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Rogue ScreenConnect Installations Across Unrelated Hosts Suggest Worm-Like Activity

Huntress observed rogue ScreenConnect deployments with worm-like VBScript propagation across unrelated organizations, prompting a ConnectWise advisory on file transfer behavior.

Huntress identified multiple incidents in late August 2026 where social engineering led to rogue ScreenConnect remote access clients deployed on victim machines, which then spawned wscript.exe to run four VBScript payloads (1.vbs through 4.vbs) for profiling, telemetry collection, and persistence via a WindowsServiceHost Run key. Modified ScreenConnect clients propagated the VBScript chain to connected endpoints, creating worm-like spread. ConnectWise published an advisory on September 3, 2026, confirming an issue affecting file transfer behavior in both cloud and on-premises ScreenConnect deployments, with a CVE and fix expected within the week; partners were advised to review and disable TransferFiles permissions in the interim.

Huntress · 13d agoExploit / PoC in the wild1

How to Secure Enterprise AI: From Adoption to Incident Readiness

Sygnia-backed guidance urges a lifecycle approach to enterprise AI security, citing survey data that AI adoption is outpacing governance and incident readiness.

The Hacker News published Sygnia-sponsored guidance on securing enterprise AI across its lifecycle, from use-case definition and vendor selection to deployment and incident readiness. It cites Sygnia's 2026 CISO survey of 600 senior leaders: 63% expect AI fully embedded by 2027, 73% say their organization would not be fully ready for a significant cyberattack, and 67% of executives believe unapproved AI tools already caused a breach. The piece highlights shadow AI, ad hoc integrations, and over-permissioned AI agents as key attack surface risks, noting only 38% of organizations report a comprehensive AI policy.

The Hacker News · 14d agoAI safety & security

Hackers Exploit Critical FortiGate Flaw to Deploy AI-Assisted PivotC2 RAT

SOCRadar says attackers exploit FortiGate CVE-2025-25249 to deploy the PivotC2 Node.js RAT, compromising 178 of 30,000 targeted devices and stealing credentials.

SOCRadar's Threat Research Unit reports active exploitation of CVE-2025-25249, a CVSS 9.8 heap-based buffer overflow in the cw_acd daemon of FortiOS and FortiSwitchManager, via crafted CAPWAP requests to UDP port 5246, compromising at least 178 of 30,000 targeted internet-exposed FortiGate devices since July 2026. The campaign deploys PivotC2, a Node.js RAT that provides interactive shells, SOCKS5/HTTP proxying, port forwarding, network scanning, and automated configuration harvesting that decrypts stored FortiGate credentials, including VPN pre-shared keys, SSL-VPN credentials, and LDAP secrets. Russian-language artifacts, AD enumeration, browser credential theft, RDP enablement, and exfiltration of Exchange .pst files to Wasabi S3 point to a Russian-speaking, financially motivated group; two US organizations confirmed full-network intrusions. Fixes include FortiOS 7.6.4/7.4.9/7.2.12/7.0.18+ and FortiSwitchManager 7.2.7/7.0.6+, plus blocking CAPWAP on internet-facing interfaces.

GBHackers · 7d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-252492

Large Language Models for HVAC Operations in Building Energy Systems: A Critical Review of Methods, Applications, and Deployment Readiness

Systematic review of 66 studies finds LLMs for HVAC operations are mostly research-stage, with no ready-now deployment and only four pilot-level studies.

A critical review of 66 peer-reviewed studies from 2023 to March 2026 examines LLMs for HVAC operations in building energy systems. Only four studies reach pilot-level evidence, none reports sustained operational deployment, and 63 of 66 are research-only. Conventional ML, MPC, and RL remain dominant for high-frequency control and short-horizon forecasting, and the evidence supports LLMs primarily as semantic and workflow layers rather than autonomous controllers.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 12d agoAI research

PAPERMILL Hackers Abuse Signed Notepad++ to Deploy VenomRAT in Tax Audit Attacks

PAPERMILL phishing campaign abuses a signed Notepad++ copy and tax-audit lures to deploy VenomRAT against targets in India.

JUMPSEC tracks PAPERMILL as an emerging cluster whose emails pass SPF, DKIM, and DMARC and deliver tax-audit themed disk images. The mounted image pairs a legitimately signed, renamed executable with a rogue libcurl.dll for DLL sideloading, then uses a Donut shellcode loader to run VenomRAT 6.0.3 in memory with hidden VNC, data-stealing, and file-grabbing capabilities. The loader includes anti-analysis checks and RunOnce persistence, and lures plus China-connected infrastructure overlap with the Silver Fox ecosystem, though attribution remains unconfirmed.

