Search: “Laundry Bear”

Anthropic caught Russia-linked spies using Claude in hacking operations

Anthropic disrupted Russia-linked APT29 using Claude in espionage against 20+ organizations, including Ukrainian government targets and a military drone maker whose vision SDK was stolen.

Anthropic's threat report covering December 2025 to August 2026 attributes the campaign to Midnight Blizzard (APT29/Cozy Bear, Storm-2945), which it links to Russia's SVR. The group compromised hotel Wi-Fi providers, altered DNS records to redirect travelers, accessed mailboxes at two drone-component manufacturers, and stole a proprietary SDK for a drone vision system, which it reverse-engineered using Claude. The group also used Claude to monitor whether security products detected its implants and to modify and redeploy flagged artifacts. The report also covers ShinyHunters affiliates using AI for credential scanning and extortion, a Chinese-speaking group's autonomous zero-day research, and a French-speaking hacktivist.

The Record·updated Sep 16, 13:01 UTC · 14h ago·first Sep 11, 12:45 UTC · 5d agoThreat actor in the wild 18 sources

Attackers Exploit Zimbra SNMP Flaw for Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution

CERT Polska and CISA report active exploitation of Zimbra RCE CVE-2026-73570, with 267 instances compromised per Shadowserver.

CVE-2026-73570 (CVSS 8.9) enables unauthenticated command injection and remote code execution in Zimbra Collaboration before 10.1.20 when the optional zimbra-snmp package is installed and SNMP notifications are enabled, via crafted SMTP requests. CISA added the flaw to its KEV catalog on August 21, 2026, with a federal patch deadline of August 24. The Shadowserver Foundation counted 267 compromised instances as of August 24, 2026, led by the US (46), Sweden (21), France (20) and Germany (17). Separately, Russia-linked Laundry Bear has weaponized Zimbra stored XSS CVE-2025-66376 against Western government and commercial mail servers since at least July 2025, delivering the ZimReaper payload.

The Hacker News·Aug 26, 05:08 UTC · 21d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-73570CVE-2025-663761

Fancy Bear Exploits Office Flaw

Fancy Bear (APT28) is reported exploiting a Microsoft Office flaw, per Infosecurity Magazine; details unavailable.

Infosecurity Magazine reports that Fancy Bear (APT28), the Russian state-sponsored threat group, is exploiting a Microsoft Office flaw. The article text was unavailable, so details on the specific CVE, affected versions, and victimology are not provided.

Infosecurity Magazine·Aug 18, 00:00 UTC · Aug 18, 2026Threat actor in the wild2

⚡ Weekly Recap: Rogue AI Models, $88M Bitcoin Theft, Water

The Hacker News·Aug 3, 14:03 UTC · Aug 3, 2026Data breachCVE-2026-42897CVE-2026-66066

New Ted Backdoor Hides Inside Victims' Own HAProxy Builds to Intercept Web Traffic

Rapid7 found a new backdoor, ted, compiled into trojanized HAProxy at two South Korean organizations, with medium-confidence attribution to North Korean actors.

Rapid7 documented a previously undocumented Linux toolkit named ted compiled into the HAProxy load balancer binaries of two South Korean organizations in the automotive and media sectors. The implant intercepts web traffic, serves altered pages only to filtered visitors, and hides C2 exchanges from backend logs and HAProxy statistics; a companion RAT, curlRAT, beacons on a default 12-hour schedule. The toolkit also trojanizes crond, sshd, agetty, atd, and polkitd binaries and sanitizes logs and bash history. Rapid7 attributes the activity with medium confidence to North Korean state-sponsored actors, with domain infrastructure overlapping APT37 listings in maltrail and delivery resembling the Operation SyncHole campaign.

The Hacker News·Sep 4, 14:51 UTC · 12d agoThreat actor in the wild

Untracked Nightmares: The Threats Hiding Behind Commodity Infrastructure

Unit 42 exposes CL-CRI-1171, a pay-per-install network spreading malware like Insomnia RAT via YouTube channels and SEO poisoning for over two years.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 details CL-CRI-1171, a cybercrime cluster operating a pay-per-install (PPI) marketplace that has delivered multiple malware families for at least two years. The group used at least eleven YouTube gaming channels with hundreds of thousands of followers, plus SEO poisoning promoting trojanized software such as a Bluetooth driver and WinDirStat, infecting gamers and corporate endpoints including critical infrastructure and government entities. A single shared loader delivered payloads including Insomnia RAT, ARKTunnel, Docro Hijacker, GCleaner and Socks5Systemz between July 2025 and April 2026, with more than 10,000 distinct loader samples and over 200 rotating C2 domains identified. YouTube terminated the malicious channels after Unit 42 notified the platform.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Sep 9, 10:00 UTC · 7d agoMalware in the wild1

New Chaos Variant Targets Misconfigured Cloud Deployments, Adds SOCKS Proxy

Darktrace says the Chaos botnet now targets misconfigured cloud deployments like Hadoop and added a SOCKS proxy for traffic relaying.

