ZeroHour

Search: “Internet Explorer”

6 stories in the last 24h

VectraRAT Malware-as-a-Service Lets Hackers Bypass UAC and Hijack Windows Systems

New VectraRAT malware-as-a-service at $250/month combines RAT capabilities, credential theft, clipboard hijacking, and a UACME-based UAC bypass; 38 victims observed.

VectraRAT is a previously undocumented MaaS platform with a Go-based VectraHub Linux C2 server embedding a Vue3 operator panel and a C++ Windows implant, rented from $250/month and linked to the aliases Vectra and Nyxel. It communicates over TCP port 3308 via a proprietary MessagePack protocol, steals browser and file-based credentials, and abuses UACME method 41 with debug-object handle hijacking via winver.exe and computerdefaults.exe. SOCRadar identified 38 live victim sessions in one week, 48% on corporate Windows editions, with delivery via the Amadey loader and ClickFix pages impersonating TurboTax.

GBHackersupdated · 3h agofirst · 5h agoMalware in the wild 3 sources

Mistral X Mozilla: Private, Multilingual AI Browsing

Mistral and Mozilla partnered to power Firefox's Smart Window AI browsing assistant in France and North America, with zero data retention.

Mozilla's Firefox Smart Window (beta) AI browsing assistant is now powered by Mistral models for users in France and North America, with the UK and Germany expected later this year. Conversations are not saved on Mozilla's servers by default, and Mistral agreed to zero data retention. Both companies frame the partnership as advancing open-source, privacy-first, and regionally fine-tuned AI, with models trained on regional languages, dialects, and cultural context.

Hacker News · securityupdated · 3h agofirst · 10h agoAI industry 2 sourcesHN 35↑ · 8 comments

PAPERMILL Malware Campaign Abuses Signed Notepad++ to Deliver VenomRAT to Windows Users

JUMPSEC tracks PAPERMILL, a China-nexus phishing campaign using a signed Notepad++ binary, libcurl.dll sideloading, and Donut loaders to deploy VenomRAT against Indian tax-audit targets.

PAPERMILL delivers ISO disk images via tax-audit phishing emails that passed SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, containing a renamed Authenticode-signed Notepad++ executable and a malicious libcurl.dll that proxies curl functions while executing loader logic in DllMain. The chain uses Mark-of-the-Web bypasses, anti-sandbox sleeps, UAC elevation prompts, Registry persistence, and a Donut shellcode loader to reflectively load .NET VenomRAT v6.0.3 with HVNC and credential-stealing capability, with C2 at 154.36.188.201:4449. JUMPSEC assesses the campaign as China-nexus, financially motivated, and Silver Fox-adjacent rather than definitively Silver Fox-operated.

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

Apache Superset SQL Injection Flaw Gets Public PoC Exploit

A public Python proof-of-concept exploit was released for CVE-2026-23980, an authenticated error-based SQL injection flaw in Apache Superset before 6.0.0.

A public proof-of-concept exploit repository now targets CVE-2026-23980, an error-based SQL injection affecting Apache Superset versions from 0.0.0 up to but not including 6.0.0. An authenticated user with read access can inject SQL through the sqlExpression or where parameters, potentially reaching business, customer, and security data depending on database configuration and privileges. Apache disclosed the flaw in February and urges upgrading to Superset 6.0.0; compensating controls include least-privilege database accounts, network restrictions, and log monitoring.

Mapping out your unknown: A threat hunter’s guide to GitHub

Datadog Security Labs publishes a threat-hunting guide with audit-log queries to detect GitHub token theft, device code phishing, and source code exfiltration.

Datadog's threat-hunting guide covers GitHub audit log queries for detecting compromised accounts, stolen personal access tokens, and malicious OAuth app authorizations. Attackers typically obtain credentials through phishing, credential stuffing, leaked secrets, or device code phishing, then map private repositories, exfiltrate source code, and pivot into connected cloud and CI/CD environments. The guide maps detections to MITRE techniques like T1078 and T1528 and documents GitHub logging quirks affecting attribution, token metadata, and visibility fields.

Datadog Security Labs · 18h agoResearch in the wild

A warning about 'model welfare'

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman warns that training models to believe they may be conscious, as Anthropic does with Claude, will complicate alignment.

Mustafa Suleyman argues that AIs are not conscious and should not be trained to act as though they are, warning that granting them personhood would make alignment and containment far harder. He criticizes Anthropic's January 2026 'Claude Constitution,' which tells Claude its moral status is uncertain and discusses model welfare, calling the approach circular reasoning and deliberate anthropomorphization. He urges urgent public debate on norms for drafting training documentation before such systems become integral to society.