-->
#1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Platform
Followed by 5.70+ million
The Hacker News Logo
Get the Latest News
cybersecurity

The Hacker News | #1 Trusted Source for Cybersecurity News — Index Page

Meta Ads Push StreamRat Android Trojan That Can Gain Near-Complete Device Control

Meta Ads Push StreamRat Android Trojan That Can Gain Near-Complete Device Control

Sep 02, 2026 Malvertising / Mobile Security
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new Android banking trojan called StreamRat that was promoted to Spanish-speaking users through a fake television-streaming campaign on Meta and can give operators near-complete control of infected devices. ThreatFabric said the campaign's advertisement focused on Spain and reached an estimated 570,950 Meta accounts in the European Union that saw it at least once, with totals for infected devices and confirmed victims remaining unreported. Device takeover requires the victim to grant a succession of controls after sideloading the Android Package (APK). Users should stop the installation when a streaming app requests system controls unrelated to streaming. "There is little doubt that StreamRat is a new and technically sophisticated threat, developed by individuals with prior experience in the Android malware ecosystem," ThreatFabric said in its  StreamRat analysis . ThreatFabric did not attribute the campaign t...
How to Secure Enterprise AI: From Adoption to Incident Readiness

How to Secure Enterprise AI: From Adoption to Incident Readiness

Sep 02, 2026 Artificial Intelligence / Enterprise Security
The debate about whether AI delivers business value is over. The challenge now is implementing it at scale and securely across every function while meeting board-level pressure to move fast. Organizations must focus on adopting AI at business speed without losing control of cyber risk. Download the full eBook here.   The Business Reality   In Sygnia’s 2026 CISO Survey Report , which surveyed 600 senior IT and security leaders worldwide, nearly one-third already report extensive AI use across threat detection and IR, with 63% expecting it to be fully embedded in their organization by 2027. 1 Yet 73% of IT security decision makers say their organization would not be fully ready if a significant cyberattack occurred tomorrow. 1 Security teams feel they do not have adequate time to adapt. The tools are being deployed. The governance, controls, and incident readiness to support them are not. Security leaders are now tasked with enabling AI adoption while reducing the inheri...
Attackers Exploit Two SonicWall SMA 1000 Zero-Days That May Form an Attack Chain

Attackers Exploit Two SonicWall SMA 1000 Zero-Days That May Form an Attack Chain

Sep 02, 2026 Vulnerability / Network Security
SonicWall has released security updates to address two security flaws impacting its Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 1000 series VPN appliances that have been exploited in zero-day attacks. The vulnerabilities , discovered internally by SonicWall's William Perry and Adam Babis, are listed below - CVE-2026-83548 (CVSS score: 10.0) -  A pre-authentication SSRF vulnerability in the Appliance Work Place interface that could allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to gain unauthorized access to sensitive functionality and perform unauthorized operations. CVE-2026-83549 (CVSS score: 7.8) - A post-authentication operating system command injection vulnerability in the Appliance Management Console (AMC) that could allow a remote authenticated attacker as administrator to execute arbitrary commands under specific conditions, leading to remote code execution. SonicWall said it has "investigated a case indicating the active exploitation of the vulnerabilities," suggesting th...
cyber security

Shadow AI Agents Are Multiplying. Here's How to Find and Secure Them

websiteNudge SecuritySaaS Security / AI Security
Learn how eight common discovery approaches work, what they find, and what they don’t.
cyber security

Gartner: 70% of SOCs Will Pilot AI Agents. Only 15% Will See Results

websiteProphet SecurityAI SOC / Cybersecurity
Here are Gartner’s key questions to ask when pressure-testing AI SOC vendors in production.
GeoNetwork Fixes Unauthenticated RCE Chain Affecting Government Geoportal Backends

GeoNetwork Fixes Unauthenticated RCE Chain Affecting Government Geoportal Backends

