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Source: Help Net Security

12 stories in the last 24h

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Iranian hackers use CHOSEN BRICK data-stealing malware to spy on dissidents and journalists

UK NCSC, FBI and Dutch AIVD warn Iranian state hackers deploy CHOSEN BRICK spyware via WhatsApp and Telegram lures against dissidents and journalists since 2025.

The UK's NCSC, the FBI and the Netherlands' AIVD jointly warned that Iranian state cyber actors have deployed CHOSEN BRICK against dissidents, activists and journalists in the UK, US and Netherlands since at least 2025. Victims are contacted on WhatsApp or Telegram by impostors posing as known contacts or platform support, then tricked into running files disguised as software such as fake Norton Antivirus, KeePass, Telegram or MRI scan results. The Windows malware adds Microsoft Defender exclusions, persists via HKCU Run keys, uses per-device Telegram bots for C2, and can capture screens, activate microphones, steal email and messaging data, and download further payloads. Some stolen data has later appeared on pro-Iranian leak sites, and the agencies note Iranian intelligence has plotted kidnappings or lethal operations against targets abroad.

Help Net Securityupdated · 1h agofirst · 13h agoThreat actor in the wild 6 sources

CenterPoint Energy confirms data breach following claims on hacking forum

CenterPoint Energy confirmed a breach after a hacker claimed stealing 7.49 million customer records via an unauthenticated API lacking WAF, rate limiting, and token checks.

CenterPoint Energy, a Houston-based utility serving about 7 million customers, confirmed in a September 14 SEC Form 8-K that an unauthorized third party accessed customer data through an external system after a hacker posted a 7.49 million-line dataset online. The exposed fields include names, phone numbers, addresses, account numbers, emails, driver's license numbers, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. The hacker said the API had no web application firewall, rate limiting, certificate checks, or authentication token, and that a CAPTCHA stopped exfiltration at 7.49 million of a claimed 17.44 million lines. The company faces multiple class action lawsuits and is working with outside experts to determine scope.

Help Net Securityupdated · 6h agofirst · 11h agoData breach in the wild 5 sources

Parallels Desktop flaw hands any local user root on a Mac (CVE-2026-90894)

CVE-2026-90894 in Parallels Desktop for Mac lets any local user gain root via argument injection; patched in v27.0.0, PoC withheld.

JFrog researchers disclosed CVE-2026-90894, an argument injection flaw in Parallels Desktop for Mac v26.4.0 on Apple silicon that lets any local user gain root on the host. The chain combines a world-writable Unix socket for prl_disp_service (which runs as root), weak peer-credential authentication, and argument injection via --use-compress-program in the appliance extraction tar path. Alludo fixed the flaw in Parallels Desktop v27.0.0 in early September 2026; JFrog published technical details but withheld its proof-of-concept script.

Help Net Securityupdated · 9h agofirst · 9h agoVulnerability 4 sourcesCVE-2026-90894

Acronis backup plugin flaw exploited in targeted attacks (CVE-2026-87886)

Acronis warns CVE-2026-87886, an authenticated Linux privilege escalation flaw in its cPanel, WHM, and Plesk backup plugins, is under limited targeted exploitation; patches released.

Acronis disclosed CVE-2026-87886, a privilege escalation vulnerability caused by insecure file permissions in its backup plugins for cPanel, WHM, and Plesk, platforms popular among hosting providers and MSPs. Exploitation has been detected in the wild in limited, targeted attacks against cPanel & WHM deployments, with no exploitation observed on Plesk so far, and the low-complexity attack requires no user interaction. Fixes shipped last week: backup plugin version 1.9.3 HF3 for cPanel & WHM and extension version 1.8.11 for Plesk.

Help Net Securityupdated · 11h agofirst · 12h agoExploit / PoC in the wild 6 sourcesCVE-2026-87886

Cohesity adds recovery capabilities for AI agents and the data they manage

Cohesity launched Agent Resilience to discover, protect, and recover AI agent memory, configuration, and agent-managed data, debuting with Amazon Bedrock integration.

At Cohesity Catalyst, Cohesity introduced Agent Resilience within Cohesity Data Cloud, protecting AI agent memory and configuration with snapshot architecture, immutable backups, and clean-room recovery, plus recovery for databases and file systems that agents manage. It launches with Amazon Bedrock integration, support for Microsoft and Google platforms planned, and general availability targeted for year-end. The company cited Gartner's prediction that up to 40% of enterprise applications will include task-specific agents by 2026, and Cohesity research showing 56% of organizations are unprepared to detect or contain unintended agent actions while 58% lack confidence in verifying AI model integrity after attacks. Cohesity also outlined an Autonomous Cyber Resilience vision using agentic workflows and introduced the AI Resilience Academy.

Help Net Security · 11h agoTools

Rubrik MCP gives AI agents controlled access to security intelligence

Rubrik launched MCP support exposing Rubrik Security Cloud APIs to enterprise AI agents with RBAC, configurable permissions, and OWASP MCP Top 10 guardrails.

