys measures against evolving abuse but did not explain the change.

Cyber Security News · 1d agoResearch

Attackers Use Multi-Hop Google Redirects for Phishing Campaign

Threat actors chain multiple legitimate Google service redirects to evade detection and deliver credential harvesting or ScreenConnect remote access tooling.

Threat actors are abusing multiple legitimate Google services to build multi-hop redirect chains that obscure the final destination and bypass reputation-based filtering. The campaign culminates in credential harvesting pages or silent installation of the ScreenConnect remote access tool. Defenders should watch for links that traverse trusted Google domains before landing on malicious endpoints.

Dark Reading · 8d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

[webapps] Ghost_CMS 6.19.0 - Remote Code Execution

A public proof-of-concept demonstrates remote code execution in Ghost CMS 6.19.0, the widely deployed open-source publishing platform.

Exploit-DB lists a remote code execution proof of concept affecting Ghost CMS version 6.19.0. Ghost is a popular open-source platform used by publishers and blogs worldwide. The listing does not cite a CVE id or report in-the-wild exploitation.

Exploit-DB · 15d agoExploit / PoC1

Open Redirect on FortiSIEM

Fortinet disclosed an open redirect flaw (CVSS 2.8) in FortiSIEM allowing authenticated attackers to redirect users to arbitrary websites via crafted HTTP requests.

Fortinet advisory FG-IR-26-169 covers an open redirect vulnerability (CWE-601) in FortiSIEM, rated CVSSv3 2.8. An authenticated attacker can cause a redirection to any website via specially crafted HTTP requests. The advisory was revised on 2026-09-08.

Fortinet PSIRT · 9d agoAdvisory

Google Search Makes It Harder to See Where a Link Really Goes Before You Click

Google now routes some Search results through opaque google.com/goto redirects, weakening hover-to-verify anti-phishing checks.

Google has begun serving some organic search results as opaque google.com/goto?url= redirects whose destinations can only be resolved server-side by Google, likely to raise scraping costs for rank trackers and archival services. The change removes the pre-click hover preview of the true destination URL, undermining a long-standing anti-phishing habit for spotting lookalike, typosquatted, or search-optimized phishing domains. Security teams are advised to rely on layered defenses such as domain reputation, DNS and web filtering, browser isolation, and user training rather than hover text.

GBHackers · 1d agoIndustry

“Ghostjacking” Exploits AI Agents’ Trusted Access to Evade Firewall Controls

Tenet warns 'Ghostjacking' tricks AI agents with fake reports to abuse trusted access and bypass firewall controls, exposing half of Fortune 500 firms.

Tenet researchers described 'Ghostjacking,' a technique that feeds fabricated reports to AI agents in order to hijack their trusted access and evade firewall controls. The firm estimates that roughly half of Fortune 500 companies are vulnerable because AI agents operate with elevated, trusted permissions that perimeter tools do not inspect.

Infosecurity Magazine · Aug 10, 2026AI safety & security

Iran-Linked Hackers Use Fake LinkedIn Job Offers to Deploy NodeRabbit and PollCat RATs

Iran-linked Mirage Kitten targets software engineers with fake LinkedIn recruiter coding tests deploying new NodeRabbit and PollCat RATs.

Kaspersky researchers link the campaign to Mirage Kitten (also tracked as UNC1549, Smoke Sandstorm, Nimbus Manticore), with victims in aviation, aerospace and fintech in Egypt, Ethiopia and Afghanistan. Trojanized npm dependencies (colorized_terminal, pretty-log) bundled in coding-challenge archives launch the Node.js implants across Windows, Linux and macOS. NodeRabbit uses AES-256-GCM-encrypted C2 via Azure, and its third variant persists through a fake GitHub Copilot Helper VS Code extension plus Git post-merge/post-checkout hooks. PollCat is an obfuscated JavaScript RAT that registers with C2 before OTP authentication and inventories tools from 24 security vendors.

GBHackers · 7d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Post-DEF CON Phishing Uses Malicious Google Doc to Deliver Malware

Huntress uncovered post-DEF CON phishing via X direct messages using a malicious Google Doc to deliver AMOS and NetSupport RAT malware.

