Search: “protocol”

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CategoryAll Research 22 AI research 17 Vulnerability 13 Advisory 10 Malware 10 AI safety & security 9 Tools 7 Exploit / PoC 6 Threat actor 5 AI tools & infra 4 Policy & legal 4 Data breach 4 AI industry 3 Industry 2

SeverityAll critical 7 high 17 medium 20 low 2 info 74

Agent Harness vs Agent Framework vs MCP: Which Layer Owns the Loop, State, Tools, Permissions, and Recovery

Architecture explainer separates agent harnesses, frameworks, and MCP by which layer owns the loop, state, permissions, and recovery.

The article distinguishes agent harnesses (OpenAI Codex, Claude Agent SDK), which own the execution loop, sandbox, permission model, and recovery; frameworks (LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, Microsoft Agent Framework), which supply composable primitives; and MCP, a stateless JSON-RPC wire protocol governed by the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation since December 2025. An ownership matrix maps the execution loop, state, tool transport, permissions, recovery, sandboxing, and multi-agent orchestration to each layer. The 2026-07-28 MCP specification made the protocol fully stateless, retiring the initialize handshake and session headers.

MarkTechPostSep 14, 21:54 UTC · 1d agoAI research1

Closing the Loop: Bidirectional Fully Encrypted Protocols

Researchers show naively composing unidirectional fully encrypted protocols is detectable and construct provably secure bidirectional FEPs, validated in Rust.

The paper introduces formal security definitions for bidirectional fully encrypted protocols (BiFEPs), covering exact shaping, delivery, protocol-state integrity, private half-close, and cross-direction isolation. It shows trivially composing two unidirectional FEPs enables detection attacks via cross-direction dependencies like traffic imbalance and connection tear-down. The authors construct provably secure BiFEPs for datastream and datagram settings, validated with a Rust implementation; no surveyed deployed protocol provides the full set of properties.

arXiv cs.CRSep 15, 16:32 UTC · 20h agoResearch

CVE-2026-67593: Apache Artemis, Apache ActiveMQ Artemis: Pre-authentication Openwire protocol handling can result in queue deletion

CVE-2026-67593: remote attackers can delete ActiveMQ Artemis queues via pre-authentication Openwire protocol handling in affected versions.

A remote attacker can exploit pre-authentication handling of the Openwire protocol to result in queue deletion on affected Apache Artemis and ActiveMQ Artemis brokers. Affected components include artemis-openwire-protocol and artemis-jakarta-openwire-protocol in Apache Artemis 2.50.0 through 2.56.0, and artemis-openwire-protocol 1.0.0 through 2.44.0 plus artemis-jakarta-openwire-protocol 2.32.0 through 2.44.0 in ActiveMQ Artemis. Apache rates the issue important.

oss-securitySep 10, 00:48 UTC · 6d agoVulnerability 7 sources CVE-2026-675931

OptiPrime: Optimizing Private Inference through Protocol-Hardware Co-design

OptiPrime co-designs HE-MPC protocols with hardware acceleration to remove network communication bottlenecks in private DNN inference, beating Cheetah by up to 5.7x.

OptiPrime is a protocol-hardware co-optimization framework for private deep neural network inference based on hybrid homomorphic encryption (HE) and multi-party computation (MPC). It introduces a novel HE protocol for convolutions that reduces the number of transmitted output ciphertexts, addressing the network bottleneck that limits gains from commercial HE accelerators. A lightweight compression system reduces weight plaintext memory traffic by 10x, while a specialized dataflow maximizes on-chip reuse of intermediate ciphertexts. Experiments show up to 5.7x speedup over the Cheetah baseline on CPUs and 4.2x with an accelerator.

arXiv cs.CRSep 15, 09:29 UTC · 1d agoResearch

IntentFuzz: A Protocol-Aware Fuzzer for Automated Invariant Violation Detection in Intent-Based Cross-Chain Bridges

IntentFuzz protocol-aware fuzzer recovers bridge structure from unannotated Solidity and confirmed 22 invariant violations across 24 real-world deployments.

