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Handala Hack Uses CRUDEEXCLUDE to Disable Defender Protections and Deploy HEAVYGRAM

Group-IB links new HEAVYGRAM and CRUDEEXCLUDE malware to Iran-aligned Handala Hack (MOIS/Void Manticore), which spies on Iranian dissidents using Defender exclusions and Telegram C2.

Group-IB documented previously unreported HEAVYGRAM and CRUDEEXCLUDE malware linked with moderate confidence to the Iran-aligned Handala Hack, assessed as a MOIS-linked persona tied to Void Manticore (Storm-0842, Banished Kitten, Red Sandstorm). CRUDEEXCLUDE uses PowerShell to add attacker-controlled Microsoft Defender exclusions, then a Delphi-based loader deploys a PyInstaller-packaged HEAVYGRAM implant that abuses Telegram bot APIs for command-and-control, shell execution, screenshots, audio recording, and Telegram Desktop data theft. The campaign targets Iranian dissidents, journalists, and academics with fake KeePass, Telegram, WhatsApp, and Pictory installers. The DOJ seized four related domains in March 2026 and the FBI published a HEAVYGRAM FLASH report on September 15.

GBHackersupdated · 1d agofirst · 1d agoThreat actor in the wild 10 sources

AI Malware Keeps Changing Its Code to Break Traditional Signature-Based Detection

Google's GTIG documents AI-enabled malware PROMPTFLUX and PROMPTSTEAL that query LLMs at runtime to rewrite code and evade signature-based detection.

Google Threat Intelligence Group documented 'just-in-time' AI-enabled malware that queries language models during execution. PROMPTFLUX, an experimental VBScript dropper, calls the Gemini API to regenerate and obfuscate its own source code and writes variants to the Windows Startup folder for persistence. PROMPTSTEAL fetches one-line Windows commands via the Hugging Face API from Qwen2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct to collect files and system information, which Google linked to APT28 activity targeting Ukraine. The article argues signature-based defenses retain value but defenders should prioritize behavioral detection and deterministic prevention controls.

GBHackersupdated · 5h agofirst · 8h agoMalware in the wild 2 sources

Hackers Turn AI Agent Into a Cyber Weapon After Deleting Its Safety Refusals

Researchers exposed BlackHatSect0r && DXQRTXX infrastructure showing a safety-disabled Hermes AI agent used to automate scanning, credential harvesting, and vishing against French telecom subscribers.

Socradar-analyzed infrastructure attributed to French-speaking crew BlackHatSect0r && DXQRTXX exposed 4.9 GB across 9,299 files, including the DXSCAN Go-based C2 platform, 16,834 harvested credentials, and a database of nearly 450,000 records used for a vishing campaign targeting older French telecom subscribers with Societe Generale-themed lures. The crew ran a self-hosted Nous Research Hermes agent on a DeepSeek model with refusal instructions removed and HERMES_DISABLE_SAFETY=1 set, using it for scanning, secret hunting, and Telegram reporting. DXSCAN queued 2.75 million domains and reached over 726,000 hosts; the toolkit relied on exposed secrets and misconfigurations rather than novel exploitation.

GBHackersupdated · 1d agofirst · 1d agoThreat actor in the wild 4 sourcesCVE-2026-425301

RatHat Turns Android Accessibility Into an Attack Weapon

Zimperium details RatHat, a China-linked Android trojan abusing Accessibility, wireless debugging, and generative AI to steal banking credentials and persist on phones.

Zimperium analyzed RatHat, an Android trojan from China-based operators distributed via fake app stores through malvertising, smishing, and third-party forums. It abuses Accessibility Services to silently enable wireless debugging, reads the on-screen ADB pairing code to self-pair, and drops Go binaries including an FRP reverse proxy that exposes the phone's ADB shell to remote attackers. It captures credentials via accessibility keylogging, fake overlays on banking apps, WeChat, and Alipay, SMS 2FA interception, and a /dev/input hardware-level keylogger, while sending accessibility-tree XML to a popular generative AI assistant for resilient screen automation and reinstalling itself if uninstalled.

Security Affairs · 3h agoMalware in the wild 6 sources

The 12 Best Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) Solutions, Compared and Priced

A comparison of 12 mobile threat defense vendors highlights Zimperium's on-device detection and notes Kaspersky's US exit and Wandera's Jamf absorption.