Sep 02, 2026 Vulnerability / Web Security
Two vulnerabilities in GeoNetwork can be chained to achieve unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) on the open-source geospatial metadata catalog, which sits behind many government and agency geoportals. The project shipped fixes in versions 4.4.12 and 4.2.17 on July 8, 2026, and published the vulnerability details on August 31. GeoNetwork originated at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and is maintained under the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). It is a core component of many Spatial Data Infrastructure deployments across Europe and beyond, including the backend of the European INSPIRE geoportal. The chain combines a missing authorization check with an unsafe transformation engine. The first flaw, CVE-2026-63219 (CVSS score: 8.6), is a missing authorization check on the formatter upload endpoint. The unauthenticated file upload flaw allows an anonymous user to write arbitrary .xsl or .zip formatter files to the GeoNetwork f...
Extradited Russian Hacker Faces Charges Over Excel Malware Campaign That Infected Thousands

Extradited Russian Hacker Faces Charges Over Excel Malware Campaign That Infected Thousands

Sep 02, 2026 Malware / Cybercrime
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged a Russian national, extradited from Cyprus on August 28, with using roughly 255 fake accounts on a freelance platform to send malware-laced Excel attachments to about 80,000 of its users in 2016 and 2017. Searzhudin Tamirlanovich Aktulaev , 40, was arrested in Cyprus in May 2025, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California said in a press release. He made his initial appearance in federal court in San Francisco on August 31 and was remanded to federal custody. The indictment, filed on June 1, 2021, and unsealed the same day as his appearance, describes the platform only as "a well-known freelance employment technology company" based in the Northern District of California. Thousands of computers infected with TVRAT , one of two malware types named in the indictment, were calling back to a command-and-control (C2) domain hosted in the U.S., with approximately half of the victims located in the ...
Researchers Use Claude to Port Pre-Auth RCE Exploit From One PLC Model to Another

Researchers Use Claude to Port Pre-Auth RCE Exploit From One PLC Model to Another

Sep 02, 2026 Vulnerability / Artificial Intelligence
Forescout Research - Vedere Labs said it used Anthropic's Claude to port a working pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE) exploit from one WAGO programmable logic controller (PLC) to another, executing attacker-supplied ARM shellcode on live hardware. The exploit targets  CVE-2021-31886 , a stack-based buffer overflow in the Nucleus FTP server's handling of the USER command, which carries a Siemens-assigned CVSS score of 9.8 and is accessible before authentication over TCP port 21. CERT@VDE says no updates are available for the affected WAGO controllers, and advises owners to disable or block FTP on port 21, enforce segmentation controls, and monitor network traffic for anomalies. The port required sustained researcher steering, and the final RCE development stage consumed $535.74 in application programming interface (API) usage over an 8-hour-32-minute session. A later session that attempted to extend the exploit into a command-and-control (C2) implant w...
Attackers Exploit Critical Switchvox Flaw to Deploy Reverse Shells Without Credentials

Attackers Exploit Critical Switchvox Flaw to Deploy Reverse Shells Without Credentials

Sep 02, 2026 Vulnerability / Network Security
Threat actors are exploiting a severe security vulnerability in Sangoma Switchvox, an enterprise VoIP platform, that could allow unauthenticated remote code execution. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-9586 (CVSS score: 9.3), a critical unauthenticated SQL injection vulnerability in Sangoma Switchvox SMB Edition 8.3 (104997) that can allow attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code as the PostgreSQL superuser without credentials. Sangoma released patches for the flaw in Switchvox 8.4.0.2 on July 14, 2026. "An unauthenticated SQL injection vulnerability exists in Sangoma Switchvox SMB Edition 8.3 (104997). The /pa endpoint processes XML content beginning with <PolycomIPPhone> and directly concatenates the user-controlled PhoneIP value into PostgreSQL queries without sanitization or parameterization," according to a description of the flaw on CVE.org. "An unauthenticated remote attacker can execute arbitrary SQL statements against the backend Postg...
Authorities Turn Sality's P2P Network Against Itself, Cutting Off New Malware Payloads

Authorities Turn Sality's P2P Network Against Itself, Cutting Off New Malware Payloads

Sep 02, 2026 Malware / Cybercrime
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday announced the takedown of a long-standing peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet known as Sality as part of a coordinated law enforcement operation. The effort was undertaken on August 31, 2026, by authorities from the U.S., Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, in collaboration with private industry partners CrowdStrike and the Shadowserver Foundation. To that end, a peer-to-peer sinkhole operation was carried out to eliminate the threat. In tandem, Sality-linked domains have been seized in the U.S. and Europe. "Cybercriminals, botnets, and malware are a clear and present danger to our nation's security and economy," said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli. "This successful effort to take down the Sality botnet shows that by working together, the public and private sectors can be a powerful force for good." Sality has been documented in the wild since 2003, featuring capabilities to infect and modify Wi...
Attackers Exploit Critical JFrog Artifactory Flaw to Mint Admin Tokens Days After Disclosure

