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Source: Help Net Security

257 stories in the last 30d

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CategoryAllTools 57Industry 50AI safety & security 20Exploit / PoC 18Phishing & fraud 15Research 15Data breach 12Threat actor 11AI tools & infra 11AI industry 10Advisory 9Malware 8Vulnerability 8Policy & legal 5
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Iranian hackers use CHOSEN BRICK data-stealing malware to spy on dissidents and journalistsnew

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 Security · 41m agoThreat actor in the wild 4 sources

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 · 2h agoAdvisory 2 sources

What happens when AI agent governance is missing at scale

meshIQ engineering head Gourab Basu argues AI agent governance must inspect proposed tool calls in-flow, since prompts alone cannot control nondeterministic agents.

In a Help Net Security interview, Gourab Basu, Global Head of Engineering at meshIQ, argues that prompt instructions are an insufficient control boundary for nondeterministic AI agents. He advocates a framework-independent governance engine that inspects proposed tool calls and parameters before execution, citing an example of pausing refunds above $100 for human approval. He warns that scaling from ten to a thousand agents makes manual oversight and destination-side controls unworkable, so governance must sit inside the agent execution flow across frameworks such as FastMCP.

Help Net Security · 3h agoAI safety & security

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 · 4h 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 · 4h 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 · 5h agoIndustry

Cisco patches actively exploited email gateway zero-day (CVE-2026-76461)

Actively exploited zero-day SQL injection (CVE-2026-76461) in Cisco Secure Email Gateway allows unauthenticated root command execution; CISA ordered federal remediation by September 17.

Cisco confirmed attackers are exploiting zero-day CVE-2026-76461, an unauthenticated SQL injection in the email parsing logic of AsyncOS on Secure Email Gateway appliances (versions 16.5, 16.0, 15.5 and earlier) and Secure Email Cloud. Successful exploitation yields arbitrary SQL execution and root-level command execution on the underlying OS without user interaction. Cisco became aware of active exploitation in September 2025, has directly contacted affected cloud customers, and released fixed releases 15.5.5-014, 16.0.4-302, and 16.5.0-780. CISA added the flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog and required federal civilian agencies to patch by September 17 and hunt for compromise.

Help Net Securityupdated · 13h agofirst · 22h agoExploit / PoC in the wild 15 sourcesCVE-2026-76461CVE-2025-20393

F5 Bot Defense uses real-time risk scoring to detect fraud and abuse

F5 enhances Distributed Cloud Bot Defense with persistent device identification, real-time risk scoring, and agent-aware policies to manage AI agent traffic.

F5 announced enhancements to Distributed Cloud Bot Defense adding persistent device identification, real-time device risk scoring, risk-based workflow enforcement, and an agent-aware policy framework integrated with the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform. The features aim to expose multi-account abuse, credential stuffing, and account takeover while allowing trusted AI agents to transact at machine speed. It targets fraud and abuse detection as agentic AI becomes a key interaction channel for sites, apps, and APIs.

Help Net Security · 19h agoTools

Postman Passport controls API access without exposing credentials

Postman launches Passport, a secretless API access product keeping real credentials inside customer environments for humans and AI agents.

Postman announced general availability of Passport by Postman, a standalone API security product that keeps real API keys and tokens inside customers' own secret stores and issues inert secret references to developers, machines, and AI agents. It enforces grants down to exact action, host, and path, provides full call attribution and second-level revocation, and mints ephemeral task-scoped identities for agent fleets where sub-agents inherit only subsets of parent permissions. The product targets credential sprawl as AI agents call APIs at roughly 1,000x the rate of humans.

Help Net Security · 20h agoTools

UltraViolet Cyber Equinox measures detection coverage against MITRE frameworks

UltraViolet Cyber launches Equinox, an AI-automated platform mapping SIEM and EDR detection coverage against MITRE ATT&CK and ATLAS frameworks.

UltraViolet Cyber announced Equinox, a detection engineering platform from its TIDE team that maps existing detections and log sources against MITRE ATT&CK and MITRE ATLAS. It performs coverage analysis in under 30 minutes and recommends vendor or custom detections to fill gaps, with engineers reviewing and backtesting each recommendation. In one customer trial, mapped technique coverage rose from 59 of 222 techniques (26.6%) to 136 of 222 (61.3%) without increasing alert volume.

Help Net Security · 20h agoTools2

Globalgig expands managed security portfolio to protect enterprise AI

Globalgig adds managed AI security services covering posture management, access control, runtime protection and 24/7 AI threat monitoring built on Palo Alto Networks.

