Search: “volt-typhoon”

GuardBreaker: Derailing AI-assisted malware analysis with a code comment

ESET names 'GuardBreaker': UAC-0099 embeds a nuclear-weapon question in VBScript comments to trip LLM scanner guardrails during analysis of its MATCHBOIL loader.

ESET researchers observed the Russia-aligned group UAC-0099 inserting a decoy prompt injection into a VBScript used to install its MATCHBOIL loader in an attack against a Ukrainian target, aiming to make LLM-based code scanners refuse and stop inspecting the file. The comment triggers safety guardrails with a request about building a nuclear weapons but has no runtime effect. Similar LLM-thwarting tricks have appeared in malicious PyPI and npm packages reported by Socket and StepSecurity. ESET recommends multi-model cross-validation of AI-assisted analysis and treating missing LLM output as requiring further checks.

ESET WeLiveSecurity·updated Sep 11, 14:32 UTC · 5d ago·first Sep 10, 09:00 UTC · 6d agoAI safety & security 3 sources1

Us Thwarts Volt Typhoon Espionage

US thwarts an espionage operation by Chinese state-linked threat actor Volt Typhoon, according to the headline.

The headline indicates US authorities disrupted espionage activity attributed to Volt Typhoon, the Chinese state-sponsored group known for targeting critical infrastructure. No article text is available, so details on scope, victims, or method are unavailable.

Infosecurity Magazine·Aug 19, 00:00 UTC · 28d agoThreat actor in the wild

China Is Strapping ‘Digital Bombs’ to Civilian Infrastructure—Is the US Ready?

WIRED examines Volt Typhoon pre-positioning 'digital bombs' in US civilian infrastructure via a war game simulation discussion.

WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast features reporter Andy Greenberg discussing a war game simulating a cyberattack by Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon. The episode examines Volt Typhoon's practice of planting persistent access in US civilian infrastructure that could be activated during conflict, and questions whether the US is prepared.

WIRED · Security·Aug 20, 20:03 UTC · 27d agoThreat actor

A battery storage cyberattack would look exactly like a badly tuned controller

Risk modeling suggests a few hundred compromised grid-scale batteries dispatched through cloud optimizers could trigger blackouts in Texas or Great Britain.

Centrii analysis estimates 1,500 compromised one-megawatt units (5.4% of ERCOT's ~28 GW fleet) or 400 units (about 29% of Great Britain's ~1,400-unit fleet) could destabilize the grids, with modeled damage of $12-65 billion in Texas and a national blackout costing £2-10 billion in Britain. The study puts the probability of a major attack affecting at least one million people by 2031 at 92.1%, dropping to 61.4% with IEC 62443 certification and quarterly drills, based on 10,000 Monte Carlo runs. Because hostile battery swings are phased like legitimate frequency response, control rooms would see nothing unusual; Centrii proposes hunting for a reverse-governor signature where inverter output feeds oscillations. Spain's April 2025 blackout took an expert panel until March 2026 to rule out cyberattack, partly because key plants had no recordings.

Help Net Security·Sep 2, 00:00 UTC · 14d agoResearch

Deep Learning-Based Detection of Electrical Faults and Power Quality Disturbances in Aerospace Power Systems

Compact ResNet detects electrical faults in 400 Hz aircraft power systems with 95.87 percent accuracy after deployment on Xilinx Zynq MPSoC.

The study targets multiclass fault and power quality disturbance detection in 400 Hz aerospace networks using a high-fidelity simulation model inspired by the Boeing 787 electrical architecture, covering 21 normal, disturbance, switching, open-circuit, and short-circuit conditions. Two 73,500-sample datasets are built from 1D waveforms and STFT time-frequency representations, augmented with domain randomization and class-specific GANs, and the time-series dataset is released via IEEE DataPort. A compact ResNet with 175,685 parameters achieved 96.94 percent software test accuracy, and 95.87 percent after 8-bit quantization on a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale Plus ZCU102 with 6.90 ms mean accelerator latency per record.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL·Sep 9, 17:19 UTC · 7d agoAI research

Wicked Problem, Parsimonious Solution: Securing Electric Vehicle Charging Station Software

Position paper proposes hierarchical software quality assurance to characterize and secure EV charging station software attack surfaces.

