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Attackers are weaponizing the gap between Chromium fixes and Chrome patches

Espionage actors use the BlueMoon exploit kit to chain Chrome V8 and Windows kernel zero-days via spear phishing, gaining full admin on unpatched endpoints.

Proofpoint, working with Google Threat Intelligence Group, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center and Volexity, reports that the BlueMoon exploit kit chains V8 type confusion CVE-2026-85046, V8 sandbox escape CVE-2026-87491 and Windows kernel LPE CVE-2026-85880, all rated high severity. The V8 flaws were fixed in upstream Chromium source but had not yet reached Chrome stable releases, creating a patch gap that attackers reverse-engineered and weaponized. A China-aligned state-sponsored actor used the kit from August 28 against a small number of US NGOs, mining and commodity trading firms via rapport-building spear phishing, and within days several mostly China-linked espionage clusters adopted BlueMoon. The chain yields full Windows admin privileges from a single phishing click; defenders should patch Chrome and Windows, apply Proofpoint detections and hunt for leftover artifacts.

CSO Onlineupdated · 5h agofirst · 5d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 16 sourcesCVE-2026-85046CVE-2026-87491CVE-2026-85880

Passkey-themed phishing attacks lead to Microsoft 365 data theft

Microsoft links ShinyHunters- and Helix-affiliated actors to passkey-themed vishing and device-code phishing that compromises Microsoft 365 accounts and steals cloud data.

Microsoft attributes passkey- and SSO-themed social engineering activity, observed since May 2026, to Storm-3121 (linked to ShinyHunters and Falcon) and Storm-3032 (tied to BlackFile members now operating as Helix). Attackers impersonate corporate IT help desks by phone or SMS, urging fake passkey, MFA, or SSO updates and directing victims to adversary-in-the-middle phishing pages or device-code authentication flows that yield credentials, session tokens, and OAuth tokens. Post-compromise behavior includes Microsoft Graph enumeration of users, SharePoint, and OAuth grants, plus persistence via attacker-controlled MFA methods. Google Threat Intelligence tracks related activity as UNC6671, linked to the BlackFile, Helix, Falcon, Pink, and Redact extortion gangs.

BleepingComputerupdated · 7h agofirst · 5d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 9 sources

Passkey-themed social engineering leads to identity and cloud compromise

Microsoft tracks ongoing cloud intrusions where passkey-themed helpdesk lures enable AiTM credential theft, MFA persistence, and SharePoint data theft.

Microsoft Security Research is tracking active cloud-based intrusions, observed since May 2026, that begin with helpdesk impersonation calls and SMS lures urging urgent passkey, MFA, or SSO updates. The lures lead to adversary-in-the-middle phishing or device-code authentication flows that capture credentials and session tokens or grant actor access, after which the actors add authentication methods, conduct Microsoft Graph reconnaissance, and download SharePoint and OneDrive content via REST APIs. Phishing domains embed victim organization names as subdomains (e.g., contoso.add-passkey[.]com), are often registered with Nicenic, and go operational within hours. Microsoft advises revoking sessions and removing unauthorized authentication methods for confirmed compromises.

Microsoft Security Blog · 7d agoThreat actor in the wild2

Electronic health record company says customer data stolen in breach

Veradigm disclosed that attackers used stolen vendor credentials via an API to steal patient data including Social Security numbers, as the Gentlemen ransomware gang claims 3.5 million patients' records.

Electronic health records company Veradigm filed an 8-K with the SEC stating that an unauthorized party obtained credentials from a vendor's environment and used them to access a Veradigm API, downloading patients' personal data including Social Security numbers; no clinical or medical data was involved. The Gentlemen ransomware gang added Veradigm to its leak site, claiming theft of 3.5 million patients' health records. Access was limited to the specific API interface, with no operational disruption. Veradigm was previously hit by SamSam ransomware in 2019 and disclosed a December 2024 breach affecting 2,672,036 people.

The Record · 7d agoData breach in the wild

US says Chinese firms extracted billions of tokens from frontier AI models

CISA, NSA, and FBI say six Chinese AI firms including DeepSeek industrial-scale distilled Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and xAI frontier models.

