JavaScript | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Google on Monday released out-of-band fixes to address three security issues in its Chrome browser, including one that it said has come under active exploitation in the wild. The high-severity flaw is being tracked as CVE-2025-5419 (CVSS score: 8.8), and has been flagged as an out-of-bounds read and write vulnerability in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine. "Out-of-bounds read and write in V8 in Google Chrome prior to 137.0.7151.68 allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page," reads the description of the bug on the NIST's National Vulnerability Database (NVD). Google credited Clement Lecigne and Benoît Sevens of Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) with discovering and reporting the flaw on May 27, 2025. It also noted that the issue was addressed the next day by pushing out a configuration change to the Stable version of the browser across all platforms. As is customary, the advisory is light on details regarding t...

A new malware campaign is distributing a novel Rust-based information stealer dubbed EDDIESTEALER using the popular ClickFix social engineering tactic initiated via fake CAPTCHA verification pages. "This campaign leverages deceptive CAPTCHA verification pages that trick users into executing a malicious PowerShell script, which ultimately deploys the infostealer, harvesting sensitive data such as credentials, browser information, and cryptocurrency wallet details," Elastic Security Labs researcher Jia Yu Chan said in an analysis. The attack chains begin with threat actors compromising legitimate websites with malicious JavaScript payloads that serve bogus CAPTCHA check pages, which prompt site visitors to "prove you are not [a] robot" by following a three-step process, a prevalent tactic called ClickFix . This involves instructing the potential victim to open the Windows Run dialog prompt, paste an already copied command into the "verification window"...

The U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has levied sanctions against a Philippines-based company named Funnull Technology Inc. and its administrator Liu Lizhi for providing infrastructure to conduct romance baiting scams that led to massive cryptocurrency losses. The Treasury accused the Taguig-headquartered company of enabling thousands of websites involved in virtual currency investment scams that caused Americans to lose billions of dollars annually. "Funnull has directly facilitated several of these schemes, resulting in over $200 million in U.S. victim-reported losses," the agency said in a press release. The average loss is estimated to be over $150,000 per individual. Funnull, also called Fang Neng CDN (funnull[.]io, funnull[.]com, funnull[.]app, and funnull[.]buzz), first attracted the attention of the cybersecurity community in June 2024 after it was implicated in the supply chain attack of the widely-used Polyfill[.]io J...

As many as 60 malicious npm packages have been discovered in the package registry with malicious functionality to harvest hostnames, IP addresses, DNS servers, and user directories to a Discord-controlled endpoint. The packages, published under three different accounts, come with an install‑time script that's triggered during npm install, Socket security researcher Kirill Boychenko said in a report published last week. The libraries have been collectively downloaded over 3,000 times. "The script targets Windows, macOS, or Linux systems, and includes basic sandbox‑evasion checks, making every infected workstation or continuous‑integration node a potential source of valuable reconnaissance," the software supply chain security firm said . The names of the three accounts, each of which published 20 packages within an 11-day time period, are listed below. The accounts no longer exist on npm - bbbb335656 cdsfdfafd1232436437, and  sdsds656565 The malicious code, per So...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new campaign that employs malicious JavaScript injections to redirect site visitors on mobile devices to a Chinese adult-content Progressive Web App (PWA) scam. "While the payload itself is nothing new (yet another adult gambling scam), the delivery method stands out," c/side researcher Himanshu Anand said in a Tuesday analysis. "The malicious landing page is a full-blown Progressive Web App ( PWA ), likely aiming to retain users longer and bypass basic browser protections." The campaign is designed to explicitly filter out desktop users, primarily focusing on mobile users. The activity has been described as a client-side attack that uses third-party JavaScript and only triggers on mobile devices. The use of PWAs, a type of application built using web technologies that provide a user experience similar to that of a native app built for a specific platform like Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, or iOS, is seen as an at...

