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Cybersecurity researchers have attributed the exploitation of a newly patched security flaw in Broadcom VMware vCenter to a suspected China-nexus advanced persistent threat (APT). The attacks involve the exploitation of CVE-2026-59310 (CVSS score: 9.8), a severe directory-traversal vulnerability in the VMware vCenter server that could be weaponized by a malicious actor to execute arbitrary code. A fix for the flaw was released by Broadcom on July 29, 2026. German incident response company QUIRSO assessed with moderate confidence that the exploitation campaign aimed at CVE-2026-59310 is operated by a Chinese-speaking threat actor, likely working in the UTC+08:00 time zone, which is predominantly used in Chinese-speaking regions. "This assessment is based on the convergence of Chinese-language artifacts in attacker-created scripts, apparent reuse of research from a Chinese security publication, repeated operational use of Chinese-language tools and management software, victi...

A maximum-severity security vulnerability impacting SAP Commerce Cloud is witnessing active exploitation efforts. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-58231 , is rated 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. It relates to an instance of insufficient authorization checks and input validation. "SAP Commerce Cloud allows an unauthenticated attacker to abuse a default authentication client and submit specially crafted input to certain functions lacking sufficient validation," per CVE.org. "Successful exploitation could enable arbitrary code execution and compromise internal components, resulting in high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the application." According to Defused Cyber, exploitation attempts against CVE-2026-58231 began to hit its honeypot systems merely three days after the release of the patch. "This vulnerability has no public PoC and is not known to be exploited," the threat intelligence company said in an X post ...

Apple on Thursday sent a fresh batch of notifications to customers whom it suspects may have been targeted by mercenary spyware attacks. In a statement shared with TechCrunch, the iPhone maker said it alerted an unspecified number of users targeted in 110 countries and that it has notified customers in over 150 countries to date. Apple began sending threat notifications to users in late 2021. "The extreme cost, sophistication, and worldwide nature of mercenary spyware attacks make them some of the most advanced digital threats in existence today," the tech giant said . "As a result, Apple does not attribute the attacks or resulting threat notifications to any specific attackers or geographical regions." Typically, such notifications are sent to people who may have been individually targeted because of "who they are or what they do," including journalists, activists, politicians, and diplomats. They tend to focus on a very small number of speci...

Threat actors have begun to exploit a newly disclosed Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability following the release of a proof-of-concept (PoC) code. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-55040 (CVSS score: 9.1), which refers to a critical security feature bypass that stems from weak authentication. It was patched by Microsoft as part of its July 2026 Patch Tuesday updates. "The authentication feature could be bypassed as this vulnerability allows impersonation," Microsoft said in an advisory for the flaw last month. "Exploiting this vulnerability could allow an attacker to disclose files and modify data, but the attacker cannot impact the availability of the system." According to Defused Cyber , threat actors are leveraging a PoC exploit released by Rapid7 earlier this week, once again indicating fresh flaws are being rapidly abused in real-world attacks. It's worth mentioning that CVE-2026-55040 is the fifth SharePoint vulnerability to be exploited t...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new version of the Kimwolf/AISURU Android and Internet of Things (IoT) botnet that comes with significant improvements to improve its operational resilience and conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The new version, tracked as Kimwolf v7, was discovered by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 in February 2026. "Kimwolf v7 adds an HTTP/2-based DDoS flood that constructs complete browser fingerprints," researchers Asher Davila, Chris Navarrete, and Doel Santos said. "This makes attack traffic more difficult to distinguish from legitimate browsing." The botnet also aims to make its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure more resistant to takedown efforts by using a tiered mechanism that employs Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to obtain the C2 address, a hard-coded Tor .onion hidden service, and a local proxy for routing between clearnet and Tor, while removing all scanning, exploitation, and brute-force functional...

The ransomware group known as DeadLock has been observed using decentralized infrastructure to facilitate victim communications and data leak operations in a bid to improve operational resilience. "Its recovery ecosystem combines the Session messaging network with blockchain-backed services that store and deliver resources used throughout the extortion process," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said . The tech giant said it observed the ransomware being deployed by multiple threat actors, including an affiliate for Lynx and INC ransomware. DeadLock was first detected in July 2025, employing double extortion tactics to encrypt victim environments and apply pressure by threatening to publicly release exfiltrated data. As of this month, the group has claimed 96 victims , with most of them located in Italy, Spain, Poland, Türkiye, and the U.S. In an analysis published earlier this January, Singapore-headquartered Group-IB said the group has managed to keep a lowe...

A malicious tool server connected to an AI coding assistant can quietly walk off with SSH keys, environment secrets, source code, and customer data without ever sending one obviously harmful instruction. The trick can work even after a blunt version of the same theft is refused: split the request into fragments that each look routine, place them in channels the assistant already uses, and let the agent stitch them together and send the data back. The attack targets coding tools that connect to outside servers over the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the open standard that lets AI assistants call external tools. A malicious MCP server can put one fragment in a tool description and another in a tool result; some setups also support server-initiated sampling. MCP does preserve structured tool and result boundaries. But ASSET Research Group's tests show agents can still combine instructions across them in the same working context, so no single fragment has to contain the whole mal...