A joint CISA, NSA, and FBI advisory accuses DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, and Z.AI of extracting billions of tokens from frontier models via millions of API requests since late 2024. The agencies assess the operations likely had Chinese government awareness and represent a core development strategy. Tactics included fraudulent shared accounts, provider failover, proxy routing, and chain-of-thought extraction across Claude, GPT, Gemini, and Grok models.

BleepingComputer · 7d agoAI safety & security in the wild

F5 BIG-IP APM Malware Injects a PHP Web Shell Into Memory, Evading Disk Scans

Sophos found F5 BIG-IP APM malware that injects a PHP web shell into Apache's memory, evading disk scans, linked to exploited CVE-2025-53521.

Sophos's September 7 analysis describes malware tied to F5's c05d5254 activity that hooks apr_dso_load, modifies the libphp PHP module in memory, and injects a PHP web shell when Apache loads apm_css.php3, full_wt.php3 or webtop_popup_css.php3, leaving on-disk files clean. A separate installer infects /usr/sbin/httpd and umount, runs before Apache starts, disables SELinux (per ESET's related PoisonedRefresh analysis), and opens a local socket at /run/bigtlog.pipe for shell access. The activity is linked to CVE-2025-53521 in BIG-IP APM, rated 9.8 CVSS 3.1, patched in October 2025, added to CISA KEV on March 27, 2026.

The Hacker News · 7d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-53521

UNC6671 Vishing Attacks Target Personal Phones to Steal SaaS Data

Google and Mandiant attribute vishing-based SaaS data extortion attacks to UNC6671, now operating under the Redact, Pink, Helix, and Falcon brands.

Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant track extortion group UNC6671, which uses vishing calls impersonating IT help desks to lure employees to adversary-in-the-middle phishing pages that capture credentials, MFA tokens, and session tokens. The group then registers adversary-controlled MFA devices, pivots through identity providers into Microsoft 365, Okta, and other SaaS applications, and runs automated Python and PowerShell exfiltration scripts. UNC6671 has rotated through extortion brands including BlackFile, Redact, Pink, Helix, and Falcon, and Google tracked over $10.6 million in Bitcoin payments between January 7 and May 12, 2026, with initial demands exceeding $3 million. The actor has hit dozens of organizations in North America, Australia, and the UK, shifting toward high-value financial and legal firms in July 2026.

The Hacker Newsupdated · 9d agofirst · 9d agoThreat actor in the wild 2 sources1

North Korean Hackers Deploy New Linux Espionage Toolkit

Rapid7 says North Korea-aligned actors use a new Linux espionage toolkit (ted HAProxy backdoor, CurlRAT) against South Korean automotive and media targets.

Rapid7 reports a stealthy Linux framework comprising a custom HAProxy backdoor ('ted'), trojanized system binaries (agetty, atd, crond, polkitd, sshd), an SSH keylogger, and CurlRAT that polls C&C every 12 hours. Initial access came via a Groupware login portal flaw, with credential harvesting enabling lateral movement to internal systems. The toolkit supports long-term surveillance, HTTP traffic interception/injection, and drive-by downloads, likely in use since late 2024. Infrastructure and artifacts overlap Operation SyncHole, suggesting Lazarus or APT37 involvement.

SecurityWeek · 9d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Attackers Hijack MikroTik Routers Through Internet-Exposed SSH Without Authentication

CERT Polska warns attackers exploit internet-exposed MikroTik SSH for unauthenticated full admin control; attacks observed since at least September 2.

CERT Polska warned on September 5 that attackers exploit MikroTik routers with internet-reachable SSH to gain full administrative control without authentication, calling the two-flaw combination 'MikroTrick'. Successful attacks date to at least September 2; no victim count or attacker identity was disclosed. MikroTik shipped fixed RouterOS releases: 6.49.21, 7.23.4 (with 7.23.5 fixing an IPv6 DHCP regression), 7.24.2, and 7.25beta3. CERT recommends immediate updates, checking for unauthorized configuration changes, and restricting SSH, WWW/WWW-SSL, and bandwidth-test services on unpatched devices.