Cyber Security News · 17h agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 2 sources

Thai Broadband Provider Hacked via Fortinet Vulnerability

Hackers exploited Fortinet CVE-2024-21762 RCE to breach Thai broadband provider 3BB, deploying MeshCentral backdoors and credential-harvesting tools across its network.

Hunt.io uncovered an intrusion staging directory in Thailand containing 298 files of custom tooling built for Triple T Broadband (3BB) and its former owner Jasmine. Initial access came via fingerprinting a FortiGate SSL-VPN appliance and exploiting CVE-2024-21762 for remote code execution, after probing CVE-2018-13379, CVE-2022-42475, and CVE-2023-27997. The actor also probed F5 BIG-IP for CVE-2021-22986, CVE-2022-1388, and CVE-2023-46747, escalated privileges with PwnKit and Dirty COW, used MeshCentral as a C2 backdoor, harvested SSH/database/SNMP/Radius credentials, deployed PHP web shells, and ran cleanup scripts to hide the intrusion.

SecurityWeek · 1d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2018-13379CVE-2022-42475CVE-2023-27997+4 CVEs

Hackers Deploy Agentic AI to Automate Exploitation and Mass Credential Harvesting

Google GTIG documents a financially motivated actor using a multi-agent AI framework to automate credential harvesting, compromising over 23,800 secrets within hours.

Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) documented a financially motivated actor that compromised an unnamed organization's cloud infrastructure and used a multi-agent AI framework to automate vulnerability scanning, credential harvesting, troubleshooting, and IP rotation. The operation went from planning to mass credential compromise in under six hours, harvesting more than 23,800 secrets including cloud and AI-service API keys via an exposed C2 dashboard called 'Recon'. The actor directed specialized agents using an AI coding chatbot and Markdown instruction files such as AGENTS.KNOWLEDGE.md and agentic_vuln_research.md. Google has not observed fully autonomous zero-day exploitation; the shift automates labor-intensive tasks like reconnaissance, account validation, and infrastructure management, sharply shrinking detection windows.

GBHackers · 1d agoThreat actor in the wild1

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

Hackers Use ClickFix Lures to Deploy MacSync Stealer and Bypass macOS Security.

ClickFix malvertising campaigns deliver MacSync, a macOS infostealer sold as MaaS that bypasses Gatekeeper via Terminal commands and steals credentials.

Threat actors use ClickFix social-engineering lures, SEO poisoning, and malvertising impersonating brands like Claude, ChatGPT, Zoom, and Docker to trick users into pasting curl-to-zsh commands into Terminal, evading Gatekeeper and notarization checks. The MacSync Stealer (formerly Mac.c, emerged April 2025, linked to developer 'Mentalpositive') is a 64-bit Mach-O stager with single-byte XOR string obfuscation that daemonizes, polls C2 with custom API-key headers, streams AppleScript payloads into osascript, and persists via fake LaunchAgents. It steals browser credentials, Keychain data, SSH keys, session tokens, and crypto wallets, exfiltrating archives in 10MB HTTP PUT chunks. Microsoft documented more than 30 related MacSync domains.

GBHackersupdated · 6d agofirst · 6d agoMalware in the wild 2 sources

Emerging Threat: (CVE-2026-60004) Gitea Remote Code Execution via ...

CVE-2026-60004 (CVSS 9.8) lets attackers with repository write access achieve RCE on self-hosted Gitea servers via malicious git hooks; fixed in 1.27.1.

CVE-2026-60004 is a CWE-94 code injection flaw in Gitea's POST /api/v1/repos/{owner}/{repo}/diffpatch endpoint, disclosed July 28, 2026 with a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.8 and credited to researcher Shai Rod (NightRang3r). An add/add collision with the three-way merge fallback (--3, Git 2.32+) writes attacker-controlled content into the temporary bare clone's hooks directory, where it executes as a live Git hook running commands as the Gitea OS user. Exploitation requires repository write access, but Gitea's default open registration allows anonymous users to obtain it, exposing app.ini secrets, database credentials, OAuth tokens, and mounted repositories; a public PoC requires no outbound callback. All releases from 1.17 through 1.27.0 are affected; the fix shipped in Gitea 1.27.1 on July 27, 2026, and Gitea Cloud instances were upgraded automatically.