Attackers shut down a steam turbine and the process-water treatment system at a Polish combined heat and power plant by coming in over the private cellular network the local grid operator uses to reach remote equipment. The plant supplies heat to roughly 50,000 residents. Recovery began at about 7:30 a.m. while the intruders were still active inside the network, and customers lost neither heat nor electricity. CERT Polska  disclosed the December 2025 incident on August 8 after an investigation lasting more than three months. Poland's prime minister had said in January that two CHP plants were hit. This is the second. The route ran through a private APN, or access point name: a dedicated cellular data network managed by the distribution system operator. A configuration that allowed arbitrary devices on that APN to communicate with one another let the attacker pivot from a compromised wind-farm network to a controller at the CHP plant. CERT says reaching an industrial contro...

Metabase has warned that a maximum-severity security flaw impacting its business intelligence and data visualization software package has been exploited in the wild as a zero-day. The vulnerability (CVSS score: 10.0), which does not carry a CVE identifier, allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to inject arbitrary SQL into the Metabase application database, enabling them to gain administrator access to the instance. Armed with the elevated access, the attacker can change the application configuration, steal stored credentials for the connected databases, read any data accessible through those connections, and export data. "We recently identified that Metabase Cloud was attacked by someone utilizing an unknown ('0-day') security vulnerability in versions 1.58 and above," Metabase said in an advisory. Metabase Cloud instances have already been updated to the latest version. Users running self-hosted versions are advised to apply security patches released b...

N-able has released a fresh round of hotfixes for N‑central as part of its investigation into ongoing exploitation of a recently disclosed security flaw in the Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) product. "We are proactively expanding protections in response to ongoing monitoring of threat actors as they evolve their attack techniques," the company said. "This is not a duplicate of our previous communication. Hotfix 2 is required, even if you already applied the earlier hotfix. Hotfix 2 supersedes Hotfix 1 with additional hardening measures to further protect you and your customers." The disclosure comes as N-able acknowledged that it detected unusual activity within a customer's environment on July 31, 2026, leading to the discovery of unknown threat actors exploiting a then-zero-day flaw in the N‑central server (CVE-2026-18577, CVSS score: 8.2). It impacts all versions prior to 2026.3.1.7. It's worth noting that CVE-2026-18577 relates to an i...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added a critical-severity security flaw impacting Progress Kemp LoadMaster to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, following reports of active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-8037 (CVSS score: 9.6), is a command injection flaw that could be weaponized to achieve arbitrary code execution on susceptible devices. "Progress LoadMaster contains a command injection vulnerability that allows an un-authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the LoadMaster appliance by exploiting unsanitized input in multiple command endpoints," CISA said . In an analysis published in June 2026, watchTowr Labs described the issue as present in a function named "escape_quotes()" within the load balancer application and that it stemmed from improper handling of user-supplied input, ultimately enabling command injection. Successful exploitation of the...

A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, sentenced Maksim Silnikau to 16 years in prison on August 5 for creating and running Ransom Cartel , the ransomware-as-a-service operation he stood up in 2021. Between 2021 and 2023, Ransom Cartel conspirators attacked at least 18 companies, including firms in California, New York and Nebraska, and others abroad, according to the Justice Department. Silnikau, a 40-year-old Belarusian national who worked under the handles "J.P. Morgan," "lansky" and "xxx," did not carry out most of those intrusions himself. He built the business around them: the locking software, the stolen credentials he bought from initial access brokers, and a hidden panel where affiliates monitored attacks, negotiated with victims and split proceeds. He ran a ratings system that rewarded the productive ones, and pushed ransom payments through cryptocurrency mixers. Sixteen years run past the 13 years and seven months handed to Yaroslav ...

A newly patched security flaw impacting on-premise versions of JetBrains TeamCity has come under active exploitation in the wild , according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-63077 (CVSS score: 9.8), a case of deserialization of untrusted data that could allow an unauthenticated attacker with access to a TeamCity server to bypass authentication checks and execute arbitrary operating system commands with the privileges of the TeamCity server process. "JetBrains TeamCity contains a deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability that could allow unauthenticated remote code execution via the agent polling protocol," CISA said . According to JetBrains, the vulnerability can be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker via the TeamCity agent polling protocol to sidestep authentication checks and execute arbitrary operating system commands. The exact impact varies depending on the privileges grant...