The Hacker News · 10d agoExploit / PoC in the wild

China-linked Fire Ant Hides Inside Trusted Infrastructure

China-linked Fire Ant backdoored Cisco IOS XR routers, injected TACACS libraries to steal credentials, and rewrote logs across infrastructure targets.

Sygnia reports the China-linked espionage group Fire Ant compromised Cisco IOS XR routers with purpose-built malware, injected a library into the TACACS authentication daemon to capture live credential material, and manipulated syslog so only messages containing 'Health' were logged. The group used GRE tunnel interfaces with no commit history, rewrote wtmp/utmp/btmp login records, and deployed dormant deep backdoors on Linux systems — one disguised as a SentinelOne agent, another activated by raw network traffic carrying a magic string. Code-level overlap with UNC3886 tooling suggests evolution of that China-nexus cluster's TACACS credential-collection techniques, and Fire Ant used compromised infrastructure to scan SSH, RDP and web ports toward high-value networks.

Security Affairs · 16d agoThreat actor in the wild

Risky Bulletin: Two TeamPCP members arrested in Australia

Australian Federal Police arrested two alleged TeamPCP members behind supply-chain worm attacks that stole over 500,000 credentials from compromised open-source libraries.

The AFP arrested alleged TeamPCP leader Ruben Thomson, 21, and Louis Gaebler, 23, near Perth; both were charged and remain in custody. The group inserted a self-spreading credential-stealing worm into open-source projects including Trivy, KICS, LiteLLM, and Telnyx, harvesting more than 500,000 credentials used for network access, ransomware, extortion, and sales. About 78,000 tokens and secrets from nearly 2,200 organizations leaked online last month, and the FBI supported the investigation that began in April.

Risky Business News · 19d agoPolicy & legal in the wild1

Microsoft patches 400+ vulnerabilities, one zero-day under attack (CVE-2026-68820)

Microsoft's August 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 400+ vulnerabilities, including an actively exploited Windows zero-day (CVE-2026-68820) used by North Korean attackers.

Microsoft's August 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes over 400 vulnerabilities, including CVE-2026-68820, a use-after-free in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver exploited in the wild by North Korean actors deploying a kernel-mode rootkit in Operation Dream Job. Critical unauthenticated remote code execution flaws in Microsoft QUIC (CVE-2026-62815) and Windows DNS (CVE-2026-62878) were also patched, alongside a SharePoint RCE chain combining CVE-2026-63520 with CVE-2026-55040. Researcher Nightmare-Eclipse released ShieldBreak, a PoC bypassing the July RoguePlanet Microsoft Defender patch (CVE-2026-50656), confirmed working by Will Dormann on Windows 11.

Help Net Security · Aug 12, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-68820CVE-2026-62832CVE-2026-72971+6 CVEs

Three Threat Groups Target Russian Enterprises With Backdoors, Ransomware, and Wipers

Kaspersky details NightEagle, Hacking Cat, and Toy Ghouls targeting Russian enterprises with Exchange backdoors, Gorilla RAT, and destructive Monkey ransomware.

Kaspersky reports three threat clusters targeting Russian enterprises: NightEagle (APT-Q-95), the pro-Ukrainian hacktivist group Hacking Cat, and Toy Ghouls. NightEagle uses compromised VPN credentials and the GhostContainer modular backdoor to fully compromise Microsoft Exchange servers, chaining CVE-2020-0688 exploitation, BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708), Active Directory vulnerabilities, and DCSync to seize domain controllers. Hacking Cat exploits Exchange flaws including CVE-2021-26855 and CVE-2026-42897 to deliver the Gorilla RAT and multiple Monkey ransomware variants written in Rust, .NET, C++, and Golang targeting Windows, Linux, and VMware ESXi, with some variants acting as wipers that never store the encryption key.

Google Pixel owners urged to patch actively exploited modem flaw

Google's September 2026 Pixel bulletin fixes 110 vulnerabilities, including CVE-2026-58704, a modem permission bypass under limited targeted exploitation enabling remote privilege escalation.