Web discovery (articles for new exploits & KEV entries) · 8d agoVulnerabilityCVE-2026-600041

Adobe Patches Magento Zero-Day Exploited to Deploy Rust Backdoor and PHP Web Shell

Adobe patches actively exploited Magento zero-day CVE-2026-75650 (CVSS 10.0), abused since Sept 4 to deploy a Rust backdoor and PHP web shells.

Adobe released an emergency hotfix (VULN-39341) for CVE-2026-75650 (CVSS 10.0), dubbed StyleSmuggler by Sansec, which abuses Magento's template system via PHP code injection to trigger unauthenticated remote code execution in Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source. Exploitation began September 4, 2026, with attackers deploying a Rust-based Linux backdoor and a PHP dropper that writes a web shell; one managed server was compromised 50 minutes after the first report. Previdian honeypots recorded 12 exploitation attempts from two unique IPs in China and Romania since September 7, all unsuccessful. Adobe urges merchants to apply the patch and rotate encryption keys.

The Hacker News · 8d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-75650

Magento StyleSmuggler zero-day exploited to deploy Linux backdoor

StyleSmuggler zero-day in Magento and Adobe Commerce is actively exploited in the wild to deploy a Rust-based Linux backdoor; fix not yet released.

A zero-day dubbed StyleSmuggler affecting all versions of Magento and Adobe Commerce is being actively exploited, with the first observed incident on September 4 on a fully patched site. The exploit injects PHP code via Magento's template system through a fake 'failed-payment' email to achieve code execution, installing a Rust-based backdoor disguised as kworker/u:8:0 or fc-cache with a 30-minute cron job for persistence. The backdoor communicates via TLS/WebSockets or UDP port 123 masquerading as NTP traffic, checks TracerPid to detect tracing, and can receive remote commands. Adobe confirmed it is working on a fix with no timeline; Sansec recommends disabling GraphQL as mitigation and monitoring for suspicious cron entries and kworker or fc-cache processes. Magento is installed on more than 160,000 websites, including 14,000 of the top 1 million sites.

BleepingComputer · 9d agoExploit / PoC in the wild

North Korean Hackers Deploy New Linux Espionage Toolkit

Rapid7 says North Korea-aligned actors use a new Linux espionage toolkit (ted HAProxy backdoor, CurlRAT) against South Korean automotive and media targets.

Rapid7 reports a stealthy Linux framework comprising a custom HAProxy backdoor ('ted'), trojanized system binaries (agetty, atd, crond, polkitd, sshd), an SSH keylogger, and CurlRAT that polls C&C every 12 hours. Initial access came via a Groupware login portal flaw, with credential harvesting enabling lateral movement to internal systems. The toolkit supports long-term surveillance, HTTP traffic interception/injection, and drive-by downloads, likely in use since late 2024. Infrastructure and artifacts overlap Operation SyncHole, suggesting Lazarus or APT37 involvement.

SecurityWeek · 9d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Impersonating IT support: how threat actors turn a remote session into enterprise-wide access

Microsoft details Teams IT-support impersonation campaigns deploying Node.js implants, AD reconnaissance, and WinRM lateral movement toward domain controllers.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence describes a human-operated campaign where attackers impersonate IT/helpdesk staff via Microsoft Teams external collaboration, talk users into granting remote sessions, and use RMM tools for interactive access. During the session they run PowerShell to silently install a malicious MSI that stages a portable Node.js runtime and obfuscated JavaScript implant for C2, executing follow-on payloads via rundll32. Operators then perform host and Active Directory reconnaissance, capture desktop screenshots, and pivot via WinRM on port 5985 to domain controllers and certificate authorities. The hands-on-keyboard chain, which can precede data theft and ransomware, blends into normal operations by relying on Teams, Quick Assist, msiexec, and Node.js; Microsoft shares hunting and mitigation guidance.

Microsoft Security Blog · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild

HiddenLayer nabs $100M as enterprises rush to secure their AI deployments

AI security startup HiddenLayer raised a $100 million Series B led by Delta-v Capital as enterprise spending on securing AI deployments accelerates.

HiddenLayer, which protects AI models, agents, and workflows from adversarial attacks, vulnerabilities, and code injections, raised a $100 million Series B led by Delta-v Capital with participation from Ten Eleven Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft's M12, and Booz Allen Hamilton. The company says annual recurring revenue grew more than 10x to the tens of millions of dollars, with customers including the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and a frontier model provider with over 700 million weekly users. Gartner estimates enterprise spending on AI security products will reach $2.83 billion in 2026, up 83% from 2025, and nearly $4.78 billion next year.

