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rosbridge_library Protocol.incoming() quadratic CPU cost in JSON fallback

rosbridge_library's Protocol.incoming() has quadratic CPU cost in its JSON fallback, enabling denial of service via crafted messages.

Evgenios Gkritsis disclosed an algorithmic-complexity defect in rosbridge_suite's rosbridge_library Protocol.incoming() JSON fallback path, classified as CWE-407/CWE-1050. The flaw exists in the current ros2 branch and was not removed by PR #1199, having been present since the fallback was introduced. Crafted input can drive quadratic CPU cost and cause denial of service.

oss-securityupdated · 1d agofirst · 1d agoVulnerability 3 sources1

USN-8571-2: Apache HTTP Server regression

Ubuntu issues USN-8571-2 fixing an Apache HTTP Server regression that prevented startup when HTTP/2 proxying was enabled.

Ubuntu released USN-8571-2 to fix a regression introduced by USN-8571-1 in Apache HTTP Server. The earlier fix was incomplete due to a missing library symbol, causing Apache to fail to start when HTTP/2 proxying was enabled. The original advisory addressed CVE-2026-33007, a memory-handling flaw in mod_authn_socache allowing remote denial of service, and an HTTP response splitting vulnerability affecting multiple modules, credited to Pavel Kohout, Arkadi Vainbrand, Haruki Oyama, Merih Mengisteab, and Dawit Jeong.

Ubuntu Security Noticesupdated · 2h agofirst · 5d agoAdvisory 14 sourcesCVE-2026-33007

Risky Bulletin: Academics find source code overlaps between Geedge and China's Great Firewall

Academics linked Chinese vendor Geedge Networks' Tiangou Secure Gateway source code to one of the Great Firewall's three traffic filtering capabilities.

US researchers presenting at USENIX Security reconstructed Geedge Networks' Tiangou Secure Gateway firmware from over 100,000 leaked files, including Git repositories with commit history, and matched its filtering behavior to sections of China's Great Firewall. They found only 1 of 3 characterized DNS injectors matched Geedge code, noted the system relies on memory-unsafe C components and copied third-party code, and said its bugs could aid future circumvention tools. Geedge also exports censorship tools to Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Myanmar. The newsletter additionally rounds up multiple breaches.

Risky Business News · 26d agoResearch2

WireGuard-Linux Stack-Based Buffer Overflow in lsiio (Linux IIO Userspace Tool) Due to Unbounded fscanf

The Linux IIO userspace tool lsiio has a stack buffer overflow in find_type_by_name() caused by unbounded fscanf reads of oversized filesystem-backed attribute values.

A stack-based buffer overflow exists in the Linux Industrial I/O (IIO) userspace utility lsiio. In the find_type_by_name() function, the program reads an unbounded string from a filesystem-backed attribute into a fixed-size stack buffer using fscanf("%s", ...). A crafted or oversized attribute value causes a write beyond the bounds of the destination buffer. Despite the title's reference to WireGuard-Linux, the flaw described is in the IIO lsiio utility.

Full Disclosure · 12d agoVulnerability

PoisonedRefresh: A Fileless Linux Rootkit That Injects PHP Web Shells Into F5 BIG-IP APM Server Memory

Sophos details PoisonedRefresh, a fileless Linux rootkit that injects a memory-resident PHP web shell into F5 BIG-IP APM after exploitation of CVE-2025-53521.

On September 8, 2026, SophosLabs published an analysis of Linux/Agnt-IC (dubbed PoisonedRefresh by ESET) found in compromised F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager environments. Initial access leverages CVE-2025-53521, an unauthenticated RCE in BIG-IP APM when an access policy is configured on a virtual server; F5 confirmed exploitation and links the activity to cluster c05d5254, while Shadowserver observed 795 exposed vulnerable endpoints. A first stage hidden in a modified umount binary modifies /usr/sbin/httpd and SELinux configuration and embeds itself in BIG-IP upgrade images for persistence. The second-stage ELF intercepts __libc_start_main, hooks apr_dso_load, and injects a PHP web shell into libphp memory via mmap manipulation, leaving no disk artifacts, and exposes a /bin/bash shell via a local UNIX domain socket instead of a TCP port.