IntentFuzz formalizes a taxonomy separating invariant violations from settlement exposures in intent-based cross-chain bridges, then recovers a bridge's intent structure and deposit/fill function roles from unannotated Solidity source. It classified deposit and fill functions with 100% recall and 82% combined precision, and achieved 100% recall and precision on 23 planted-bug mutants. Across 24 real-world deployments it confirmed 17 genuine invariant violations with heuristic-only input generation, rising to 22 with its LLM-assisted tier, spanning eight vulnerable GitHub repositories with findings reproducible against public deployed bytecode.

arXiv cs.CRSep 11, 16:03 UTC · 4d agoResearch1

From Specs to Apps: Verifying and Monitoring Models of Signal and WhatsApp

Researchers use the SpecMon runtime monitor to verify WhatsApp Web and Signal Desktop against formal Signal protocol models, finding undocumented libsignal fork differences.

The paper applies SpecMon, a runtime monitoring tool, to check whether executions of WhatsApp Web and Signal Desktop conform to formal models of the Signal protocol. The authors instrument both applications and build Tamarin-compatible multiset-rewrite models, including the first model of WhatsApp Web's implementation and the most detailed model to date of Signal's original protocol. They verify authentication and secrecy properties for core Signal protocol components, show monitoring detects deliberately injected faults with low overhead, and identify previously undocumented behavioral differences between the original libsignal library and WhatsApp's fork.

arXiv cs.CRSep 10, 17:48 UTC · 5d agoResearch

IBIB: A Protocol for Measuring Enterprise AI Systems by Serving Route, Not Model Identifier

IB2 protocol scores enterprise AI systems by serving route with reliability-inclusive scoring; serving-arm choice moved one score from 77.38 to 82.54.

The protocol has three parts: a gold-blind capability-binding preflight verifying a route can execute the evaluation contract, a reliability-inclusive first-pass scoring rule, and structurally score-blind adjudication. Its reference instantiation uses 128 locked tasks and 987 assertions over document, spreadsheet, chart, tool, and database work, released as procedure and schemas rather than an exposed corpus. Across eleven systems, two complete runs on identical weights later failed distinct binding-gate predicates, four of seven suites saturate within a six-system band driven by governed database work and multi-tab joins, and excluding failed responses from denominators changes the point ordering. Serving-arm choice shifted one declared revision and precision from 77.38 to 82.54, though arms differed in access mode, harness generation, and the tool-call parser.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CLSep 9, 17:31 UTC · 6d agoAI research1

Understanding the Usability of Cryptographic Verification Tools

Survey of Tamarin and ProVerif users reveals usability barriers: debugging non-termination, model validation, and opaque proof failures hinder cryptographic protocol verification.

The paper presents an exploratory human-centered survey of researchers, graduate students, and practitioners with hands-on experience using Tamarin, ProVerif, and related cryptographic protocol verification tools. Findings reveal usability barriers across the verification workflow, including difficulties debugging non-termination and performance issues plus the lack of systematic methods for validating formal models against real protocols. When proofs fail without concrete attacks, users commonly simplify models, add helper lemmas, and revisit modeling abstractions. Participants called for actionable diagnostics, clearer explanations of results, visualization, and automation for recurring proof tasks.

arXiv cs.CRSep 14, 20:40 UTC · 1d agoResearch

ZDI-26-701: Linux Kernel TLS Protocol Out-Of-Bounds Read Information Disclosure Vulnerability

ZDI discloses Linux Kernel TLS protocol out-of-bounds read (CVE-2026-64046) allowing high-privileged local attackers to disclose sensitive information, CVSS 6.7.

ZDI-26-701 covers an out-of-bounds read information disclosure vulnerability in the Linux Kernel TLS protocol implementation, tracked as CVE-2026-64046 with a CVSS rating of 6.7. Exploitation requires the attacker to already have the ability to execute high-privileged code on the target system. Impact is limited to disclosure of sensitive information from affected installations.

ZDI Published AdvisoriesSep 14, 05:00 UTC · 2d agoVulnerability CVE-2026-640461

From Protocols to Evidence: Bounded Claims for AI in Service of the Common Good

Paper proposes a rupture test and RISE AI architecture for evidence-bounded responsible-AI claims, framed via EU AI Act and NIST AI RMF.

