Cloud security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Threat actors are attempting to leverage a newly released artificial intelligence (AI) offensive security tool called HexStrike AI to exploit recently disclosed security flaws. HexStrike AI, according to its website , is pitched as an AI‑driven security platform to automate reconnaissance and vulnerability discovery with an aim to accelerate authorized red teaming operations, bug bounty hunting, and capture the flag (CTF) challenges. Per information shared on its GitHub repository, the open-source platform integrates with over 150 security tools to facilitate network reconnaissance, web application security testing, reverse engineering, and cloud security. It also supports dozens of specialized AI agents that are fine-tuned for vulnerability intelligence, exploit development, attack chain discovery, and error handling. But according to a report from Check Point, threat actors are trying their hands on the tool to gain an adversarial advantage, attempting to weaponize the tool to ...

In January 2025, cybersecurity experts at Wiz Research found that Chinese AI specialist DeepSeek had suffered a data leak, putting more than 1 million sensitive log streams at risk. According to the Wiz Research team, they identified a publicly accessible ClickHouse database belonging to DeepSeek. This allowed "full control over database operations, including the ability to access internal data", Wiz Research stated, with more than a million lines of log streams involved, containing chat history, secret keys and more. Wiz immediately reported the issue to DeepSeek, which quickly secured the exposure. Still, the incident underscored the danger of data leakage. Intentional or unintentional? Data leakage is a broad concept, covering a range of scenarios. As IBM notes, the term in general refers to a scenario where "sensitive information is unintentionally exposed to unauthorized parties" .  It could be intentional or unintentional. On the intentional side...

Cyber threats and attacks like ransomware continue to increase in volume and complexity with the endpoint typically being the most sought after and valued target. With the rapid expansion and adoption of AI, it is more critical than ever to ensure the endpoint is adequately secured by a platform capable of not just keeping pace, but staying ahead of an ever-evolving threat landscape. SentinelOne's steadfast commitment to delivering AI-powered cybersecurity enables global customers and partners to achieve resiliency and reduce risk with real-time, autonomous protection across the entire enterprise — all from a single agent and console with a robust, rigorously tested platform that keeps the customer in control. Cybersecurity today isn't just about detection—it's about operational continuity under pressure. For example, endpoint solutions must account for encrypted traffic inspection, policy enforcement during identity compromise, and fast containment across distributed environments. ...

Cybersecurity today is less about single attacks and more about chains of small weaknesses that connect into big risks. One overlooked update, one misused account, or one hidden tool in the wrong hands can be enough to open the door. The news this week shows how attackers are mixing methods—combining stolen access, unpatched software, and clever tricks to move from small entry points to large consequences.  For defenders, the lesson is clear: the real danger often comes not from one major flaw, but from how different small flaws interact together. ⚡ Threat of the Week WhatsApp Patches Actively Exploited Flaw — WhatsApp addressed a security vulnerability in its messaging apps for Apple iOS and macOS that it said may have been exploited in the wild in conjunction with a recently disclosed Apple flaw in targeted zero-day attacks. The vulnerability, CVE-2025-55177 relates to a case of insufficient authorization of linked device synchronization messages. The Meta-owned company ...

Picture this: Your team rolls out some new code, thinking everything's fine. But hidden in there is a tiny flaw that explodes into a huge problem once it hits the cloud. Next thing you know, hackers are in, and your company is dealing with a mess that costs millions. Scary, right? In 2025, the average data breach hits businesses with a whopping $4.44 million bill globally. And guess what? A big chunk of these headaches comes from app security slip-ups, like web attacks that snag credentials and wreak havoc. If you're in dev, ops, or security, you've probably felt that stress—endless alerts, teams arguing over who's to blame, and fixes that take forever. But hey, it doesn't have to be this way. What if you could spot those risks early, from the moment code is written all the way to when it's running in the cloud? That's the magic of code-to-cloud visibility, and it's changing how smart teams handle app security. Our upcoming webinar, "Code-to-Clou...

Amazon on Friday said it flagged and disrupted what it described as an opportunistic watering hole campaign orchestrated by the Russia-linked APT29 actors as part of their intelligence gathering efforts. The campaign used "compromised websites to redirect visitors to malicious infrastructure designed to trick users into authorizing attacker-controlled devices through Microsoft's device code authentication flow," Amazon's Chief Information Security Officer CJ Moses said . APT29, also tracked as BlueBravo, Cloaked Ursa, CozyLarch, Cozy Bear, Earth Koshchei, ICECAP, Midnight Blizzard, and The Dukes, is the name assigned to a state-sponsored hacking group with ties to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). In recent months, the prolific threat actor has been linked to attacks leveraging malicious Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) configuration files to target Ukrainian entities and exfiltrate sensitive data. Since the start of the year, the adversarial collec...