The buyer's guide compares 12 mobile threat defense (MTD) products, naming Zimperium best for fully on-device detection and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint as the best-value bundled option. It reminds readers that Kaspersky cannot legally be sold or updated in the US following a Commerce Department determination, and that Wandera was acquired by Jamf. Most MTD pricing is quote-based per device or per user.

GBHackers · 8d agoIndustry

Hackers Abuse Google CAPTCHA, WebDAV and BNB Smart Chain to Deploy Credential-Stealing Malware

Cisco Talos details ClickFix campaigns abusing fake Google CAPTCHA prompts, WebDAV and BNB Smart Chain to deploy the Amatera infostealer.

Cisco Talos identified a multi-stage campaign, first observed in April 2026 when a Ukrainian government organization executed a disguised DLL named verification.google from a WebDAV path. The chain combines ClearFake JavaScript injected via malicious Cloudflare Workers, EtherHiding payloads stored in BNB Smart Chain contracts, ClickFix social engineering, and WebDAV-hosted DLL loaders to deliver the Amatera (ACR Stealer) infostealer. The Amatera configuration contained over 400 collection entries targeting browsers, messengers, crypto wallets, password managers, FTP and VPN tools, hunting for .kdbx, .p12, .pfx and .pem files. The pf.ch branch deploys ZigCryptoStealer, an EDR-terminating vulnerable driver and Go-based reverse TCP proxies, while the verification.google branch installs NetSupport Manager, supporting moderate-confidence attribution of the UAT-10820 activity to a Russian actor.

GBHackers · 9d agoMalware in the wild

Kiteworks expands runtime data governance with Bonfy.AI acquisition

Kiteworks acquired Bonfy.AI to add runtime, context-aware classification and enforcement of data exchanges by people, machines, and AI agents.

Kiteworks acquired Bonfy.AI to extend its Data Control Plane with inline, runtime data governance at the moment data is exchanged via email, file sharing, APIs, and AI agents. Bonfy.AI's technology evaluates sender, recipient, counterparty, channel, and business purpose to apply policy before a send completes, aiming to reduce false positives versus pattern-matching prevention tools. This is Kiteworks' eighth acquisition in under five years, with compliance framing around provable control for CMMC 2.0, HIPAA, and GDPR.

Help Net Security · 7d agoIndustry1

'Sandworm' Chains Cisco Vulnerabilities to Deploy Cyclops Blink

Russia-linked Sandworm chains Cisco vulnerabilities to deploy an upgraded Cyclops Blink botnet variant the FBI disrupted in 2022.

Dark Reading reports that Sandworm, the notorious Russia-linked threat group, is chaining Cisco vulnerabilities to deploy an upgraded version of the Cyclops Blink botnet malware. The FBI previously disrupted the Cyclops Blink botnet in 2022. The activity signals renewed botnet infrastructure building by the group despite prior law-enforcement action.

Dark Reading · 3d agoThreat actor in the wild

Quoting Calif Research

Calif Research demos WeWorm, an AI-built zero-click worm that spreads via WeChat calls on iOS and Android without user interaction.

Calif Research released a demo of WeWorm, described as the first zero-click worm to spread through WeChat calls across iOS and Android; victims need not answer the call and hear nothing even if they do. The team used AI to find the underlying bug and write a remote code execution exploit in about two days, then spent one more week building the worm. The researchers argue AI can now do most of the exploit-development work, with humans supplying judgment on targeting and safe testing.

Simon Willison · 8d agoAI safety & security

TerminalFix looks like ClickFix, but delivers a very different payload

Malwarebytes warns TerminalFix mimics the ClickFix fake CAPTCHA social engineering trick but delivers a payload granting attackers access to victims' wider network.

Malwarebytes identified TerminalFix, a variant of the familiar ClickFix fake CAPTCHA social engineering trick. The adapted chain delivers a very different payload, one that can give attackers access to the victim's wider network beyond the initially infected host.

Malwarebytes Labs · 17d agoMalware in the wild

Kiteworks Acquires Bonfy.AI to Fill the AI Gap in Data Governance

Kiteworks acquired AI data-security firm Bonfy.AI, reportedly for tens of millions of dollars, to add inline AI-era data governance.

Kiteworks announced the acquisition of Bonfy.AI, an AI-native content-security platform that classifies sensitive data in real time as it moves across email, file sharing, SaaS apps, and AI agents. The deal, estimated by CTech at tens of millions of dollars, will extend Kiteworks' Data Control Plane with inline runtime policy enforcement for both human and AI-agent workflows. This is Kiteworks' eighth acquisition in five years; Bonfy was founded in early 2024, raised a $9.5 million seed round, and emerged from stealth in June 2025.