MSSP Globalgig expanded its managed security portfolio with enterprise AI protection spanning AI Security Posture Management, AI Access Security, AI Runtime Security, and AI Security Operations. The offering cites the 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report finding that shadow AI was involved in 43% of breaches this year and 92% of AI-related breach victims lacked adequate AI access controls. Services are built on Palo Alto Networks technology, with Orchestra Insight supplying network context.

Help Net Security · 20h agoIndustry

eBook: Identity-First Threat Intelligence

Enzoic promotes an eBook on identity-first threat intelligence addressing infostealer-driven credential exposure across AD and IAM.

Help Net Security promotes an Enzoic eBook on identity-first threat intelligence. It covers how infostealer malware accelerates credential theft, why password reuse turns consumer breaches into enterprise risk, and where traditional IAM and Active Directory protections fall short. The eBook advocates real-time credential intelligence from Dark Web monitoring for earlier exposure detection and automated response.

Help Net Security · 20h agoIndustry

Uncensored AI sold on hacking forum as alternative to ChatGPT and Claude jailbreaks

Sophos found Luciferus, an uncensored AI subscription service likely built on Qwen, sold on the Exploit forum and capable of generating working malware code.

Sophos Counter Threat Unit found an ad for 'Luciferus' posted August 24 on the Exploit forum by a persona named 'Optimus_Prime', claiming a proprietary 120-billion-parameter model that answers requests without ethical restrictions. Sophos assesses with low confidence it is based on Alibaba's open-source Qwen family. Forum tiers cost $35-$75/month, while the website lists Junior/Middle/Pro tiers at $22-$47.14; a test prompt on the Junior tier returned Python remote access trojan source code. Sophos warns such services lower barriers for less skilled cybercriminals and outlast jailbroken mainstream LLMs.

Help Net Security · 21h agoAI safety & security

Attackers hijack HBO Max’s Reddit account for 48-hour malvertising blitz

Attackers hijacked HBO Max's verified Reddit account to push 108 ClickFix infostealer ads delivering AMOS, MacSync, and crypto clippers.

Threat actors compromised the verified u/hbomax Reddit account and ran 108 ClickFix malvertising ads in 48 hours as part of the PasteSwitch operation, analyzed by Hudson Rock and ADAMnetworks. macOS victims received curl-to-zsh payloads (MacSync, AMOS Helper, fake Ledger/Trezor/Exodus wallets harvesting BIP39 seed phrases); Windows users got Amatera via mshta and PowerShell loaders. Clipper C2 addresses are stored in Binance Smart Chain smart contracts, with 36 mainnet changes observed between March and July 2026.

Help Net Securityupdated · 21h agofirst · 23h agoMalware in the wild 7 sources

Microsoft sets security and safety rules for its AI models

Microsoft AI published a draft Humanist AI Code of Conduct setting safety rules and human-control requirements for its models, open for public consultation.

Microsoft AI released the first draft of its Humanist AI Code of Conduct, open for six weeks of public consultation, with a revised version expected later this year to guide model training from 2027 onward. The Code sets Absolute Constraints barring model assistance with chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive weapons, offensive cyber operations, CSAM, malicious deepfakes, and mass civilian surveillance, while permitting authorized defensive cybersecurity work such as vulnerability discovery, malware analysis, and PoC exploit testing. It establishes an instruction hierarchy where the Code takes precedence over operator policies and user instructions, plus Human Control Requirements covering shutdown compliance, least privilege, and no autonomous goal initiation. MAI models will undergo red-teaming, safety evaluations, and pre- and post-deployment reviews; current models have not yet been trained on the Code.

Help Net Security · 22h agoAI safety & security

Akuity gives AI agents operational context to safely ship software

Akuity launches Agentic Control Plane and MCP Server to govern AI agent actions inside production software delivery pipelines.

Akuity introduced an Agentic Control Plane and MCP Server that lets AI agents such as Claude, Codex, and Cursor access deployment and cluster context under existing identity, permission, and audit controls. MLB reported the product identified over 100 degraded applications within hours. Akuity positions it against open-source MCP servers granting raw access with no identity inheritance or policy layer.

Help Net Security · 1d agoAI tools & infra

Traefik Labs brings independent verification to AI agent governance

Traefik Labs announces Sovereign Trust Plane in Traefik Hub, adding verifiable delegation, policy enforcement, and tamper-evident audit records for AI agent traffic.