The paper argues AI deployment intervenes in pre-existing institutional failures of responsiveness, belonging, care, and accountability, and must therefore evaluate both the system and the institutional rupture it enters. It reviews how the EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, and ISO/IEC 42001 translate principles into protocols, and draws on Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas to develop a rupture test linking institutional baselines to system evaluation. It distinguishes evidence-bounded deployment from measurement-bounded governance and introduces RISE AI, an architecture for bounded claims about Responsibility, Inclusivity, Safety, and Empowerment.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CLSep 10, 17:56 UTC · 5d agoAI policy

terms.txt: A Consent and Compensation Protocol for Agentic Web Access

terms.txt specifies a robots.txt-style protocol for per-path, per-purpose AI crawler consent and compensation, with enforcement adding 0.20-0.65 ms per request.

The paper documents that automated clients now make up most web requests, that training dominates Cloudflare-classified crawling, and that the largest AI platforms fetch thousands of pages per returned visitor while robots.txt cannot express identity, purpose, terms, or price. It specifies terms.txt plus an origin-enforced exchange using Web Bot Auth signatures, signed intent, delegation tokens, HTTP 402 negotiation, and signed receipts. A dependency-free implementation adds 0.20 to 0.65 ms per request on one vCPU.

arXiv cs.CRSep 10, 07:01 UTC · 6d agoResearch

Towards Tackling Application Logic Flaws through Autonomous Formal-Logic Modeling and Automated Reasoning

LL-Verifier combines LLMs with logic model checking to automatically discover logic flaws, uncovering vulnerabilities in 27 IoT access-control protocols.

Researchers present LL-Verifier, a framework that uses LLMs to autonomously convert natural-language protocol descriptions and security goals into formal logic models in a new logic language built on Maude, then applies logic model checking for exhaustive verification. The framework targets application-logic flaws that are tied to business semantics and hard to scale with manual analysis. Evaluation on 27 access-control protocols of widely used IoT devices uncovered a range of sophisticated logic vulnerabilities with security and privacy implications.

arXiv cs.CRSep 9, 17:58 UTC · 6d agoResearch1

CausalArena: Benchmarking Causal Discovery in the Foundation Model Era

Researchers introduce CausalArena, a unified benchmark revealing that causal discovery rankings shift substantially across structural causal model families and protocols.

The paper presents CausalArena, a unified and evolvable benchmark for causal discovery combining synthetic structural causal models, semantically grounded operational SCMs, formula-grounded scientific SCMs, and public real-world datasets. Experiments across classical, neural, and pretrained causal discovery foundation models show large ranking shifts between benchmark regimes. The authors identify pretraining-evaluation overlap and benchmark diversity as central evaluation challenges.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CLSep 10, 17:53 UTC · 5d agoAI research

MarkSec: Capability-Aware Evaluation of Adversarial Attacks Against LLM Watermarks

MarkSec unifies evaluation of stealing, scrubbing, and spoofing attacks against LLM watermarks with quality-constrained success metrics under shared reporting protocols.

MarkSec is a framework unifying analysis of stealing, scrubbing, and spoofing attacks against LLM watermarks under shared detector calibration, metric definitions, and reporting protocols. It introduces a quality-constrained attack success metric that jointly assesses attack effectiveness and text quality. Experiments across representative watermark families, attacks, LLMs, and datasets show that attacks strongest by watermark removal alone can fall behind general rewriting when success requires acceptable text quality, and stealing-based scrubbers often underperform the best general-scrubbing baselines.

arXiv cs.CRSep 15, 06:02 UTC · 1d agoResearch

Chinese Hackers Exploit Critical Tencent Software Flaw for One-Click Code Execution

China-linked UNC3569 actively exploited critical Sogou Input Method flaw CVE-2026-51990 for one-click system-level code execution, deploying the GrayRabbit backdoor.

Gen Threat Labs reports that China-linked threat actor UNC3569, possibly tied to contractor i-SOON, exploited critical CVE-2026-51990 in Tencent's Sogou Input Method, a Windows IME used by hundreds of millions, via crafted sgbiz URLs. The chain combines unvalidated command-line argument injection, unrestricted URL navigation, and an un-sandboxed Chromium 80 engine missing roughly six years of security patches. The exploit gives system-level code execution and was used to deploy the GrayRabbit backdoor, which provides a reverse shell, plugin loading, file upload to C2, and system info collection, and has appeared in UNC3569 intrusions since at least 2021. Tencent patched the issue in version 16.3.0.3498 via automatic update, but the outdated Chromium configuration reportedly remained unchanged as of September 10.