Security Affairs · 7d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-53521

Subgroup Packing for Batched PASTA Transciphering

Interleaved subgroup packing cuts PASTA homomorphic transciphering server cost by a median 1.60x at the expense of remaining noise capacity.

The paper studies how record word layout affects the cost of PASTA transciphering, where a server converts symmetrically encrypted records into homomorphic ciphertexts. A subgroup layout interleaves records so cyclic shifts preserve positions, reducing required displacements from 255 to 128 versus contiguous packing. In HElib across twelve paired corpora under six homomorphic keys, the median direct-to-subgroup server cost ratio is 1.60 including fresh generation, conversion, and two queries, but with less remaining noise capacity.

arXiv cs.CR · 5d agoResearch

F5 BIG-IP APM Malware Injects a PHP Web Shell Into Memory, Evading Disk Scans

Sophos found F5 BIG-IP APM malware that injects a PHP web shell into Apache's memory, evading disk scans, linked to exploited CVE-2025-53521.

Sophos's September 7 analysis describes malware tied to F5's c05d5254 activity that hooks apr_dso_load, modifies the libphp PHP module in memory, and injects a PHP web shell when Apache loads apm_css.php3, full_wt.php3 or webtop_popup_css.php3, leaving on-disk files clean. A separate installer infects /usr/sbin/httpd and umount, runs before Apache starts, disables SELinux (per ESET's related PoisonedRefresh analysis), and opens a local socket at /run/bigtlog.pipe for shell access. The activity is linked to CVE-2025-53521 in BIG-IP APM, rated 9.8 CVSS 3.1, patched in October 2025, added to CISA KEV on March 27, 2026.

The Hacker News · 7d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-53521

Stack buffer overflow in WAD

FortiOS explicit proxy WAD daemon stack buffer overflow (CVSS 5.1) allows code execution only with Kerberos and SOCKS configured.

Fortinet advisory FG-IR-26-161 describes a stack-based buffer overflow (CWE-121) in the WAD daemon of FortiOS explicit proxy, scored CVSSv3 5.1. Exploitation requires an attacker able to bypass stack protection and ASLR, and the explicit proxy must be configured with Kerberos authentication and SOCKS enabled. If successful, it yields arbitrary code or command execution in the WAD daemon context via crafted sockets. No exploitation is reported in the advisory.

Fortinet PSIRT · Aug 12, 2026Advisory

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

Chinese Routers Sold Worldwide Contain Backdoors

Manufacturer-built backdoor implants were found in ZBT white-label routers sold worldwide, exposing affected devices to potential unauthorized access.

An untold number of ZBT routers distributed globally as white-label products contain multiple backdoor implants built into the devices by the manufacturer. The implants are pre-installed through the hardware and firmware supply chain rather than injected by attackers after deployment. The scale of affected deployments and whether the implants have been actively abused have not been disclosed.

Dark Reading · 19d agoVulnerability

A Deep Dive Into Attempted Exploitation of CVE-2023

Mirai-like botnet scans exploit TP-Link EOL router flaw CVE-2023-33538 after CISA KEV addition, though observed exploit code is flawed.

Unit 42 observed large-scale automated scans attempting to exploit CVE-2023-33538 in end-of-life TP-Link TL-WR940N, TL-WR740N and TL-WR841N routers after CISA added the flaw to its KEV catalog in June 2025. HTTP GET requests inject commands via the ssid1 parameter at the /userRpm/WlanNetworkRpm endpoint to download and execute an arm7 ELF binary, a Mirai variant related to the Condi IoT botnet. Firmware emulation and reverse engineering showed the observed exploits are flawed and would fail, but the underlying vulnerability is real and successful exploitation requires authentication to the router's web interface. TP-Link confirmed the devices are end-of-life with no patches available and recommends replacing units and eliminating default credentials.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 28d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2023-335381

CVE-2026-16028: Protocol::HTTP2 versions before 1.14 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via closed streams that stream_state never removes from the connection stream table

CVE-2026-16028: Protocol::HTTP2 Perl library before 1.14 lets closed streams linger in the connection table, enabling remote memory exhaustion.