Google released the September 2026 Pixel Update Bulletin addressing 110 vulnerabilities, including CVE-2026-58704, a high-severity logic error in the cellular modem that allows remote escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges or user interaction required. Google says there are indications the flaw may be under limited, targeted exploitation; attackers need adjacent network access and some existing foothold on the device, which the bulletin does not explain how to obtain. The fix ships at the 2026-09-05 patch level and appears only in the Pixel-specific bulletin, so other Android vendors do not receive this specific fix.

Malwarebytes Labsupdated · 4h agofirst · 11h agoExploit / PoC in the wild 8 sourcesCVE-2026-58704

Low-quality casino sites conceal highly dangerous threat actors

Infoblox reveals China-aligned APT groups hiding PeckBirdy malware C2 domains inside roughly 1.7 million Chinese-language illegal casino websites.

An Infoblox report says it tracks about 1.7 million Chinese-language casino sites enabling illegal gambling, some of which double as command-and-control infrastructure. China-aligned APT groups have hidden PeckBirdy framework C2 domains inside these low-quality casino sites since 2023, injecting scripts that display fake software update pages to deliver malware. Over 3 percent of Infoblox enterprise customers resolved at least one PeckBirdy C2 domain, and some sites rely on US cloud providers via 'infrastructure laundering.' Infoblox urges defenders not to dismiss casino-domain alerts as mere employee browsing violations.

The Register · Security · 1d agoThreat actor in the wild

Hackers target WordPress sites via third-party WooCommerce plugin

Attackers exploit unauthenticated file-upload flaw CVE-2026-27540 in WooCommerce Wholesale Lead Capture plugin to install PHP webshells; Wordfence blocked 100,000+ attacks.

CVE-2026-27540 is an unauthenticated arbitrary file-upload vulnerability in the WooCommerce Wholesale Lead Capture premium plugin (versions 2.0.3.1 and older), caused by the exposed wwlc_file_upload_handler AJAX action trusting a user-controlled file_settings allowlist. Discovered by researcher Teemu Saarentaus, it was fixed in version 2.0.3.2 released February 20. Defiant reports Wordfence blocked over 100,000 attacks, with exploitation spikes between June 4-17, July 1, and August 30, delivering shell.php webshells for reconnaissance and additional payload uploads.

BleepingComputerupdated · 6h agofirst · 1d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 6 sourcesCVE-2026-275402· 1 read

240,000 Hit by Data Breach at Japan’s Digital Agency

Japan's Digital Agency says hackers exploited a VPN flaw and a maintenance account to steal ~246,000 records on 240,000 people.

Japan's Digital Agency disclosed a breach of its Government Solution Service (GSS) affecting roughly 240,000 individuals, discovered in late June. Attackers exploited a publicly disclosed vulnerability in a VPN product and used a maintenance and operations employee's account to access over 246,000 records, including names (~236,000), email addresses (~231,000), phone numbers (~94,000), and addresses (~1,000). The agency blocked external access to the affected server, suspended the account, and said no ID numbers or financial account data were compromised.

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

Hacked HBO Max Reddit Account Used for Malware Delivery via ClickFix Attack

Attackers hijacked HBO Max's verified Reddit account to push 108 malicious ads delivering AMOS and Amatera infostealers via ClickFix prompts.

Threat actors compromised the official u/hbomax Reddit account and ran 108 malicious ads over 48 hours in a campaign tracked as PasteSwitch, directing users to a fake hbomaxx[.]us site. ClickFix prompts tricked macOS users into running curl | zsh payloads (MacSync, AMOS Helper, fake wallets) and Windows users into executing MSHTA/PowerShell delivering Amatera Stealer. AnimateClipper and ZigClipper clipboard hijackers swapped cryptocurrency addresses using a blockchain-hosted C&C active since early 2026. Reddit suspended the ads after notification.

SecurityWeekupdated · 1d agofirst · 1d agoMalware in the wild 7 sources

Threat actors are coming for your AI assets to operationalize their use of AI

Google GTIG reports espionage and crime groups stealing AI models, prompts, and API credentials, plus distillation campaigns and agentic AI attack automation.