TechCrunch · Security · 14d agoIndustry1

Attackers Exploit Critical Switchvox Flaw to Deploy Reverse Shells Without Credentials

Attackers exploit unauthenticated SQL injection CVE-2026-9586 in Sangoma Switchvox to run PostgreSQL commands and deploy reverse shells.

Threat actors are exploiting CVE-2026-9586 (CVSS 9.3), an unauthenticated SQL injection in Sangoma Switchvox SMB Edition 8.3 (104997), since August 30, 2026, running arbitrary SQL as the PostgreSQL superuser and achieving remote code execution. The /pa endpoint concatenates the user-controlled PhoneIP value into PostgreSQL queries; attackers can extract database contents, escalate to Switchvox web administrator, exfiltrate the cookie signing key to forge authentication, and invoke reverse shells. Sangoma patched the flaw in Switchvox 8.4.0.2 on July 14, 2026, roughly 4,000 instances are internet-exposed (mostly in the US), and honeypot activity from IP 176.65.148.184 deploys reverse shells followed by Base64-encoded process enumeration.

The Hacker News · 14d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-9586

Top 10 Best Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) Solutions in 2026

2026 CASB guide ranks Netskope first for depth and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps for Microsoft estates, as standalone CASB fades into SSE.

Buyer's guide covers ten CASB products across four enforcement modes: API, forward proxy, reverse proxy and log-based discovery. Netskope leads on SaaS activity context depth, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps wins on Microsoft 365 E5 estate economics. The guide argues standalone CASB purchases have largely disappeared into SSE platforms and increasingly overlap with SSPM.

Cyber Security News · 1d agoTools

'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 · 2d agoThreat actor in the wild

Pro-Ukraine Hacking Cat group deploying new malware against Russian targets

Kaspersky links pro-Ukraine hacktivist group Hacking Cat to Gorilla RAT and Monkey Ransomware in destructive attacks on Russian targets.

Kaspersky reports that pro-Ukraine group Hacking Cat, active since February 2024, has shifted from defacements to destructive encryption attacks, using a previously undocumented Gorilla RAT remote-access tool and Monkey Ransomware, which appends the .monkey extension to files. Initial access in some attacks came from exploited Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities, and rapid multi-language malware variants suggest possible generative AI assistance. Shared tools like Nemo Wiper across groups including Ukrainian Cyber Alliance complicate attribution, and targets include Rosatom contractor and heating provider Donbassteploenergo.

The Record · 2d agoThreat actor in the wild

Weekly Cybersecurity Newsletter Bulletin – Microsoft 0-day, FortiOS, PAN-OS Flaw, Revolut Data Breach, and 20+ Stories

Weekly roundup: Microsoft patches 973 flaws including two actively exploited zero-days; FortiOS CAPWAP flaw deploys PivotC2 RAT; PAN-OS root RCE disclosed.

Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday fixed 973 vulnerabilities, including two zero-days under active exploitation: CVE-2026-85880 (Windows ALPC) and CVE-2026-81963 (Windows Update Stack), both elevation-of-privilege bugs. SOCRadar reported active exploitation of CVE-2025-25249 (CVSS 9.8) in FortiOS CAPWAP, deploying a Node.js RAT called PivotC2 that exfiltrates Exchange mailboxes to Wasabi cloud storage; 178 devices were compromised out of 30,000 scanned IPs, attributed to a Russian-speaking financially motivated group. Palo Alto disclosed CVE-2026-0310, a 9.2-rated buffer overflow enabling root code execution on PA-Series firewalls, and Fortinet disclosed CVE-2026-84393, a ZTNA certificate validation MITM flaw. Cyera also revealed CVE-2026-6471 ('PostGREShell'), a 12-year-old PostgreSQL logical-decoding flaw allowing code execution via REPLICATION-privileged accounts.

Cyber Security News · 3d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-85880CVE-2026-81963CVE-2025-25249+3 CVEs3

Evaluating Context Segmentation in Locally Deployable SLMs for Cybersecurity CTF Tasks

Context segmentation framework boosts memory-constrained gemma-4 agents on picoCTF, solving 18.52% of tasks standard execution fails, highlighting local SLM offensive risk.