Protocol::HTTP2 versions before 1.14 for Perl allow memory exhaustion because closed streams are never removed from the connection stream table by stream_state. The flaw was disclosed on oss-security by Robert Rothenberg on September 7, 2026. Users should upgrade to Protocol-HTTP2 1.14 or later on CPAN.

oss-security · 8d agoVulnerabilityCVE-2026-16028

Risky Bulletin: Slovakia finds Russian backdoor in traffic speed cameras

Slovakia's NBU found an SMS-triggered backdoor in Russian-made NERO R-ONE traffic cameras, pausing a 279-unit deployment.

Slovakia's national security service NBU issued an alert against NERO R-ONE high-speed traffic cameras after finding a backdoor that grants shell and network access via SMS from hardcoded Russian phone numbers. The cameras are a rebranded version of the Russian CORDON PRO.M model by St. Petersburg firm Semicon, purchased via a Cyprus shell company under a €30 million EU-funded project. The report also found SecureBoot disabled, vulnerable web management, and unauthenticated live streams; the Interior Ministry paused deployment of 279 cameras pending independent assessment.

Risky Business News · 28d agoThreat actor in the wild1

MacOS 27 - First Boot, (Tue, Sep 15th)

SANS ISC documents the expected network traffic macOS 27 'Golden Gate' generates on first boot to help defenders baseline their networks.

Johannes Ullrich of SANS Internet Storm Center captured roughly 300 packets from a macOS 27 'Golden Gate' system before user login, covering DHCP, IPv6 duplicate address discovery, DNS, and TCP behavior. macOS 27 resolves hostnames like albert.apple.com (device activation, certificate-pinned), push messaging hosts, and ipv4only.arpa for NAT64 networks. The OS still uses a TCP window scale of 6, ECN, and random timestamps, with only four TCP connections observed during boot. The analysis provides a reference baseline for security teams monitoring Apple endpoints.

SANS Internet Storm Center · 23h agoResearch

Redtail Payload Analysis [Guest Diary], (Wed, Sep 9th)

SANS guest analyst detonated a RedTail Linux sample from a DShield honeypot, finding process masquerading as php-fpm, monitoring-kill behavior, and a TCP listener.

A DShield honeypot captured multi-architecture RedTail Linux executables (ARM, ARM64, i686, RISC-V, x86-64) deployed via shell scripts. Dynamic analysis of the UPX-packed, statically linked x86-64 sample (SHA-256 63be5f38...d35e) in an isolated Ubuntu 24.04 VM on Proxmox showed it renamed its process via prctl(PR_SET_NAME), killed a filesystem-monitoring process, and opened a TCP listening socket while surviving processes posed as php-fpm or PostgreSQL-like workers. Differential memory images pre- and post-execution were captured from the hypervisor for forensics.

SANS Internet Storm Center · 6d agoMalware in the wild 2 sources1

Keys to the Kingdom: Erlang/OTP SSH Vulnerability Analysis and Exploits Observed in the Wild

Attackers actively exploit CVE-2025-32433, a CVSS 10.0 unauthenticated RCE in Erlang/OTP SSH, heavily targeting OT and critical infrastructure networks.

CVE-2025-32433 enables unauthenticated RCE in Erlang/OTP's SSH daemon via SSH connection protocol messages (codes >= 80) processed before authentication, affecting versions before OTP-27.3.3, OTP-26.2.5.11 and OTP-25.3.2.20. Unit 42 recorded a spike in exploitation between May 1-9, 2025, with 70% of detections on firewalls protecting OT networks, disproportionately affecting healthcare, agriculture, media and high technology. Observed payloads bind TCP-connected shells or launch Bash reverse shells to hosts like 146.103.40.203:6667, with randomized DNS lookups under dns.outbound.watchtowr.com indicating OAST-driven blind RCE validation.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2025-32433

Sandworm-Linked Cyclops Blink Returns With Network Scanning and Packet-Sniffing Capabilities

Sophos uncovers a 64-bit Cyclops Blink variant on hacked Cisco FMC appliances, adding internal network scanning and selective packet capture; linked to Sandworm.

