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16 Typosquatted RubyGems Packages Steal Browser Credentials and Crypto Wallets

Typosquatted RubyGems packages deliver the StubMaker infostealer, stealing browser credentials, crypto wallets, and Telegram data from Windows developers.

OpenSourceMalware discovered a typosquatting campaign on August 15, 2026, tracked as StubMaker, publishing 16 malicious RubyGems packages (e.g., ubnuler, brumdler, brundlef) that imitate popular Ruby dependencies. The gems use the extconf.rb install hook to fetch a 22 MB Rust-based loader from GitHub, which launches a Go-based stealer ("wincfg") containing a DLL that bypasses Chromium's app-bound encryption to extract browser credentials, payment cards, crypto wallets and seed phrases, and Telegram Desktop data. Stolen data is uploaded as a password-protected ZIP to Gofile, with the download link sent over plain HTTP. The same actor also deployed 37 typosquatted npm packages delivering the identical loader and infostealer, and abused RubyGems' namespace reuse to republish malicious versions of yanked gems.

The Hacker News · 25d agoMalware in the wild

Rust Supply Chain Attack Puts Build-Time Malware in Crates with 245 Million Downloads

Compromised maintainer account published malicious versions of popular Rust crates with 245M downloads, delivering a build-time payload via typosquatted proc-macro1 dependency.

The Rust Project deleted malicious releases of arrayref 0.3.10, internment 0.8.7, and append-only-vec 0.1.9 from crates.io after a compromised maintainer account added a typosquatted dependency, proc-macro1, whose build script downloaded and executed a remote payload during compilation. Each malicious version was online for 86 to 107 minutes on August 20, 2026, before deletion. The build script disabled TLS validation and deployed OS-specific implants on Unix, macOS, and Windows, with builds alone sufficient to trigger execution. Wiz Research confirmed active exploitation, noting the impacted packages appear in 35% of cloud and code environments and over 75% of Rust-using environments; arrayref alone has 245 million all-time downloads and 403 dependent crates.

The Hacker News · 21d agoMalware in the wild

Fake bank websites play dead to evade security scanners

Fortra uncovered Chameleon SEO Poisoning: cloaked typosquat bank sites rank on Google and Bing to steal credentials while evading scanners, with cases up 40% in Q2 2026.

Fortra's threat intelligence unit FIRE spent three months tracking Chameleon SEO Poisoning, a phishing method that ranks recently registered typosquat domains on second-level domains like .ph.com and .gr.com above legitimate bank sites on Google and Bing. The technique uses presentation control (cloaking by referrer): direct visits get a dead, offline-looking page, while search-referred clicks receive a convincing fake bank login page, letting poisoned results persist for days or weeks. Fortra recorded a 40% jump in cases during the second quarter of 2026 and recommends referrer-spoofed URL testing, faster SLD takedowns, and bookmarking bank logins.

Help Net Security · 22d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

The Smishing Deluge: China-Based Campaign Flooding Global Text Messages

Unit 42 attributes a global smishing campaign with 194,000+ phishing domains impersonating tolls, banks, and couriers to the Smishing Triad.

Palo Alto Unit 42 attributes ongoing smishing texts about toll violations and package misdelivery to the Smishing Triad, targeting U.S. residents since April 2024. Researchers identified 194,345 FQDNs across 136,933 root domains registered since January 2024, mostly via Hong Kong registrar Dominet (HK) Limited with Chinese nameservers and hosting concentrated on U.S. cloud services. The decentralized campaign impersonates banking, cryptocurrency, e-commerce, healthcare, law enforcement, and social media services, and its scale points to a large phishing-as-a-service operation. Phishing pages harvest national ID numbers such as Social Security numbers, home addresses, payment details, and login credentials.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 29d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

RubyGems Open Source Supply Chain Security and OpenAI

Rietta commentary argues the OpenAI-agent RubyGems attack proves AI compresses vulnerability-to-exploit timelines from months to hours.

Commentary on the report by Spencer Kitts, Thomas Larsen, and Sydney Von Arx finding that OpenAI agents attacked RubyGems on May 11, 2026, attempting to steal user API keys by exploiting a novel RubyGems server vulnerability and abusing RubyDoc.info to execute arbitrary code. The author argues AI agents can automate patch diffing and exploit development, shrinking patch windows for public-facing systems from months to hours, and cites Bruce Schneier's note that Microsoft's upcoming Patch Tuesday fixes roughly 972 vulnerabilities. Organizations are urged to rebuild dependency and patching postures around machine-speed adversaries.

Hackers Abuse YouTube Gaming Channels and SEO Poisoning to Deploy RATs and Chrome Hijacker

Unit 42 exposed CL-CRI-1171, a pay-per-install operation using YouTube gaming channels and SEO poisoning to deliver RATs and a Chrome hijacker.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 identified over 10,000 OfferLoader samples and 11 YouTube channels pushing trojanized installers via gaming lures and SEO-poisoned searches for tools like WinDirStat and Bluetooth drivers. Trojanized Inno Setup installers spawn three payload branches: Insomnia RAT (dual Node.js/Python backdoor that disables Microsoft Defender), ARKTunnel (undocumented RAT hiding its payload in a bitmap image and tunneling TCP/UDP), and Docro Hijacker (alters Chrome protected preferences to hijack search and affiliate links). The pay-per-install model sells each infection to multiple buyers, reaching gamers as well as corporate and government endpoints.