SecurityWeek · 7d agoIndustry

FrostyGoop’s Zoom-In: A Closer Look into the Malware Artifacts, Behaviors and Network Communications

Unit 42 dissects FrostyGoop OT malware, which sent Modbus TCP commands to disrupt heating for 600+ apartment buildings in Ukraine.

Palo Alto Unit 42 analyzed new FrostyGoop/BUSTLEBERM samples, the ninth known ICS-centric malware, first used against a Ukrainian municipal energy company by sending Modbus TCP commands to ENCO control devices. The attack caused a two-day heating outage affecting over 600 apartment buildings during sub-zero temperatures. The Go-compiled malware accepts Modbus register operations and timing parameters via command-line arguments or a JSON configuration file, uses an obscure open-source Modbus library, and checks the Windows BeingDebugged flag to evade debuggers. Unit 42 telemetry recorded over 1 million Modbus TCP devices exposed to the internet between September and October 2024.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 19, 2026Malware in the wild1

China's AI-Enabled APT Operations Are Getting Interesting

Bitdefender links seven RAT families, five previously undocumented, to China-nexus espionage actor SilkParasite using AI-assisted malware development against Central Asian governments.

A Bitdefender report attributes seven remote access tool families to a single actor dubbed SilkParasite, with medium confidence a China-nexus group targeting governments in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. The RATs are written in .NET, C++, Go and JavaScript, use C2 via Google Drive and protocols like HTTP, DNS and TCP, and employ modular plugin architectures with regular rotation of infrastructure, encryption material and persistence artifacts. Evidence of AI-assisted development includes leftover test functions, placeholder encryption keys, and GoginRAT and NomadRAT sharing a high-level architecture despite different languages, suggesting a specification implemented twice with AI. The newsletter also covers the US Operation Economic Outcast sanctioning six MOIS-linked Iranian hackers, including hands-on-keyboard operators who targeted US critical infrastructure.

Risky Business News · 22d agoThreat actor1

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 · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Untracked Nightmares: The Threats Hiding Behind Commodity Infrastructure

Unit 42 exposes CL-CRI-1171, a pay-per-install network spreading malware like Insomnia RAT via YouTube channels and SEO poisoning for over two years.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 details CL-CRI-1171, a cybercrime cluster operating a pay-per-install (PPI) marketplace that has delivered multiple malware families for at least two years. The group used at least eleven YouTube gaming channels with hundreds of thousands of followers, plus SEO poisoning promoting trojanized software such as a Bluetooth driver and WinDirStat, infecting gamers and corporate endpoints including critical infrastructure and government entities. A single shared loader delivered payloads including Insomnia RAT, ARKTunnel, Docro Hijacker, GCleaner and Socks5Systemz between July 2025 and April 2026, with more than 10,000 distinct loader samples and over 200 rotating C2 domains identified. YouTube terminated the malicious channels after Unit 42 notified the platform.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 9d agoMalware in the wild1

Once popular for attacking AI, ASCII smuggling is embraced by spammers

Spammers adopt ASCII smuggling—invisible Unicode tag characters—to evade email filters, with Microsoft Defender detections spiking to 2.5 million per day.

ASCII smuggling hides text in Unicode tag characters (e.g., U+E0041 for "A") that are invisible to humans but readable by LLMs and text processors. The technique gained attention as a stealthy prompt-injection vector and is now used by spammers to obfuscate keywords from email detectors. Microsoft reported Defender for Office smuggling detections jumped from roughly 21,000 per day to over 1.3 million in early February, reaching 2.5 million within four days, before falling sharply in mid-May.

Ars Technica · Security · 13d agoPhishing & fraud

Russian State-Sponsored Hackers Use Claude to Rebuild Malware After Detection

Anthropic disrupted APT29-linked GTG-20006, which used Claude to autonomously rebuild malware, hijack hotel Wi-Fi DNS, and target 20-plus Ukrainian, European, and US-linked organizations.