The paper introduces context segmentation, a two-level agentic framework that divides long-horizon CTF exploitation tasks into contextually isolated sub-problems to counter context bloat and cognitive degradation from accumulated tool-call outputs. It evaluates memory-constrained gemma-4 models on the picoCTF dataset; the E4B model achieves competitive rewards with superior token efficiency compared to brute-force retries. It solves 18.52% of tasks that standard agentic execution fails to complete. The work frames locally deployed open-weight SLMs as an escalating risk since they bypass proprietary API guardrails; code is released on GitHub.

arXiv cs.CR · 5d agoAI safety & security1

Hackers Deploy New SloppyRAT via ClickFix to Enable Ransomware Lateral Movement

Zscaler discovered SloppyRAT, a ClickFix-delivered RAT that gives ransomware operators reconnaissance, remote execution, and SOCKS proxy pivoting for lateral movement.

Zscaler identified SloppyRAT in June 2026, linked to a ransomware-related threat actor. The infection chain starts with a ClickFix lure abusing finger.exe over TCP port 79, then uses curl.exe, IronPython, CastleLoader, and CastleRAT before reflectively loading SloppyRAT as a DLL in memory. The RAT supports HTTPS command-and-control, system inventory, file operations, Defender tampering, and a reverse SOCKS proxy, with evasion features including runtime code encryption, indirect syscalls, certificate pinning, and a possible EtherHiding blockchain fallback. Its persistence code is buggy and the malware appears under development, but the pre-encryption foothold gives defenders a window to stop intrusions.

Cyber Security News · 5d agoMalware in the wild 3 sources

Can Edge-Deployable Vision-Language Models Identify Species?

Evaluation of 2-8B VLMs (Qwen3-VL, Gemma3) against BioCLIP on camera-trap species ID shows all models degrade sharply on field imagery.

The study tests whether edge-deployable 2-8B vision-language models carry genuine taxonomic knowledge, comparing Qwen3-VL 2B/4B/8B and Gemma3 4B against the 300M specialist BioCLIP on a 96-species task across clean iNaturalist photos and six LILA.science camera-trap collections. All models degrade 9.6-26.6 percentage points on field imagery, and BioCLIP outperforms every VLM by 33.2-59.2 points on an expanded 200-image sample, suggesting specialized data rather than scale drives the gap. Under open-set prompting, 5.9-9.6% of responses are syntactically valid but taxonomically nonexistent species names, with fabrication rankings replicating across evaluation sets.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 6d agoAI research1

Hackers Deploy Hundreds of AI Agents to Compromise 440 PaperCut Servers

AI-agent campaign exploited PaperCut CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078, compromising 440 servers at 395 organizations and reaching Domain Admin in 12.

GreyNoise tracked a likely Russian-speaking actor that used AI agents (OpenAI Codex, a DeepSeek model) to exploit an authentication bypass (CVE-2026-81578) and unsafe-reflection RCE (CVE-2026-82078) in PaperCut NG/MF starting August 31, 2026. At least 440 servers across 395 organizations in 48 countries were compromised, with one US high school going from initial access to Domain Admin in seven minutes. Escalation relied on LSASS and registry credential harvesting, pass-the-hash, the noPac technique (CVE-2021-42278/CVE-2021-42287), new Domain Admin accounts, and DCSync to steal NTDS.DIT data. Operators staged registry hives, used Ligolo tunneling and certutil Base64 encoding for exfiltration, and one attempt was blocked by Cloudflare WAF.

GBHackers · 7d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-81578CVE-2026-82078CVE-2021-42278+1 CVEs1

NVIDIA Brings Real-Time AI to Broadcast, Sports and Global Streaming at IBC

NVIDIA expanded its AI for Media suite at IBC 2026, adding NIM microservices for synthetic video detection, body pose, frame generation, upscaling and HDR.

At IBC 2026 in Amsterdam, NVIDIA announced a major expansion of NVIDIA AI for Media, a collection of GPU-accelerated SDKs, NIM microservices and blueprints for broadcast and streaming workflows. The Synthetic Video Detector (SVD) NIM microservice reaches 99.3% accuracy on text-to-video and 97.7% on image-to-video content, while Video Frame Generation boosts frame rates 2x-4x and Video Super Resolution adds 10-bit support; TrueHDR converts SDR to HDR at up to roughly 2,000 nits. Partners including Dalet, TwelveLabs, Wowza, Vizrt and Ross Video are integrating the new services into verification, compliance and live-production workflows.

NVIDIA Blog · 7d agoAI industry

Hackers deploy Linux rootkit on F5 BIG-IP APM devices, hiding web shell in memory

Sophos analyzed a Linux rootkit, tracked as PoisonedRefresh, on hacked F5 BIG-IP APM devices hiding an in-memory web shell linked to exploited CVE-2025-53521.

