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Hackers Exploit FortiGate SSL-VPN Flaw to Breach Thai ISP and Deploy MeshCentral Backdoor

Threat actors exploited FortiOS SSL-VPN flaw CVE-2024-21762 to breach Thai ISP Triple T Broadband, gaining root-level persistence via MeshCentral agents.

Attackers exploited CVE-2024-21762, an out-of-bounds write enabling unauthenticated RCE in FortiOS SSL-VPN, against Triple T Broadband's FortiGate 60F at mail.3bb.co.th, launching a Node.js reverse shell via a ROP payload. Hunt.io uncovered the operation through an exposed staging directory at 92.63.180[.]133:8888 containing 298 files of exploits, credential-harvesting scripts, session cookies, and a device inventory. Post-compromise, the actors deployed MeshCentral agents (device group TH-3BB, C2 www.ayuthayatech.com) running as root, plus a hidden SUID backdoor at /usr/local/bin/.rc, and also targeted an internal Pentaho/Tomcat server with Ghostcat (CVE-2020-1938). A cleanup script removed logs, shell histories, and web shells while deliberately preserving the MeshCentral agent and SUID backdoor.

GBHackers · 2d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 3 sourcesCVE-2024-21762CVE-2020-1938

Japan's Digital Agency says VPN flaw exposed 246,000 personnel records

Attackers exploited a VPN device vulnerability to breach Japan's Digital Agency, potentially exposing 246,000 records of government employees and officials.

Japan's Digital Agency disclosed that a third party exploited a medium-severity, non-zero-day vulnerability in a VPN device used by the Government Solution Service (GSS) to gain unauthorized access. Around 246,000 record rows were potentially exposed, including 236,000 names, 231,000 email addresses, 94,000 phone numbers, and 1,000 physical addresses of government employees and associated businesses. No My Number IDs, bank account details, or pension numbers were exposed, and no misuse of the data has been detected so far. The agency suspended the compromised staff account on July 9 and notified Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission on July 15.

BleepingComputerupdated · 1d agofirst · 2d agoData breach in the wild 2 sources

Critical NetScaler Flaw Can Bypass Authentication on Certain Gateway and AAA Servers

Citrix patches critical NetScaler Gateway and AAA authentication bypass CVE-2026-19490 (CVSS 9.3) plus a SIP ALG memory overflow flaw; exploitation attempts observed.

Citrix fixed CVE-2026-19490 (CVSS 9.3), an authentication bypass affecting customer-managed NetScaler ADC and Gateway appliances configured as Gateway (SSL VPN, ICA Proxy, CVPN, RDP Proxy) or AAA virtual servers, and CVE-2026-19489 (CVSS 8.8), a memory overflow causing DoS when SIP ALG is enabled in Large Scale NAT groups. Updates are available in versions 14.1-73.32, 13.1-63.21, and corresponding FIPS/NDcPP builds, while Citrix-managed cloud services were already patched. The flaws were reported by Samarth Vashisht of JPMorgan Chase's penetration-testing team, and Previdian later observed 10 exploitation attempts against CVE-2026-19490 from six unique IP addresses in Australia, Germany, Japan, and the US, with no confirmed compromise.

The Hacker News · 12d agoVulnerability in the wildCVE-2026-19489CVE-2026-19490CVE-2026-8451

Japan’s Digital Agency Breach Exposes 240,000+ Users’ Personal Records to Hackers

Attackers exploited a patched VPN appliance flaw to breach Japan's Digital Agency shared government platform, exposing about 246,000 personal records.

Japan's Digital Agency disclosed on September 11 that attackers exploited a VPN appliance vulnerability to access the Government Solution Service (GSS), a shared IT platform across ministries, exposing roughly 246,000 personal records. The attacker was active since late May using a maintenance staffer's credentials, with suspicious activity detected June 25 and containment on July 9. Exposed data covers about 189,000 employees/public officials and 57,000 contractors; no My Number, bank, or pension data was included. The VPN flaw was medium severity with a patch already available, and the 78-day detection-to-disclosure gap has drawn scrutiny.

Cyber Security News · 1d agoData breach in the wild 2 sources

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, 2026Threat actor in the wild1

New Mirai Variant Targeting Network Security Devices

New Mirai botnet variant exploits nine vulnerabilities in SonicWall, D-Link, Netgear, and other devices, with attacks ongoing at publication.