Rubrik announced Rubrik MCP (Model Context Protocol), giving organizations' AI agents a secure, programmable path to Rubrik's data, identity, and application intelligence via the Rubrik Security Cloud API schema. Teams can save multi-step recovery or compliance workflows as reusable, deterministic tools, with role-based access control parity and OWASP MCP Top 10 aligned guardrails. Rubrik engineered its agent architecture with Anthropic's teams for multi-step reasoning in incident response, and says Rubrik AI is now trusted by one-third of its global customers.

Help Net Security · 11h agoTools1

Nozomi Compass helps industrial teams manage OT assets and vulnerabilities

Nozomi Networks launched Compass, an OT asset and vulnerability management platform unifying asset records, remediation workflows, and compliance evidence for industrial teams.

Nozomi Networks announced Compass, an OT asset and service management platform built on real-time first-party asset data from its Vantage cyber-physical security platform. It provides OT-native workflows, governed change approvals, consequence-based risk scoring, and continuous audit-ready compliance evidence mapped to NERC CIP, IEC 62443, NIS2, and TSA. The platform integrates with EAM, CMDB, ITAM, ITSM, SIEM, and SOAR tools and is designed to safely support AI-driven and agentic OT workflows with human oversight.

Help Net Security · 11h agoTools

Citrix adds AI-powered browser activity analysis to SecurAccess

Citrix launched Session Insights for SecurAccess with Chrome Enterprise, using AI to record and analyze browser activity from users and autonomous agents.

Citrix Session Insights adds automatic session recording and AI-powered risk detection for browser activity by human users and autonomous AI agents within Citrix SecurAccess with Chrome Enterprise. The capability creates visual forensic records, highlights risky behavior for faster investigations, and recommends policy adjustments or changes to agent authority levels. It is designed to support audits and governance as enterprise AI agent workflows expand.

Help Net Security · 12h agoTools

NIST and CISA finalize playbook to stop token theft and forgery

NIST and CISA finalized NIST IR 8587, a playbook helping federal agencies and cloud providers defend identity tokens against theft and forgery.

The finalized NIST IR 8587 guidance covers protecting token signing keys, verifying tokens, lifetimes, revocation, session management, and dividing security responsibilities between cloud providers and customers. It cites an incident in which foreign actors forged tokens with a stolen commercial signing key to steal more than 60,000 emails from one government agency. It also recommends extending token protections to AI agents and preparing identity systems for a future post-quantum cryptography transition.

Help Net Security · 14h agoAdvisory 2 sources

DeepZero: Open-source hunting for vulnerable Windows drivers

DeepZero, a new open-source engine, automates discovery of exploitable Windows kernel drivers for BYOVD attacks using Ghidra, Semgrep, and an LLM.

DeepZero is a free, open-source Python pipeline orchestrator that automates hunting for exploitable Windows kernel drivers relevant to BYOVD (bring your own vulnerable driver) attacks. Its seven-stage YAML pipeline parses PE headers, filters for kernel-mode drivers with IOCTL surfaces, excludes drivers listed on loldrivers.io, then runs headless Ghidra decompilation, Semgrep scanning, and an LLM-based exploitability assessment. The maintainer reports multiple verified vulnerabilities in the Snappy Driver Installer corpus, some still in the disclosure process, and notes findings involving plug-and-play-created device objects may need physical hardware to confirm.

Help Net Security · 16h agoTools

The modern attack chain: Rethinking Google Workspace security in the age of AI

Analysis of Vercel and Composio breaches shows stolen OAuth tokens, not phishing email, now open Google Workspace attacks — a path authorized AI agents follow.

The author analyzes the Vercel and Composio breaches as the same OAuth-first attack chain run twice: a stolen OAuth token, obtained via a compromised supplier, becomes the entry point rather than email. These tokens survive password resets, are hard to observe, and let attackers read Gmail and Drive data, take over accounts, and pivot laterally using stored credentials and password-reset magic links. The piece warns that authorized AI agents with overbroad OAuth grants can unintentionally traverse the same path — accessing inboxes, reading sensitive content, and exfiltrating data downstream — without any malicious actor or compromised credential.

Help Net Security · 17h agoResearch in the wild

MSPs say nearly half their customers rely on them for CISO services

Sophos survey finds MSPs act as CISOs for an average 46% of customers, mostly with partial compliance offerings and fragmented manual reporting.

A Sophos survey found MSPs estimate that 46% of their customers rely on them to act as CISOs, and most providers deliver only four to six of seven measured compliance services. More than half say they manage customers' full compliance programs, while compliance requirements influence roughly half of customers' security purchases. Nearly nine in ten providers use software, but most juggle multiple tools that cannot feed a central reporting platform, forcing staff to combine data manually. Providers estimated a unified platform would cut time spent on posture, compliance and reporting by about half; Sophos sells CISO Advantage via its Sophos Fusion system for this work.

Help Net Security · 17h agoIndustry