The authors argue that charging station supply-equipment software is a largely unprotected and poorly characterized attack surface in EV charging infrastructure. They advocate applying hierarchical software quality assurance (HSQA) to this specialized software, spanning from individual vulnerabilities such as CVEs to high-level characteristics like the CIA Triad. HSQA embeds quality and security considerations across the entire software development lifecycle to assess and improve charging station software security.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 9, 17:37 UTC · 7d agoResearch

Rhysida Ransomware Group Targets Berlin Government Ahead of Vote

Rhysida ransomware hit Berlin's state government weeks before the September 20 election, claiming 5.79 TB stolen; officials refused the ransom.

Berlin's government confirmed an August cyberattack on its administrative network, with data exfiltrated between August 7 and August 12 and departments isolated on August 17. The Rhysida group claimed responsibility on August 28, alleging theft of 5.79 TB and 1.44 million files including personal data on 12,076 individuals, payroll files, plaintext credentials, and vulnerability analyses of Berlin's water supply. Officials said election systems were not affected and refused to pay; Rhysida has claimed roughly 280 victims since 2023, entering via VPNs without MFA, Zerologon, or phishing.

Security Affairs·Aug 29, 10:56 UTC · 18d agoRansomware in the wild

Analysis of Smoke Loader in New Tsunami Campaign

Fake Japanese Meteorological Agency tsunami warning emails delivered Smoke Loader and AzoRult malware to steal credentials from targets in Japan.

A fake tsunami warning email impersonating Japan's Meteorological Agency asked recipients to click a link on a registered fake agency domain, delivering the commodity loader Smoke Loader to targets in Japan. Smoke Loader, active since 2011, is modular, and its payloads have included banking trojans, ransomware, cryptominers, password stealers, and PoS malware; the campaign later also deployed AzoRult. New samples add junk-jump obfuscation, encrypted network traffic and payload files, a unique machine ID used for tracking and encryption, and PROPagate injection into explorer.exe, with persistence via a Startup folder shortcut and RC4-encrypted C2 communication.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 17, 12:54 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Malware in the wild

Storm-1175 Replaces Medusa With New StormEncryptor Ransomware

Microsoft reports China-linked ransomware group Storm-1175 switched from Medusa to a new C++ strain, StormEncryptor, likely exploiting N-able flaw CVE-2026-18577.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence reports that the financially motivated, China-linked group Storm-1175 began deploying a new ransomware strain called StormEncryptor on August 2, 2026, replacing its previous Medusa ransomware. StormEncryptor is written in C++, appends the .encrypted extension to files, and drops a !!!README_FIRST!!!.txt ransom note in each scanned directory. Microsoft assesses the group is likely exploiting CVE-2026-18577, an authentication bypass in N-able disclosed on August 2, 2026 and added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog the next day. Since 2023, Storm-1175 has exploited more than 16 vulnerabilities in products including Microsoft Exchange, Ivanti, ConnectWise ScreenConnect, JetBrains TeamCity, SimpleHelp, CrushFTP, and GoAnywhere MFT, often moving from initial access to data theft and ransomware deployment within days.

Security Affairs·Aug 13, 08:09 UTC · Aug 13, 2026Ransomware in the wildCVE-2026-18577CVE-2026-1731CVE-2023-21529+15 CVEs1

'Breeze Comet' Tears Into Brazilian & Global Financial Systems

Threat group 'Breeze Comet' is attacking Brazil's financial systems and reportedly stealing funds directly, per Dark Reading threat intelligence.

Dark Reading reports that 'Breeze Comet', described as Brazil's most sophisticated threat group, is compromising the country's financial systems. The activity is financially motivated, with funds reportedly moved directly to the attackers. The campaign reportedly extends to global financial systems, though technical details, victims and attribution evidence were not disclosed in the excerpt.

Dark Reading·Sep 3, 12:00 UTC · 13d agoThreat actor in the wild

Mitsubishi Electric CNC Series (Update A)

CISA's updated ICS advisory details CVE-2025-2399, an out-of-bounds read in Mitsubishi Electric CNC series that lets a remote attacker cause a denial-of-service condition.

CISA released Update A of ICS advisory ICSA-26-078-05 covering Mitsubishi Electric CNC series controllers. The vulnerability CVE-2025-2399 is an out-of-bounds read that a remote attacker can exploit to trigger a denial-of-service condition. Affected products include M800VW, M800VS, M80V, M80VW, M800W, M800S and M80 series controllers up to specified firmware revisions. No exploitation is reported in the advisory.

