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U.S. prosecutors linked an alleged Scattered Spider hacker to a break-in at a luxury jewelry retailer using a persistent Windows device ID, according to a newly unsealed federal complaint . Microsoft records tied that ID first to the account the attackers used to keep access during the May 2025 intrusion, then to online accounts prosecutors say belong to 19-year-old Peter Stokes. Stokes is charged with conspiracy, computer intrusion, and fraud. A dual U.S.-Estonian citizen known online as "Bouquet," he was extradited from Finland and made his first court appearance in Chicago on June 30, as THN reported . He is presumed innocent pending trial. How the break-in worked Between May 12 and 15, 2025, attackers phoned the retailer's IT help desk from Google Voice numbers, posed as locked-out employees, and got staff to reset employees' passwords and the mobile devices tied to their multifactor authentication. Within a few hours, they controlled three accounts, t...

Software supply chain security was hard enough. Then AI joined the build pipeline. For five years, "software supply chain security" meant one question: what's in your code? Which open-source packages, which versions, which transitive dependencies three layers deep that nobody chose on purpose? SolarWinds, Log4Shell, and XZ Utils all taught the same lesson: the risk lives less in the code a team writes and more in everything that produces it. Shai-Hulud, the self-propagating malicious package campaign that spread through developer toolchains this year, taught the next one: knowing what's in your code is still necessary, but it's no longer sufficient. In the roughly 20 months since the Model Context Protocol launched, AI tools, models, and the infrastructure around them have become load-bearing parts of how software gets built, deployed, and run. Code is written by agents. Packages are pulled in by autonomous tools that decide they are needed. Prompts have...

A suspected China-aligned threat activity cluster has been observed exploiting Roundcube webmail software belonging to physics and engineering departments of U.S. and Canadian universities as part of a new campaign. The activity involves the exploitation of now-patched, critical security flaws in the open-source email solution, such as CVE-2024-42009 (CVSS score: 9.3), to siphon credentials, followed by either the deployment of a web shell for persistent access or a known post-exploitation tool called VShell . The emerging threat cluster is being tracked by Proofpoint under the moniker UNK_MassTraction . It was first detected in May 2026, specifically focusing on administrators and professors in departments with either national security ties or entities studying astrophysics and particle physics. "The emails targeting university departments used both compromised senders, as well as abused domains vulnerable to spoofing due to lax DMARC policy to send the emails," the ...

Several versions of firmware released by Chinese network device manufacturer Tenda have been found to embed an undocumented authentication backdoor that enables administrative access to the devices' web management interfaces, the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) warned Monday. "An attacker can exploit this vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-11405 , to bypass the password verification process and obtain full administrative control without valid credentials," the CERT/CC said in an alert. The vulnerability impacts multiple versions of the firmware - US_FH1201V1.0BR_V1.2.0.14(408)_EN_TD US_W15EV1.0br_V15.11.0.5(1068_1567_841)_EN_TDE US_AC10V1.0re_V15.03.06.46_multi_TDE01 US_AC5V1.0RTL_V15.03.06.48_multi_TDE01 US_AC6V2.0RTL_V15.03.06.51_multi_T The backdoor functionality is present within the "login()" function of the "/bin/httpd" web server binary. While the method initially follows a normal authentication path using MD5-based p...

BeyondTrust has released updates to address two critical security flaws affecting Remote Support (RS) and Privileged Remote Access (PRA) products that, if successfully exploited, could allow unauthenticated attackers to take control of susceptible devices. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2026-40138 (CVSS score: 9.2) - A pre-authentication vulnerability exists in the authentication subsystem of BeyondTrust Remote Support and Privileged Remote Access stemming from improper validation of authentication data that could allow a network-positioned attacker to bypass access controls and gain unauthorized access to the appliance, including accounts with elevated privileges. CVE-2026-40139 (CVSS score: 9.2) - A pre-authentication vulnerability exists in the authentication subsystem of BeyondTrust Remote Support stemming from improper processing of authentication requests that could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to bypass access controls and gain unauthorized ...

