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DragonForce Hackers Abuse Microsoft Teams Relays to Hide Backdoor.Turn C2 Traffic

Symantec and Carbon Black found DragonForce-linked hackers using Backdoor.Turn, a Go RAT tunneling C2 through Microsoft Teams TURN relays via QUIC.

Broadcom's Symantec and Carbon Black documented Backdoor.Turn, a Go-based RAT associated with the DragonForce ransomware group, deployed at a major U.S. services firm where attackers remained on the network for one to two months. The backdoor obtains an anonymous Teams visitor token from Microsoft's Skype-backed identity services, uses a legitimate Microsoft TURN relay for connection setup, and runs a QUIC session to the attacker's C2 server, so defenders see only outbound traffic to legitimate Teams servers. Initial access is suspected to involve exploiting a SQL/MS-SQL vulnerability or an access broker, followed by a PowerShell-dropped ZIP, DLL side-loading, and BYOVD evasion using a Huawei driver; the RAT is injected into DbgView64.exe after DragonForce ransomware deployment for continued access. First publicly documented TURN abuse by the group, it leverages Praetorian's Ghost Calls technique and supports command execution, network scanning, LDAP/AD search, lateral movement, and browser credential theft.

Human Attacker Hits Machine-Speed Exploitation of Marimo RCE

Sysdig details a human attacker chaining pre-auth RCE in Marimo (CVE-2026-39987) to AWS credentials and a bastion host in eight seconds.

Sysdig's Threat Research Team documented an intrusion where an operator exploited CVE-2026-39987, a pre-auth RCE in the Marimo notebook terminal WebSocket endpoint, gaining an interactive shell with no credentials. The attacker harvested AWS credentials from the process environment and Redis backend, retrieved an SSH private key from AWS Secrets Manager, and authenticated to an internet-reachable bastion host. The chain fired in eight seconds after roughly four hours of toolkit building, logging over 850 commands during a nine-hour session. The flaw, fixed in Marimo 0.23.0, has been on CISA's KEV catalog with a May 7, 2026 federal remediation deadline.

Infosecurity Magazineupdated · 1d agofirst · 1d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 4 sourcesCVE-2026-39987

Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

Microsoft patches 974 flaws in record Patch Tuesday, including two actively exploited Windows zero-days enabling privilege escalation.

Microsoft's largest-ever Patch Tuesday addresses 974 vulnerabilities, with CVE-2026-81963 (Windows Update Stack) and CVE-2026-85880 (Windows Advanced Local Procedure Call) exploited before disclosure. Both zero-days carry CVSS 7.8 ratings and allow privilege escalation. More than 10% of the defects are rated critical, and researchers attribute the record volume to AI-assisted vulnerability discovery without a matching rise in active exploitation.

CyberScoop · 7d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-81963CVE-2026-85880

Rogue ScreenConnect Installations Across Unrelated Hosts Suggest Worm-Like Activity

Huntress observed rogue ScreenConnect deployments with worm-like VBScript propagation across unrelated organizations, prompting a ConnectWise advisory on file transfer behavior.

Huntress identified multiple incidents in late August 2026 where social engineering led to rogue ScreenConnect remote access clients deployed on victim machines, which then spawned wscript.exe to run four VBScript payloads (1.vbs through 4.vbs) for profiling, telemetry collection, and persistence via a WindowsServiceHost Run key. Modified ScreenConnect clients propagated the VBScript chain to connected endpoints, creating worm-like spread. ConnectWise published an advisory on September 3, 2026, confirming an issue affecting file transfer behavior in both cloud and on-premises ScreenConnect deployments, with a CVE and fix expected within the week; partners were advised to review and disable TransferFiles permissions in the interim.

Huntress · 13d agoExploit / PoC in the wild1

Google researchers uncover criminal zero-day exploit likely built with AI

Google links a likely LLM-built criminal zero-day for an open-source admin tool to planned mass exploitation and maps AI-assisted threats.

Google Threat Intelligence Group linked a zero-day exploit for a popular open-source web-based administration tool, enabling 2FA bypass with valid credentials via a semantic logic error, to a criminal group, citing educational docstrings, a hallucinated CVSS score, and textbook Python as signs of LLM authorship; the vendor was notified before a planned mass exploitation campaign. The report also details Russia-nexus malware families CANFAIL and LONGSTREAM using AI-generated decoy code, the PROMPTSPY Android backdoor driving the UI through the Gemini API, APT27 using Gemini to build relay tooling, and the TeamPCP (UNC6780) supply chain compromise of LiteLLM and Trivy repositories that planted the SANDCLOCK credential stealer.

Help Net Security · 23d agoThreat actor

ToxicPanda 2.0 Gets a Major Upgrade, Expanding Attacks Across 16 Countries

Zimperium documents ToxicPanda 2.0, an Android banking trojan now targeting 349 financial institutions in 16 countries via ADB privilege escalation and overlay credential theft.