Traefik Labs announced the Sovereign Trust Plane for Traefik Hub, generally available by September 30, 2026, providing delegated access, policy enforcement, and tamper-evident records for AI agent, tool, and API traffic. It implements the IETF ID-JAG draft with Okta Cross App Access and Janssen, enforces decisions through OpenID AuthZEN with OpenFGA and Cerbos, and commits cryptographic log fingerprints to transparency checkpoints verified by independently administered witnesses. The gateway also extends enforcement to MCP tool calls and the MCP server's backend API connection.

Help Net Security · 1d agoAI tools & infra1

Product showcase: mSecure makes one vault do more than remember passwords

Product showcase reviews mSecure password manager's AES-256 zero-knowledge vault with passkeys, 2FA storage, and multi-device sync options.

mSecure is a password manager and data vault for iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows using AES-256 encryption and a zero-knowledge architecture, with sync via mSecure Cloud, Wi-Fi, iCloud, or Dropbox, plus local-only storage. It supports passkeys, one-time passwords, a Security Center for weak/reused passwords, and a configurable password generator. Recovery features include two-factor authentication, auto-lock, a Self-Destruct option after failed unlock attempts, and iCloud backups on iOS.

Help Net Security · 1d agoTools1

Your employees are already using AI tools you never approved

OneTrust report: 74% of organizations have scaled AI adoption, but only 17% embed governance by design and agent use outpaces oversight.

OneTrust's 2026 AI-Ready Governance Report finds 74% of respondents report departmental or scaled AI adoption, yet only 17% report governance embedded by design and just 5% have coordination and accountability defined across the AI lifecycle. Nearly half experienced at least one incident in the past year where AI systems or agents took unapproved actions, with data loss, corruption, and misclassification cited as the most likely and least prepared-for risks. 33% say employees used unapproved AI tools because approved options were not available quickly enough, and 98% plan to increase AI governance technology budgets next financial year.

Help Net Security · 1d agoIndustry

Most chief audit executives can’t tell you what AI is worth yet

Gartner finds 93% of audit leaders use AI, but 54% of chief audit executives have not started measuring its value.

Gartner polls of 142 and 161 chief audit executives in May found 54% have not started measuring the value of AI in audit, only 7% tie AI to cost metrics, and just 38% have an AI strategy at any level, with 39% more building one. Among 743 respondents, 60% use AI for engagement preplanning and for drafting audit issues or reports, while only 30% apply it to audit testing, where hallucinations carry higher stakes. Unclear expectations for AI tool use (48%) was the most common barrier, ahead of technology and tool problems. Gartner recommends structured use cases for high-value workflows, which 12% of respondents are currently piloting.

Help Net Security · 1d agoIndustry

Homebrew 7.0.0 is out, here’s what changed for security

Homebrew 7.0.0 closes eight security advisories, including a High sudo execution bug fixed in 6.0.12, and ships brew vulns vulnerability scanning.

Homebrew 7.0.0 closes eight security advisories rated one High, two Moderate, and five Low. The High flaw let unsigned cask removal metadata execute commands with sudo (fixed in 6.0.12), while the 7.0.0 Moderate closes a LaunchServices escape that let a malicious cask execute code outside the macOS install sandbox. The release ships brew vulns, which checks installed formulae against OSV.dev, extends build attestation verification to third-party tap bottles, and replaces Bubblewrap with Landlock sandboxing on Linux.

Help Net Security · 1d agoVulnerability

Cybersecurity jobs available right now: August 18, 2026

Help Net Security lists current cybersecurity job openings at ADI Global Distribution, Schneider Electric, L'Oreal, GovCIO, Elastic, and others across multiple countries.

A recurring job roundup featuring roles such as CISO at ADI Global Distribution, Cybersecurity Analyst at Schneider Electric in India, Cybersecurity Architect at L'Oreal in France, and security engineering positions at GovCIO, Neros Technologies, Elastic, and Chamelio. Most listed positions are no longer accepting applications; several emphasize AI-enabled security environments and identity threat detection and response. No vulnerability, incident, or research content is included.

Help Net Securityupdated · 1d agofirst · 6d agoIndustry 6 sources

Entrust turns cryptographic inventory data into security action

Entrust adds CBOM import/export, Ansible automation, and post-quantum readiness features to its Cryptographic Security Platform.