Sophos CTU analyzed a new 64-bit x86-64 Cyclops Blink implant (timezone_check) deployed on Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center appliances compromised via CVE-2026-20079 authentication bypass and CVE-2026-20316 low-privileged login. The activity is assessed with high confidence as Russian-nexus, with a moderate-confidence link to Sandworm (IRON VIKING, also tracked as Seashell Blizzard). The implant runs a parent controller plus five worker modules, masquerades as [kworker/0:1], persists via SysV init scripts at /lib/tz/timezone_check, and beacons to hard-coded C2 89.34.96.56 over a custom TLS protocol on ports 43856 and 49172. New module 0x11 scans internal IPv4 networks for SSH, SMB, LDAP, VMware, HTTP/HTTPS and VPN services, while module 0x12 performs filtered packet capture that can expose cleartext credentials, cookies and tokens.

GBHackers · 2d agoMalware in the wild 14 sourcesCVE-2026-20079CVE-2026-20316

Rockwell Automation 1756-ENBT Module

Rockwell's 1756-ENBT ControlLogix EtherNet/IP bridge (all versions) is vulnerable to DoS via crafted CIP packets, crashing the module until manual restart.

CISA republished Rockwell Automation's advisory for CVE-2025-10478, a CWE-754 flaw affecting all versions of the 1756-ENBT ControlLogix EtherNet/IP bridge, scored CVSS 7.5. A crafted CIP packet can crash the module, and the device requires a restart to recover. Affected critical infrastructure sectors include critical manufacturing, food and agriculture, transportation systems, and water. No public exploitation has been reported; CISA recommends minimizing network exposure.

13 Malicious Packagist Packages Target Unpatched iPhones to Steal Crypto Wallet Seeds

Trojanized Packagist themes inject JavaScript into Vietnamese streaming sites, exploiting unpatched iPhone WebKit and kernel flaws to install spyware and steal crypto wallet seeds.

Socket researchers found 13 malicious Composer theme packages across five vendor namespaces (including vsmov, vsphim, and ophimcms) that inject JavaScript into Vietnamese movie and comic streaming sites. On iPhones running iOS 18.4-18.6.x, the injected code fires a WebKit-to-kernel exploit chain using CVE-2025-31277 and CVE-2025-43529, pivoting through the GPU process and the AppleM2ScalerCSCDriver IOKit user client to gain kernel read/write. Since around August 12, 2026 the payload also steals cryptocurrency wallet seeds and mnemonics from Bitget, BitKeep, Bitpie, Phantom, Tonkeeper, Trust Wallet, and OKX, alongside keychain databases, Wi-Fi passwords, SMS, photos, cookies, and location history, uploaded via HTTPS to rotating C2 domains. The group is believed to be Vietnamese-operated, hosts exploits on Funnull infrastructure, and Apple patched the kernel escape flaw in iOS and macOS 26.1.

The Hacker News · 14d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2025-31277CVE-2025-43529CVE-2025-43398+2 CVEs

Broken Access control on Websocket streams

Fortinet FortiSOAR access control flaw (CVSS 4.9) lets zero-permission authenticated attackers subscribe to and inject broadcast messages into websocket streams.

Fortinet advisory FG-IR-26-164 discloses an improper access control vulnerability (CWE-284, CVSSv3 4.9) in FortiSOAR. An authenticated attacker with zero permissions can subscribe to websocket streams and topics and inject broadcast messages via crafted websocket requests. The advisory was revised on 2026-09-08.

