Phishing Attacks Abuse Trusted Email Infrastructure and URL Cloaking to Evade Security Filters
VBSpam Q3 2026 test shows phishers abusing DKIM-aligned domains, Amazon SES, and multi-stage URL cloaking to defeat email filters.
Virus Bulletin's Q3 2026 VBSpam test (AMTSO-LS1-TP207) found phishing campaigns moving payloads past the email itself via browser-fingerprinting gates, redirect chains, and hidden POST requests. Examples include a Dutch McAfee/TotalAV scareware renewal scam, a German overdue-payment Web3 fraud delivered via Amazon SES from DKIM-aligned moolaah.com, and Romanian BCR PSD2 credential phishing embedding IPv6-mapped URLs resolving to 103.193.179.223. Net at Work NoSpamProxy ranked first with a 99.995 score while open-source Rspamd caught only 62.55% of phishing mail.
How AI and cybersecurity are reshaping ServiceNow
Analysis argues ServiceNow's $7.75B Armis acquisition and AI-driven consumption pricing are reshaping its ITSM platform amid SaaS market anxiety.
CSO Online examines how AI agents, vibe-coding fears, and a reported 30% share price drop are pressuring ITSM leader ServiceNow, and how the company is pivoting toward consumption-based revenue and cybersecurity. The piece highlights ServiceNow's $7.75 billion cash acquisition of Armis, priced at roughly 23 times the vendor's $340 million annual revenue, as a strategic move to supercharge ITSM workflows with accurate device inventory and orchestration rather than to sell a standalone security product. Experts note this ends Armis's vendor-neutral position, introduces the CISO as a new buyer, and will likely lead to aggressive Armis bundling at contract renewals.
Critical GitLab Flaws Let Attackers Read Arbitrary Files, Steal Credentials and Execute Code
GitLab issues emergency patches for critical path-traversal flaw CVE-2026-85706 (CVSS 10.0), GraphQL credential exposure CVE-2026-87719, and potential RCE flaw CVE-2026-88765.
GitLab released versions 19.3.2, 19.2.6, and 19.1.8 on September 10, 2026, fixing 18 vulnerabilities across Community and Enterprise Editions. CVE-2026-85706 allows unauthenticated arbitrary file reads via the repository commits API; CVE-2026-87719 exposes Advanced Search credentials through GraphQL subscription deserialization; CVE-2026-88765 may enable authenticated RCE via crafted project export imports. No exploitation was reported, but self-managed administrators are urged to upgrade immediately and review logs for suspicious API and GraphQL activity.
Introducing ChatGPT for Financial Services
OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Financial Services, pairing built-in market data with GPT-6 Astra for banking research workflows.
OpenAI introduced ChatGPT for Financial Services, a tailored ChatGPT Work experience shaped by design partners Morgan Stanley and Evercore, targeting investment banking and equity research. It bundles premium data from Daloopa, PitchBook, LSEG News, and Crunchbase hosted on OpenAI infrastructure with granular citations, optimized MCP connectors for S&P Global and FactSet, and 50+ connectors, plus planned entitlement integrations with S&P Capital IQ, LSEG, MSCI, Dow Jones Factiva, and Moody's. It runs GPT-6 Astra, which OpenAI claims is state of the art in information retrieval, financial reasoning, and artifact generation, and includes enterprise controls such as SAML SSO, SCIM, role-based access, and no default training on firm data.
Threat Matrix: Mapping threats across cloud web applications
Microsoft released a Cloud Web Applications Threat Matrix, a MITRE ATT&CK-aligned framework mapping threats to cloud-hosted web apps and serverless platforms.
Microsoft introduced the cloud web applications threat matrix, which organizes attack techniques for cloud-hosted web apps and serverless platforms using MITRE ATT&CK tactics, from resource development through impact. The framework covers attack paths spanning application code, managed runtimes, workload identities, and deployment pipelines, cataloging techniques such as subdomain takeover, code injection in connected repositories, compromised registry images, exposed admin interfaces, and serverless trigger injection. It builds on Microsoft's earlier Kubernetes and storage services matrices to help defenders identify visibility gaps, prioritize hardening, and plan investigations in cloud-native environments.