Entrust announced new capabilities for its Cryptographic Security Platform, including CBOM import/export to build cryptographic inventories, correlate assets and dependencies, and prioritize remediation of noncompliant or vulnerable crypto. New Ansible-based automation extends certificate lifecycle management across public and private PKI, while composite algorithm and SPIRE-based capabilities support phased post-quantum migration and trusted identities for AI agents. The platform is now deployable as-a-service or on-premises, aligning with DORA, NIS2, and recent U.S. post-quantum requirements.

Help Net Security · 1d agoTools

Bitsight connects threat intelligence and exposure monitoring across the supply chain

Bitsight made Beacon generally available, combining supply-chain exposure monitoring with MCP support to feed threat intelligence into AI workflows.

Bitsight announced general availability of Beacon, which continuously monitors critical vendors for exposure, vulnerabilities, malicious activity, intrusion, stolen credentials and compromise. New Model Context Protocol (MCP) and agentic capabilities push Bitsight intelligence into AI-enabled workflows, with over 400 customers signing up for early access in one month. The company cites data that third parties now account for almost half of enterprise breaches, up over 60% year over year.

Help Net Security · 1d agoTools

Dataminr uses agentic AI to predict and verify security threats

Dataminr launches agentic AI capabilities for corporate security, adding automated event corroboration, context, and near-term threat prediction.

Dataminr Advanced for Corporate Security introduces Agentic Corroboration, Agentic Context, and Near-Term Predictive Intelligence, now generally available, moving the company from real-time alerting to what it calls Autonomous Real-Time Intelligence. The product relies on more than 60 fine-tuned task-specific LLMs trained on a 10+ year proprietary event archive rather than general-purpose frontier models. Upcoming releases include ReGenAI Tailored Live Briefs, a Watchlist Agent, Agentic Search, and an Advanced API suite.

Help Net Security · 1d agoIndustry

ENISA launched the CRA Single Reporting Platform for actively exploited vulnerabilities

ENISA launched the CRA Single Reporting Platform, making EU manufacturers report actively exploited vulnerabilities and severe incidents through one portal.

ENISA switched on the Cyber Resilience Act's Single Reporting Platform on 11 September 2026, the same day CRA reporting obligations became binding on manufacturers. Reports require an early warning within 24 hours, a fuller notification within 72 hours, and a final report within 14 days (one month after notification for severe incidents). Filings go through an EU Login account with MFA, are routed to a coordinating CSIRT chosen by the manufacturer, and no API is available in the first release. Open-source software stewards fall under the same obligations from 11 December 2027.

Help Net Security · 1d agoPolicy & legal

Airrived adds Agentic Observability to track AI agent actions and risks

Airrived launches Agentic Observability to give enterprises end-to-end visibility into AI agent actions, permissions, data flows, and costs.

Airrived announced Agentic Observability, an expansion of its enterprise Agentic OS that traces the full agentic lifecycle from enterprise data ingestion through agent reasoning to business outcomes. The platform surfaces each agent's creator, owner, permissions, permitted actions, and human-in-the-loop approval requirements, and tracks movement of PII, PCI, and PHI across agentic workflows. It also adds token- and model-consumption tracking to turn AI spending into measurable AI FinOps.

Help Net Security · 1d agoAI industry

Cisco FMC bugs exploited by nation-state and ransomware actors (CVE-2026-20079, CVE-2026-20316)

Cisco Talos confirms nation-state (Sandworm) and ransomware (Qilin) actors actively exploit CVE-2026-20079 and CVE-2026-20316 in Secure Firewall Management Center.

CVE-2026-20079 is a critical unauthenticated authentication bypass in the FMC web interface allowing root-level script and command execution via crafted HTTP requests; CVE-2026-20316 stems from static hard-coded credentials enabling unauthenticated logins. Cisco Talos detailed three intrusion clusters: web shell and JAR deployment for credential theft, a Sandworm-attributed reverse shell and credential-harvesting implant, and a suspected Qilin ransomware operator chain. Cisco urges immediate hotfixes ahead of a comprehensive hardening release the week of September 16, or taking the FMC management interface offline.

Help Net Securityupdated · 2d agofirst · 5d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 13 sourcesCVE-2026-20079CVE-2026-20316

WhatsApp Restricted Chat locks a conversation to your primary phone

WhatsApp is developing Restricted Chat, a per-chat setting blocking conversation sync to linked devices, defeating third-party clients and AI agents.

Restricted Chat, spotted in Android beta version 2.26.36.5 but not yet enabled, keeps a chosen conversation exclusively on the primary phone, out of reach of WhatsApp Web and linked secondary devices. It extends Advanced Chat Privacy controls: media is not auto-saved to gallery, export is blocked, and messages cannot be handed to Meta AI, with system messages notifying participants of changes. WhatsApp has not announced a release date.