An abandoned update server associated with input method editor (IME) software Sogou Zhuyin was leveraged by threat actors as part of an espionage campaign to deliver several malware families, including C6DOOR and GTELAM, in attacks primarily targeting users across Eastern Asia. "Attackers employed sophisticated infection chains, such as hijacked software updates and fake cloud storage or login pages, to distribute malware and collect sensitive information," Trend Micro researchers Nick Dai and Pierre Lee said in an exhaustive report. The campaign, identified in June 2025, has been codenamed TAOTH by the cybersecurity company. Targets of the activity mainly include dissidents, journalists, researchers, and technology/business leaders in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and overseas Taiwanese communities. Taiwan accounts for 49% of all targets, followed by Cambodia (11%) and the U.S. (7%). It's said the attackers, in October 2024, took control of the laps...

The maintainers of the nx build system have alerted users to a supply chain attack that allowed attackers to publish malicious versions of the popular npm package and other auxiliary plugins with data-gathering capabilities. "Malicious versions of the nx package, as well as some supporting plugin packages, were published to npm, containing code that scans the file system, collects credentials, and posts them to GitHub as a repo under the user's accounts," the maintainers said in an advisory published Wednesday. Nx is an open-source, technology-agnostic build platform that's designed to manage codebases. It's advertised as an "AI-first build platform that connects everything from your editor to CI [continuous integration]." The npm package has over 3.5 million weekly downloads. The list of affected packages and versions is below. These versions have since been removed from the npm registry. The compromise of the nx package took place on August 26, 20...

The financially motivated threat actor known as Storm-0501 has been observed refining its tactics to conduct data exfiltration and extortion attacks targeting cloud environments. "Unlike traditional on-premises ransomware, where the threat actor typically deploys malware to encrypt critical files across endpoints within the compromised network and then negotiates for a decryption key, cloud-based ransomware introduces a fundamental shift," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Leveraging cloud-native capabilities, Storm-0501 rapidly exfiltrates large volumes of data, destroys data and backups within the victim environment, and demands ransom -- all without relying on traditional malware deployment." Storm-0501 was first documented by Microsoft almost a year ago, detailing its hybrid cloud ransomware attacks targeting government, manufacturing, transportation, and law enforcement sectors in the U.S., with the thr...

A widespread data theft campaign has allowed hackers to breach sales automation platform Salesloft to steal OAuth and refresh tokens associated with the Drift artificial intelligence (AI) chat agent. The activity, assessed to be opportunistic in nature, has been attributed to a threat actor tracked by Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) and Mandiant, tracked as UNC6395. GTIG told The Hacker News that it's aware of over 700 potentially impacted organizations. "Beginning as early as August 8, 2025, through at least August 18, 2025, the actor targeted Salesforce customer instances through compromised OAuth tokens associated with the Salesloft Drift third-party application," researchers Austin Larsen, Matt Lin, Tyler McLellan, and Omar ElAhdan said . In these attacks, the threat actors have been observed exporting large volumes of data from numerous corporate Salesforce instances, with the likely aim of harvesting credentials that could be then used to compromise vic...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new phishing campaign that's using fake voicemails and purchase orders to deliver a malware loader called UpCrypter . The campaign leverages "carefully crafted emails to deliver malicious URLs linked to convincing phishing pages," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin said . "These pages are designed to entice recipients into downloading JavaScript files that act as droppers for UpCrypter." Attacks propagating the malware have been primarily targeting manufacturing, technology, healthcare, construction, and retail/hospitality sectors across the world since the start of August 2025. The vast majority of the infections have been observed in Austria, Belarus, Canada, Egypt, India, and Pakistan, among others. UpCrypter functions as a conduit for various remote access tools (RATs), such as PureHVNC RAT , DCRat (aka DarkCrystal RAT), and Babylon RAT , each of which enable an attacker to take full control of compromi...