An Iranian hacking group affiliated with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has been wielding a previously undocumented modular command-and-control (C2) framework dubbed Cavern (aka Cav3rn) targeting Israeli organizations. The activity, which has primarily singled out IT providers and government sectors, has been attributed to a threat cluster tracked by Check Point Research under the moniker Cavern Manticore , which it said shares some level of tactical overlaps with MuddyWater and Lyceum , the latter of which is assessed to be a subgroup within OilRig . "The framework reflects a mature and adaptable toolset built around a shared .NET foundation, while using multiple compilation formats across different components, including .NET Framework, .NET Mixed-Mode C++/CLI, and .NET Native AOT ," the cybersecurity company said . "The compilation format itself becomes the anti-analysis layer that forces reverse engineers into multiple toolsets and me...

A use-after-free bug in Linux's KVM hypervisor can be triggered from a guest virtual machine to corrupt the shadow-page state of the host kernel that runs it. Dubbed ' Januscape ' and tracked as  CVE-2026-53359 , the flaw sits in the shadow MMU code that KVM shares across both Intel and AMD. The public proof-of-concept panics the host; the researcher claims that a separate, unreleased exploit turns the same bug into full host code execution. Security researcher  Hyunwoo Kim (@v4bel) found and reported the bug. He described Januscape as the first guest-to-host exploit triggerable on both Intel and AMD, to the best of public knowledge. The flaw went unnoticed for roughly 16 years. According to Kim, the exploit was used as a zero-day submission in  Google's kvmCTF , the controlled KVM vulnerability reward program that offers up to $250,000 for full guest-to-host escapes. How It Works To run a virtual machine, KVM keeps its own private set of page tables that mi...

Threat actors have been observed attempting to exploit a recently patched critical security flaw in Gitea Docker images, according to Sysdig . The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-20896 (CVSS score: 9.8), a vulnerability that stems from the DevOps platform trusting the "X-WEBAUTH-USER" header from any source IP address, effectively allowing an unauthenticated internet client to get elevated access. In a statement shared with The Hacker News via email, security researcher Ali Mustafa (@rz1027), who is credited with discovering and reporting the flaw, said the Gitea Docker images shipped an "app.ini" template that hard-codes "REVERSE_PROXY_TRUSTED_PROXIES = *" by default. The " app.ini " file is a core configuration file for managing server parameters, database connections, security behavior, and application settings. "With reverse-proxy login enabled, that wildcard trusts every source IP, so anyone who could reach the port could...

A streaming box should not need a threat model. Neither should a username field, a demo repo, a reset flow, or a browser permission prompt. That is the irritating part this week: the risky pieces were ordinary. Home devices became a routing cover. Clean code pulled dirt from a dependency. Identity shortcuts aged badly. AI systems trusted the wrong instructions. Same soft spot throughout: trust placed one layer too early. Below is the full recap, since this is apparently what counted as a normal week. ⚡ Threat of the Week NetNut Residential Proxy Network Disrupted — Google, in collaboration with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Lumen, and other partners, took action against the NetNut residential proxy network, also known as Popa, building upon its takedown of IPIDEA in January 2026. Google said it disabled Google accounts and associated Google services used by NetNut for malware command-and-control (C2) and updated Google Play Protect, in addition to disabling ...

Building a shortlist for an AI SOC evaluation can be tough. SIEM, SOAR, and pureplay AI SOC vendors are all saying the same thing. But behind the identical label sit very different products, from chat assistants bolted onto a legacy SIEM to agent platforms that run detection, triage, investigation, and response on their own data foundation. Whether a platform will materially change outcomes for your team matters more than what it is called. We can measure that in investigation time, false-positive volume, analyst hours returned, total cost of running your SOC and finally whether the architecture will hold up 2-3 years from now as the volume, speed and complexity of attacks keep increasing. What Is an AI SOC Platform? An AI SOC platform is a security operations platform where AI agents carry out the core work of the SOC (detection, triage, investigation, and response) by reasoning over correlated security data, under human oversight. It differs from bolt-on AI, which summarizes ...