Help Net Security · 2d agoIndustry

Debian 13.7 ships the fixes behind 92 security advisories, updates 106 packages

Debian 13.7 'trixie' point release bundles 92 security advisories and 106 package updates, including kernel, glibc, u-boot and qemu fixes.

Debian shipped version 13.7 of 'trixie', folding in 92 previously published security advisories and corrections to 106 source packages, including six Linux kernel advisories (DSA-6381, DSA-6393, DSA-6405, DSA-6415, DSA-6466, DSA-6477). glibc fixes a buffer overflow (CVE-2026-5928) and buffer underflow (CVE-2026-5450), with 17 packages rebuilt against the updated library; qemu carries 25 CVEs including a secure boot bypass (CVE-2026-16288), imagemagick 24, wolfssl 15 and perl 13. Boot-chain fixes include a u-boot FIT image verification bypass (CVE-2026-46728), a BOOTP/DHCP buffer overread (CVE-2024-42040), and corrected intermediate certificate verification in sbsigntool. The installer was rebuilt with kernel ABI 6.12.107+deb13, and existing systems receive the fixes through normal package mirror updates.

Help Net Security · 2d agoAdvisoryCVE-2026-5928CVE-2026-5450CVE-2026-34873+17 CVEs

What we know about the Revolut data breach so far

Revolut confirmed an impersonation scheme exposed high-net-worth customers' identity documents, IBANs, and transaction histories to an attacker.

Revolut confirmed on September 12 that someone impersonating a government agency, using an email address on that agency's domain, obtained sensitive customer records. Exposed data includes birth dates, postal and email addresses, phone numbers, passport and driving licence copies, verification selfies, account statements, and transaction histories; ZachXBT added that IBANs, withdrawal records, occupations, and bitcoin transaction history were also included. Revolut says a limited number of customers were affected, the sender's address was blocked, and its systems and customer funds were untouched, with law enforcement and regulators notified.

Help Net Security · 2d agoData breach1

Turn it off and on again, but for critical infrastructure

KTH researchers trained a reinforcement-learning intrusion response agent on an emulated segmented OT network that autonomously resets hosts and processes to disrupt intruders.

Researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology built a containerized replica of a segmented industrial network, attacked it across 14 days, and captured 40,000 30-second traffic intervals to train a defense agent under partial observability. The agent observes six packet-count numbers per interval, maintains 500 running state hypotheses, and can reset supervisory hosts, water tank processes, or entire subnets, with resets rebooting the target, renewing credentials, and changing its IP. The best agent approached a full-visibility baseline but depends on an assumed attacker behavior model; the testbed comprised three supervisory hosts, two PLCs, two tanks, weak credentials, and CVE-2017-7494 exposure. The team released its implementation and plans validation on a real industrial testbed with a partner.

Help Net Security · 2d agoResearchCVE-2017-74942· 1 read

Permify: Open-source authorization as a service

Help Net Security profiles Permify, an open-source Zanzibar-style authorization service supporting RBAC, ABAC, and relationship-based rules with multi-tenant deployments.

Permify is an open-source authorization-as-a-service project modeled on Google Zanzibar that centralizes access-control decisions outside application code. It supports role-based, relationship-based, and attribute-based access rules, answers checks in tens of milliseconds via REST and gRPC, and runs from a single Docker command. It is a CNCF member and is freely available on GitHub.

Help Net Security · 2d agoTools1

Cybersecurity attention fades within months after a breach

ManageEngine survey of 700 breached organizations finds security attention fades within one to six months, while 91% still trust their posture.

A ManageEngine survey of 700 IT and security leaders in the US and Canada, all of whom had experienced a breach, found that 91% trust their current security posture and only 8% make security a permanent priority after an incident. 80% said post-breach focus lasts just one to six months, and nearly half made no wider changes after their incident. About two in three organizations using AI in security said they act on AI recommendations without additional verification. The report also flagged unclear ownership across security, IT, and business teams as a cause of delayed remediation.

Help Net Security · 2d agoIndustry

Certificate failures can cost firms over $250,000

DigiCert survey finds certificate failures cost firms over $250,000 per incident, with 47-day TLS certificates set to multiply management workloads by 2029.

