The Hacker News | #1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Site

YouTube videos promoting game cheats are being used to deliver a previously undocumented stealer malware called Arcane likely targeting Russian-speaking users. "What's intriguing about this malware is how much it collects," Kaspersky said in an analysis. "It grabs account information from VPN and gaming clients, and all kinds of network utilities like ngrok, Playit, Cyberduck, FileZilla, and DynDNS." The attack chains involve sharing links to a password-protected archive on YouTube videos, which, when opened, unpacks a start.bat batch file that's responsible for retrieving another archive file via PowerShell. The batch file then utilizes PowerShell to launch two executables embedded within the newly downloaded archive, while also disabling Windows SmartScreen protections and every drive root folder to SmartScreen filter exceptions. Of the two binaries, one is a cryptocurrency miner and the other is a stealer dubbed VGS that's a variant of the Phe...

Veeam has released security updates to address a critical security flaw impacting its Backup & Replication software that could lead to remote code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-23120 , carries a CVSS score of 9.9 out of 10.0. It affects 12.3.0.310 and all earlier version 12 builds. "A vulnerability allowing remote code execution (RCE) by authenticated domain users," the company said in an advisory released Wednesday. Security researcher Piotr Bazydlo of watchTowr has been credited with discovering and reporting the flaw, which has been resolved in version 12.3.1 (build 12.3.1.1139). According to Bazydlo and researcher Sina Kheirkhah, CVE-2025-23120 stems from Veeam's inconsistent handling of deserialization mechanism, causing an allowlisted class that can be deserialized to pave the way for an inner deserialization that implements a blocklist-based approach to prevent deserialization of data deemed risky by the company. This also means that ...

Cybersecurity isn't just another checkbox on your business agenda. It's a fundamental pillar of survival. As organizations increasingly migrate their operations to the cloud, understanding how to protect your digital assets becomes crucial. The shared responsibility model , exemplified through Microsoft 365's approach, offers a framework for comprehending and implementing effective cybersecurity measures.  The Essence of Shared Responsibility  Think of cloud security like a well-maintained building: the property manager handles structural integrity and common areas, while tenants secure their individual units. Similarly, the shared responsibility model creates a clear division of security duties between cloud providers and their users. This partnership approach ensures comprehensive protection through clearly defined roles and responsibilities.  What Your Cloud Provider Handles  Microsoft maintains comprehensive responsibility for securing the foundational eleme...

The governments of Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel, and Singapore are likely customers of spyware developed by Israeli company Paragon Solutions, according to a new report from The Citizen Lab. Paragon, founded in 2019 by Ehud Barak and Ehud Schneorson, is the maker of a surveillance tool called Graphite that's capable of harvesting sensitive data from instant messaging applications on a device. The interdisciplinary lab said it identified the six governments as "suspected Paragon deployments" after mapping the server infrastructure suspected to be associated with the spyware. The development comes nearly two months after Meta-owned WhatsApp said it notified around 90 journalists and civil society members that it said were targeted by Graphite. The attacks were disrupted in December 2024. Targets of these attacks included individuals spread across over two dozen countries, including several in Europe such as Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria,...

Regulatory compliance is no longer just a concern for large enterprises. Small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly subject to strict data protection and security regulations, such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, CMMC, GDPR, and the FTC Safeguards Rule. However, many SMBs struggle to maintain compliance due to limited IT resources, evolving regulatory requirements, and complex security challenges. Recent data shows there are approximately 33.3 million SMBs in the U.S., and 60% or more are not fully compliant with at least one regulatory standard. That means nearly 20 million SMBs could be at risk of fines, security breaches, and reputational damage. For Managed Service Providers (MSPs), this presents a huge opportunity to expand your service offerings by providing continuous compliance monitoring—helping your clients stay compliant while strengthening their own business. The Role of Continuous Compliance Monitoring Traditional compliance audits have been conducted periodically—ofte...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a high-severity security flaw impacting NAKIVO Backup & Replication software to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2024-48248 (CVSS score: 8.6), an absolute path traversal bug that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to read files on the target host, including sensitive ones such as "/etc/shadow" via the endpoint "/c/router." It affects all versions of the software prior to version 10.11.3.86570. "NAKIVO Backup and Replication contains an absolute path traversal vulnerability that enables an attacker to read arbitrary files," CISA said in an advisory. Successful exploitation of the shortcoming could allow an adversary to read sensitive data, including configuration files, backups, and credentials, which could then act as a stepping stone for further compromises. There are cu...