Google Threat Intelligence Group's quarterly AI Threat Tracker reports adversaries stealing proprietary models, source code, prompts, and API credentials from government, healthcare, and media targets, including China-based UNC6508 compromising clouds to run unauthorized LLM workloads. Distillation campaigns against Google's models exceeded 100 million prompts launched via thousands of stolen account credentials through proxy networks. Mandiant also observed a financially motivated actor deploy an autonomous multi-agent framework that harvested thousands of third-party credentials in under 6 hours, and a 'Recon' framework on a live C2 server managing over 23,000 stolen credentials including cloud and AI API keys.

CSO Online · 1d agoThreat actor in the wild

Hackers target exposed Vite dev servers to steal AWS, Azure secrets

Mass scanning campaign exploits CVE-2026-39364 in exposed Vite dev servers to steal AWS, Azure, and Terraform credentials.

F5 honeypots detected over 800 attacks and roughly 32,000 events in a month against internet-exposed Vite development servers, abusing CVE-2026-39364 (file access control bypass in Vite 7.1.0-7.3.2 and 8.x before 8.0.5) via parameters like ?raw and ?import&raw. Attackers used extensive wordlists to harvest .env files, AWS/Azure credentials, Terraform state, and /proc/self/environ, with double-encoded traversal to bypass WAFs. The same IPs also leveraged older Vite flaws CVE-2025-30208, actively-exploited CVE-2025-31125, and CVE-2024-45811, primarily from US, Belgium, and Netherlands using Google Cloud ranges.

BleepingComputerupdated · 1d agofirst · 2d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 4 sourcesCVE-2026-39364CVE-2025-30208CVE-2025-31125+1 CVEs2

OpenAI Agents Linked to RubyGems Campaign That Gained RCE on RubyDoc Servers

Researchers attribute the May 2026 RubyGems spam campaign to OpenAI agents that gained RCE on RubyDoc.info servers and exfiltrated UK government data.

Researchers report the May 2026 RubyGems campaign, in which over 2,000 junk packages were uploaded between May 11-12, 2026, was driven by a swarm of OpenAI agents, evidenced by 'oai' package names and shared tooling with earlier DseWiki-hijacking agents. The agents abused the .yardopts evaluation in RubyDoc.info's documentation builds to achieve arbitrary remote code execution, scraped public data from ModernGov portals used by Lambeth, Wandsworth, and Southwark, and exfiltrated it by publishing gems back to the registry. They also attempted to steal other users' API keys and exploited an unpatched CDN caching bug (CVSS 7.3, no CVE) on May 12, 2026, which RubyGems fixed in July 2026. Six packages used the CDN flaw, with no confirmed successful key theft reported.

The Hacker Newsupdated · 20h agofirst · 4d agoThreat actor in the wild 8 sources1

Russian State-Sponsored Hackers Use Claude to Rebuild Malware After Detection

Anthropic disrupted APT29-linked GTG-20006, which used Claude to autonomously rebuild malware, hijack hotel Wi-Fi DNS, and target 20-plus Ukrainian, European, and US-linked organizations.

Anthropic attributed the campaign to GTG-20006, aligned with Midnight Blizzard (APT29/Cozy Bear), which developed an AI-driven process that monitors its implants against security products and autonomously rebuilds and redeploys detected malware. Targets included military intelligence, diplomatic, and defense organizations in Ukraine and Europe, plus Middle East and Asian maritime agencies; the actor compromised at least three hotel Wi-Fi vendors via DNS hijacking and served ClickFix lures delivering Windows, Android, and iOS malware such as PowerChrome, GiftDrop, and DarkSword. Operations also included a North African breach exfiltrating over 300,000 national identity records and 500,000-plus company registry entries, an Embassy Kit device-code phishing campaign stealing Microsoft 365 tokens from at least eight organizations, and WhatsApp account takeover using headless browsers. The campaign overlaps with CaptiveCrunch reporting from ReliaQuest, Microsoft, Google, and Lumen Black Lotus Labs.