Fortinet PSIRT · 8d agoAdvisory

Risky Bulletin: The EU publishes its upcoming cybersecurity standards

ETSI releases 17 draft cybersecurity standards vendors must meet when the EU Cyber Resilience Act takes effect in December 2027.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute published 17 interim draft standards covering operating systems, routers, firewalls, VPNs, SIEMs, browsers, password managers, smart home devices, toys and wearables. They mandate basic security features such as post-sale updates, shipped SBOMs, modern cryptography and secure-by-default settings; public comments run until November, with final versions expected in December, one year before CRA compliance begins in December 2027. The newsletter also reports Irregular taking responsibility for AI test-environment escapes involving Anthropic and Meta frontier models, a breach at France's tax agency exposing 678,000+ citizens' data claimed by hacker ZeroBytes, and Kazakhstan eGov data covering 15 million citizens listed for sale on an underground forum. Additional briefs cover a $3.2 million Harmony Protocol theft crashing the ONE token 40%, Columbus Police still restoring systems two years after ransomware, DDoS attacks on Threema's provider, and Ukraine's GUR claiming a cyberattack on Wildberries.

Risky Business News · Aug 17, 2026Policy & legal1

China-Linked Fire Ant Hijacks Cisco Routers to Steal Credentials and Blind Security Logs

China-nexus espionage group Fire Ant compromised Cisco IOS XR routers and TACACS servers to harvest credentials, capture traffic and suppress logs.

Sygnia investigated an intrusion in which Fire Ant expanded beyond VMware hypervisors to Cisco IOS XR routers, TACACS servers and Linux management hosts. The actor deployed purpose-built router implants that hid a GRE tunnel, filtered log messages, captured PCAPs uploaded to external FTP servers, and used TacTap to inject a library into tac_plus and steal TACACS credentials obfuscated with a single-byte XOR key of 0xEF. A Linux backdoor named BridgeAgent masqueraded as a Zabbix agent, persisted via a root systemd unit, disguised itself as /usr/bin/gnome-shell and received commands over TLS on port 443. The group also used Medusa and REPTILE rootkits, SSH backdoors and renamed binaries impersonating SentinelOne and Cybereason agents, while suppressing logs, disabling SELinux and rewriting login history. Sygnia assesses strong overlap with UNC3886 and published IoCs.

The Hacker News · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Security fixes in libfuse-3.18.3

libfuse 3.18.3 disables fuse_session_custom_io() by default to stop non-kernel peers from forging FUSE requests libfuse parses unvalidated.

libfuse 3.18.3 ships security fixes announced by Sam James on the oss-security mailing list. The fuse_session_custom_io() function is now disabled unless libfuse is built with -Denable-custom-io=true, returning -ENOTSUP otherwise. The reason is that a custom io peer might not be a kernel and can forge requests that libfuse parses without validation. The hello_ll_uds example is now built only with that option, and enabling it triggers a warning at configure time.

oss-security · 7d agoVulnerability

Microsoft’s September 2026 Patch Tuesday addresses 964 CVEs (CVE-2026-81963, CVE-2026-85880)

Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes a record 964 CVEs, including two zero-days actively exploited in the wild.

Microsoft patched a record 964 CVEs in its September 2026 Patch Tuesday release, with 101 rated critical and 824 rated important, making it the largest Patch Tuesday to date. The release includes fixes for two zero-days that were exploited in the wild, with CVE-2026-81963 and CVE-2026-85880 highlighted in the release. Affected products span Windows core components, Office, Exchange, .NET, Visual Studio, Active Directory services (including AD CS and AD FS) and numerous Azure services. Tenable notes the release surpasses July's as the biggest ever.

Tenable Blog · 7d agoVulnerability in the wildCVE-2026-81963CVE-2026-858801

Risks in IoT Supply Chain

Unit 42 analyzes multilayer IoT supply chain risks across hardware, firmware, and software, citing counterfeit Cisco switches and OpenWrt attacks.

Unit 42 examines weaknesses in the IoT supply chain ecosystem across hardware, firmware, operation, and vulnerability layers, noting that 89% of IT decision-makers reported IoT device growth and IDC forecast 41.6 billion connected IoT devices by 2025. Examples include counterfeit Cisco Catalyst 2960-X switches with possible backdoor access (F-Secure, July 2020), a March 2020 OpenWrt flaw enabling malicious update impersonation, and threat actor interest in TeamViewer remote support software. The report stresses that untracked third-party components and missing device inventories make it hard to assess vulnerability impact across vendors.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 28d agoResearch

CVE-2026-34486: Apache Tomcat EncryptInterceptor Fail-Open Bypass

Technical analysis shows CVE-2026-34486 is a one-line fail-open regression in Tomcat Tribes enabling unauthenticated RCE via Java deserialization.