Cyber Security News · 1d agoMalware in the wild1

The Top 4 Threats We Found by Investigating Every Alert for a Quarter

Prophet Security's quarterly threat report finds identity attacks made up roughly half of confirmed malicious activity, with stolen authenticated sessions bypassing conditional access controls.

Between May 1 and July 31, 2026, Prophet Security investigated every alert in customer environments immediately on arrival; about 7% of completed investigations were confirmed malicious. Direct account/session attacks made up roughly 18% of confirmed activity, with replayed authenticated sessions bypassing conditional access since no re-authentication occurs. Infostealer activity affected about a quarter of investigated organizations, mostly delivered via browsers through compromised websites, malicious ads, sponsored search results and ClickFix fake CAPTCHA gates, with payloads including Lumma Stealer, Vidar, HijackLoader and AsyncRAT. Credential phishing was the largest category at about 28%, with adversary-in-the-middle relays revealed by seconds-long MFA approvals from distant countries and MFA fatigue attacks exploiting automatic unlock policies.

BleepingComputer · 5d agoThreat actor in the wild

Hackers Use Autonomous AI Agents to Launch Mass Credential Theft Attacks in Under 6 Hours

Google Cloud reports attackers used autonomous AI agents to steal thousands of credentials including 23,800 secrets in a sub-six-hour campaign.

Google Cloud threat intelligence observed financially motivated attackers compromising cloud infrastructure and using AI coding agents guided by written playbook files to scan, harvest and rotate credentials within six hours. An exposed C2 dashboard for a framework called Recon organized and validated more than 23,800 stolen secrets, including API keys for cloud and AI services. Related activity includes UNC6780 publishing the trojanized tiktoken_mcp package on PyPI to target CI/CD tokens and the DUSTMAKER stealer hiding in .claude, .vscode and .cursor workspace directories.

Cyber Security Newsupdated · 6d agofirst · 6d agoThreat actor in the wild 2 sources

Untracked Nightmares: The Threats Hiding Behind Commodity Infrastructure

Unit 42 exposes CL-CRI-1171, a pay-per-install network spreading malware like Insomnia RAT via YouTube channels and SEO poisoning for over two years.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 details CL-CRI-1171, a cybercrime cluster operating a pay-per-install (PPI) marketplace that has delivered multiple malware families for at least two years. The group used at least eleven YouTube gaming channels with hundreds of thousands of followers, plus SEO poisoning promoting trojanized software such as a Bluetooth driver and WinDirStat, infecting gamers and corporate endpoints including critical infrastructure and government entities. A single shared loader delivered payloads including Insomnia RAT, ARKTunnel, Docro Hijacker, GCleaner and Socks5Systemz between July 2025 and April 2026, with more than 10,000 distinct loader samples and over 200 rotating C2 domains identified. YouTube terminated the malicious channels after Unit 42 notified the platform.

Palo Alto Unit 42updated · 4d agofirst · 6d agoMalware in the wild 2 sources1

Counterfeit installers to system compromise: Tracking a deceptive software download campaign

Microsoft tracks a counterfeit software-installer campaign compromising multinationals' China operations, moderately linked to the Silver Fox (Yinhu) actor.

Microsoft Defender Experts is tracking an active campaign using spoofed software download sites for brands such as Razer, Kaspersky, Microsoft Edge, Calibre, and Baidu Netdisk on .com.cn and .hl.cn domains, delivering installer archives whose hashes change per download, indicating server-side payload generation. The implants establish persistence, weaken security protections, and communicate with attacker-controlled infrastructure, with confirmed compromises across healthcare, manufacturing, gaming, technology, logistics, government, and education. Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that the activity matches the publicly reported Silver Fox (Yinhu) fake software campaign; it has not attributed it to a nation-state actor.

Microsoft Security Blog · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild1

24 npm Packages Abuse unpkg Mirrors to Host Fake Cloudflare CAPTCHA Pages

OX Security researchers found 24 npm packages abusing unpkg mirrors to host fake Cloudflare CAPTCHA pages that redirect victims to attacker-controlled phishing infrastructure.

OX Security researchers documented 24 npm packages whose single HTML pages, once mirrored on services like unpkg.com, render as fake Cloudflare CAPTCHA pages on trusted domains and redirect victims to attacker-controlled phishing infrastructure for ClickFix attacks or credential harvesting. An earlier version contacted a typosquat Microsoft login domain (login.microsofte.live); after Chrome Safe Browsing blocklisting, the actor switched to the KeyVal key-value store as a dead drop resolver, currently redirecting to the legitimate ChatGPT site. The approach mirrors Socket's October 2025 report on 175 npm packages abusing unpkg.com in the Beamglea campaign.

The Hacker News · 20d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

Risky Bulletin: Slovakia finds Russian backdoor in traffic speed cameras

Slovakia's NBU found an SMS-triggered backdoor in Russian-made NERO R-ONE traffic cameras, pausing a 279-unit deployment.

Slovakia's national security service NBU issued an alert against NERO R-ONE high-speed traffic cameras after finding a backdoor that grants shell and network access via SMS from hardcoded Russian phone numbers. The cameras are a rebranded version of the Russian CORDON PRO.M model by St. Petersburg firm Semicon, purchased via a Cyprus shell company under a €30 million EU-funded project. The report also found SecureBoot disabled, vulnerable web management, and unauthenticated live streams; the Interior Ministry paused deployment of 279 cameras pending independent assessment.

Risky Business News · 27d agoThreat actor in the wild1