Huntress uncovered a phishing campaign targeting attendees after Black Hat and DEF CON. Attackers used X direct messages pointing to a malicious Google Doc as the delivery vehicle. Payloads include AMOS, a macOS infostealer, and the NetSupport RAT, among other malware.

Huntress · 28d agoPhishing & fraud

Google’s new search redirects make links harder to check before you click

Google routes some search result links through encoded google.com/goto?url= redirects, breaking hover-to-verify link checks and raising scraping costs.

Google has started routing some search result links through opaque google.com/goto?url=... redirects using a custom Google-specific encoding, with the destination visible only via the redirect response's Location header. Google confirmed the rollout as an anti-abuse measure, most likely to make bulk extraction of destination URLs from search results more difficult and costly. Malwarebytes warns the change undermines the standard hover-before-clicking safety advice, while legitimate rank-tracking, SEO auditing, archival, and accessibility tools now face the same rate limits and costs as abusive scrapers.

Malwarebytes Labs · 2d agoIndustry

Creepy crawlies

git.kernel.org spends more CPU rendering commit pages for abusive AI-era scrapers than on all legitimate access including git clones.

Konstantin Ryabitsev reports that abusive crawler 'background radiation' at git.kernel.org consumes more CPU cycles rendering commit HTML than all legitimate access, with 14 cores across five geo-distributed nodes dedicated to scraper traffic. Simon Willison highlights the implications for crawlable web services like Datasette.

Simon Willison · 9d agoAI industry1

Hackers are stealing Claude tokens from subscribers

Infostealer malware is stealing Claude login sessions, letting attackers mint OAuth tokens and burn subscribers' paid usage largely undetected.

Anthropic confirmed a bad actor used common infostealer malware to steal Claude login sessions from users' computers and consume their paid usage. A UK consultant saw idle token usage climb, and Anthropic suspended his account, invalidated sessions and Claude Code tokens, and issued a £44.49 partial refund on his $200-per-month plan. Multiple other users on Reddit and GitHub reported similar theft; Anthropic signed out affected users and issued refunds, but still lacks itemized usage reporting to help users detect misuse.

TechCrunch · AI · 8d agoAI safety & security in the wild1

Beneath the Surface: Detecting and Blocking Hidden Malicious Traffic Distribution Systems

Unit 42 built an ML-based detector for malicious traffic distribution systems, finding malicious TDS chains average longer redirections and more URLs than legitimate ones.

Traffic distribution systems redirect victims through chains of intermediate domains to hide final destinations, serving phishing, malvertising, and online gambling operations. Unit 42's topological analysis of redirection graphs found malicious TDS traffic uses longer chains (about 25% exceed four hops vs 10% benign), more URLs (median 126 vs 80), and fewer isolated subgraphs with higher connectivity. These features power an ML detector integrated into Advanced DNS Security and Advanced URL Filtering to identify and block malicious TDS infrastructure in customer traffic.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Research

ThreatsDay: GhostJacking AI Attacks, EtherHiding ClickFix, Cursor CLI Flaw + 17 More Stories

A weekly bulletin aggregating short security updates, including the City-Forum data-theft campaign, a ShipMonk breach, a Cursor CLI flaw, and GhostJacking AI attacks.

The Hacker News ThreatsDay Bulletin bundles roughly 20 short updates across cloud services, AI tools, malware, breaches, and scams. Highlights include the City-Forum campaign pulling data from unauthenticated guest access in Salesforce Experience Cloud and ServiceNow Service Portals since March 2025, and a ShipMonk breach exposing Trezor customer order data for orders in seven countries between May 10 and August 8, 2026. Other items cover a patched Cursor CLI flaw that let cloned repositories run commands before the workspace-trust prompt, Okta's analysis of the Work Panel vishing console used by actors like UNC6671, and GhostJacking AI agent hijacking via a patched Claude Desktop sandbox escape. Meta also launched an on-device WhatsApp Scam Alert machine learning model that keeps message content on the device.

The Hacker News · 29d agoIndustry1

thttpd v2.26 Stack-Based Buffer Overflow in thttpd redirect CGI Program

The redirect CGI program shipped with thttpd v2.26 has a stack buffer overflow that unauthenticated attackers can trigger for crashes or possible code execution.