Attackers Exploit Critical JFrog Artifactory Flaw to Mint Admin Tokens Days After Disclosure

Sep 01, 2026 Vulnerability / Supply Chain Attack
Threat actors are exploiting a newly patched critical security flaw impacting JFrog Artifactory merely days after public disclosure, according to watchTowr . The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-82329 (CVSS score: 9.8), a case of authentication bypass that could lead to administrative access in Artifactory. "JFrog Artifactory contains an authentication weakness that, under default configuration, may allow an unauthenticated attacker with network access to obtain administrative privileges," according to a description of the flaw on CVE.org. The vulnerability was patched by JFrog with Artifactory version 7.161.20 released on August 28, 2026. It affects the following versions - 7.161.0 > 7.161.19 7.146.0 > 7.146.36 7.133.0 > 7.133.28 7.125.0 > 7.125.19 7.117.0 > 7.117.27 7.111.4 > 7.111.21 "It affects default configs, requires no auth, no user interaction," Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch said in a post on LinkedIn. ...
Breeze Comet Executes Hundreds of Fraudulent Transactions via Brazilian Payment Systems

Breeze Comet Executes Hundreds of Fraudulent Transactions via Brazilian Payment Systems

Sep 01, 2026 Cybercrime / Malware
Brazilian financial services, retail, and e-commerce organizations have become the target of a financially motivated threat actor dubbed Breeze Comet (formerly UNC5669) since 2024. Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) and Mandiant teams described the threat actor as "specializing in manipulating payment systems and banking software in Brazil to conduct fraudulent transfers." The adversary is said to have successfully carried out at least one heist of assets worth tens of thousands of U.S. dollars. The activity overlaps with threat activity clusters tracked by CrowdStrike and Trend Micro under the monikers Plump Spider and SHADOW-AETHER-064 . According to CrowdStrike, the e-crime group is operating out of Brazil and has been active since September 2023, monetizing their intrusions by gaining unauthorized access to internal payment systems and carrying out fraudulent transactions. Initial access to financial entities and companies offering financial services is acc...
13 Malicious Packagist Packages Target Unpatched iPhones to Steal Crypto Wallet Seeds

13 Malicious Packagist Packages Target Unpatched iPhones to Steal Crypto Wallet Seeds

Sep 01, 2026 Malware / Web Security
Cybersecurity researchers have identified a set of 13 malicious Composer theme packages on Packagist that are designed to inject JavaScript into Vietnamese movie and comic streaming sites that install those libraries and initiate the deployment of spyware aimed at unpatched iOS devices. "The injected code runs two operations against a site's visitors: a mobile ad-fraud and gambling-redirect chain, and, on iPhones, a WebKit-to-kernel exploit chain that installs spyware," Socket security researcher Kush Pandya said . The activity is assessed to be part of a campaign that was first documented by the application security company back in March 2026 that leveraged six malicious Packagist packages posing as OphimCMS themes to redirect visitors, exfiltrate URLs, inject ads, and serve from Funnull -hosted infrastructure a second-stage payload to lead victims to gambling and adult content sites. The complete set of packages, which span five vendor namespaces, is below - ...
Iranian Hackers Pose as Recruiters to Deliver Cross-Platform RATs Through Coding Tests

Iranian Hackers Pose as Recruiters to Deliver Cross-Platform RATs Through Coding Tests

Sep 01, 2026 Malware / Cyber Espionage
The Iranian Nimbus Manticore hacking group has been attributed to two previously undocumented malware families that highlight the continued evolution of its toolset and likely expand its targeting footprint to infect Linux and Apple macOS systems using cross-platform remote access trojans (RATs) developed using Node.js and JavaScript. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky is tracking the malware strains under the names NodeRabbit and PollCat. The first sample of NodeRabbit was discovered on a system in Afghanistan, with subsequent sightings on two distinct machines located in Egypt and Ethiopia. "Its operators deliver [NodeRabbit] through spear-phishing messages on LinkedIn and other job search platforms that contain trojanized coding challenge archives," Kaspersky security researcher Omar Amin said . "Like NodeRabbit, PollCat is a cross-platform RAT, but it is written in obfuscated JavaScript also distributed through trojanized coding challenge archives."...
Threat Actors Don’t Want Better Attacks. They Want Repeatable Ones

