Three Threat Groups Target Russian Enterprises With Backdoors, Ransomware, and Wipers
Kaspersky details NightEagle, Hacking Cat, and Toy Ghouls targeting Russian enterprises with Exchange backdoors, Gorilla RAT, and destructive Monkey ransomware.
Kaspersky reports three threat clusters targeting Russian enterprises: NightEagle (APT-Q-95), the pro-Ukrainian hacktivist group Hacking Cat, and Toy Ghouls. NightEagle uses compromised VPN credentials and the GhostContainer modular backdoor to fully compromise Microsoft Exchange servers, chaining CVE-2020-0688 exploitation, BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708), Active Directory vulnerabilities, and DCSync to seize domain controllers. Hacking Cat exploits Exchange flaws including CVE-2021-26855 and CVE-2026-42897 to deliver the Gorilla RAT and multiple Monkey ransomware variants written in Rust, .NET, C++, and Golang targeting Windows, Linux, and VMware ESXi, with some variants acting as wipers that never store the encryption key.
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.
[AINews] Jev: a “System One Model” that only decides/classifies/routes/scores — >100x faster, >200x cheaper than small frontier LLMs
TypeSafe launches Jev, an RLCD-trained decision model claiming 20-200x faster, 40-400x cheaper classification than frontier LLMs, alongside Gemini 3.8 Live and Neon.
TypeSafe's Jev is a 'System One' decision model trained with RLCD, claiming 20-200x faster and 40-400x cheaper classification and routing than frontier LLMs with free output tokens and no hallucinated text. Google launched Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, supporting 97 languages and async tool calls, debuting #1 on Artificial Analysis' speech-to-speech index at 82.6. Periodic Labs' Neon is a ~1T-parameter XRD analysis model trained with RL on proprietary lab data using 1,300 H200s, lifting FrontierXRD success from 2.7% to 55.3% and beating GPT-6 Astra at lower inference cost.
CISA Adds 5 Actively Exploited Artifactory, ScreenConnect, and RouterOS Flaws to KEV
CISA added five actively exploited JFrog Artifactory, ConnectWise ScreenConnect, and MikroTik RouterOS flaws to its KEV catalog.
CISA added five actively exploited vulnerabilities to the KEV catalog: CVE-2026-42016 and CVE-2026-42018 in JFrog Artifactory, CVE-2026-84869 in ConnectWise ScreenConnect (CVSS 9.9), and CVE-2026-67277 and CVE-2026-86060 in MikroTik RouterOS. The Artifactory bugs are chained with CVE-2026-82329 to gain administrative control, deploy malicious Groovy plugins, and install Rust-based backdoors. CERT Polska dubbed the RouterOS chain 'MikroTrick'; FCEB agencies must patch between September 13 and 25, 2026.