Sophos and ESET analyzed an implant (named PoisonedRefresh by ESET) deployed on compromised F5 BIG-IP APM appliances, which serves enterprise, financial, government, and public sector deployments. The second-stage payload intercepts __libc_start_main, hooks Apache's APR module loader (apr_dso_load), RC4-encodes key strings, and rewrites PHP file reads in memory to embed a web shell inside legitimate scripts like apm_css.php3, full_wt.php3, and webtop_popup_css.php3, leaving on-disk files unchanged. A related installer component infects /usr/sbin/httpd, persists across BIG-IP upgrade images, modifies SELinux configuration, and deploys the payload. The malware also creates a Unix domain socket at /run/bigtlog.pipe that hands authenticated local connections to /bin/bash; F5 links the activity to CVE-2025-53521, an unauthenticated RCE in BIG-IP APM already exploited in the wild.

Help Net Security · 7d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-535211

Top 10 Best Application Control & Allowlisting Tools in 2026

Roundup ranks 2026 application allowlisting tools, scoring ThreatLocker 8.8/10, Airlock Digital 8.5/10 and free Microsoft WDAC among top default-deny options.

This is a scored buyer's guide to ten application control and allowlisting tools for 2026, with ThreatLocker ranked first (8.8/10), Airlock Digital second (8.5/10) and Microsoft's built-in WDAC/AppLocker third (7.2/10). It notes ransomware has renewed interest in default-deny execution controls and that CISA and other agencies list application control among the most effective yet under-deployed mitigations. The evaluation is research-based with no lab testing, weighting policy automation at 30% and operability at 25%.

Cyber Security News · 7d agoIndustry1

Top 10 Best Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) Solutions in 2026

Roundup of 2026 mobile threat defense tools recommends Zimperium and Lookout for targeted-attack detection and Defender for Endpoint for Microsoft shops.

This guide ranks ten mobile threat defense solutions, recommending Zimperium and Lookout for on-device detection against targeted users such as executives and journalists, and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint mobile for organizations already licensing Microsoft 365 E5. It explains that MDM enforces configuration while MTD detects attacks, and that mobile phishing now arrives via SMS, messaging apps and QR codes rather than email. It also highlights mercenary spyware and zero-click exploits as shifting requirements for high-risk users, referencing Apple's threat-notification program and Lockdown Mode.

Cyber Security News · 7d agoIndustry

Hackers breach F5 BIG-IP APM devices to deploy Linux rootkit

Sophos analyzed a Linux rootkit on F5 BIG-IP APM devices that injects a fileless PHP web shell, likely after CVE-2025-53521 exploitation.

Sophos analyzed a Linux rootkit targeting F5 BIG-IP APM environments, also tracked by ESET as PoisonedRefresh, which hijacks Apache's apr_dso_load module loader to inject a fileless PHP web shell into memory. The implant intercepts __libc_start_main, hides strings with RC4, creates a password-protected local UNIX socket backdoor for interactive Bash access, and persists across BIG-IP upgrade images while modifying SELinux configuration. It is likely a second-stage payload following exploitation of CVE-2025-53521, a critical RCE flaw F5 reclassified from a DoS issue in March. The ShadowServer Foundation tracked 795 F5 BIG-IP APM endpoints exposed online.

BleepingComputer · 8d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-53521

GTIG AI Threat Tracker: From Prompting to Autonomy – The Evolution of Adversarial AI

GTIG's Q2 2026 tracker shows adversaries adopting agentic AI workflows, including credential harvesting in under six hours and supply chain attacks by UNC6780.

Google Threat Intelligence Group's Q2 2026 report documents adversaries moving from basic prompting to agentic AI workflows and automation, including a cloud compromise followed by agent-enabled mass credential harvesting executed in under six hours. It tracks financially motivated actor UNC6780 (TeamPCP) conducting large-scale open source supply chain compromises across PyPI, npm, and Docker Hub since March 2026, deploying credential stealers. The report also highlights growing targeting of proprietary AI models, source code, prompts, and API credentials, plus LLMJacking practices where adversaries steal developer credentials or hijack cloud infrastructure to run unauthorized AI workloads.

Google Threat Intelligence · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Hackers Disable Endpoint Protection and Deploy Sliver Across Compromised Windows Domain

The Hunter's Ledger tracked campaign UTA-2026-024 using Sliver C2, Domain Admin account creation, and Ethereum-based C2 rotation to compromise a US organization's Windows domain.