A stack-based buffer overflow exists in the redirect CGI program distributed with thttpd v2.26. Unsafe string concatenation when constructing redirect URLs from attacker-controlled CGI environment variables causes the overflow. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can trigger it via a crafted HTTP request, crashing the CGI process and causing denial of service. In environments lacking modern exploit mitigations, code execution may also be possible.

Full Disclosure · 13d agoVulnerability1

Enoki: Efficient Multi-Level Hallucination Detection

Researchers introduce Enoki, an open information extraction framework unifying claim-level and span-level hallucination detection in LLMs at lower inference cost.

Enoki extracts text-anchored relational facts, verifies them against evidence, and projects unsupported facts back onto hallucinated spans, so claim-level verification and span-level localization share one representation without separate alignment. It supports LLM-based, encoder-based, and rule-based extraction regimes to balance accuracy against inference cost. Experiments show it stays competitive with strong claim-level systems while using fewer resources and outperforms them on fine-grained span- and entity-level localization. The authors also release EnokiQA, a dual-granularity dataset with aligned claim-level verification and span-level localization annotations.

Hugging Face daily papers · 16d agoAI research

Fake Claude Opus 5 app delivers malware and wipes its own tracks

A fake 'Claude Opus 5' GitHub repository impersonating Anthropic distributes RevStealer, a Windows infostealer stealing passwords, crypto wallets and VPN credentials.

Morphisec identified a malicious GitHub repository, Claude-Opus-5-Free-Desktop, impersonating Anthropic to distribute a roughly 101 MB download that launches RevStealer, a Windows information-stealing malware. The malware targets browser credentials, Windows Credential Manager, a dozen password managers, more than fifty cryptocurrency wallets, VPN, messaging, game launcher and streaming accounts, streaming stolen data to its server before deleting itself. It evades analysis with ten sandbox and VM checks, indirect system calls, Windows Defender exclusions, a fake verification window, and a Polygon blockchain smart contract fallback for C2. Only 1 of 66 antivirus engines flagged the sample at check time.

Help Net Security · 16d agoMalware

Hackers Use Fake LinkedIn Job Offers to Infect Developers With New Cross-Platform RATs

Iran-linked Mirage Kitten uses fake LinkedIn job challenges to deliver new cross-platform RATs NodeRabbit and PollCat to developers in fintech, aviation, and aerospace.

PolySwarm documented a campaign by Iran-linked Mirage Kitten (UNC1549) that uses fake recruiter personas and technical hiring challenges on LinkedIn to deliver the newly documented RATs NodeRabbit and PollCat, which run on Windows, Linux, and macOS. A challenge archive bundles a fake npm package (colorized_terminal 2.1.0) in node_modules that loads NodeRabbit, while a React-based challenge delivers PollCat with an attacker-controlled OTP screen. NodeRabbit persists through a malicious Visual Studio Code extension and Git post-merge/post-checkout hooks; PollCat persists via scheduled tasks, cron, and LaunchAgents. Victims were observed in fintech, aviation, and aerospace, with confirmed targets in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan.

Cyber Security News · 7d agoMalware in the wild

Four REVSTEALER-Linked Modules Disable Windows Update and Defender to Run a Crypto Miner

Elastic documents four persistent REVSTEALER-linked tools (ProManager, WinUpdate, SoftManager, LockAppHost); LockAppHost disables Windows Update and Defender to run a crypto miner.

Elastic Security Labs identified four previously unreported executables tied to REVSTEALER, a commercial Windows infostealer sold since at least February 2026: ProManager, WinUpdate, SoftManager, and LockAppHost. LockAppHost abuses CMSTP for elevation, adds Microsoft Defender exclusions, disables five Windows Update services and 13 scheduled tasks, then hides a miner in legitimate Windows processes; other modules steal wallets, clipboard-swap crypto addresses, and turn victims into reverse proxies. The components share REVSTEALER tradecraft including packer, runtime function resolution, and Polygon smart-contract backup configuration (EtherHiding). Elastic's detection rule matched about 4,700 VirusTotal samples over the past year; distribution uses hijacked YouTube channels promoting game cheats and a fake 'Claude Opus 5 Free Desktop' app.