Unit 42 observed attacks exploiting VisualDoor (SonicWall SSL-VPN), CVE-2020-25506 (D-Link DNS-320), CVE-2020-26919 (Netgear ProSAFE Plus), and other flaws, with infrastructure rotating across at least three IP addresses between February 16 and March 13, 2021. Payloads were updated hours after CVE-2021-27561 and CVE-2021-27562 (Yealink Device Management, unauthenticated root RCE) and later added CVE-2021-22502 (Micro Focus Operation Bridge Reporter) and CVE-2019-19356 (Netis WF2419). Successful exploitation invokes wget to fetch shell scripts that download Mirai binaries compiled for multiple architectures and brute-forcers, and attacks were still ongoing when reported.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 28d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2020-25506CVE-2020-26919CVE-2019-19356+3 CVEs

Cisco fixes vulnerability exploited to DoS its firewalls (CVE-2026-20349)

Cisco patches CVE-2026-20349, a high-severity unauthenticated DoS in ASA and FTD VPN services now added to CISA's KEV.

CVE-2026-20349 affects the Remote Access SSL VPN service in Cisco Secure Firewall ASA and FTD software, where specially crafted unauthenticated HTTP requests can cause appliances to reload, creating a denial of service. Cisco confirmed active exploitation observed in August 2026 and released hot fixes for ASA versions 9.16 through 9.24 and FTD versions 7.0 through 10.0. The flaw was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog with a remediation deadline of August 14, 2026 for US civilian federal agencies. No workarounds or indicators of compromise are available.

Help Net Security · Aug 13, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-20349

Cisco ASA and FTD Flaw Exploited in the Wild Can Trigger Remote DoS

Cisco warns actively exploited flaw CVE-2026-20349 lets unauthenticated attackers crash ASA and FTD firewalls via SSL VPN; CISA added it to KEV.

Cisco fixed CVE-2026-20349 (CVSS 8.6) in Secure Firewall ASA and FTD software, insufficient error checking in HTTP request processing that lets unauthenticated remote attackers force device reloads via crafted requests to the Remote Access SSL VPN service. Hotfixes cover ASA 9.16 through 9.24 and FTD 7.0 through 10.0, and there are no workarounds; Cisco confirmed active exploitation earlier in August but did not name the actor or targets. The flaw was found during internal security testing. CISA added it to the KEV catalog, requiring federal civilian agencies to patch by August 14, 2026.

The Hacker News · Aug 12, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-20349

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 9 sourcesCVE-2026-20079CVE-2026-20316

Hackers Exploit Critical FortiGate Flaw to Deploy AI-Assisted PivotC2 RAT

SOCRadar says attackers exploit FortiGate CVE-2025-25249 to deploy the PivotC2 Node.js RAT, compromising 178 of 30,000 targeted devices and stealing credentials.

SOCRadar's Threat Research Unit reports active exploitation of CVE-2025-25249, a CVSS 9.8 heap-based buffer overflow in the cw_acd daemon of FortiOS and FortiSwitchManager, via crafted CAPWAP requests to UDP port 5246, compromising at least 178 of 30,000 targeted internet-exposed FortiGate devices since July 2026. The campaign deploys PivotC2, a Node.js RAT that provides interactive shells, SOCKS5/HTTP proxying, port forwarding, network scanning, and automated configuration harvesting that decrypts stored FortiGate credentials, including VPN pre-shared keys, SSL-VPN credentials, and LDAP secrets. Russian-language artifacts, AD enumeration, browser credential theft, RDP enablement, and exfiltration of Exchange .pst files to Wasabi S3 point to a Russian-speaking, financially motivated group; two US organizations confirmed full-network intrusions. Fixes include FortiOS 7.6.4/7.4.9/7.2.12/7.0.18+ and FortiSwitchManager 7.2.7/7.0.6+, plus blocking CAPWAP on internet-facing interfaces.

GBHackers · 7d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-252492

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 · 25d agoMalware in the wild

Threat Brief: Maze Ransomware

Unit 42 issued a threat brief on Maze ransomware, noting an uptick across industries and exploitation of Pulse VPN and IE flaws for initial access.

Palo Alto Networks detected an uptick in Maze ransomware samples across finance, healthcare, government, and other sectors. Maze, a variant of ChaCha ransomware first seen in May 2019, is distributed via weaponized Word/Excel attachments and the Spelevo exploit kit leveraging CVE-2018-15982 and CVE-2018-4878, and has used CVE-2019-11510 (Pulse VPN) and CVE-2018-8174 (Internet Explorer). Operators establish a foothold, escalate privileges, move laterally, and exfiltrate files before encryption for extortion leverage.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Ransomware in the wildCVE-2018-15982CVE-2018-4878CVE-2019-11510+1 CVEs

Akira Ransomware Uses Safe Mode to Bypass EDR

An Akira affiliate rebooted a compromised host into Safe Mode to bypass EDR, but constrained memory crashed the encryptor before encryption completed.