The Hunter's Ledger tracked an intrusion at one unnamed US organization as UTA-2026-024, staged from exposed server 193.233.202.17 with a Sliver beacon. Operators created a non-expiring Domain Admin account, enabled RDP with NLA disabled, dumped SAM, SYSTEM and SECURITY hives plus LSASS memory, and disabled eight endpoint protection services. A Node.js implant resolved its C2 server from an Ethereum smart contract that rotated domains five times in five months, while SYSTEM scheduled tasks with backdated dates and DNS allowlist manipulation provided persistence. The infrastructure ties to a confirmed ransomware incident, but no encryptor deployment was proven in this intrusion.

Cyber Security News · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild

ThreatsDay: CEO Phishing Kits, 5K Dropbox Account Hacks, OAuth Traps + 17 More Stories

Microsoft warns of Teams IT-impersonation intrusions deploying Node.js implants; Spring Ring vishing hit 150+ employees across 10 companies; The Gentlemen ransomware claims 683 victims.

Microsoft warned of a human-operated campaign abusing Teams external collaboration to impersonate IT help desk staff, deploy malicious MSI packages staging Node.js runtimes and obfuscated JavaScript implants, then pivot to domain controllers over WinRM. Unit 42 documented the Spring Ring vishing operation targeting over 150 employees across at least 10 companies using 26 attacker identities, including an NTLM relay variant against domain controllers. Sophos reported The Gentlemen ransomware (Gold Sherwood) reached 683 total victims by end of July 2026, adding 169 in July, with a playbook using BYOVD-based EDR killers and backup tampering. Group-IB found the Outsider phishing-as-a-service platform created 700+ new phishing pages within a month despite law enforcement takedowns.

The Hacker News · 13d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Attackers Turn Trusted Node.js Runtime Into Malware Delivery Tool in Targeted Attacks

Symantec reports multiple threat actors, including KongTuke, abusing the trusted signed Node.js runtime and blockchain C2 (EtherHiding) to deliver backdoors in targeted attacks.

Symantec's Threat Hunter Team (Broadcom) reports that since February 2026 attackers have used the legitimate signed node.exe binary and interpreted scripts to deliver implants while evading signature-based detection, hitting government departments, technology companies, and hotels. One intrusion at an Asian technology firm (March 23–July 25, 2026) used ClickFix social engineering, the official Node.js installer, and EtherHiding to fetch commands via the Ethereum blockchain after AdaptixC2 and Cobalt Strike attempts were blocked. Related chains involve KongTuke (Woodgnat) using ModeloRAT, Mistic, NexShield, and GateKeeper, plus C2Looper, AsukaStealer, and EtherRAT; GuidePoint Security separately linked a fake-CAPTCHA ClickFix campaign to at least 31 compromised organizations using the Polygon blockchain as a dynamic C2 address book.

The Hacker News · 13d agoThreat actor in the wild1

How Developers Prevent Production Risk at the Source

Wiz argues shift-left code-stage security cuts remediation costs and ships Wiz Code, WizOS, and WizCLI to catch flaws pre-deployment.

A Wiz blog post argues that fixing vulnerabilities at the code stage costs a fraction of production remediation, citing the node:20-slim base image which ships 14 known CVEs, three of them critical. It claims AI agents can now analyze open-source commits and generate working exploits in minutes, shrinking the window between a public fix and automated attacks. The post promotes WizOS near-zero-CVE base images, WizCLI and MCP-server checks inside developer and AI agent sessions, and Wiz Code scanning across pull requests, repositories, and pipelines covering SAST, SCA, secrets, and IaC misconfigurations.

Wiz Blog · 14d agoIndustry1

TerminalFix Uses Fake Cloudflare CAPTCHAs to Deploy Reverse

Microsoft details TerminalFix, a ClickFix variant using fake Cloudflare CAPTCHAs to make users run PowerShell payloads with reverse-tunnel implants.

Microsoft disclosed TerminalFix campaigns that direct users to run commands in Windows Terminal or PowerShell instead of the Run dialog, increasing the chance multi-line scripts execute. Compromised websites serve fake Cloudflare CAPTCHA verifications; the resulting PowerShell command downloads a ZIP with legitimate LockScreenContentServer.exe and rogue dui70.dll for DLL sideloading, retrieves payloads hidden in PNG images from attacker domains, persists via Registry Run keys and scheduled tasks, and performs domain trust and Active Directory reconnaissance. A Python-based reverse-tunnel implant (client.py) tunnels arbitrary TCP traffic over an encrypted WebSocket to gitnow[.]dev:443, giving attackers network-level proxy access that could enable privilege escalation, security-tool tampering, data theft or ransomware. Microsoft recommends AppLocker restrictions, PowerShell script block logging and ClickFix awareness training.