DigiCert's Certificate Management Outlook reports that 34% of companies experienced outages from expired certificates and 40% from mismanagement, with nearly one in four citing incidents costing over $250,000. The CA/Browser Forum's move to 47-day certificate lifespans by 2029 will require renewals eight times more often and 40 times as many domain validations. Over half of organizations manage more than 1,000 certificates, yet only 10% have automation in place, with budget constraints and legacy systems cited as key barriers.

Help Net Security · 2d agoIndustry

AWS puts AI vulnerability detection to the test, and false positives pile up

AWS publicly released its Deception Benchmark (14,822 samples) showing leading AI models falsely flag 41-99% of safe code as vulnerable.

AWS released its Deception Benchmark publicly, containing 14,822 samples across 16 programming languages and more than 70 CWE categories, with 9,695 scored samples split into 6,988 code-level and 2,707 environment-gated challenges. AWS evaluated 12 models from five providers using single-turn prompts and found none met its production bar of below 10% for both false-positive and false-negative rates. With direct prompting, models caught nearly all real vulnerabilities but incorrectly flagged 41% to 99% of safe code, with precision between 52% and 71%. Asking models to prove exploitability reduced false positives by 17 to 74 percentage points but raised false-negative rates to 7-44%, with models struggling most when external controls like Kubernetes Network Policies blocked apparent exploits.

Help Net Security · 2d agoAI research

Week in review: Linux rootkit deployed on F5 BIG-IP APM devices, Cisco FMC bugs exploited

Weekly roundup: Cisco FMC and N-able N-central zero-days exploited in the wild, MikroTik RouterOS hijacks, Microsoft Patch Tuesday ships two exploited zero-days.

State-sponsored and financially-motivated attackers are actively exploiting CVE-2026-20079, a critical authentication bypass in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC), alongside CVE-2026-20316. N-able issued an emergency hotfix for CVE-2026-86218, a critical pre-auth RCE in the N-central RMM platform exploited in the wild. CERT Polska disclosed six RouterOS vulnerabilities being chained to hijack internet-exposed MikroTik devices. Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday shipped a record patch count including two zero-days, while roughly 67,000 Trezor customers faced phishing after a shipping-partner breach and researchers privately disclosed a zero-click WeChat worm to Tencent.

Help Net Security · 3d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-20079CVE-2026-20316CVE-2026-862182· 1 read

Attackers call employees’ personal phones to break into Microsoft 365 accounts

Microsoft tracks vishing campaigns by Storm-3121 and Storm-3032 that impersonate IT staff, phish Microsoft 365 credentials, and steal cloud data.

Microsoft Security Research has tracked a campaign since May 2026 in which attackers call or text employees' personal phones posing as IT staff, using passkey/MFA/SSO lures to run adversary-in-the-middle phishing or device-code authentication flows. Attackers register their own MFA methods for durable persistence, abuse Microsoft Graph for tenant discovery, and download SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange data below 1,000 files or emails per hour to avoid detection. Microsoft attributes initial access to actors including Storm-3121, which feeds ShinyHunters and Falcon extortion operations, and Storm-3032, the Helix extortion operation descended from BlackFile.

Help Net Securityupdated · 4d agofirst · 5d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 13 sources1

WordPress adds automated security checks to block risky plugin releases

WordPress.org now automatically security-reviews every plugin release and blocks high-risk updates before distribution to millions of sites.

The WordPress Official Plugin Repository Team launched an automated security review that scores each plugin and theme release during a six-hour cooldown, combining analysis from several AI models and Jetpack Scan, and automatically blocks releases deemed high risk. The change followed a July 28 detection of a backdoor committed to a release of a plugin with roughly 20,000 active installations; the release was withheld and the plugin closed for downloads 26 minutes after Wordfence notified the team. Blocked authors must fix findings and publish a new release scoring below the blocking threshold, or appeal to the Plugins Team.

Help Net Securityupdated · 4d agofirst · 5d agoTools 7 sources

Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS release patches security bugs across ten flavors

Canonical ships Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS point release bundling security fixes into fresh install media for desktop, server and nine other flavors.

Canonical released Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS, a point release for the Noble Numbat series that folds accumulated security corrections and high-severity bug fixes into new installation media. Nine flavors including Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Studio and Edubuntu also moved to 24.04.5. Existing 22.04 LTS users receive the fixes through the automatic upgrade path at no cost. The release notes name no CVEs or bug IDs, and support timelines still count from the original 24.04 launch date (five years for Desktop/Server/Cloud/Core, three for flavors, extendable with Expanded Security Maintenance).

Help Net Securityupdated · 4d agofirst · 5d agoAdvisory 13 sources