CISA Advisories·Aug 27, 12:00 UTC · 20d agoAdvisoryCVE-2025-2399

[Control systems] Schneider Electric security advisory (AV26-871)

Canada's Cyber Centre relayed Schneider Electric advisories for vulnerabilities in NetBotz 5-750/755 (5.5.2 and prior) and PowerChute Serial Shutdown (1.5 and prior).

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security issued control-systems advisory AV26-871 noting Schneider Electric products affected by vulnerabilities as of September 1, 2026. Affected products include NetBotz 5-750/755 versions 5.5.2 and prior, and PowerChute Serial Shutdown versions 1.5 and prior, the latter with an improper restriction of excessive authentication attempts flaw. Administrators are urged to review Schneider Electric's security notifications and apply the suggested mitigations and updates.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security·Sep 2, 12:28 UTC · 14d agoAdvisory

17th August – Threat Intelligence Report

Colombia's Ministry of Justice suffered a ransomware attack disrupting drug-monitoring and legal public services, per Check Point's 17 August 2026 threat intelligence report.

Check Point Research's weekly threat intelligence bulletin for 17 August 2026 leads with a ransomware attack on Colombia's Ministry of Justice. The attack affected part of the ministry's technology infrastructure and disrupted public services related to illicit-drug monitoring and legal processes. Officials confirmed that some files were impacted; the bulletin also aggregates other cyber research and attack discoveries from the week.

Check Point Research·Aug 17, 13:37 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Ransomware

[Control Systems] Siemens security advisory (AV26-890)

Canada's Cyber Centre relayed a Siemens advisory affecting Reyrolle 7SR5, Teamcenter, Siveillance Control, Desigo CC and other products.

Advisory AV26-890, dated September 8, 2026, flags Siemens vulnerabilities in Reyrolle 7SR5 (versions prior to V2.70), Teamcenter, Siveillance Control, SIMATIC AX Runtime, Desigo CC, Industrial Edge Management, and SIMOVE Fleetmanager and SIPLANT across multiple versions and models. The Cyber Centre encourages users and administrators to review the Siemens advisory and apply available updates. No specific CVEs or exploitation details are provided in the relayed advisory.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security·Sep 8, 17:27 UTC · 8d agoAdvisory

Risky Bulletin: Dutch intel services to get extensive new powers

Netherlands proposed a bill granting AIVD and MIVD expanded warrantless tapping, faster hacking powers, and forced data disclosure, citing Russia, China, and Iran threats.

The Dutch government introduced a bill greatly expanding surveillance powers of intelligence agencies AIVD and MIVD, allowing up to one year of tapping without pre-approval and simplified hacking operations against 'foreign adversaries'. Agencies could compel Dutch companies or citizens to provide data under threat of charges, share data with the private sector, and oversight bodies would merge into a new CTT board. The bill follows similar overhauls in Ireland, Germany, and France after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The newsletter also reports Moonwell hacked for $8.7M, a Cosmos EVM bug exploited for ~$3M, ShinyHunters listing McKesson with claimed hundreds of millions of records, and a pro-Kremlin DDoS claim against Norway's government network.

Risky Business News·Aug 31, 03:25 UTC · 16d agoPolicy & legal

[Control systems] Schneider Electric security advisory (AV26-912)

Canada's Cyber Centre relays a Schneider Electric advisory covering multiple vulnerabilities in EcoStruxure IT Data Center Expert and PowerLogic T300, urging users to apply updates.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security issued advisory AV26-912 noting that as of September 9, 2026 Schneider Electric is affected by vulnerabilities in EcoStruxure IT Data Center Expert versions 9.1.2 and prior, and PowerLogic T300 versions 2.9.8-5620 and prior. The issues include an improper neutralization of special elements used in an OS command on the PowerLogic T300. The advisory recommends reviewing vendor notifications, performing suggested mitigations, and applying necessary updates.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security·Sep 11, 15:09 UTC · 5d agoAdvisory

Persistent Attempts at Cyberespionage Against Southeast Asian Government Target Have Links to Alloy Taurus

Alloy Taurus (GALLIUM) compromised Southeast Asian government networks from 2022 to 2023 using Exchange web shells and undocumented .NET backdoors Reshell and Zapoa.