Huntress reports an Akira affiliate gained access on August 4 via an MFA-less SonicWall VPN, enumerated Active Directory, archived file shares with WinRAR, and exfiltrated data to an attacker S3 bucket. The attacker rebooted the host into Safe Mode with Networking and preloaded AnyDesk into the Safe Mode service registry, disabling EDR and Defender's real-time protection for roughly ten minutes. The encryptor failed about 13 seconds after launch with out-of-virtual-memory errors caused by Safe Mode's stripped-down environment, and Defender later removed akira.exe after reboot. Huntress says this is the first observed Safe Mode abuse by Akira, following precedents by Snatch and AvosLocker, and provides detection guidance.

Security Affairs · Aug 17, 2026Ransomware in the wild

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

Cisco ASA and FTD DoS Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild (CVE-2026-20349)

Cisco patched actively exploited high-severity flaw CVE-2026-20349 in ASA and FTD SSL VPN services, allowing unauthenticated remote denial-of-service attacks.

Cisco released a security advisory addressing CVE-2026-20349, a high-severity vulnerability in the Remote Access SSL VPN service of Cisco Secure Firewall ASA and FTD Software. Successful exploitation by an unauthenticated remote attacker can cause affected devices to crash or reload, causing denial of service. The vulnerability is being exploited in the wild, and patches are available; organizations with internet-exposed ASA/FTD VPN endpoints should prioritize updating.

Qualys ThreatPROTECT · Aug 13, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-20349

Gunra Ransomware Exploits Fortinet FortiOS, FortiProxy Flaws to Breach Networks

CISA, FBI, and South Korean agencies warn Gunra ransomware, with 51 victims since April 2025, exploits Fortinet flaws for double-extortion attacks on critical infrastructure.

CISA, the FBI, and South Korean agencies warned of Gunra ransomware attacks targeting healthcare, financial services, government, and professional services worldwide. The Conti-derived operation exploits internet-facing Fortinet FortiOS and FortiProxy flaws CVE-2024-55591 and CVE-2025-24472 for initial access, then deploys double extortion with Salsa20/ChaCha20 encryption and publishes non-payers on a leak site within five to seven days. Ransomware.Live lists 51 victims since April 2025, mostly in South Korea, Brazil, Spain, Thailand, and Hong Kong. The group uses Impacket tools for SMB lateral movement and NTDS credential dumping, tampers with VDI authentication to accept a designated OTP value to bypass MFA, and launched a RaaS affiliate program in January 2026 under the new alias Golden Community.

The Hacker News · Aug 12, 2026Ransomware in the wildCVE-2024-55591CVE-2025-24472

CVE-2026-16232: Check Point SmartConsole Auth Bypass

Check Point SmartConsole authentication bypass CVE-2026-16232 grants unauthenticated attackers full admin access; actively exploited and added to CISA KEV.

CVE-2026-16232 is an improper authentication flaw (CWE-287) in the Check Point SmartConsole login process that lets an unauthenticated remote attacker obtain an application token and authenticate with full administrative privileges. Exploitation requires the Management Server to be internet-reachable and the Trusted Clients list not restricted to specific administrator addresses. Check Point confirmed active exploitation affecting a small number of customers, and the vulnerability has been added to the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. A hotfix is available via Check Point advisory sk185169.

Web discovery (articles for new exploits & KEV entries) · 12d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-162321

Ransomware group hijacks hospital system’s Facebook page amid ongoing cyberattack fallout

'The Gentlemen' ransomware group hijacked AnMed's Facebook page, claiming theft of 6TB of sensitive patient data during an ongoing cyberattack on the hospital system.

AnMed, a nonprofit medical system with four hospitals in Georgia and South Carolina, is still responding to a July 26 cyberattack involving malware, with 10 facilities remaining closed as of Monday. On Tuesday its Facebook page displayed unauthorized posts claiming 'The Gentlemen' ransomware group exfiltrated 6 terabytes of data, including records on sexual assault, mental health, abortions and harassment; AnMed said the claims are unverified and patient data impact has not been confirmed. The Gentlemen, believed founded by a former Qilin affiliate using the moniker 'hastalamuerte,' extorted 332 victims in the first five months of 2026 per CheckPoint and claimed 125 industrial attacks in Q2 2026 per Dragos. The group typically breaches networks through edge devices, credential brute-forcing and known vulnerabilities, and offers affiliates tools to disable EDR.

The Record · Aug 11, 2026Ransomware in the wild