Six Chinese AI firms accused of aggressively copying US frontier models
NSA, CISA, and FBI accuse DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, and Z.AI of industrial-scale distillation of US frontier models via API abuse.
A joint NSA, CISA, and FBI release alleges six Chinese AI firms have extracted capabilities from US frontier models, including Claude, GPT, Gemini, and Grok, since at least late 2024, likely with Chinese government awareness. Tactics include bulk procurement of premium subscriptions with fraudulent accounts, proxy routing to evade geo-restrictions, and prompt injection to force models to reveal hidden chain-of-thought reasoning. Agencies recommend stronger identity verification, monitoring of anomalous usage, and quietly downgrading or adding noise to responses for suspected distillers, while warning these mitigations could frustrate legitimate users.
Chinese AI firms are siphoning capabilities from American models, CISA warns
CISA, NSA and FBI warn Chinese AI firms including DeepSeek and Moonshot AI extracted billions of tokens from US frontier models via distillation campaigns.
A joint CISA, NSA and FBI advisory says China-based firms including DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun and Z.AI have run industrial-scale knowledge distillation campaigns against US frontier models such as Claude, GPT, Gemini and Grok since at least late 2024, likely with Chinese government knowledge. The campaigns used gray-market API proxies called transfer stations, premium account pools and traffic routing to bypass restrictions, evade safeguards and exfiltrate billions of tokens used to train models like DeepSeek R1/V3 and Kimi. The agencies challenge DeepSeek's reported $5.6 million training cost and recommend identity verification, usage monitoring, response variation, differential privacy and indicator sharing as defenses.
DeepSeek, Alibaba and Chinese AI Firms Extract Billions of Tokens From U.S. AI Models
NSA, CISA and FBI advisory AA26-251A accuses DeepSeek, Alibaba and four other Chinese AI firms of industrial-scale distillation of US frontier models.
Joint advisory AA26-251A from NSA, CISA and FBI accuses DeepSeek, Alibaba, Moonshot AI, MiniMax, StepFun and Z.AI of extracting billions of tokens from Claude, GPT, Gemini and Grok variants since at least late 2024, likely with Chinese government awareness. Campaigns allegedly used API proxy 'transfer stations', account pools, metadata sanitization and prompt injection to harvest reasoning, coding, agentic and reinforcement-learning capabilities, with techniques mapped to MITRE ATLAS. DeepSeek's R1 and V3 and Alibaba's Qwen families reportedly trained on harvested outputs, and DeepSeek's $5.6 million training-cost claim is disputed as excluding distilled data value. Agencies urge anomaly monitoring, output alteration for suspected extractors, and intelligence sharing across vendors, clouds and aggregators.
Microsoft security advisory – September 2026 monthly rollup (AV26-896) – Update 1
Canada's Cyber Centre relays Microsoft's September 2026 rollup; CISA added exploited zero-days CVE-2026-85880 and CVE-2026-81963 to KEV.
Advisory AV26-896 from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security summarizes Microsoft's September 2026 monthly security rollup, listing affected products across Windows, Office, .NET, Azure, Exchange and SQL Server. It notes Microsoft confirmed CVE-2026-81963 and CVE-2026-85880 have been exploited. On September 8, 2026, CISA added both CVEs to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and administrators are urged to apply the updates.
Controversy over OpenAI's Maths Breakthrough
OpenAI claims its internal model proved the Navier-Stokes equations 'blow up' — a Millennium Prize Problem — amid allegations it borrowed mathematicians' methods.
OpenAI announced that an internal model produced a proof, certified in the Lean proof assistant, showing the Navier-Stokes equations can 'blow up,' implying infinite fluid speeds — a claimed solution to one of the seven $1-million Millennium Prize Problems. Mathematician Tristan Buckmaster alleged OpenAI, after learning of progress by him and Anthropic employee Levent Alpöge on 'blowing up' the related Euler equations, adopted a similar 'forcing' method; OpenAI's Sébastien Bubeck denied this, saying the model independently solved Euler by different means and produced the full Navier-Stokes proof over one weekend. Mathematicians including Diego Córdoba, co-developer of the forcing approach, remain cautious, and the community is still evaluating the competing proofs.
