Cyber Attack | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a cyber espionage campaign targeting Myanmar that uses graduation ceremony invitation lures to deliver a Go backdoor called QUICAgent. The campaign, codenamed Operation QUICSILVER , has been found to target government and information technology sectors, per Seqrite Labs. The activity is assessed to be the work of a China-nexus threat actor with moderate confidence. It was first observed in April 2026, when the attack was observed delivering a file named "HolidayNotice.pdf.exe" along with a lure that was a fabricated Belgian–Myanmar public holiday calendar. Two subsequent artifacts, each detected in June and July 2026, make use of a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file that activates the infection chain. Present within the VHD file is a Windows Shortcut (LNK) that mimics a PDF document. Opening the document displays a decoy PDF to the victim, an official graduation ceremony invitation that's written in Burmese and purports to be from t...

Update: The story was updated after publication to note that the vulnerability has not been exploited. Although the security bulletin originally marked the "Exploited" field under the Exploitability Assessment table as "Yes," on August 21, 2026, Microsoft corrected the "Exploited" status to "No" after The Hacker News contacted the company for comment. It also noted, "this vulnerability was not exploited in the wild." "We identified and addressed this issue with a fix and released CVE-2026-69836 for greater transparency . There are no additional actions customers need to take,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Hacker News. The headline has been edited to reflect this change. The original story follows below - Microsoft on Thursday warned of a maximum-severity security flaw in Entra ID that it said has been exploited in the wild, but noted that no customer action is required. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-69836...

The U.S. government on Wednesday warned of an "active threat" targeting critical infrastructure organizations in the country using artificial intelligence (AI)-generated exploit scripts. The activity is targeting Siemens S7 SeriesProgrammable Logic Controllers (PLCs) to conduct reconnaissance and capability development using AI-generated scripts disguised as legitimate monitoring tools. That said, the ongoing PLC targeting activity is assessed to be broader in scope than Siemens PLCs. "The actors leverage internet scanning services like Censys and ZoomEye to identify internet-exposed PLCs running outdated software or that are otherwise poorly protected," according to the advisory published by the National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Energy (DOE), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Targets of the activity include Critical Manufacturing, Energy, Wa...

A previously unreported cyber espionage operation dubbed SilkParasite has been observed targeting government bodies in Central Asia. The intrusion set makes use of seven remote access tool (RAT) families, five of which have never been previously documented: DriveSilkRAT, CookiETagRAT, NomadRAT, GoginRAT, and NodeEdgeRAT. SilkParasite, first discovered in late 2025, is assessed to be a China-nexus threat cluster with medium confidence. "What makes SilkParasite interesting is the traces of AI-assisted development running through otherwise expert code, which is a different thing from AI-generated malware," Bitdefender Labs said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. Unlike other operations that rely on AI-generated malware, SilkParasite's arsenal exhibits all hallmarks typically associated with professional espionage tooling that's developed by a team of human operators while AI is likely used to streamline the process. The Romanian cybersecurity v...

Cybersecurity researchers at Hunt.io have disclosed details of a campaign that they say compromised more than 14,530 Dahua devices between June 17 and July 22, 2026, using credential attacks, two authentication-bypass flaws, and a peer-to-peer (P2P) relay technique. The activity, codenamed Operation CameraSwarm , was reconstructed from a 407 MB exposed working directory containing 2,616 files across 234 subdirectories, including tooling, logs, shell history, and campaign records, with the researchers saying confirmed compromises were concentrated in Ukraine and Russia. The researchers said 1,923 cameras were configured with a persistent account during the operation and 283 were reached through the P2P path. Users of affected Dahua products are advised to install the corresponding fix software or newer firmware, while ITRES Labs recommends disabling P2P where it is not required and checking firmware against the vendor's download site. "The relay establishes the route w...

A JavaServer Pages (JSP) web shell deployed following the exploitation of a critical security flaw in PTC Windchill and FlexPLM servers is specifically designed for the enterprise Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software, according to new findings from ReliaQuest. The cybersecurity company characterized the web shell as a fully equipped extortion platform capable of mapping sensitive vault data, decrypting every credential in the Windchill keystore, and running additional code by means of a custom Java class loader, turning the tool into a backdoor for remote access and post-exploitation activity, such as lateral movement, ransomware, or persistence. While threat actors are typically known to deploy lightweight web shells (or reuse open-source variants like Behinder or China Chopper) as a way to maintain remote access to compromised systems and enable basic command execution capabilities, the latest development signals the use of a bespoke web shell that's tailored to the ...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a previously undocumented Python implant framework dubbed TWINLOOT . "TWINLOOT is a modular, PyArmor-hardened Python implant designed to operate its entire command-and-control infrastructure inside trusted Microsoft services," Ontinue said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. "Tasking flows through SharePoint Online file dead-drops via the Microsoft Graph API. Interactive operator access routes through WebRTC DataChannels relayed by Microsoft Teams TURN servers." Traffic to and from the Graph API is driven by means of a headless instance of the victim's own Edge browser, thereby making it virtually indistinguishable from legitimate network activity. The implant is equipped to harvest Windows credentials using pixel-perfect fake lock screens, offer a reverse SOCKS5 pivot into victim networks, execute arbitrary commands, and establish persistence on the host. Ontinue's Cyber Defense Cen...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added a critical flaw impacting Ray to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. Ray is an open-source, Python-native distributed computing framework designed to scale artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads. As of writing, the GitHub project has more than 43,500 stars and has been forked over 7,900 times. The vulnerability in question relates to CVE-2025-62593 (CVSS score: 9.4), which can result in remote code execution via web browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari by means of a DNS rebinding attack . "Due to the longstanding decision by the Ray Development team to not implement any sort of authentication on critical endpoints, like the /api/jobs & /api/job_agent/jobs/ has once again led to a severe vulnerability that allows attackers to execute arbitrary code against Ray," according to an advisory shared by Ray ...

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 ...