The Hacker News · 11d agoMalware in the wild

Exploring the Latest Mispadu Stealer Variant

Unit 42 found a new Mispadu infostealer variant targeting Mexican users via malicious .url files exploiting the SmartScreen CVE-2023-36025 bypass.

Unit 42 discovered a new variant of Mispadu Stealer, a Delphi-based banking trojan first reported in 2019, found while hunting for the Windows SmartScreen bypass CVE-2023-36025. The campaign uses crafted .url files referencing UNC network-share paths with an HTTP port (@80) that forces payload retrieval over WebDAV via rundll32.exe, avoiding SmartScreen warnings. Analyzed samples (~4 KB, compiled 2023-11-12) predate the CVE publication, and ZIP payloads were likely distributed as email attachments, primarily targeting users in Mexico.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Malware in the wildCVE-2023-360251

Infostealers Are Hijacking Claude Sessions and Draining Subscriptions

Infostealers hijacked active Claude sessions to bypass 2FA, drain paid usage and run unauthorized charges; Anthropic is revoking sessions and refunding.

Anthropic confirmed that infostealer malware on user machines stole active Claude login sessions, letting attackers bypass passwords, MFA, and SSO and drain paid usage and run unauthorized charges. Affected families identified on Windows include Vidar, LummaC2, StealC, RedLine, and Acreed, plus Atomic Stealer on a small number of Macs; the malware typically arrived via unofficial downloads or malicious apps. Anthropic signed users out, removed saved payment cards, revoked affected sessions, and is refunding unauthorized charges, noting phones and tablets were not involved.

Security Affairs · 17d agoMalware in the wild

Plug 'n' Pray: Agentic LLM-based Detection of Potential Log File Exposures in Third-Party Content Management System Plugins

Agentic LLM analysis validates 79 log file exposures across 62 of the 300 most-installed WordPress plugins, covering 250M+ active installations.

Researchers built an agentic LLM-based framework combining static and dynamic analysis to automatically detect insecure log files created by WordPress plugins. Scanning the 300 most-installed plugins, which account for roughly 75% of all active installations in the official ecosystem, it produced 81 findings with 79 manually reproduced across 62 plugins. Insufficiently secured log files can disclose credentials and personal data and have led to website compromises. The authors derive a taxonomy of log path and protection patterns and best practices, finding multi-layered protection often absent.

arXiv cs.CR · 1d agoResearch

How to Keep Malware’s Rotating Infrastructure From Becoming a Detection Gap

ANY.RUN marketing piece argues SOC detection lags rotating malware and phishing infrastructure, citing a 46-country campaign and 3DBlast kit to promote TI feeds.

ANY.RUN describes how malware and phishing campaigns rotate domains and hosting, making single-IOC blocking ineffective for SOC teams. One investigated phishing campaign spanned 46 countries with 425 kit URLs across 240 hosts, 94% of which were seen for only a single day. A phishing kit dubbed 3DBlast impersonates Microsoft 365 and Google using BitB, AiTM, OAuth device-code phishing and DOM relay techniques. The article is primarily a promotion for ANY.RUN TI Feeds and TI Lookup products.

Cyber Security News · 1d agoIndustry

Outsider Phishing Kit Survives Takedown With 700 New Pages

Group-IB found the Outsider phishing kit kept generating 700+ new phishing pages within a month of Operation Ghost Hook's takedown.

Group-IB linked the Outsider Phishing Kit, operated by a threat actor known as ChenLun, to more than 100,000 phishing pages across 54+ countries between December 2025 and May 2026. After the FBI, Google, and Lumen's Black Lotus Labs seized core admin servers, a Shopify storefront, about $100,000, and thousands of domains under Operation Ghost Hook in June, over 700 new phishing domains appeared within a month. The kit offered 267 templates, adversary-in-the-middle MFA interception, WebSocket-based live operator communication, and SMS delivery via a Telegram affiliate ecosystem with more than 5,000 subscribers.

Infosecurity Magazine · 13d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1