In cybersecurity, confidence is a double-edged sword. Organizations often operate under a false sense of security , believing that patched vulnerabilities, up-to-date tools, polished dashboards, and glowing risk scores guarantee safety. The reality is a bit of a different story. In the real world, checking the right boxes doesn't equal being secure. As Sun Tzu warned, "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." Two and a half millennia later, the concept still holds: your organization's cybersecurity defenses must be strategically validated under real-world conditions to ensure your business's very survival. Today, more than ever, you need Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) , the essential strategy that's still missing from most security frameworks. The Danger of False Confidence Conventional wisdom suggests that if you've patched known bugs, deployed a stack of well-regarded security tools, and passed the nec...

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) is warning of a new campaign that targets the defense sectors with Dark Crystal RAT (aka DCRat ). The campaign, detected earlier this month, has been found to target both employees of enterprises of the defense-industrial complex and individual representatives of the Defense Forces of Ukraine. The activity involves distributing malicious messages via the Signal messaging app that contain supposed meeting minutes. Some of these messages are sent from previously compromised Signal accounts so as to increase the likelihood of success of the attacks. The reports are shared in the form of archive files, which contain a decoy PDF and an executable, a .NET-based evasive crypter named DarkTortilla that decrypts and launches the DCRat malware. DCRat, a well-documented remote access trojan (RAT), facilitates the execution of arbitrary commands, steals valuable information, and establishes remote control over infected devices. CE...

Threat actors are exploiting a severe security flaw in PHP to deliver cryptocurrency miners and remote access trojans (RATs) like Quasar RAT. The vulnerability, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-4577 , refers to an argument injection vulnerability in PHP affecting Windows-based systems running in CGI mode that could allow remote attackers to run arbitrary code. Cybersecurity company Bitdefender said it has observed a surge in exploitation attempts against CVE-2024-4577 since late last year, with a significant concentration reported in Taiwan (54.65%), Hong Kong (27.06%), Brazil (16.39%), Japan (1.57%), and India (0.33%). About 15% of the detected exploitation attempts involve basic vulnerability checks using commands like "whoami" and "echo <test_string>." Another 15% revolve around commands used for system reconnaissance, such as process enumeration, network discovery, user and domain information, and system metadata gathering. Martin Zugec, technic...

The recently leaked trove of internal chat logs among members of the Black Basta ransomware operation has revealed possible connections between the e-crime gang and Russian authorities. The leak, containing over 200,000 messages from September 2023 to September 2024, was published by a Telegram user @ExploitWhispers last month. According to an analysis of the messages by cybersecurity company Trellix, Black Basta's alleged leader Oleg Nefedov (aka GG or AA) may have received help from Russian officials following his arrest in Yerevan, Armenia, in June 2024, allowing him to escape three days later. In the messages, GG claimed that he contacted high-ranking officials to pass through a "green corridor" and facilitate the extraction. "This knowledge from chat leaks makes it difficult for the Black Basta gang to completely abandon the way they operate and start a new RaaS from scratch without a reference to their previous activities," Trellix researchers Ja...

In today's digital world, security breaches are all too common. Despite the many security tools and training programs available, identity-based attacks—like phishing, adversary-in-the-middle, and MFA bypass—remain a major challenge. Instead of accepting these risks and pouring resources into fixing problems after they occur, why not prevent attacks from happening in the first place? Our upcoming webinar, " How to Eliminate Identity-Based Threats ," will show you how, featuring Beyond Identity experts Jing Reyhan (Director of Product Marketing) and Louis Marascio (Sr. Product Architect). Join them to discover how a secure-by-design access solution can block phishing, adversary-in-the-middle attacks, and more—before they ever reach your network. What You Will Learn Stop Attacks at the Source: Learn to proactively block threats like phishing—before they can target your systems. Master Key Security Techniques: Discover how secure-by-design solutions enable phishing resistance, ve...