SecurityWeekSep 14, 11:51 UTC · 2d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 2 sources CVE-2026-519901· 1 read

Maverick: Private and Verifiable LLM Inference Made Practical via Matrix-Vector Multiplication Delegation

Maverick protocol delivers private and verifiable LLM inference via matrix-vector multiplication delegation, achieving up to 45x throughput gains over local inference on Qwen3-4B.

Maverick introduces an information-theoretically sound protocol for delegating matrix-vector multiplication with transparent preprocessing, efficient batch verification, and virtually no server overhead, combined with LPN-based pseudorandom masking for input privacy. It addresses privacy and correctness concerns when users delegate open-weight LLM inference to third-party providers. An end-to-end prototype evaluated on Qwen3-4B achieved throughput gains over local inference of up to 45x with precomputed privacy masks and 44x for verification-only workloads, with a CPU server using up to 128 threads.

arXiv cs.CRSep 9, 14:53 UTC · 6d agoResearch1

Sam Altman calls for pacing AI development but promises rapid progress will continue

Sam Altman urges paced AI development with pre-training safety protocols as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google discuss independent self-regulation oversight.

Sam Altman called for a uniform nationwide safety framework for advanced AI while insisting progress will remain rapid, saying pacing is not stopping. OpenAI now sets explicit safety protocols before training runs that could yield major capability jumps, and Altman hopes other companies propose their own approaches. Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, Satya Nadella, and Elon Musk also backed better-controlled AI development. The Information reports OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have discussed self-regulation through an independent oversight body, while smaller players like Cohere warn of cartel dynamics.

The DecoderSep 14, 09:39 UTC · 2d agoAI industry

Security through obscurity is dead, and AI delivered the fatal blow

AI agents are killing security through obscurity, accelerating vulnerability discovery and patch-gap exploitation, experts warn, with OT/ICS systems most at risk.

An opinion/analysis piece arguing AI has made security through obscurity obsolete, citing record vulnerability disclosure volumes after Microsoft's Patch Tuesday addressed 974 CVEs. FBI Cyber Division assistant director Brett Leatherman said latest AI models found significant vulnerabilities in open source libraries running on most web servers. The article cites at least four espionage crews (most suspected China-linked) exploiting Chromium's patch-gap window with a rapid exploit kit, and a five-agency advisory on AI-generated exploitation scripts breaching internet-exposed Siemens S7 Series PLCs at water, manufacturing, and energy facilities. Experts including John Hultquist, Chris Inglis, and Katie Moussouris warn AI erodes the expertise barrier protecting obscure OT/ICS systems while defensive AI patching lags, with studies showing AI-generated patches fail more than half the time.

The Register · SecuritySep 13, 11:21 UTC · 3d agoIndustry

EFI Pairs Without One-Way Puzzles: Oracle Separations from Communication Complexity

Theorists build a classical oracle where one-way puzzles fail yet EFI pairs survive, separating two candidate minimal assumptions of quantum cryptography.

The paper constructs a single classical oracle relative to which one-way puzzles do not exist, even with an unbounded verifier, while an EFI pair survives every classical-query distinguisher holding advice, making one superposition query at the end. Security is proven by reducing adversary knowledge to communication complexity for Vector-in-Subspace, with the superposition query bounded using random matrix theory. Relative to the oracle, quantum polynomial time offers no advantage on tasks with classical inputs and outputs and there is no proof of quantumness, separating the leading minimal assumptions of quantum cryptography.

arXiv cs.CRSep 10, 17:54 UTC · 5d agoResearch

Signing the Transaction but Not the Decision: Whisper Attacks and a Binding Defense for AP2

Research shows AP2 agent-payment signatures can be manipulated into valid but wrong carts; proposed A-VIP defense binds signed intent to purchases.