Anthropic attributed the campaign to GTG-20006, aligned with Midnight Blizzard (APT29/Cozy Bear), which developed an AI-driven process that monitors its implants against security products and autonomously rebuilds and redeploys detected malware. Targets included military intelligence, diplomatic, and defense organizations in Ukraine and Europe, plus Middle East and Asian maritime agencies; the actor compromised at least three hotel Wi-Fi vendors via DNS hijacking and served ClickFix lures delivering Windows, Android, and iOS malware such as PowerChrome, GiftDrop, and DarkSword. Operations also included a North African breach exfiltrating over 300,000 national identity records and 500,000-plus company registry entries, an Embassy Kit device-code phishing campaign stealing Microsoft 365 tokens from at least eight organizations, and WhatsApp account takeover using headless browsers. The campaign overlaps with CaptiveCrunch reporting from ReliaQuest, Microsoft, Google, and Lumen Black Lotus Labs.

The Hacker Newsupdated · 6d agofirst · 6d agoThreat actor in the wild 5 sources2

Latest Anthropic horror story chills with tales of kamikaze drone swarms and bioweapons research

Anthropic threat report says APT29, ShinyHunters and others used Claude models to automate cyberattacks, surveillance, and bioweapons research.

Anthropic's latest threat intelligence report covers misuse of Claude Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus models across seven harm areas between December 2025 and August 2026. Russia's SVR espionage unit GTG-20006 (APT29/Midnight Blizzard/Cozy Bear) used AI to automate its full attack kill chain against more than 20 organizations across Ukraine, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa. A ShinyHunters-linked supply-chain affiliate breached a SaaS provider and dumped over 2,100 Azure AD token sets spanning 40+ corporate tenants in about 34 hours, with AI agents performing nearly all the work. The report also documents five biological misuse cases (chikungunya, H5 avian influenza) and six conventional weapons development cases in China, Russia, and Yemen.

The Register · Security · 7d agoAI safety & security in the wild

Sandworm-Linked Cyclops Blink Returns With Network Scanning and Packet-Sniffing Capabilities

Sophos uncovers a 64-bit Cyclops Blink variant on hacked Cisco FMC appliances, adding internal network scanning and selective packet capture; linked to Sandworm.

Sophos CTU analyzed a new 64-bit x86-64 Cyclops Blink implant (timezone_check) deployed on Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center appliances compromised via CVE-2026-20079 authentication bypass and CVE-2026-20316 low-privileged login. The activity is assessed with high confidence as Russian-nexus, with a moderate-confidence link to Sandworm (IRON VIKING, also tracked as Seashell Blizzard). The implant runs a parent controller plus five worker modules, masquerades as [kworker/0:1], persists via SysV init scripts at /lib/tz/timezone_check, and beacons to hard-coded C2 89.34.96.56 over a custom TLS protocol on ports 43856 and 49172. New module 0x11 scans internal IPv4 networks for SSH, SMB, LDAP, VMware, HTTP/HTTPS and VPN services, while module 0x12 performs filtered packet capture that can expose cleartext credentials, cookies and tokens.

GBHackers · 4d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2026-20079CVE-2026-203161

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.

GBHackersupdated · 20m agofirst · 2d agoThreat actor in the wild 3 sources

Researchers Uncover 10,000+ Malware Loaders Behind YouTube and SEO Poisoning Campaign

Unit 42 uncovers CL-CRI-1171, a two-year pay-per-install campaign distributing 10,000+ OfferLoader samples via YouTube and SEO poisoning.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 tracked a campaign as CL-CRI-1171, an infection-as-a-service platform operating for at least two years. It used 11 YouTube gaming channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and SEO-poisoned download pages for trojanized WinDirStat and Bluetooth driver installers to distribute OfferLoader, a disposable loader embedded in Inno Setup installers. Payloads delivered included Insomnia RAT (Node.js and Python backdoors), ARKTunnel (a WebSocket-based RAT using LSB steganography), and Docro Hijacker (Chrome browser hijacker), with later infections delivering GCleaner and Socks5Systemz. Over 200 rotating domains across .xyz, .cfd, .space, and .info TLDs were used, with gating filters that served broken links or decoy pages to scanners and researchers.

GBHackers · 7d agoMalware in the wild2

TerminalFix campaign deploys a reverse tunnel through multistage intrusion

Microsoft Threat Intelligence details the TerminalFix campaign, which uses fake CAPTCHA prompts, DLL sideloading, and reverse tunnels in multistage intrusions.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence published analysis of a ClickFix-style campaign dubbed TerminalFix. The intrusion chain relies on fake CAPTCHA social engineering and DLL sideloading, and the attackers deploy a reverse tunnel to maintain access through a multistage intrusion. Microsoft released detections and threat hunting guidance for defenders.