CVE-2026-50522: Patch Critical SharePoint RCE Now
Microsoft patched CVE-2026-50522 (CVSS 9.8), an unauthenticated deserialization RCE in on-premises SharePoint servers, in its July 2026 updates; no exploitation confirmed at disclosure.
CVE-2026-50522 is a critical (CVSS 9.8) deserialization of untrusted data flaw (CWE-502) allowing unauthenticated remote code execution on on-premises Microsoft SharePoint servers. It affects SharePoint Enterprise Server 2016, SharePoint Server 2019, and SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, with fixes shipped in Microsoft's July 14, 2026 security updates; SharePoint Online is not listed as affected. No public evidence of active exploitation of this specific CVE existed at disclosure, though CISA's SSVC judged the attack automatable with total technical impact.
Condé Nast Data of 32.8 Million Users Offered for Sale After WIRED Leak
A 32.8 million-record Conde Nast user database is offered for $15,000 on a Russian cybercrime forum, extending December's WIRED leak with millions of unseen records.
A database of 32,815,767 Conde Nast user records went on sale on 7 September 2026 for $15,000 on a Russian-language forum, containing names, addresses, birth dates and phone numbers but no passwords or payment data. Ransomnews verified a 5,000-record sample as genuine account data collected between September and late October 2025, with roughly 30.5 million non-WIRED records never previously published. The listing matches the December 2025 WIRED leak of 2,366,576 records, claimed by an actor called 'Lovely' who said 40+ million records were stolen via IDOR and broken access controls. Conde Nast has not confirmed the breach; exposed data enables credible targeted phishing and fraud.
Wazuh and AI For Enhanced SOC Workflows
Wazuh details AI-powered SOC workflows via its AI Analyst, self-hosted Llama 3 via Ollama, and Claude 3.5 Haiku integrations.
Wazuh outlines how AI can augment SOC analysts handling high alert volumes. The Wazuh AI Analyst on Wazuh Cloud uses Amazon Bedrock and Anthropic Claude to generate scheduled security posture reports. Self-hosted options include Llama 3 with Ollama, FAISS, and LangChain for privacy-sensitive threat hunting, plus an OpenSearch Assistant integration with Claude 3.5 Haiku. This is a vendor-contributed piece describing product capabilities rather than an incident or vulnerability.
Trends in Web Threats: Old Web Skimmer Still Active Today
Unit 42 detected 577,000 landing URL incidents in Q1 2022, with an old web skimmer family still actively stealing payment card data.
Palo Alto Unit 42 detected 577,275 landing URL incidents (116,643 unique) and 2,043,862 malicious host URL incidents (180,370 unique) between January and March 2022. Web threat volumes declined after the November 2021 holiday peak, but an old web skimmer family remained active. Business and economy sites overtook personal sites as the most common apparently benign entry points. Most malicious domains geolocated to the United States, Germany, and Russia, though proxy servers and VPNs obscure true locations.
Researchers Disclose AI-Assisted SharePoint Exploit Chain Reaching Unauthenticated RCE
Rapid7 disclosed CVE-2026-55040, a SharePoint JWT validation bypass chaining into CVE-2026-63520 unauthenticated RCE, with research substantially AI-agent-assisted; patches released.
Rapid7 disclosed CVE-2026-55040 (CVSS 9.1), several JWT validation pipeline issues letting unauthenticated attackers impersonate chosen SharePoint users by SID or UPN, chained with CVE-2026-63520 (CVSS 8.1), an unsafe .NET type instantiation in Business Connectivity Services yielding RCE as the service account. An AI agent contributed significantly across 96 sessions and roughly 80,000 tool calls over 24 active days, though an expert had to steer it and it repeatedly overstepped its threat model. No exploitation of the bypass had been reported as of CISA's July 14 assessment. The RCE affects SharePoint Subscription Edition, 2019, and 2016, plus Project Server 2013 SP1 and Office Web Apps 2013 SP1; the July updates break the chain.