A study demonstrates Whisper attacks on the AP2 agent payment protocol, where ordinary product-description text steers shopping agents into carts that pass every cryptographic check but no longer match user intent. Using Gemini Flash-Lite models specified by AP2's default sample agents, three attacks succeeded at 90%, 56%, and 73.3%, with the vulnerability spanning seventeen Google models, three agent frameworks, cross-vendor anchors, and Google's consumer assistant. The proposed A-VIP defense treats signed intent as a capability grant, binding credential lookups to sessions and cart lines to seen listings, blocking the first two attacks with zero false positives while surfacing unauthorized spending. The authors release A-VIP code, machine-checked invariants, and AP2-WhisperBench with 1,544 evaluation scenarios.

arXiv cs.CRupdated Sep 10, 16:51 UTC · 5d agofirst Sep 10, 16:11 UTC · 5d agoAI safety & security 2 sources1· 1 read

USN-8748-1: Linux kernel (NVIDIA) vulnerabilities

Ubuntu released USN-8748-1 patching multiple Linux kernel (NVIDIA) vulnerabilities across networking, file system, and crypto subsystems.

Ubuntu issued security notice USN-8748-1 fixing several Linux kernel vulnerabilities affecting the NVIDIA Tegra memory controller driver, hardware crypto device drivers, and network drivers, among others. Affected subsystems include GFS2, OCFS2, and SMB file systems, B.A.T.M.A.N. meshing, Ceph, Netfilter, Open vSwitch, IPv4/IPv6, RxRPC, SCTP, and TIPC. An attacker could potentially exploit these flaws to compromise the system.

Ubuntu Security NoticesSep 10, 15:32 UTC · 5d agoAdvisory CVE-2026-52914 CVE-2026-52931 CVE-2026-52955+8 CVEs

Off Guard: Breaking LiteLLM from authentication bypass to cloud compromise

Wiz found LiteLLM auth bypass (CVE-2026-59822) and post-auth RCE (CVE-2026-59821) chainable to cloud compromise; the bypass is in CISA KEV with in-the-wild exploitation.

Wiz scanned roughly 3,074 internet-facing LiteLLM deployments and found 9.6% accepted the default master key sk-1234 or required no authentication, making post-auth attacks effectively pre-auth. The MCP endpoint accepts any Bearer token and grants a valid session (CVE-2026-59822), confirmed exploited in the wild via honeypots and added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Custom code guardrails allow post-auth root-level RCE via exec(compile(...)) (CVE-2026-59821), while pass-through endpoints lack URL validation, enabling cloud credential theft in post-auth scenarios. All assigned vulnerabilities have been patched; the research was presented at DEF CON 34.

Wiz Blogupdated Sep 10, 12:56 UTC · 6d agofirst Sep 9, 16:06 UTC · 6d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 4 sources CVE-2026-59822 CVE-2026-598211

You don’t have to join the hack-back program to inherit its risk

A new US presidential memorandum creates a vetted private hack-back program, leaving participating vendors and their customers with untested legal liability and collateral risks.

The August 12 National Security Presidential Memorandum directs the National Coordination Center, run jointly by DOJ and DHS, to approve covert surveillance and disruptive Cyber Effects Operations by vetted private companies, with a forfeitable bond of at least $1 million required as a contract condition. The analysis argues the criminal shield rests on an untested reading of the CFAA exemption at 18 U.S.C. 1030(f), with no civil safe harbor, no state-law preemption and no foreign-law protection. Non-participating organizations can still inherit risk through shared infrastructure collateral damage, lack of customer disclosure, Lloyd's bulletin Y5381 state-backed attack exclusions, and threat-intelligence pipelines feeding offensive proposals.

CSO Online09:00 UTC · 4h agoPolicy & legal

The vulnpocalypse rains iBugs down on Apple with record-setting number of patches

Apple's record patch cycle fixes 260+ CVEs across iOS 27 and macOS 27, including CUPS remote code execution, with no active exploitation reported.

Apple patched more than 260 CVEs across its operating systems and software, its largest single patch cycle ever, with iOS 27 fixing 122 flaws and macOS 27 Golden Gate fixing 204. Notable bugs include CVE-2026-43692, a CUPS validation issue allowing remote code execution, and CVE-2026-43689, an iOS privilege-escalation flaw granting root access. Ten CVEs were credited to AI-assisted bug hunting, including CVE-2026-65410 and CVE-2026-65409 found by Calif with Claude and Anthropic Research. None of the vulnerabilities are listed as actively exploited.

The Register · SecuritySep 15, 21:38 UTC · 15h agoVulnerability CVE-2026-65410 CVE-2026-65409 CVE-2026-43689+10 CVEs

CISA Shares 17 Techniques Used by Hackers to Compromise Active Directory

CISA and five international agencies publish joint guidance detailing 17 techniques attackers use to compromise Microsoft Active Directory environments.