The Hacker News · 17d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

⚡ Weekly Recap: AI-Powered PLC Attacks, GitLab Attacks, Stripe Key Leaks and More

US agencies warn of AI-assisted attacks on exposed Siemens PLCs; the week also saw GitLab CVE-2026-19478 exploited and trojanized npm packages found.

The weekly recap leads with a US government warning that threat actors use AI-generated scripts and Censys/ZoomEye scanning to attack internet-exposed Siemens S7 PLCs in water, energy and manufacturing, calling it an active threat. Other stories include active exploitation of GitLab CVE-2026-19478 (CVSS 9.4, unauthenticated project rewriting), 14 trojanized npm packages delivering the RedC2 4.0 Linux backdoor, and the Zombie Card attack that revives expired Visa cards for contactless payment fraud. It also covers suspected Russian clusters UNC6293, UNC7005 and UNC5976 phishing campaigns, a faster Cloudflare Workers Spectre JWT leak, and a bespoke Cl0p JSP web shell deployed after exploiting PTC Windchill flaws.

The Hacker News · 19d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-194781

Dark Caracal Deploys New Go Malware With Ethereum-Based C2 Fallback

Dark Caracal targeted a Venezuelan communications organization with new Go-based GoCaracal malware and an updated Bandook backdoor using Ethereum smart-contract C2 fallback.

Arctic Wolf Labs linked a June 2026 intrusion against a communications organization in Venezuela to Dark Caracal, an espionage group associated with Lebanon's General Directorate of General Security (GDGS). The group deployed a previously undocumented Go-based framework called GoCaracal in lightweight and extended builds alongside a Delphi-loaded Bandook backdoor, with delivery via phishing emails carrying weaponized SVG attachments through URL shorteners. The extended build uses a custom Solidity contract, BulletproofC2, on Ethereum to retrieve replacement C2 addresses without redeploying malware, and Arctic Wolf traced 249 related samples from January to July 2026 showing a modular evolution arc.

Security Affairs · 20d agoThreat actor in the wild

August 2026 Patch Tuesday forecast: How do we deal with the patch apocalypse?

August 2026 Patch Tuesday forecast urges risk-based triage as AI inflates CVE volume, flags actively exploited SharePoint RCE CVE-2026-50522 and LegacyHive Windows flaw.

July 2026 Patch Tuesday set records with over 600 CVEs, including 405 for Windows 11 and Server 2025, though only two were exploited zero-days and one was publicly disclosed. The author recommends prioritizing known-exploited and internet-facing vulnerabilities, matching patches to high-risk systems, and accelerating ring-based deployment toward Microsoft's suggested three-day turnaround. Notable items include actively exploited SharePoint RCE CVE-2026-50522 enabling machine key theft, the unassigned LegacyHive Windows User Profile Service flaw, and several end-of-servicing dates for Windows and Exchange.

Help Net Security · 22d agoIndustry in the wildCVE-2026-505221

Wire It, Run It, Deploy It: AI Workflows in Gradio

Hugging Face published a guide on wiring, running, and deploying AI workflows in the Gradio framework.

Hugging Face's blog post 'Wire It, Run It, Deploy It: AI Workflows in Gradio' is a tutorial on building AI workflows with Gradio. It covers wiring components, running applications, and deploying AI-powered apps. No security incident or vulnerability content is included.

Hugging Face Blog · 23d agoAI tools & infra

UAT-10147 deploys SPECTRE: A cross-platform implant with Linux rootkit and BYOVD capabilities

Cisco Talos identifies UAT-10147 deploying the SPECTRE implant with cross-platform C2, credential theft, and kernel-level EDR bypass.

Cisco Talos reports that the tracked threat actor UAT-10147 is deploying a newly identified implant named SPECTRE. SPECTRE supports cross-platform command-and-control, process injection, credential theft, and anti-analysis protections. It also includes a Linux rootkit and BYOVD (bring your own vulnerable driver) capability enabling kernel-level EDR bypass, marking an evolution in commodity intrusion tooling.

Cisco Talos · 27d agoThreat actor in the wild