The Police National Legal Database (PNLD) has confirmed that police, government and customer contact information was compromised and published on the dark web. The data included names, organisations and work email addresses belonging to police officers, police staff, criminal justice professionals, government partners and customers. The incident, identified on July 26, also exposed some names and email addresses belonging to people who had submitted questions through Ask the Police. That exposure could make phishing messages targeting named officers appear more convincing, according to UK government guidance . PNLD said, "There is no evidence to suggest that passwords or other security credentials have been compromised." The service provides legal information, products and services to UK police forces and criminal justice organisations. It is not the Police National Computer or the Police National Database, is not a crime-recording system, and does not hold confidentia...

Attackers modified a JavaScript file served by advertising technology company Adform , turning it into a browser-side tool that rewrites cryptocurrency wallet addresses. Adform detected the incident on July 27, 2026, removed the malicious code, notified affected clients, and reported it to authorities. Anyone who visited a site carrying the affected script on July 27 and copied a Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Tron address may have pasted a different address inserted by the malicious code instead. Adform is telling people to clear their browser cache because the altered file may remain cached after the fix, and to check any wallet address before sending funds. Adform says the code was not designed to install software or establish persistence and operated only while an affected page remained open. The captured sample also rewrites addresses entered directly into form fields, so clipboard copying was not the only path to replacement. The public timeline is unresolved. Adform's noti...

Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 says a Chinese-speaking threat actor used DeepSeek through the open-source Hermes Agent framework to launch attacks autonomously. After an initial Telegram instruction, the agent found internet-facing systems and selected public exploits. The researchers recovered no further operator input in the session. The operator, tracked through the aliases knaithe and KnYuan , launched exploitation attempts against more than 460 targets using autonomous and conventional workflows. Unit 42 described seven exploit tracks. They span eight Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) identifiers because the n8n chain combines two vulnerabilities. The DeepSeek-led attacks against Langflow and n8n failed because the exposed systems did not meet the exploits' configuration requirements. In separate manual operations, Unit 42 reported data exfiltration from three organizations through the NetScaler memory-overread flaw CVE-2026-3055 and command execution on 11...

Cybersecurity researchers have shared additional technical details about a recently patched critical security flaw impacting Check Point Security Management Server and Multi-Domain Security Management Server (MDS) that has come under active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-16232 (CVSS score: 9.3), is an authentication bypass in the SmartConsole login process that allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to obtain an application login token and use it to authenticate with full administrative privileges. "By leveraging CVE-2026-16232, an unauthenticated attacker can obtain an application login token, use this token to log in through SmartConsole with full administrator privileges, and modify the security policy or security configuration," Rapid7 said . Successful exploitation requires an attacker to have network access to the Management Server and a configuration that does not restrict Trusted Clients. Check Point has disclosed that it...

OpenAI on Tuesday revealed the rogue artificial intelligence (AI) agent that escaped its sealed evaluation environment and broke into Hugging Face's production environment also hacked multiple third-party accounts and services as part of the attack. The latest disclosure shows that the security incident, which stemmed from an internal security test, was more extensive in scope than previously thought. The AI company said its ongoing review of the incident revealed a "small number of cases" where the models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and an "even more capable pre-release model," identified and used exposed credentials at the account-level on other publicly-available services. "This includes four accounts on four services as part of the Hugging Face incident (and a few accounts accessed as part of other evaluations)," it said. "One of these four accounts was used as an outbound relay and staging path, and another account was used for data st...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a Microsoft Teams-themed phishing campaign that employs "secure document" lures to deliver legitimate remote monitoring and management ( RMM ) tools. "The victim was directed through compromised web infrastructure to a counterfeit Microsoft Store page claiming that Microsoft Teams had to be updated before the shared document could be opened," ZeroBEC said in a report published last week. The bogus Teams page in question is "teamvem[.]com." The active download is used to deliver "supportdev.exe," an Inno Setup-based loader that launches PowerShell in a hidden window, fetches an official Level RMM installer, and registers the endpoint using an attacker-controlled enrollment secret ("LEVEL_API_KEY=GxSCHE8EZwfyYN3iPQHPai8D"). The same PowerShell command has been found to download and deploy ConnectWise ScreenConnect in parallel, indicating an attempt to drop multiple RMM tools with an intent to...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged fresh malicious cyber activity by a threat actor with ties to East Asia targeting government entities in the Middle East. The intrusions have resulted in the deployment of previously unreported malware families dubbed TELESHIM, MIXEDKEY, and BINDCLOAK, according to Zscaler ThreatLabz. The cybersecurity firm said it detected the campaign earlier this month. "The campaign used a multi-stage attack chain to establish and maintain access on infected systems, with TELESHIM abusing the Telegram API for command-and-control (C2) communication to blend in with legitimate internet traffic," Sudeep Singh, senior manager of APT research at Zscaler ThreatLabz, said in a technical write-up published last week. The attack chain starts with an ISO file containing a legitimate executable ("RegSchdTask.exe") that's used to sideload a rogue DLL ("AsTaskSched.dll"), a 32-bit Windows backdoor called TELESHIM that then leverage...