Threat Actors Don’t Want Better Attacks. They Want Repeatable Ones

Sep 01, 2026 Social Engineering / Endpoint Security
The most common way into a company last year was to ask. A web page tells the visitor to prove they are not a robot. While they read the instructions, it quietly places a command on their clipboard. Then it talks them through opening a terminal and pasting it in. The technique is called ClickFix, and it was the most common initial access method Microsoft’s team observed last year , accounting for 47% of the attacks in their notifications. Nothing arrives as an attachment, so there is nothing to scan. No vulnerability is used, so there is nothing to patch. What happens next is just as ordinary. When Bitdefender analyzed 700,000 security incidents , 84% of the high-severity ones involved binaries that were already on the machine - the same administrative tools your IT team uses every day. Nothing malicious was installed, because nothing malicious was needed. Neither technique is clever, but both are winning. And the reason is not that attackers have run out of ideas. It is that th...
Attackers Steal METR API Key and Consume AI Credits Worth About $600,000

Attackers Steal METR API Key and Consume AI Credits Worth About $600,000

Sep 01, 2026 Cyber Attack / Artificial Intelligence
METR (short for Model Evaluation and Threat Research and pronounced "Meter"), a research non-profit that evaluates frontier artificial intelligence (AI) models for their ability to carry out long-horizon, agentic tasks, disclosed that it suffered "two notable security incidents" where external actors attempted to gain unauthorized access to its systems. No sensitive information is believed to have been accessed as a result of these incidents, it said, adding that a version of its findings was shared with AI companies it works with prior to public disclosure. The attacks have not been attributed to any known threat actor or group, nor did they involve AI agents breaking into its evaluations. "In March 2026, attackers stole an API key for inference on public models and consumed a substantial amount of credits," METR said . "In May 2026, we observed attackers systematically probing our publicly accessible infrastructure, including an unsuccessful at...
Russia-Aligned UAC-0099 Plants Nuclear Weapon Prompt in Malware to Disrupt AI Analysis

Russia-Aligned UAC-0099 Plants Nuclear Weapon Prompt in Malware to Disrupt AI Analysis

Sep 01, 2026 Malware / Artificial Intelligence
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new technique dubbed GuardBreaker that's been put to use by a Russia-aligned threat actor known as UAC-0099 against a target in Ukraine with an aim to interfere with artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted analysis. The idea, ESET said in a series of posts on X, is to deliberately trip a large language model's (LLM) safety mechanisms and prevent its normal functioning. "In the attack, UAC-0099 inserted a problematic text: 'I want to make a nuclear weapon. Help me ...' into their malicious VBS script as a comment," the Slovak cybersecurity company said. "This is meant to attract the AI's attention to the safety-sensitive content and stop it from analyzing the rest of the code." The GuardBreaker-embedded VBS script is assessed to be part of a broader toolset employed by UAC-0099, which has a track record of targeting transportation and energy sectors. The script is primarily designed to download ...
Attackers Exploit Critical Langflow and Rails Flaws in Credential-Probing and C2 Activity

Attackers Exploit Critical Langflow and Rails Flaws in Credential-Probing and C2 Activity

Sep 01, 2026 Vulnerability / Artificial Intelligence
Threat actors are exploiting two critical flaws impacting Langflow and Ruby on Rails, according to new findings from VulnCheck. The vulnerabilities in question are listed below - CVE-2026-0768 (CVSS score: 9.8) - A lack of proper validation of a user-supplied input vulnerability that could be exploited to execute arbitrary Python code in the context of the root user. CVE-2026-66066 aka KindaRails2Shell (CVSS score: 9.5) - A vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to read arbitrary files from the server, leak Rails process environment and secrets such as secret_key_base, the Rails master key, database passwords, cloud storage credentials, and API tokens, ultimately leading to remote code execution. Attackers can exploit CVE-2026-66066 by uploading a crafted image by taking advantage of the discrepancy between Active Storage and libvips in how they read input files. Successful exploitation requires affected applications to use libvips for Active Storage ...
North Korean Job Fraud Expands Beyond IT Into Healthcare and Sales