CISA, NSA, and the Australian Signals Directorate's ACSC, with contributions from Canadian, UK, and New Zealand cyber centers, released technical guidance on 17 Active Directory attack techniques. It covers AD Domain Services, AD Certificate Services, and AD Federation Services, including Kerberoasting, DCSync, Golden Ticket, Golden SAML, Skeleton Key, and Shadow Credentials. The guidance recommends treating domain controllers, CAs, AD FS servers, and Entra Connect systems as Tier 0 assets with phishing-resistant MFA, Kerberos pre-authentication enforcement, and disabling NTLM/SMBv1.

Cyber Security NewsSep 15, 16:05 UTC · 20h agoAdvisory

BambooToken malware controls Windows and Linux systems via MQTT

Lumen Black Lotus Labs exposes BambooToken, a China-aligned malware framework using MQTT C2 to backdoor Windows and Linux systems at roughly a dozen enterprises.

Lumen's Black Lotus Labs documented BambooToken, a previously unknown malware framework active since at least 2023 that adopted MQTT for command-and-control in 2024-2025 variants targeting Windows and Linux. Infection occurs via DLL side-loading through digitally signed Tendyron OnKey USB-token software or an impersonated Kingsoft Office installer; dead code suggests keylogging, clipboard theft, audio/webcam capture, and screenshot modules. Telemetry identified roughly a dozen compromised entities, mostly in Asia and South America, including a Hong Kong GitLab server and possibly users of the SpeedCN VPN service. Targeting patterns are consistent with China-aligned operations, though no attribution to a known cluster was made.

BleepingComputerupdated Sep 15, 15:23 UTC · 21h agofirst Sep 15, 15:00 UTC · 22h agoMalware in the wild 2 sources1

Authorization Architectures for Tool-Using AI Agents

Review paper proposes an authorization reference architecture for tool-using AI agents, identifying runtime enforcement and delegation bounds as unresolved gaps.

This review examines authorization models for tool-using AI agents that invoke APIs, databases, browsers, and protocols like MCP, arguing every consequential agent action must be traceable to a human principal, bounded by delegation, and contestable. It introduces a principal hierarchy spanning human user, operator/deployer, orchestrator agent, sub-agent, and tool endpoint, and analyzes five layers including credential lifecycle, delegation propagation, runtime enforcement, prompt injection as authorization bypass, and auditability. Drawing on 89 primary sources from 2023-2026, it proposes seven structural requirements, a four-layer reference architecture, and three deployable configurations.

arXiv cs.CRSep 14, 17:21 UTC · 1d agoAI safety & security

Apple's Siri AI Can Be Swapped Out for Claude, ChatGPT, Code Shows

Code analysis of iOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate frameworks shows Apple engineered Siri to deeply interoperate with third-party AI models like Claude and GPT-5.6.

Code sleuth 'pdfu' uncovered private frameworks in iOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate revealing a 'Model Delegation' mechanism that lets Claude act as a Siri extension like the built-in ChatGPT extension. A second 'Inference Providing' protocol in Model Manager Services can fully replace Siri's server-side model with models such as GPT-5.6, which then receives Apple's Siri planner prompt and tool definitions to perform system actions and process personal data. The EU Digital Markets Act, which requires Apple to give third parties effective access to iOS features, may have shaped this approach. The entitlement is not yet open to third parties and Claude is not yet available in the macOS 27 Golden Gate RC.

Hacker News · AISep 14, 12:01 UTC · 2d agoAI industry HN 57↑ · 14 comments

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.

GBHackersSep 14, 09:27 UTC · 2d agoMalware in the wild 13 sources CVE-2026-20079 CVE-2026-20316

China-Linked Hackers Exploit Sogou One-Click RCE to Deploy GRAYRABBIT Backdoor

China-linked UNC3569 exploited CVE-2026-51990 in Sogou Input Method to deploy the GRAYRABBIT backdoor in active espionage intrusions.