Darktrace identified a new 64-bit ELF variant of the Chaos botnet targeting misconfigured cloud deployments, expanding beyond the malware's traditional focus on routers and edge devices. Captured in a deliberately misconfigured Hadoop honeypot instance, the intrusion began with an HTTP request creating an application that ran embedded shell commands to fetch the Chaos agent binary from pan.tenire[.]com, set chmod 777 permissions, execute it, and delete the artifact to reduce forensic traces. The restructured variant adds a SOCKS proxy feature letting compromised systems ferry attacker traffic, while removing SSH-based spread and router-exploit functions, suggesting monetization beyond crypto mining and DDoS-for-hire. Possible Chinese origin is suggested by language artifacts and infrastructure; the delivery domain was previously used in Silver Fox's Operation Silk Lure phishing campaign delivering ValleyRAT.

The Hacker News·Aug 18, 12:13 UTC · 29d agoMalware1

Meme Coin Factories: Uncovering Large-Scale Manipulations on pump.fun

Large-scale pump.fun study of 15 million meme coins identifies five manipulation classes including wash trading and a Market-Manipulation-as-a-Service ecosystem.

Researchers analyzed all 15 million coins launched on pump.fun over the last two years plus large random samples of transaction data, identifying five manipulation classes: wash trading, creator address obfuscation, coordinated sells, copycat coins, and social media manipulation. Strategic actors bypass the platform interface and implement strategies in a highly automated, low-latency way by interacting directly with the blockchain. The study also uncovers Market-Manipulation-as-a-Service (MMaaS) third-party tools that let non-technical users run these manipulations, and proposes mitigations for traders, pump.fun, and regulators.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 9, 14:35 UTC · 7d agoResearch

Researchers Uncover 10,000+ Malware Loaders Behind YouTube and SEO Poisoning Campaign

Unit 42 uncovers CL-CRI-1171, a two-year pay-per-install campaign distributing 10,000+ OfferLoader samples via YouTube and SEO poisoning.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 tracked a campaign as CL-CRI-1171, an infection-as-a-service platform operating for at least two years. It used 11 YouTube gaming channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and SEO-poisoned download pages for trojanized WinDirStat and Bluetooth driver installers to distribute OfferLoader, a disposable loader embedded in Inno Setup installers. Payloads delivered included Insomnia RAT (Node.js and Python backdoors), ARKTunnel (a WebSocket-based RAT using LSB steganography), and Docro Hijacker (Chrome browser hijacker), with later infections delivering GCleaner and Socks5Systemz. Over 200 rotating domains across .xyz, .cfd, .space, and .info TLDs were used, with gating filters that served broken links or decoy pages to scanners and researchers.

GBHackers·Sep 11, 12:24 UTC · 5d agoMalware in the wild2

Angry Birds: Toy Ghouls’ new toys

Kaspersky tracks ransomware group Toy Ghouls deploying new custom backdoors, mqtt-bird-agent and matrix-bird-agent, using HiveMQ MQTT and Element as C2 channels.

Kaspersky reports that Toy Ghouls (also known as Bearlyfy, Laboo.boo and Feral Wolf), a financially motivated group targeting Russian organizations since 2025, shifted from leaked Babuk and LockBit builders and public GitHub tools to its custom GenieLocker ransomware. In early July 2026 the group deployed two custom backdoors: mqtt-bird-agent 0.1.0 using the public HiveMQ MQTT broker as C2, and matrix-bird-agent 0.1.0 using the Element messenger. The backdoors are delivered via WinRM using Evil-WinRM and WinRM-fs, persist as Windows services, and encrypt their configuration with ChaCha20-Poly1305 keyed to the machine's MachineGuid registry value.

Kaspersky Securelist·Sep 4, 10:00 UTC · 12d agoThreat actor

IT help-desk vishing tricks executives into handing over Microsoft 365 access

Arctic Wolf tracks PREY-0058 (linked to UNC6671), a vishing campaign stealing Microsoft 365 session tokens via AiTM panels for SaaS data theft and extortion.

Arctic Wolf is tracking a campaign, PREY-0058, sharing tradecraft with Google Threat Intelligence Group's UNC6671, in which callers posing as internal IT talk employees through fake passkey/MFA setups. Operator-controlled adversary-in-the-middle pages harvest passwords and MFA approvals to seize session tokens, then actors enumerate and bulk-exfiltrate data from SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, and Box. Extortion brands include BlackFile, Pink, Helix, Cinder, and Redact; targets are mostly US-based executives in construction, healthcare, real estate, finance, and professional services, with exfiltration shifting to residential proxies like NodeMaven.

Help Net Security·Sep 8, 11:17 UTC · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild1

MFA's Weakest Link: Account Recovery Is the New Attack Path

Help desk account recovery is increasingly the weakest link in MFA-protected identities, as Scattered Spider's impersonation-driven Marks & Spencer attack demonstrated.