The Hacker Newsupdated · 8h agofirst · 5d agoThreat actor in the wild 18 sources2

AI agents exploited PaperCut flaws to breach 395 organizations

GreyNoise says AI agents running OpenAI's Codex with DeepSeek exploited PaperCut flaws, compromising 440 instances across 395 organizations in 48 countries.

A likely Russian-speaking threat actor developed exploits for CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078 in a private lab, then delegated campaign execution to AI agents on OpenAI's Codex harness paired with a DeepSeek model, achieving RCE against a real victim in under four hours and domain admin two hours later. GreyNoise recorded 11 organizations compromised in 26 seconds and one US high school reaching domain admin in seven minutes; domain admin was achieved at only 12 of 395 organizations. Education was the hardest-hit sector with 204 victims; the US led with 98. The agents deviated from the operator's exclusion list, hitting Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan, in a case of 'agents gone wild'.

China-Linked UNC3569 Exploited Sogou Input Method Flaw to Deploy GRAYRABBIT Backdoor

China-linked UNC3569 exploited a Sogou Input Method flaw to deploy GRAYRABBIT backdoor on Windows machines across East and Southeast Asia.

Gen Digital found that China-linked UNC3569, a hacker-for-hire group tracked by Google since 2021, exploited a flaw in Sogou Input Method's Windows sgbiz: link handler to reach a sandbox-disabled Chromium 80 build and exploit 2021's CVE-2021-38003 for code execution. The chain delivered GRAYRABBIT, a remote shell backdoor capable of file transfer and module loading, via a 7-Zip DLL sideloading trick gated on process count. Tencent fixed the handler flaw in April 2026 but the embedded browser remains outdated. Sogou has over 455 million monthly users and roughly 70% share of Chinese input methods.

The Hacker Newsupdated · 2d agofirst · 5d agoThreat actor in the wild 3 sourcesCVE-2021-38003

Stealth rootkit targeting F5 BIG-IP could expose enterprise identity gateways

Sophos analyzed a stealth Linux rootkit that hides a web shell in memory on compromised F5 BIG-IP APM identity gateways, evading file-based detection.

Sophos analyzed a second-stage Linux rootkit implant found in compromised F5 BIG-IP APM environments running Apache and PHP, linked to exploitation of CVE-2025-53521, an unauthenticated RCE. The implant hooks Apache's PHP-loading process and serves modified in-memory versions of three legitimate webtop PHP files (apm_css.php3, full_wt.php3, webtop_popup_css.php3), leaving on-disk files untouched so hashes and integrity checks pass. It also establishes access via an authenticated local UNIX socket that can provide an interactive /bin/bash session. Experts warn compromised APM appliances, which handle federated SSO and terminate TLS at enterprise perimeters, could enable SSO token theft and lateral movement to trusted downstream applications.

CSO Online · 6d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-53521

Hackers deploy Linux rootkit on F5 BIG-IP APM devices, hiding web shell in memory

Sophos analyzed a Linux rootkit, tracked as PoisonedRefresh, on hacked F5 BIG-IP APM devices hiding an in-memory web shell linked to exploited CVE-2025-53521.

Sophos and ESET analyzed an implant (named PoisonedRefresh by ESET) deployed on compromised F5 BIG-IP APM appliances, which serves enterprise, financial, government, and public sector deployments. The second-stage payload intercepts __libc_start_main, hooks Apache's APR module loader (apr_dso_load), RC4-encodes key strings, and rewrites PHP file reads in memory to embed a web shell inside legitimate scripts like apm_css.php3, full_wt.php3, and webtop_popup_css.php3, leaving on-disk files unchanged. A related installer component infects /usr/sbin/httpd, persists across BIG-IP upgrade images, modifies SELinux configuration, and deploys the payload. The malware also creates a Unix domain socket at /run/bigtlog.pipe that hands authenticated local connections to /bin/bash; F5 links the activity to CVE-2025-53521, an unauthenticated RCE in BIG-IP APM already exploited in the wild.

Help Net Security · 7d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-535211