Cybersecurity today moves at the pace of global politics. A single breach can ripple across supply chains, turn a software flaw into leverage, or shift who holds the upper hand. For leaders, this means defense isn't just a matter of firewalls and patches—it's about strategy. The strongest organizations aren't the ones with the most tools, but the ones that see how cyber risks connect to business, trust, and power. This week's stories highlight how technical gaps become real-world pressure points—and why security decisions now matter far beyond IT. ⚡ Threat of the Week Popular Password Managers Affected by Clickjacking — Popular password manager plugins for web browsers have been found susceptible to clickjacking security vulnerabilities that could be exploited to steal account credentials, two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, and credit card details under certain conditions. The technique has been dubbed Document Object Model (DOM)-based extension clickjacking by independent sec...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to multiple campaigns that are taking advantage of known security vulnerabilities and exposed Redis servers to various malicious activities, including leveraging the compromised devices as IoT botnets, residential proxies, or cryptocurrency mining infrastructure. The first set of attacks entails the exploitation of CVE-2024-36401 (CVSS score: 9.8), a critical remote code execution vulnerability impacting OSGeo GeoServer GeoTools that has been weaponized in cyber attacks since late last year. "Criminals have used the vulnerability to deploy legitimate software development kits (SDKs) or modified apps to gain passive income via network sharing or residential proxies," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers Zhibin Zhang, Yiheng An, Chao Lei, and Haozhe Zhang said in a technical report. "This method of generating passive income is particularly stealthy. It mimics a monetization strategy used by some legitimate app develo...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to malicious activity orchestrated by a China-nexus cyber espionage group known as Murky Panda that involves abusing trusted relationships in the cloud to breach enterprise networks. "The adversary has also shown considerable ability to quickly weaponize N-day and zero-day vulnerabilities and frequently achieves initial access to their targets by exploiting internet-facing appliances," CrowdStrike said in a Thursday report. Murky Panda, also known as Silk Typhoon (formerly Hafnium), is best known for its zero-day exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server flaws in 2021. Attacks mounted by the hacking group have targeted government, technology, academic, legal, and professional services entities in North America. Earlier this March, Microsoft detailed the threat actor's shift in tactics, detailing its targeting of the information technology (IT) supply chain as a means to obtain initial access to corporate networks....

Threat actors are exploiting a nearly two-year-old security flaw in Apache ActiveMQ to gain persistent access to cloud Linux systems and deploy malware called DripDropper . But in an unusual twist, the unknown attackers have been observed patching the exploited vulnerability after securing initial access to prevent further exploitation by other adversaries and evade detection, Red Canary said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Follow-on adversary command-and-control (C2) tools varied by endpoint and included Sliver , and Cloudflare Tunnels to maintain covert command and control over the long term," researchers Christina Johns, Chris Brook, and Tyler Edmonds said. The attacks exploit a maximum-severity security flaw in Apache ActiveMQ ( CVE-2023-46604 , CVSS score: 10.0), a remote code execution vulnerability that could be exploited to run arbitrary shell commands. It was addressed in late October 2023. The security defect has since come under heavy exploitation...

The U.K. government has apparently abandoned its plans to force Apple to weaken encryption protections and include a backdoor that would have enabled access to the protected data of U.S. citizens. U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, in a statement posted on X, said the U.S. government had been working with its partners with the U.K. over the past few months to ensure that Americans' civil liberties are protected.  "As a result, the U.K. has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a 'backdoor' that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties," Gabbard said . The development comes after Apple switched off its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature for iCloud in the U.K. earlier this February, following government demands for backdoor access to encrypted user data. "We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available t...

Cybersecurity researchers have lifted the lid on the threat actors' exploitation of a now-patched security flaw in Microsoft Windows to deploy the PipeMagic malware in RansomExx ransomware attacks. The attacks involve the exploitation of CVE-2025-29824, a privilege escalation vulnerability impacting the Windows Common Log File System (CLFS) that was addressed by Microsoft in April 2025, Kaspersky and BI.ZONE said in a joint report published today. PipeMagic was first documented in 2022 as part of RansomExx ransomware attacks targeting industrial companies in Southeast Asia, capable of acting as a full-fledged backdoor providing remote access and executing a wide range of commands on compromised hosts. In those attacks, the threat actors have been found to exploit CVE-2017-0144 , a remote code execution flaw in Windows SMB, to infiltrate victim infrastructure. Subsequent infection chains observed in October 2024 in Saudi Arabia were spotted leveraging a fake OpenAI ChatGPT...