Unit 42 tracked persistent multiwave intrusions at a Southeast Asian government starting in early 2022 and continuing through 2023, attributing the activity with moderate confidence to Alloy Taurus (aka GALLIUM), a Chinese state-aligned espionage group. Attackers exploited Exchange Server vulnerabilities to deploy web shells including China Chopper, then ran reconnaissance with Fscan and WebScan, created administrative accounts, and installed undocumented .NET backdoors named Reshell and Zapoa. They established resilience by installing SoftEther VPN, brute-forced Active Directory credentials with Kerbrute, and dumped credential stores with GoDumpLsass and LsassUnhooker. The campaign reflects long-term espionage tradecraft to maintain a foothold.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 17, 10:54 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild1

BreezeBlue/Breeze-TTS-2 — new model trending #19 on Hugging Face

BreezeBlue open-weights Breeze TTS 2, a bilingual text-to-speech model it ranks #1 among open-weight models on the Artificial Analysis TTS leaderboard.

BreezeBlue released open weights and Apache 2.0-licensed PyTorch inference code for Breeze TTS 2 on 2026-08-25. The text-to-speech model supports English and Chinese, voice cloning, reference-free voice design, voice direction, and inline vocal events like (laugh) and (sigh). Reported performance includes #1 open-weight ranking on the Artificial Analysis Elo leaderboard, under 40 ms time-to-first-audio, a 0.32 real-time factor on an NVIDIA H100, and about 7.7 GiB GPU memory for eager inference.

Hugging Face trending models·Aug 25, 16:39 UTC · 22d agoModel release

Previously unseen entry vector used to breach Polish energy plant

Help Net Security·Aug 11, 00:00 UTC · Aug 11, 2026Industry

NIST Seeks Public Input on AI-Ready NVD Modernization

NIST is seeking public comment on modernizing the National Vulnerability Database to support AI-powered vulnerability research.

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology announced it is soliciting public input on modernizing the National Vulnerability Database. The initiative aims to make the NVD AI-ready to support AI-powered vulnerability research and analysis.

Infosecurity Magazine·Aug 12, 12:30 UTC · Aug 12, 2026Policy & legal

[Control Systems] Siemens security advisory (AV26-864)

Siemens fixed a vulnerability in Element maps-ng V47-V49 (SSA-682041); Canada's Cyber Centre urges administrators to apply the updated releases.

Siemens advisory SSA-682041 addresses a vulnerability affecting Element maps-ng V47 prior to V47.12.3, V48 prior to V48.11.3, and V49 prior to V49.16.1. Canada's Cyber Centre republished the notice (AV26-864) encouraging users and administrators to review the vendor links and apply the necessary updates. No CVSS score or exploitation details were provided in the bulletin.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security·Aug 31, 15:59 UTC · 16d agoAdvisory

Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

Four China-aligned espionage groups, starting with TA412/APT31, chained zero-days CVE-2026-85046, CVE-2026-87491 and CVE-2026-85880 to spy on targets since late August.

TA412 (Violet Typhoon/APT31) began exploiting the BlueMoon chain on Aug. 28, followed by UNK_LateNight (US aerospace, Sept. 2), UNK_DoubleCheck (Vietnamese manufacturing via a compromised Southeast Asian government account) and UNK_QuietRacket (Indonesia and Singapore government, consulting and finance, Sept. 3). The chain pairs Chromium JavaScript engine RCE flaws CVE-2026-85046 and CVE-2026-87491 with the Windows ALPC privilege-escalation zero-day CVE-2026-85880, enabling sandbox escape and system privileges. Delivery used phishing links installing a fake Google Gemini browser extension that surveilled browser activity and stole credentials; Proofpoint directly observed fewer than 20 organizations but expects wider proliferation as the kit spreads.

Proofpoint Threat Insight·Sep 9, 21:17 UTC · 7d agoThreat actor in the wild 3 sourcesCVE-2026-85046CVE-2026-87491CVE-2026-858804

Schneider Electric Easergy, EcoStruxture, PowerLogic, and Saitel Products (Update A)

CISA updated ICSA-26-169-07: CVE-2026-4827 (CVSS 8.3) insufficient entropy enables session hijacking across dozens of Schneider Electric grid products; fixes available.

CISA republished advisory ICSA-26-169-07 (Update A) for CVE-2026-4827, CWE-331 insufficient entropy in session management, scored CVSS 8.3. Affected lines include Easergy MiCOM relays and C5, EcoStruxure Power Automation (EPAS-GTW, EPAS-UI, iPMFLS), EcoStruxure Power Operation, PowerLogic P5/P7/T300/T500, and Saitel DP/T150 RTUs, with dozens of fixed versions listed. Successful exploitation could enable session hijacking and unauthorized operations on systems in energy, chemical, critical manufacturing, and water sectors. Fixes are available; no exploitation is reported.

