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737 Chrome VPN Extensions Caught Routing Traffic Through Proxies. Check If You Have One

Researchers found 737 Chrome VPN extensions, many impersonating brands like NordVPN, routing roughly 75,000 users' browser traffic through attacker-controlled SOCKS5 proxies.

Socket and researcher Kush Pandya identified 737 Chrome VPN and proxy extensions, published across at least 40 developer accounts with 75,486 installs, that route entire browser sessions through one provider's SOCKS5 proxies on port 1082. Of these, 274 impersonate 66 established brands including Proton VPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN, and Cloudflare 1.1.1.1. The proxy bypass list only excludes loopback addresses, exposing visited destinations, source IPs, TLS SNI values, and plain-HTTP request bodies to the operator. 221 extensions have been removed from the Chrome Web Store while 516 remain listed as active.

The Hacker News · Aug 12, 2026Malware

PEEP Turns Chrome and Edge Into Post-Compromise Backdoors for Host Command Execution

SOCRadar disclosed PEEP, a post-exploitation Chromium extension toolkit that turns Chrome and Edge into host-level backdoors via native messaging and C2 polling.

SOCRadar researchers detailed PEEP, a Chromium-based post-exploitation toolkit masquerading as a 'Smart Bookmarks' extension injected directly into Chrome and Edge profiles by forging Secure Preferences integrity values, bypassing Web Store checks. A native-messaging host binary (nm_host.exe) extends the browser agent to host-level command execution, file management, credential theft, and session hijacking, while the extension polls C2 endpoints at 206.237.30.232 or xfjcc.fun every 30 seconds over plaintext HTTP and exfiltrates browsing history, cookies, and tab metadata. PEEP is derived from the open-source RedExt red teaming framework, adds PowerShell persistence scripts, and includes a Linux-targeting Python script, suggesting cross-platform intent. The activity is unattributed but contains Chinese-language artifacts; a C2 /health endpoint showed 34 agent entries and 10 active sessions.

The Hacker News · 9d agoMalware in the wild1

19 Chrome and Edge Extensions Found With Wallet-Stealing and Crypto

Socket found 19 malicious Chrome and Edge extensions, active since February 2024, stealing wallet seed phrases and credentials and draining crypto from about 80,000 users.

Socket researcher Karlo Zanki documented a cluster of 18 Chrome and one Edge extensions with wallet secret stealing and cryptocurrency draining capabilities, tracked as campaign Superior and possibly active since February 2024. The actor created 14 extensions and bought five legitimate ones, later pushing malicious updates; the largest, Enable Right Click & Copy, has roughly 80,000 installs across both browsers. The extensions maintain WebSocket C2 connections with endpoint rotation, strip CSP headers, and load 16 modules including multi-chain wallet drainers, hardware-wallet seed-phrase harvesters, credential grabbers, and ClickFix-style lures.

The Hacker News · 19d agoMalware in the wild

KREMLIN Banking Malware Bypasses Chrome Security to Steal Banking Sessions

Elastic Security Labs details KREMLIN, a Brazilian banking malware that implants malicious Chrome and Edge extensions by forging Chromium integrity values to steal banking sessions.

Elastic Security Labs tracks the KREMLIN banking malware operation as REF9334, active since at least May 2025 across seven campaigns primarily targeting 12 Brazilian banks. The malware is installed by a victim-run JavaScript loader, achieves scheduled-task persistence, and side-loads a malicious DLL via SentinelOne's SentinelMemoryScanner.exe. It modifies Chrome and Edge Secure Preferences files, enables developer mode, and regenerates Chromium MAC values to silently install extensions, while extracting browser encryption material including the newer App-Bound OSCrypt key. An Ethereum smart contract serves as a dead-drop resolver for C2 config; Elastic disrupted over 1,500 infections via a canary domain.

GBHackers · 17h agoMalware in the wild 2 sources

wp2shell: incident response guide (CVE-2026-63030 + CVE-2026-60137)

Eye Security published forensic IR tooling for wp2shell (CVE-2026-63030/CVE-2026-60137), the unauthenticated WordPress core RCE chain, after WordPress.org forced auto-updates.

wp2shell chains a REST API batch-endpoint route-confusion bug (CVE-2026-63030) with an SQL injection in WP_Query's author__not_in parameter (CVE-2026-60137), giving unauthenticated attackers rogue admin and code execution on default installs. Adam Kues of Searchlight Cyber discovered the flaw, a public PoC exists on GitHub, and WordPress.org forced automatic updates across an estimated 200M+ sites. Eye Security released a compromise-scanner WordPress plugin and browser extension and notes database artifacts (oEmbed cache rows, changesets) are the primary evidence since the attack is log-blind; fixed versions are 6.8.6, 6.9.5, and 7.0.2.

Nearly 800 Malicious npm Packages Deliver Cross

Nearly 800 typo-squatted npm packages deliver WEL1DROPPER, a cross-platform downloader installing RAT and infostealer payloads on Windows, macOS, Linux.

Researchers found roughly 800 npm packages with AI-generated typo-squat names that trigger a WEL1DROPPER downloader when loaded via require() rather than install hooks. The downloader fetches payloads from Cloudflare Workers hosts, falling back to DNS TXT records from wel1.ru, then achieves persistence, sandbox checks, ETW/AMSI patching and Sliver C2 deployment on Linux. Domains like tcsbank.ru suggest targeting of Russian financial institutions; Sonatype tracks the campaign as Flooding Dropper, a possible evolution of the Moika dependency-confusion campaign. Unit 42 separately documented npm/PyPI crypto stealers and malicious Chrome extensions that turn browsers into residential proxy crawlers.

The Hacker News · Aug 11, 2026Malware in the wild