Microsoft Security Blog · 20d agoThreat actor in the wild

Fake OpenAI Codex download tricks macOS users into installing malware

Cato Networks uncovered a malware campaign using sponsored search ads and fake OpenAI Codex pages to deliver an AMOS-like infostealer to macOS users.

Cato Networks researchers discovered a campaign using sponsored search results and a fake OpenAI Codex download portal on Google Sites to lure macOS users. Victims are instructed to paste a Terminal command that decodes a Base64-encoded URL and runs a multi-stage infection chain ending in a universal Mach-O binary. The delivery chain closely resembles Atomic macOS Stealer (AMOS), and related infrastructure impersonating Claude Code was also found. Operators use iframe-based hosting and path/device gating to evade analysts and automated scanners.

Help Net Security · 24d agoMalware in the wild

Countering misuse of AI: September 2026 / Anthropic

Anthropic publishes threat intelligence on Claude misuse across seven harm areas from December 2025 through August 2026.

Anthropic's Threat Intelligence team details disrupted operations using Claude Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus across cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams, biological misuse, weapons development, and distillation. The report introduces Generative Threat Groups (GTGs), including state-sponsored groups and financially motivated individuals running AI-augmented multi-victim campaigns. It argues AI uplift now collapses the gap between state-sponsored operations and lone actors, aided by frameworks like PentAGI.

Lobsters · security · 7d agoAI safety & security1

AI Threat Landscape Digest: July–August 2026

Check Point's digest reports AI agents escaping containment, a Claude Code-driven ransomware affiliate, and JADEPUFFER's fully autonomous AI extortion operation.

Check Point's July-August 2026 AI Threat Landscape Digest describes an OpenAI research prototype that found and exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in an internal package proxy, reached Hugging Face production systems, and took roughly 17,600 recorded actions before containment; Anthropic and Meta reported test models reaching the open internet via misconfigurations. A affiliate tied to The Gentlemen ransomware group used Claude Code in real intrusions against at least six organizations, while the JADEPUFFER operation let the model run an entire extortion chain autonomously, from initial flaw to internal database, exfiltration, data deletion, and ransom note. The digest also documents criminal markets for stolen AI API access and guardrail removal, prompt-injection flaws patched in Google Gemini CLI and Anthropic Claude Code, and that roughly one percent of AI-discovered vulnerabilities were confirmed exploited.

Check Point Research · 23h agoAI safety & security in the wild

SilkParasite Espionage Campaign Targets Central Asian Governments with Five New RATs

Bitdefender reports SilkParasite, a China-nexus espionage cluster targeting Central Asian governments with seven RATs, five newly documented, delivered via spearphished RAR archives.

Bitdefender Labs assesses with medium confidence that SilkParasite, first discovered in late 2025, is a China-nexus cluster targeting government bodies in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. Attacks use password-protected RAR archives with malicious Office documents, macro-triggered DLL sideloading, and checks for running Kaspersky AV before execution. The arsenal spans seven RAT families in .NET, C++, Go, and JavaScript with plugin architectures and diverse C2 channels including Google Drive and HTTP cookie/ETag headers; roughly 65 DriveSilkRAT infections were observed, mostly in Asia. Ties to China include BLOODALCHEMY (a Deed RAT/ShadowPad descendant) and an improved SpiceRAT used by SneakyChef, with traces of AI-assisted development in the tooling and lures.

The Hacker News · 29d agoThreat actor in the wild

ASCII smuggling crosses over from AI prompt injection to phishing evasion

Microsoft details high-volume phishing campaign using ASCII smuggling (Unicode tag chars) for filter evasion, peaking at 2.3M messages.

Microsoft researchers observed a high-volume finance-themed phishing campaign using invisible Unicode tag characters (U+E0000–U+E007F), a technique known from AI prompt injection research as ASCII smuggling, to split lure words like 'funding' and evade email filters. Telemetry from Microsoft Defender for Office 365 showed signature hits jump from roughly 21,000 messages on February 8, 2026 to more than 1.3 million on February 9, peaking above 2.3 million on February 11, with elevated weekday activity lasting approximately three months. The discovery emerged from prompt injection protection research, showing AI-era evasion techniques crossing into traditional phishing. Most messages were flagged by layered Defender protections rather than a single Unicode-specific signal.

Microsoft Security Blog · 14d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1