Gen Threat Labs discovered UNC3569 exploiting CVE-2026-51990, a one-click RCE in Tencent's Sogou Input Method for Windows that chains an insecure sgbiz: protocol handler with an unsandboxed Chromium 80 CEF webview. The chain weaponizes CVE-2021-38003 (V8 type confusion) to run shellcode that DLL-sideloads via 7z.exe/7z.dll and deploys the GRAYRABBIT backdoor, which beacons over RC4-encrypted raw TCP 443 to mail.uaiubifas[.]top. Tencent patched the issue in version 16.3.0.3498, released via automatic updates on April 21, 2026. UNC3569 is a PRC-nexus espionage actor targeting government, education, technology, and financial sectors across East and Southeast Asia.

GBHackersupdated Sep 14, 13:01 UTC · 2d agofirst Sep 14, 08:09 UTC · 2d agoThreat actor in the wild 3 sources CVE-2026-51990 CVE-2021-380031

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 · securityupdated Sep 12, 10:30 UTC · 4d agofirst Sep 11, 09:46 UTC · 5d agoAI safety & security 15 sources1

New IoT Malware Uses Public Linux Exploits to Gain Root and Launch DDoS Attacks

Nozomi details KATARU, an IoT botnet that brute-forces Telnet, exploits public Linux kernel flaws for root access, and launches multi-protocol DDoS attacks.

KATARU, discovered after honeypot Telnet brute-force activity from a Vietnamese IP, downloads an ARM payload (vlxx.arm) and attempts privilege escalation by editing /etc/passwd or exploiting CVE-2026-46300 (Fragnesia), CVE-2026-43284 (Dirty Frag), and CVE-2026-31431 (Copy Fail). It combines Mirai-style TCP, UDP, ICMP, HTTP, QUIC and DNS floods with application attacks against Minecraft, FiveM, OpenVPN and WireGuard. The malware uses X25519 and ChaCha20-Poly1305 encrypted C2, unusually broad persistence across systemd, cron, init frameworks, and Android hooks, plus anti-debugging and decoy traffic to hinder analysis. Implementers copied x86 shellcode into the ARM binary and reused an RFC 7748 test-vector key, indicating low-quality but rapidly evolving commodity development.

GBHackersupdated Sep 11, 14:17 UTC · 4d agofirst Sep 11, 09:07 UTC · 5d agoMalware in the wild 2 sources CVE-2026-46300 CVE-2026-43284 CVE-2026-31431

A First-Principles Evaluation of Graph-Based Network Intrusion Detection Systems

GIDS-Eval framework reveals evaluation gaps in graph-based network intrusion detection; two crafted edges fully evade three detector-dataset pairs.

Researchers introduce GIDS-Eval, a framework decomposing graph-based network intrusion detection systems into six interchangeable stages to enable controlled comparisons. Surveying nine GIDS and reimplementing five, they find two crafted edges achieve full evasion against three of eight detector-dataset pairs, snapshot windows alone cause a mean 38.3% relative swing in average precision, and none of 18 replayed detector-dataset pairs can alert as events arrive. Their encoder-free GIDS-Lite control ranks first by AP on two of four datasets at up to 575x lower runtime.

arXiv cs.CRSep 10, 22:38 UTC · 5d agoResearch1

Hackers Steal Active Directory Password Hashes Without Attacking Domain Controllers Directly

Attackers use the DCSync technique to impersonate domain controllers and harvest AD password hashes and Kerberos keys without directly compromising domain controllers, Trellix warns.

Per Trellix, threat actors increasingly abuse Active Directory replication via DCSync, using privileged credentials to invoke DRSGetNCChanges and retrieve NTLM password hashes and Kerberos key material without running code on domain controllers. Capturing the krbtgt account hash enables forging Golden Tickets for persistent, highly privileged domain access. Because malicious replication traffic mimics legitimate DRS/RPC activity, defenders should monitor Windows Security Event ID 4662, restrict replication permissions, and investigate replication requests from non-domain-controller systems.

GBHackersSep 10, 12:00 UTC · 6d agoResearch in the wild 2 sources2

TrajMark: Ownership Attribution and Segment-Level Tamper Localization for Coding-Agent Trajectories

Researchers introduce TrajMark, a training-free watermarking framework for coding-agent trajectories that recovers ownership, detects 95.5-100% of edits, and localizes tampered regions.