CISA Advisories·Sep 3, 12:00 UTC · 13d agoAdvisoryCVE-2026-4827

Srsly Risky Biz: China's Private Sector Botnets Are Worth Disrupting

DoJ seized domains of Chinese espionage botnet platforms QScan and QTRouter, run by private firm QTFY for MSS and PLA targeting.

The US Department of Justice disrupted QScan, a distributed vulnerability scanning system with nearly a decade of internet scanning data, and QTRouter, a covert communications platform routing traffic through compromised IoT devices, operated by QTFY under Chinese company Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology. FBI and NSA advisories say QTFY customers include China's Ministry of State Security and the People's Liberation Army, targeting federal agencies, the US Senate, hospitals, telecoms and financial institutions. This is the third Chinese state-backed botnet disrupted since December 2023, following the KV botnet (Volt Typhoon) and Raptor Train (Flax Typhoon), and a sister network, JDY, has more than doubled since the KV disruption. Separately, the Qilin ransomware group claimed a breach of the ATF's CALEA system, briefly publishing 6.3 GB of case folders and forensic data.

Risky Business News·Sep 3, 04:29 UTC · 13d agoThreat actor1

Claude's new system prompt really doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

Anthropic published updated Claude consumer system prompts, including changes steering the model away from reproducing song lyrics, likely over copyright concerns.

Anthropic publishes system prompts for Claude.ai and Claude mobile apps, including historic revisions, and has reorganized them into an index with per-model pages such as the Haiku 4.5 page showing the original October 15, 2025 prompt and an updated January 18, 2026 version. The latest consumer prompt strongly discourages reproducing song lyrics, a behavioral constraint likely tied to copyright considerations. Prompts for Claude Cowork and Claude Code are not included in the published set.

Simon Willison·Sep 2, 14:16 UTC · 14d agoAI safety & security

Is Someone Hacking DoD Refrigerators?

Refrigeration outages hit commissaries at seven US military installations, with hacking suspected but not confirmed by the Pentagon.

Refrigeration disruptions were reported at Defense Commissary Agency commissaries at Fort Irwin, F.E. Warren AFB, Fort Huachuca, Naval Station Newport, Columbus AFB, Travis AFB, and Naval Air Station Lemoore. A defense official acknowledged awareness of a possible refrigeration disruption, but the services and Pentagon declined to provide details. The post is speculative, arguing the coincidence of outages suggests possible hacking, though no evidence or attribution is provided.

Schneier on Security·Aug 31, 18:21 UTC · 16d agoData breach

Rhysida Publishes Berlin Government Data After €2m Extortion Demand Refused

Rhysida published 5.7 TB of Berlin state government data, including sensitive CBRN emergency plans, after the state refused a €2m ransom demand.

The Rhysida ransomware gang leaked roughly 5.7 TB — about 1.4 million files — stolen from Berlin's state network after the government declined to pay 30 bitcoins (about €2m) by the September 4 deadline. The dump reportedly includes sensitive state emergency plans for terrorist attacks and CBRN disaster scenarios in a folder titled 'AG CBRN-Rahmenplanung', plus personnel files, absence lists, payroll data, and home addresses, potentially affecting tens of thousands of people. Berlin says there are no indications the state network remains compromised and will notify affected individuals on a risk-based basis after forensic analysis.

Infosecurity Magazine·Sep 7, 12:00 UTC · 9d agoRansomware

Financially Motivated Threat Actor BREEZE COMET Targets Brazil

Google Threat Intelligence details BREEZE COMET, a financially motivated group manipulating Brazilian payment systems and banking software to conduct fraudulent transfers since 2024.

Mandiant and Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) track this activity as BREEZE COMET (formerly UNC5669), active since 2024 against Brazilian financial services, retail, and eCommerce organizations. The actor specializes in manipulating payment systems and banking software to conduct fraudulent transfers. The activity overlaps with operations publicly reported as Plump Spider and SHADOW-AETHER-064. The report details the group's tactics, toolkit, mitigations, and detections for this active and developing threat.

Google Threat Intelligence·Sep 1, 14:00 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild