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13 stories in the last 30d

AI helps scammers build convincing antivirus renewal pages

Malwarebytes found scammers using AI to build polished fake antivirus renewal pages impersonating Avast, harvesting names, emails and phone numbers for follow-up fraud calls.

Malwarebytes analyzed a fake Avast renewal site targeting Belgian users in French, claiming a €129.99 Avast Premium Security renewal and collecting name, email address and Belgian mobile number through a cancellation form. Leftover code comments written in polite French and other stylistic clues suggest the page was generated with AI assistance, and the form was never connected to send data anywhere. The scam typically progresses to phone calls pressuring victims to install remote access software, and AI substantially lowers the barrier for producing polished, localized scam pages at scale.

Malwarebytes Labs · 19h agoPhishing & fraud

USN-8760-1: Linux kernel (NVIDIA) vulnerabilities

Canonical issues USN-8760-1 patching multiple Linux kernel (NVIDIA) vulnerabilities across numerous subsystems and CPU architectures.

Canonical published USN-8760-1 to correct several Linux kernel (NVIDIA) vulnerabilities that an attacker could possibly use to compromise the system. The update fixes flaws spanning UAPI, the kernel build system, ARM32, ARM64, RISC-V, S390, and x86 architectures. Patched subsystems also include the block layer, cryptographic API, Compute Acceleration Framework, Intel NPU driver, ACPI and Bluetooth drivers, and the hardware random number generator core.

Ubuntu Security Notices · 1d agoAdvisory

Phishing Powers 80% of Attacks on US Companies: How SOCs Can Detect It Early

Phishing drives 80% of attacks on US companies; FBI recorded 158,436 BEC victims and over $20B in losses from 2013-2023.

A vendor-authored analysis claims phishing powers roughly 80% of attacks on US companies, citing FBI statistics of 158,436 business email compromise victims and more than $20 billion in reported losses between 2013 and 2023. It describes modern phishing using compromised infrastructure, redirect chains, dynamic pages, and adversary-in-the-middle techniques, including a recent campaign targeting tens of thousands of primarily US users. The piece promotes ANY.RUN Threat Intelligence Feeds and TI Reports, claiming 99% unique high-confidence IOCs, 21-minute faster MTTR, and 30% fewer Tier 2 escalations.

Cyber Security News · 8d agoPhishing & fraud

Scammers are getting smarter about where they target you

Malwarebytes data shows scammers tailor fraud by platform: 90% of toll scams arrive via email/SMS and MrBeast is now the most impersonated person.

Malwarebytes threat research analyzed global scam data from April 15 to July 14, 2026, across more than 20 scam types, finding each type favors a specific channel such as email, SMS, phone, or social media. Roughly nine in ten toll scams arrive by email or text, about half of IRS scams come by phone, and MrBeast is impersonated in about 30% of impersonation scams. The most impersonated brands are Google, Microsoft, Apple, Roblox, and Amazon, and Malwarebytes blocks around 500,000 phishing websites daily. Gaming scams on Roblox, Steam, Discord, and Minecraft increasingly carry losses of $1,000 or more, with 15-19% activity spikes in mid-2026.

Malwarebytes Labs · 14d agoPhishing & fraud

Muhstik Botnet Attacks Tomato Routers to Harvest New IoT Devices

Unit 42 found a Muhstik botnet variant brute-forcing Tomato router web authentication to harvest IoT devices for crypto mining and DDoS attacks.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers in December 2019 identified a new Muhstik botnet variant scanning Tomato routers on TCP 8080 and brute-forcing default admin credentials, targeting roughly 4,600 exposed devices found via Shodan. The variant also scans WordPress and Webuzo installations and exploits the Oracle WebLogic deserialization flaw CVE-2019-2725 for unauthenticated remote code execution. Muhstik, active since March 2018, self-propagates like a worm and typically monetizes infections through cryptocurrency mining and DDoS attacks controlled via an IRC C2 channel.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 28d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2019-2725

Eleethub: A Cryptocurrency Mining Botnet with Rootkit for Self

Unit 42 uncovered Eleethub, a Perl-based Bitcoin mining botnet using a crafted rootkit and libprocesshider to evade detection, still under development with few infections.

Unit 42 discovered an under-development Perl Shellbot campaign that mines Bitcoin using xmrig and emech while evading detection via a rootkit that replaces the ps tool and the LD_PRELOAD-based libprocesshider.so library. Infected devices download a malicious shell script, connect to IRC-based C2 at eleethub.com and the UnderNet network, and can receive commands for UDP/TCP floods, port scans, and HTTP attacks. The botnet can affect Unix systems and Windows 10 hosts running a Linux subsystem, and its operators use the 'Los Zetas' branding, though they are unlikely to be the Mexican drug cartel. Researchers found only a few compromised 'zombies' before the campaign expanded.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 28d agoMalware in the wild

VU#369611: ExLlamaV3 contains Denial of Service vulnerability via insufficient bounds checking on kernel dispatch index

CERT/CC details CVE-2026-84286, an out-of-bounds memory access in ExLlamaV3's CUDA extension causing denial-of-service crashes; fixed via merged pull request.

CERT/CC published VU#369611 for CVE-2026-84286, an out-of-bounds memory access in the exllamav3_ext CUDA extension of the ExLlamaV3 LLM inference library. A crafted input with kernel parameter K set to 0 produces a negative index into a fixed 24-entry kernel dispatch array, causing a CUDA illegal memory access and denial-of-service crashes. The vendor fixed the issue in the main repository via pull request #310, and maintainers of 49 downstream projects, including ezexl3 and MawDiscord, are advised to rebuild against the patched version. The issue was reported by Nathan Keys and impact is limited to crashes and instability, not code execution.

Microsoft Excel KB5002914 update breaks copy and paste for some users

Microsoft's September Patch Tuesday update KB5002914 breaks copy-and-paste and formula dragging in Excel 2016 through 2024; uninstalling the update restores functionality.

Users on Reddit and Microsoft Q&A report that the KB5002914 security update shipped in the September 2026 Patch Tuesday breaks copy-and-paste, autofill, and formula dragging in Excel. The problem spans Office 2016 through 2024 across MSI and Click-to-Run installations, including Office LTSC Standard 2021, with some teams blocked after widespread patching. Uninstalling KB5002914 or downgrading the Office build restores functionality, though replacing the excel.exe binary is not recommended. BleepingComputer could not reproduce the issue on Excel 2019 Version 2508 Build 19127.20302 and contacted Microsoft for comment.

BleepingComputerupdated · 1d agofirst · 6d agoVulnerability 3 sources

VU#859658: Skullcandy Dime 3 wireless earbuds contain an unauthenticated Bluetooth pairing vulnerability

Skullcandy Dime 3 earbuds (CVE-2025-20701) accept Bluetooth pairings without owner consent, letting in-range attackers hijack audio or capture microphone; no firmware update path exists.

CERT/CC's VU#859658 describes CVE-2025-20701 in the Airoha Bluetooth audio SDK, present in Skullcandy Dime 3 (Model S2DCW) firmware 1.0.0.28. A direct Bluetooth Classic pairing request with no PIN or physical confirmation completes via NoInputNoOutput, adding the attacker's device as trusted. Attackers in radio range can hijack the A2DP audio session, access the Hands-Free/Headset profile, and capture live microphone audio. Firmware 1.0.0.30 contains the effective patch, but Skullcandy says the Dime 3 does not support app-based firmware updates, leaving existing units unpatchable.

Jellyfin 12.0 security fixes arrive alongside the removal of legacy client logins

Jellyfin 12.0 ships security fixes for path traversal, first-run setup bypass, unsafe plugin names, and web client XSS, plus removal of legacy login paths.

Jellyfin 12.0 blocks requests built to reach files outside served folders, prevents setup-wizard re-runs on misconfigured servers, rejects unsafe plugin package names, and fixes web client cross-site scripting. The project published no CVE identifiers or severity ratings for the fixes. The release also drops legacy /emby/ and /mediabrowser/ endpoints, targets .NET 10, and breaks 10.11-era third-party plugins.

Help Net Security · 8d agoVulnerability

Once popular for attacking AI, ASCII smuggling is embraced by spammers

Spammers adopt ASCII smuggling—invisible Unicode tag characters—to evade email filters, with Microsoft Defender detections spiking to 2.5 million per day.

ASCII smuggling hides text in Unicode tag characters (e.g., U+E0041 for "A") that are invisible to humans but readable by LLMs and text processors. The technique gained attention as a stealthy prompt-injection vector and is now used by spammers to obfuscate keywords from email detectors. Microsoft reported Defender for Office smuggling detections jumped from roughly 21,000 per day to over 1.3 million in early February, reaching 2.5 million within four days, before falling sharply in mid-May.

Ars Technica · Security · 12d agoPhishing & fraud

Researchers Use Claude to Port Pre-Auth RCE Exploit From One PLC Model to Another

Forescout used Anthropic's Claude to port a working pre-auth RCE exploit for CVE-2021-31886 between WAGO PLCs, executing ARM shellcode on live hardware.

Forescout Vedere Labs used Claude interactively to port an RCE exploit for CVE-2021-31886, a CVSS 9.8 stack buffer overflow in the Nucleus FTP server's USER command, from a WAGO 750-852 to a WAGO 750-831 PLC, running attacker-supplied ARM shellcode. The final RCE stage cost $535.74 in API usage over 8 hours 32 minutes, and a follow-up attempt to build a C2 implant permanently bricked the device. CERT@VDE lists many Nucleus V1-based WAGO models as vulnerable with no updates available; Siemens plans no Nucleus NET remediation. The work follows a joint NSA/CISA/FBI/DOE/EPA advisory warning of AI-generated exploitation scripts targeting internet-exposed Siemens S7 PLCs.

The Hacker News · 14d agoResearchCVE-2021-318862

3 Vulnerabilities Found on AvertX IP Cameras

Unit 42 disclosed three vulnerabilities (CVE-2020-11623/4/5) in AvertX HD838 and 438IR IP cameras; AvertX has released patches.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers found three vulnerabilities in AvertX HD838 and 438IR outdoor surveillance cameras, which are rebranded Hikvision products: CVE-2020-11625 (user enumeration), CVE-2020-11624 (weak password requirements), and CVE-2020-11623 (exposed dangerous method/function). User enumeration responses facilitate brute-force attacks, the default admin credentials (admin/1234) are never enforced to change, and physical access to an exposed UART interface allows bootloader access and configuration modification. AvertX released a patch, removed the UART connector, and disabled the interface in the latest production batch.