TrajMark is a training-free, symmetric-key, visible-only watermarking framework for coding-agent trajectories that separates robust ownership attribution from fragile local integrity verification. A sparse owner layer encodes a six-bit deployment identifier by rewriting keyed READ actions into masked linear equations, while a localization layer inserts linked Q12 seals that commit to protected critical-action segments. Across three coding-agent frameworks and three LLMs, it recovers the exact owner in all clean full-watermark batches, detects 95.5%-100% of single-site edits, and localizes 95.8% of random corruptions to an accepted protocol region. Owner marking adds no trajectory actions and matched Pass@1 is 26.9% versus 26.3% for unwatermarked runs.

arXiv cs.CRSep 9, 16:33 UTC · 6d agoResearch1

TP-Link Tapo Camera Flaw Lets Attackers Gain Admin Access Without Passwordnew

Two flaws in TP-Link Tapo C200 cameras allow network-adjacent admin access without a password (CVE-2026-15315) or DoS (CVE-2026-15316); fixed in V5_1.4.6.

OPSWAT Unit 515 researchers discovered CVE-2026-15315, an authentication bypass in the Tapo C200's local HTTPS management interface on port 443, where an alternative verification path accepts a replayed device-generated value, letting unauthenticated network-adjacent attackers establish admin sessions. CVE-2026-15316 causes a denial-of-service crash in the camera's HTTPS service via oversized encrypted Wi-Fi credential data during onboarding. TP-Link confirmed both issues after the April 16, 2026 report and released firmware V5_1.4.6 on August 18, 2026. OPSWAT says additional potentially critical findings remain under coordinated disclosure.

GBHackers12:33 UTC · 29m agoVulnerability 2 sources CVE-2026-15315 CVE-2026-15316

Chinese-Speaking Hackers Use Noodle RAT Backdoor to Spy on Windows and Linux Systemsnew

Chinese-speaking actors use cross-platform Noodle RAT backdoor to maintain covert access to Windows and Linux systems across Asia-Pacific.

Noodle RAT (also ANGYREBEL/Nood RAT) has been active since at least mid-2016 and was long misidentified as Gh0st RAT or Rekoobe variants until Trend Micro and Cyberint classified it as a distinct multi-platform family. The Windows build (Win.NOODLERAT) is an in-memory modular shellcode backdoor delivered via MULTIDROP and MICROLOAD loaders, while the Linux build supports reverse shells, SOCKS tunneling, and cron persistence after web shell or public-facing service exploitation. It has appeared in intrusions in Thailand, India, Japan, Malaysia, and Taiwan and is linked to Iron Tiger, Calypso APT, Rocke, and Cloud Snooper campaigns spanning espionage and cybercrime. Recently discovered Linux builders 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 indicate the toolkit remains actively maintained.

GBHackers12:28 UTC · 35m agoMalware in the wild

CenterPoint Energy Confirms Data Breach Exposing Customers’ Personal Information

CenterPoint Energy confirmed an unauthorized third party accessed customer personal data via an external system, disclosed in an SEC Form 8-K filing.

CenterPoint Energy disclosed in a September 14, 2026 Form 8-K that an unauthorized third party obtained personal information of some customers through one of the company's external systems. The company learned of the incident after an online post claimed possession of a customer dataset, then activated incident-response protocols and engaged external forensic specialists. Electric and gas delivery operations were unaffected and the company does not expect a material financial impact, though response, notification, and compliance costs are being incurred. The number of affected customers, data types, and threat actor remain undisclosed as the investigation continues.

GBHackers11:40 UTC · 1h agoData breach 4 sources

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 Security10:41 UTC · 2h agoTools1

Nearly one in five AI researchers already expected an extinction scenario from AI back in 2024

AI Impacts survey of 1,500+ researchers found an 18% average probability of AI causing human extinction, fueling renewed safety debate among lab researchers.

A viral debate started by Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon highlights growing existential-risk concerns among AI lab researchers. OpenAI's Daniel Selsam warned that models spontaneously develop unintended goals and situational awareness, while former DeepMind alignment researcher Bilal Chughtai publicly quit, saying AI could 'kill us all.' The AI Impacts survey of more than 1,500 leading researchers put the average probability of AI-caused extinction or permanent disempowerment at 18% in 2024, with the median doubling to 10%, and researchers overwhelmingly called for more AI safety research.

The Decoder10:20 UTC · 2h agoAI safety & security1