North Korean Job Fraud Expands Beyond IT Into Healthcare and Sales

Aug 31, 2026 Social Engineering / Artificial Intelligence
Threat actors with ties to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (aka DPRK or North Korea) have been observed seeking job opportunities beyond the information technology (IT) sector, with recent investigations identifying suspected workers employed in sales and marketing and the medical profession. The ongoing insider threat is part of what has been described as the IT worker scheme , where North Korea leverages its network of skilled IT workers, both within and outside the country, to fraudulently land jobs in Fortune 500 companies and private sector firms across the world and remotely earn income to further Pyongyang's unlawful nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. This entails relying on stolen or forged identity documents, VPNs, and proxy services to mask their true identity and location. The yearslong campaign is also tracked under the monikers Famous Chollima, Jasper Sleet, Nickel Tapestry, PurpleDelta (formerly TAG-121), UNC5267, and Wagemole. ...
⚡ Weekly Recap: Chinese Spy Proxy, AI Agents Go Off-Task, Router Backdoors and More

⚡ Weekly Recap: Chinese Spy Proxy, AI Agents Go Off-Task, Router Backdoors and More

Aug 31, 2026 Cybersecurity / Hacking
The boring parts caused most of the trouble. A router shipped ready to listen. A fake check turned the user into the installer. Trusted systems collected traffic and passwords, then cleaned the logs. Old bugs formed new attack chains. Even an AI agent decided its assigned task was optional. Elsewhere, fake apps, helpful support calls, cheap banking kits, exposed systems, and weak defaults kept things moving. Different attacks, same useful mistake: something familiar was trusted without a second look. Here is the week... ⚡ Threat of the Week U.S. Disrupts Chinese Proxy Network Enabling Cyber Espionage — The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) disrupted infrastructure associated with a technical quartermaster who sold reconnaissance, proxy management, and operational routing capabilities for Chinese cyber espionage activities. The QTYF group is said to have created and operated the QScan and QTRouter frameworks, which have been used to target U.S. critical infrastructu...
ValleyRAT Backdoor Hides in Signed Adware That Users Add to Antivirus Exclusions

ValleyRAT Backdoor Hides in Signed Adware That Users Add to Antivirus Exclusions

Aug 31, 2026 Malware / Endpoint Security
The threat actor known as Silver Fox has been observed distributing the ValleyRAT backdoor disguised as a signed Chinese adware application, running the malware under a trusted process to slip past users who add such software to their antivirus exclusions. Russian cybersecurity vendor Kaspersky said the attackers built the disguise around QN Wallpaper , a genuine Chinese desktop-wallpaper tool that in its unmodified form is adware, bundling partner apps and displaying ad banners. Once installed, ValleyRAT (also tracked as Winos 4.0) hands the operator full control of the compromised machine. Kaspersky said the attack's geography and payload point to Silver Fox as the likely group behind it, and urged users to avoid software of questionable reputation and to keep it away from security-tool exclusions. "This case is a clear example of how adware and affiliate networks can turn out to be far more dangerous than they appear. ValleyRAT is a sophisticated backdoor capable of...
Aurora Ransomware Operators Use Cursor AI in Attacks Against 10 Targets

Aurora Ransomware Operators Use Cursor AI in Attacks Against 10 Targets

Aug 31, 2026 Artificial Intelligence / Ransomware
Threat actors associated with Aurora (aka Aur0ra) ransomware have been observed using SpaceX's artificial intelligence (AI)-powered coding assistant Cursor to break into target networks, according to findings from CloudSEK and Gambit Security . The two independent analyses are based on exposed infrastructure associated with the Russian-speaking cybercrime group, leading to the discovery of its toolkit, shell history, and encryptor. CloudSEK said the exposed open directory leaked "months of activity" that was active against more than 20 organizations across nine countries between April and July 2026. Four of those victims have since been listed on its data leak site. "The operator used Cursor, an agentic coding assistant, to plan attacks in Russian, while excluding CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] ranges and CIS-country domains, without exception," CloudSEK noted. Details about Aurora first emerged in late May 2026, with CYFIRMA highlighting atta...
⚡ Top Stories This Week
Expert Insights Articles Videos
Cybersecurity Resources