A suspected China-nexus threat activity cluster has been observed targeting Indian taxpayers, tax professionals, and corporate finance teams to deliver a remote access trojan designed to steal sensitive data from compromised hosts. The multi-stage campaign, codenamed Operation DragonReturn by Seqrite Labs, involves sending spear-phishing emails impersonating the Income Tax Department of India. It was first observed on May 18, 2026. The activity, per the cybersecurity company, coincides with the annual income tax filing season in the country. "It is not opportunistic – the precision of the lure document, the use of real legal citations, bilingual content, and active payload rotation indicate a deliberate, resourced, and sustained threat operation focused exclusively on the Indian taxpayer ecosystem," security researchers Dixit Panchal and Soumen Burma said . The end goal of the campaign is assessed to be the deployment of malware for financial gain or sensitive data the...

Researchers at  Shandong University  have shown a fast new way to pull data off computers that are cut off from every network. The technique, called  TrojPix , tweaks on-screen pixels in ways the eye cannot see, so that the video cable carrying them radiates a faint radio signal a nearby receiver can decode. But TrojPix works only once malware is already on the target machine, so it is a way for stolen data to get out, not a way in. In the researchers' tests, TrojPix hit a peak throughput of 8.1 Mbps and reached as far as 208 meters, the two measured separately rather than together. Most air-gap covert channels crawl along at bits or kilobits per second; at 8.1 megabits, roughly a megabyte a second, TrojPix could move a 100 MB file in under two minutes. That turns the threat from leaking a password into moving whole files while the monitor looks switched off. Real-world range is another matter: a receiver still has to fight through walls, shielding, and noise. Th...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a novel Java-based remote access trojan (RAT) called QuimaRAT that's capable of targeting Windows, Linux, and macOS environments. According to LevelBlue, the cross-platform malware is advertised under a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model, costing anywhere between $150 for one month to $1,200 for lifetime access. Other subscription tiers include $300 for three months, $500 for six months, and $700 for twelve months. "Built around a modular architecture, the RAT supports dynamic capability expansion through encrypted plugins that can be delivered, loaded, unloaded, and updated directly from its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure," the cybersecurity company said in an analysis of the malware. The malware author also advertises a builder capable of generating multiple output formats, including JAR, EXE, APP, SH, BAT, and VBS, indicating an attempt to help prospective customers package the client tailored for different enviro...

Researchers found a flaw in  Opera GX , the gaming-focused version of the Opera browser, that let a malicious website silently install a browser add-on and use it to lift specific data from the pages a victim visits. In a proof of concept, they reconstructed a signed-in user's full Gmail address from a single visit, with no click. Opera has patched the flaw and says it found no evidence that it was ever used in the wild. The fix shipped in Opera GX version 130.0.5847.89, so anyone on a current build is already covered; you can confirm yours at opera://about. There is no CVE. Because the attack needed no clicks or approvals, there was no workaround short of the patch. Opera's bug bounty team rated the issue P1, its top severity, and paid the maximum $5,000 award for a critical bug. How the attack works GX Mods let you reskin Opera GX with custom sounds, themes, wallpapers, and CSS that restyles the sites you visit. They ship as .crx files, like browser...

Scanners meant to catch malicious add-on "skills" for AI coding agents can be fooled by a few simple changes that leave the malware working, according to a  new study  from researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Their strongest trick slipped past every scanner tested more than 90% of the time, and the same team built a runtime checker that catches most of the disguised skills the scanners miss. Skills are small packages, usually a Markdown instruction file plus a few scripts, that agents such as Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and OpenClaw load to pick up a new capability. Because a skill is just a bundle of files, the same one can run across different agents. And it runs with the agent's own access: your files, your terminal, your saved passwords. A bad one can steal credentials, copy source code, or install a backdoor. Most of what a public marketplace lists is uploaded by strangers with little vetting. The main defense so far has been th...