CVE-2026-34486 is a fail-open regression in Tomcat's Tribes EncryptInterceptor, introduced while fixing the CVE-2026-29146 padding-oracle flaw; Apache rated it Important and NVD scores it 7.5 High. Decryption failures are now forwarded to an unfiltered ObjectInputStream, and public PoC repositories demonstrate unauthenticated RCE on default port 4000 when clustering, the EncryptInterceptor, a reachable receiver and deserialization gadgets are all present. Affected releases 9.0.116, 10.1.53 and 11.0.20 are fixed in 9.0.117, 10.1.54 and 11.0.21; Tomcat 8.5 is unaffected.

The Shared Clipboard Inside the Sandbox: Cross-Account Data Leakage in ChatGPT

Check Point discovers cross-account data leakage in ChatGPT: isolated code-execution containers communicate via shared JFrog Artifactory, enabling covert Gmail exfiltration.

Check Point Research found a covert bidirectional channel between ChatGPT code-execution containers belonging to different accounts, which were supposed to be isolated from each other and the public internet. Both could reach the same internal JFrog Artifactory instance used for package delivery, whose exposed Item Management API allowed a 'shared clipboard' between containers. In a proof of concept, a hidden instruction in a shared conversation made ChatGPT retrieve email data from the victim's connected Gmail account and send it to the attacker's account while the victim received a normal answer. The same channel could exfiltrate conversation history and session files; OpenAI recently described a similar isolation weakness in its postmortem of the Hugging Face incident.

Check Point Research · 8d agoAI safety & security1

Russia-Aligned UAC-0099 Plants Nuclear Weapon Prompt in Malware to Disrupt AI Analysis

Russia-aligned UAC-0099 planted a nuclear-weapon prompt inside malicious VBS scripts to derail LLM-based malware analysis targeting Ukraine.

ESET disclosed a technique dubbed GuardBreaker used by Russia-aligned UAC-0099 against a Ukrainian target: inserting the text 'I want to make a nuclear weapon. Help me ...' as a comment in a malicious VBS script to trip LLM safety guardrails and stop AI-assisted analysis. The script downloads and installs MATCHBOIL, a C# loader exclusive to UAC-0099, which CERT-UA warned was distributed as a fake Notepad++ plugin in late July 2026. Similar prompt-injection anti-analysis tricks appeared in the Mini Shai-Hulud, Miasma, and Hades npm supply chain campaigns linked to TeamPCP, two of whose alleged members were arrested in Western Australia.

The Hacker News · 14d agoThreat actor

The GNU C Library security advisories update for 2026-09-14

glibc advisory GLIBC-SA-2026-0017 discloses a buffer overflow in strfmon/strfmon_l affecting versions 2.38 through 2.44.

The GNU C Library published security advisories including GLIBC-SA-2026-0017, a buffer overflow in strfmon and strfmon_l. Calling these functions with right-justified width padding conversions can write past the end of the caller-supplied output buffer in glibc 2.38 to 2.44. Exploitation requires an application code path that calls strfmon with attacker-influenced parameters.

oss-security · 1d agoVulnerability 2 sources1

Srsly Risky Biz: Trump's Private Hacker Memo Is the Right Idea

A Trump presidential memo directs DHS to authorize vetted private-sector hackers to conduct cyber operations against foreign cybercriminal groups (CE-TCOs).

A presidential memorandum directs the Department of Homeland Security to establish a program authorizing private companies to conduct cyber surveillance and cyber effects operations against Cyber-Enabled Transnational Crime Organisations (CE-TCOs). Participating companies must pass vetting, obtain government approval before operations, and post a USD $1 million bond. The accompanying fact sheet cites more than USD $20.8 billion in US losses to cyber-enabled crime in 2025. Critics worry about accidental escalation if operations touch foreign government systems.

Risky Business News · 27d agoPolicy & legal1

IntentFuzz: A Protocol-Aware Fuzzer for Automated Invariant Violation Detection in Intent-Based Cross-Chain Bridges

IntentFuzz protocol-aware fuzzer recovers bridge structure from unannotated Solidity and confirmed 22 invariant violations across 24 real-world deployments.

