ThreatsDay: Gogs 10.0 RCE, n8n Workflow-to-RCE, $10M Reward, GLM
Hacker News ThreatsDay roundup: Defender BTR.sys driver abuse, DoJ charges 17 Mabna Institute members over IRGC-linked intrusions, Grandoreiro sideloading, OpenAI monitoring.
Check Point researchers showed Microsoft's signed Defender Boot-Time Removal driver (BTR.sys) can be repurposed as a universal kernel operation engine to bypass endpoint security without BYOVD. The DoJ charged 17 members of Iran's Mabna Institute, which on behalf of the IRGC stole over 31 TB of academic data from 144 US universities and compromised roughly 8,000 of 100,000 targeted professor accounts; the State Department offered a $10 million reward for five defendants. Separately, Acronis tracked a Grandoreiro campaign abusing DLL sideloading in the Duplicate Files Finder app across Latin America and Spain, while ErrTraffic ClickFix campaigns deliver Cruciferra (BYOVD) and Remus Stealer. OpenAI also previewed Private Safety Processing, a privacy-centric approach to monitoring model misuse without retaining customer content.
US charges Iranians for sprawling hacking campaign on government agencies, universities
DOJ indicts 17 Iranians tied to Mabna Institute IRGC hacking-for-hire campaign that stole 31TB from universities, agencies, and UN organizations.
The U.S. Justice Department unsealed a 14-count superseding indictment charging 17 people linked to the Mabna Institute, allegedly operating on behalf of the IRGC, in a campaign running since around 2013. The group breached 144 US universities, 42 US companies, 178 foreign universities, 11 foreign companies, and agencies including the Department of Labor, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Hawaii and Indiana state governments, plus UN organizations such as UNICEF, stealing at least 31 terabytes of academic and proprietary data and about 8,000 professor email accounts. The State Department offered a $10 million reward for five individuals including Behzad Mesri, previously indicted for the $6 million HBO extortion; universities spent roughly $20 million on investigation and remediation.