Zimperium's zLabs documented ToxicPanda 2.0, an Android banking trojan expanding from 16 targeted apps to 349 financial institutions across 16 countries, with 167 remote commands. It poses as a dropper, abuses VPN permissions to block Google Play Protect while installing a hidden payload, then uses the Accessibility Service for screen monitoring and overlay-based credential theft. It automates enabling Android Wireless Debugging and completes the pairing handshake to gain ADB shell access for privilege escalation, and overlays fake lock screens to steal device PINs. Previously unfinished commands are now operational and samples are served from AWS-hosted storage buckets.

Security Affairs · 24d agoMalware in the wild

China’s ‘SilkParasite’ espionage operation targeting Central Asia with AI

Bitdefender attributes the SilkParasite espionage campaign to China-linked actors using five new malware strains and AI-assisted development to target Central Asian governments.

Bitdefender researchers uncovered a nearly year-long espionage operation dubbed SilkParasite targeting government economic institutions in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The campaign uses seven malware families, five previously undocumented, including DriveSilkRAT, which communicates through a shared Google Drive folder instead of a dedicated C2 server. The attackers gained access via malicious Microsoft Office documents delivered through spearphishing emails packaged in archives. Bitdefender found evidence of AI-generated lures and AI-assisted malware development, tied the campaign to China via infrastructure and malware overlaps, and observed 65 infections across targeted countries.

The Record · 26d agoThreat actor in the wild

Medusa ransomware gang has hit over 500 organizations, CISA warns

FBI, CISA, and HHS warn Medusa ransomware has hit over 500 organizations across critical infrastructure since June 2021, using phishing and unpatched flaws.

An updated joint advisory from CISA, FBI, and HHS states Medusa ransomware has affected more than 500 organizations, spanning healthcare, defense, manufacturing, government, IT, financial services, education, insurance, and legal sectors. Since early 2023 Medusa has operated a ransomware-as-a-service affiliate model and buys access from initial access brokers for $100 to $1 million. Affiliates gain entry via phishing and unpatched internet-facing software, exploiting newly disclosed flaws in ScreenConnect, Fortinet EMS, Fortra GoAnywhere, and BeyondTrust within 24 hours. The group runs double extortion, giving victims 48 hours before leak-site publication, with $10,000 in cryptocurrency buying a one-day delay.

Help Net Security · 28d agoRansomware in the wild

Medusa ransomware tallies hundreds of new victims, says updated advisory on group’s tactics

CISA, FBI, and HHS updated their Medusa ransomware advisory, reporting over 500 victims and detailing the gang's access-broker and exploit tactics.

A joint advisory update from CISA, the FBI, and HHS expands the March 2025 Medusa guidance, drawing on a year of FBI investigations. The ransomware-as-a-service group's known victim tally grew from more than 300 to more than 500 between March 2025 and April 2026, with the Healthcare and Public Health sector frequently hit. Medusa pays access brokers $100 to $1 million, has exploited flaws such as Fortra GoAnywhere and BeyondTrust vulnerabilities, and leverages newly announced exploits within 24 hours, sometimes a week before public disclosure. The group uses living-off-the-land techniques, remote monitoring and management software, and RDP for lateral movement, and has been linked to actors including Microsoft-tracked Storm-1175 and North Korean hackers targeting healthcare.

CyberScoop · 28d agoRansomware in the wild

One Attacker Has Scraped Both Salesforce and ServiceNow Portals Since 2025

Reco tracks the City Forum campaign: one Contabo VPS has scraped Salesforce and ServiceNow guest portals across finance, telecom and public sector since March 2025.

Reco researchers identified infrastructure at 158.220.87.79, a Contabo VPS using Go's default net/http user agent, that has harvested records from Salesforce Experience Cloud and ServiceNow customer portals across telecom, financial services, enterprise software and public sector targets for over a year. The tool abuses over-privileged persistent guest users, enumerating Salesforce Aura sites (560,000+ events at one target), probing Lightning Web Runtime via the UI-API across API versions v56.0-v66.0, and hitting the poorly documented ServiceNow Service Portal search endpoint. No named victims or actor attribution yet, and activity is ongoing with rising volume. Defenders are advised to hunt the Go-http-client user agent and specific IP in Salesforce Event Monitoring logs and syslog_transaction on ServiceNow, then tighten guest sharing rules and Knowledge Base read criteria.

The Hacker News · 29d agoThreat actor in the wild1

APT36 Suspected in PATCHCORD Espionage Campaign Using Google Sheets C2

Acronis links the PATCHCORD espionage campaign targeting Afghan telecom and South Asian critical infrastructure to APT36 with moderate confidence.

Acronis Threat Research Unit documented PATCHCORD, a previously undocumented C/C++ backdoor delivered via fake VPN installers impersonating Afghan Telecom (AFTEL), which hijacks Edge, Chrome and Firefox shortcuts for persistence and executes in-memory shellcode. A related Go implant, SHEETCORD, abuses the Google Sheets API for per-victim C2 and was distributed via a domain impersonating India's National Informatics Centre, while a third tool, HACKERAI C2 Agent, uses GitHub Gists and shows signs of LLM-assisted coding. An exposed staging server revealed SuperShell, RAT frameworks, credential-harvesting tools and OpenSSH exploit code, and the researchers attribute the activity to APT36/Transparent Tribe at moderate confidence.

Security Affairs · Aug 16, 2026Threat actor in the wild