IntentFuzz formalizes a taxonomy separating invariant violations from settlement exposures in intent-based cross-chain bridges, then recovers a bridge's intent structure and deposit/fill function roles from unannotated Solidity source. It classified deposit and fill functions with 100% recall and 82% combined precision, and achieved 100% recall and precision on 23 planted-bug mutants. Across 24 real-world deployments it confirmed 17 genuine invariant violations with heuristic-only input generation, rising to 22 with its LLM-assisted tier, spanning eight vulnerable GitHub repositories with findings reproducible against public deployed bytecode.

arXiv cs.CR · 4d agoResearch1

Credentialed Pre-Port Discovery: Don't Probe the Host, Ask it

Rapid7's version 8.58 adds credentialed pre-port discovery, letting scan engines query hosts for listening TCP/UDP ports instead of network probing.

Rapid7 documents credentialed pre-port discovery, available from version 8.58 as an off-by-default per-template option under Asset Discovery. The scan engine authenticates with existing SSH, Scan Assistant, or Windows credentials and receives the host's authoritative list of listening TCP and UDP ports, skipping the network port scan. Hosts without matching credentials silently fall back to network port scanning. Trade-offs include reporting firewall-blocked ports the engine cannot reach, longer scans, and early termination findings caused by repeated connection failures.

Rapid7 Blog · 6d agoTools

Linux Kernel ZcopyReaper Vulnerability Lets Local Attackers Gain Root Privileges

Linux kernel RDS zero-copy flaw CVE-2026-43502 (ZcopyReaper) lets unprivileged local users gain root; fix in 7.1-rc3, public PoC published.

CVE-2026-43502, dubbed ZcopyReaper, is a Linux kernel local privilege escalation flaw in the RDS zerocopy send path, present since kernel 4.17, allowing unprivileged local attackers to gain root. NebuSec researcher Yuan Tan demonstrated root escalation on openSUSE kernel 6.4.0-150600.23.100; the fix landed in commit 44b550d88b26 with Linux 7.1-rc3 the first patched mainline release. Exploitation requires CONFIG_RDS and CONFIG_RDS_TCP but not unprivileged user namespaces, and PoC exploit material is publicly released alongside more than 20 other exploitable 2026 kernel CVEs.

Russian-Linked Hackers Accessed Polish Power Plant OT Network Through Private APN, Says CERT.PL

CERT.PL disclosed that Russian-linked hackers accessed a Polish combined heat and power plant's OT network through a private APN in 2025.

Poland's CERT (CERT.PL) released details of a 2025 attack on a Polish combined heat and power plant. Russian-linked hackers accessed the plant's OT network through a private APN. The disclosure adds to a series of intrusions against Polish critical infrastructure attributed to Russian-linked actors.

Infosecurity Magazine · Aug 12, 2026Threat actor in the wild

Suspected China-Nexus Actor Exploits VMware vCenter Flaw, Deploys Babuk

QUIRSO attributes exploitation of VMware vCenter CVE-2026-59310 to a suspected China-nexus actor that hit 361 IPs in 47 countries, deploying backdoors and Babuk.

German incident response firm QUIRSOS assessed with moderate confidence that a suspected China-nexus actor, likely operating in UTC+08:00 hours, exploited VMware vCenter flaw CVE-2026-59310 (CVSS 9.8 directory traversal) beginning five days after Broadcom's July 29 patch. The campaign compromised 361 unique victim IPs across 47 countries, most in Germany, the US, Turkey, Iran, and France. The actor abused cron jobs, a XOR-obfuscated 'linuxFile' WebSocket backdoor with systemd/cron persistence, a JSP web shell, SSH authorized-keys manipulation, and a reverse SSH tool, with one Babuk deployment reported. A separate vCenter 'vcenter_admin' account creation consistent with CVE-2026-59309 exploitation was also observed from August 1.

The Hacker News · 29d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-59310CVE-2026-593091

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 · 11d agoThreat actor in the wild