A U.S. government entity paid about $1 million to keep stolen files from being leaked, according to a new  case study by Rakesh Krishnan for Ransom-ISAC , built on a leaked negotiation chat and the blockchain trail the payment left. The odd part: the group that took the money calls itself Kairos , but it may not be a ransomware gang at all. Krishnan found no sign that it ever locked a single machine: no encryptor, no locker, no demand for a decryption key. The threat was simpler. Steal the files, then charge the victim not to publish them. Krishnan does not name the victim, but the chat points to Union County, Ohio. The proof-of-theft files carry names like Union.xlsx, 1 union co psi template.doc, and a final archive called union.rar. The victim calls itself a small county with limited resources. The attacker leans on one folder in particular, marked "prosecutors office," warning that leaking it would help criminals dodge charges. The clues fit a real case. I...

The North Korean threat actors linked to the Contagious Interview campaign have been observed publishing 108 unique packages and web browser extensions spanning npm, Packagist, Go, and Google Chrome as part of an ongoing activity referred to as PolinRider . "The campaign remains active, and new malicious packages are likely to continue appearing as threat actors compromise maintainer accounts, modify legitimate repositories, and publish infected package versions where they retain or obtain registry access," Socket security researcher Karlo Zanki said in an analysis published this week. The 162 malicious release artifacts span multiple release versions corresponding to 108 unique packages and extensions, including 19 npm libraries, 10 Composer packages, 61 Go modules, and one Google Chrome extension. Contagious Interview is the moniker assigned to a North Korea-aligned campaign that weaponizes job recruitment to target software developers and individuals working i...

Security firm runZero has disclosed seven vulnerabilities in  FatFs , a small filesystem library that lets a device read and write the FAT and exFAT formats used on USB drives and SD cards. The flaws matter because FatFs is nearly everywhere. It ships inside the firmware that runs security cameras, drones, industrial controllers, hardware crypto wallets, and other devices built on real-time operating systems. On the worst-affected systems, an attacker who gets a booby-trapped USB drive, SD card, or update file onto a device can corrupt its memory and run their own code. Many embedded devices lack the memory protections found on phones and desktops, which is why runZero says "any physical access leads to a jailbreak." A public kiosk, a camera with an SD slot, an ATM, or a voting machine with a USB port should not hand over full control after a moment of physical access, but here it can. All seven bugs work the same basic way. The device tries to read a storage vo...

A newly disclosed Linux kernel flaw called Bad Epoll (CVE-2026-46242) lets an ordinary user with no special access take full control of a machine as root. It affects Linux desktops, servers, and Android, and a fix is out. Bad Epoll sits in the same small stretch of kernel code where Anthropic's most powerful AI model, Mythos , recently found a different bug. The AI caught one flaw and missed this one. A researcher, Jaeyoung Chung, found it and built a working attack. How the Bug Works Epoll is a standard Linux feature that lets a program watch many files or network connections at once. Servers, network services, and web browsers all lean on it. You cannot simply switch it off. Bad Epoll is a "use-after-free" bug. Two parts of the kernel try to clean up the same internal object at the same time. One frees the memory while the other is still writing into it. That brief collision lets an attacker corrupt kernel memory, then climb from a normal account up to root...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a previously undocumented modular malware framework codenamed Avalon that's distributed by means of a multi-stage phishing chain capable of bypassing traditional security controls. Avalon combines credential collection, lateral movement, remote access, recovery disruption, and ransomware execution, bringing together diverse functions under one umbrella. The ransomware component has been internally named CrownX.  "The attack began with a spoofed legal document email directing recipients to a password protected archive on Proton Drive," Blackpoint Cyber researchers Nevan Beal and Sam Decker said . "Malicious content was embedded inside an ISO image rather than attached directly, reducing the likelihood of detection at the email layer." Should the email recipient interact with a document-themed Windows Shortcut ("Secure Document CA-283505.pdf.lnk") inside the mounted image, it triggers a staged malware s...