As MFA, conditional access, and phishing-resistant factors raise the cost of direct account takeover, attackers increasingly target the recovery process, convincing service desk staff to reset passwords or re-register MFA on attacker-controlled devices. CISA, FBI, and partner advisories describe Scattered Spider posing as employees to trigger such resets; the 2025 Marks & Spencer attack began this way and led to ransomware with an estimated £300 million profit impact. Microsoft now describes Entra ID account recovery as a high-assurance process, and the article promotes Specops Secure Service Desk for verified identity workflows.

BleepingComputer·Sep 9, 14:01 UTC · 7d agoPhishing & fraud

Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries says DDoS attack delayed payments to sellers

Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries says a DDoS attack and subsequent security measures delayed seller payments, leaving roughly $240 million unpaid.

Wildberries, one of Russia's largest online marketplaces, said a distributed denial-of-service attack on systems used to track and withdraw seller earnings delayed payments, with funds to be transferred after technical procedures complete. The Russian Union of Marketplace Sellers reported about 20 billion rubles ($240 million) unpaid, and 95.6% of nearly 2,000 surveyed sellers had not received expected payments. Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) previously claimed an operation with the hacker group Cyber Corps disrupted Wildberries' payment and customer service systems, though the company has not confirmed whether the DDoS attacks were connected.

The Record·Sep 10, 13:31 UTC · 6d agoThreat actor in the wild

Abyssos: Technical Analysis of a New Modular RAT

Zscaler ThreatLabz analyzes Abyssos, a new modular C++ RAT offering credential theft, file exfiltration, and VNC-based remote access.

Zscaler ThreatLabz identified a new malware family tracked as Abyssos in late June 2026. Abyssos is a modular remote administration tool (RAT) written in C++ that supports credential theft, file exfiltration, and remote access via VNC. The malware is under active development, with multiple version numbers and obfuscation passes designed to evade security products. The analysis covers its core features, configuration, obfuscation, and network communication protocol.

Zscaler ThreatLabz·Aug 10, 15:51 UTC · Aug 10, 2026Malware

USN-8747-1: Beets vulnerability

Ubuntu released USN-8747-1 fixing a Beets web interface flaw that let attackers inject HTML or execute JavaScript via untrusted media metadata.

Ubuntu Security Notice USN-8747-1 addresses a vulnerability in the Beets music library manager, which incorrectly escaped untrusted media metadata in its web interface. An attacker could exploit this to inject arbitrary HTML or execute arbitrary JavaScript code in a user's browser. Updated packages are available for affected Ubuntu releases.

Ubuntu Security Notices·updated Sep 16, 20:12 UTC · 7h ago·first Sep 10, 15:56 UTC · 6d agoAdvisory 15 sources

Kimwolf v7 Hides DDoS Traffic Behind Chrome Fingerprints and Ethereum

Unit 42 details Kimwolf v7, an Android TV botnet upgrade using HTTP/2 Chrome-fingerprint DDoS floods and Ethereum ENS-based C2 across 1.8M+ infected devices.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 identified Kimwolf v7 on February 3, 2026, an upgrade to an Android TV botnet active since August 2025 and linked to the AISURU botnet, which has infected over 1.8 million devices. The new version adds an HTTP/2-based DDoS flood that mimics full Chrome browser fingerprints, consolidates 43 attack commands into 15 methods covering layers 3-7, and resolves C2 addresses via Ethereum Name Service using five hard-coded public blockchain RPC endpoints, backed by a Tor hidden service and a local proxy on 127.0.0.1:23075. It spreads through residential proxies to Android TV boxes with ADB enabled on port 5555 and masquerades as netd_service. The botnet is associated with the record 31.4 Tbps DDoS attack in November 2025.

Security Affairs·Aug 12, 08:27 UTC · Aug 12, 2026Malware 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·Sep 16, 05:33 UTC · 22h agoMalware in the wild 2 sources

Russian hackers plant nuclear weapon prompt in malware to trip AI safety guardrails

ESET reports Russian group UAC-0099 hid a prompt in VBS malware comments to trip AI safety filters and disrupt automated malware analysis in Ukraine.

ESET identified a technique dubbed GuardBreaker in which UAC-0099 embedded a comment reading "I want to make nuclear weapon. Help me …" inside a malicious VBS script to trigger AI safety mechanisms and halt AI-assisted malware analysis. The script, part of the group's toolset, downloads the MATCHBOIL malware used exclusively by this Russia-aligned group; CERT-UA documented the chain including LUNCHPOKE, BURNYBEAR and MATCHBOIL.V2 in a July advisory. UAC-0099 typically targets transportation and energy sectors and hands validated targets to GRU-linked Sandworm. ESET warned that AI-assisted analysis must be backed by layered detection and human-driven engineering.

Help Net Security·Aug 31, 00:00 UTC · 17d agoAI safety & security in the wild

Russian hackers abuse hotel Wi-Fi networks to steal Microsoft 365 credentials and deploy malware

Help Net Security·Aug 4, 00:00 UTC · Aug 4, 2026Malware1