Mozilla has released security updates to address two critical security flaws in its Firefox browser that could be potentially exploited to access sensitive data or achieve code execution. The vulnerabilities, both of which were exploited as a zero-day at Pwn2Own Berlin, are listed below - CVE-2025-4918 - An out-of-bounds access vulnerability when resolving Promise objects that could allow an attacker to perform read or write on a JavaScript Promise object CVE-2025-4919 - An out-of-bounds access vulnerability when optimizing linear sums that could allow an attacker to perform read or write on a JavaScript object by confusing array index sizes In other words, successful exploitation of either of the flaws could permit an adversary to achieve out-of-bounds read or write , which could then be abused to access otherwise sensitive information or result in memory corruption that could pave the way for code execution. The vulnerabilities affect the following versions of the Firefox b...

The malware loader known as MintsLoader has been used to deliver a PowerShell-based remote access trojan called GhostWeaver. "MintsLoader operates through a multi-stage infection chain involving obfuscated JavaScript and PowerShell scripts," Recorded Future's Insikt Group said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The malware employs sandbox and virtual machine evasion techniques, a domain generation algorithm (DGA), and HTTP-based command-and-control (C2) communications." Phishing and drive-by download campaigns distributing MintsLoader have been detected in the wild since early 2023, per Orange Cyberdefense . The loader has been observed delivering various follow-on payloads like StealC and a modified version of the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) client. The malware has also been put to use by threat actors operating e-crime services like SocGholish (aka FakeUpdates) and LandUpdate808 (aka TAG-124), distributing via p...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new campaign targeting WordPress sites that disguises the malware as a security plugin. The plugin, which goes by the name "WP-antymalwary-bot.php," comes with a variety of features to maintain access, hide itself from the admin dashboard, and execute remote code. "Pinging functionality that can report back to a command-and-control (C&C) server is also included, as is code that helps spread malware into other directories and inject malicious JavaScript responsible for serving ads," Wordfence's Marco Wotschka said in a report. First discovered during a site cleanup effort in late January 2025, the malware has since been detected in the wild with new variants. Some of the other names used for the plugin are listed below - addons.php wpconsole.php wp-performance-booster.php scr.php Once installed and activated, it provides threat actors administrator access to the dashboard and makes use of the REST API...

The Ripple cryptocurrency npm JavaScript library named xrpl.js has been compromised by unknown threat actors as part of a software supply chain attack designed to harvest and exfiltrate users' private keys. The malicious activity has been found to affect five different versions of the package: 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3, 4.2.4, and 2.14.2. The issue has been addressed in versions 4.2.5 and 2.14.3. xrpl.js is a popular JavaScript API for interacting with the XRP Ledger blockchain, also called the Ripple Protocol, a cryptocurrency platform launched by Ripple Labs in 2012. The package has been downloaded over 2.9 million times to date, attracting more than 135,000 weekly downloads. "The official XPRL (Ripple) NPM package was compromised by sophisticated attackers who put in a backdoor to steal cryptocurrency private keys and gain access to cryptocurrency wallets," Aikido Security's Charlie Eriksen said . The malicious code changes have been found to be introduced by a...

Threat hunters are warning of a sophisticated web skimmer campaign that leverages a legacy application programming interface (API) from payment processor Stripe to validate stolen payment information prior to exfiltration. "This tactic ensures that only valid card data is sent to the attackers, making the operation more efficient and potentially harder to detect," Jscrambler researchers Pedro Fortuna, David Alves, and Pedro Marrucho said in a report. As many as 49 merchants are estimated to have been affected by the campaign to date. Fifteen of the compromised sites have taken action to remove the malicious script injections. The activity is assessed to be ongoing since at least August 20, 2024. Details of the campaign were first flagged by security firm Source Defense towards the end of February 2025, detailing the web skimmer's use of the " api.stripe[.]com/v1/sources " API, which allows applications to accept various payment methods. The endpoint has...

Threat actors are using the "mu-plugins" directory in WordPress sites to conceal malicious code with the goal of maintaining persistent remote access and redirecting site visitors to bogus sites. mu-plugins, short for must-use plugins , refers to plugins in a special directory ("wp-content/mu-plugins") that are automatically executed by WordPress without the need to enable them explicitly via the admin dashboard. This also makes the directory an ideal location for staging malware. "This approach represents a concerning trend, as the mu-plugins (Must-Use plugins) are not listed in the standard WordPress plugin interface, making them less noticeable and easier for users to ignore during routine security checks," Sucuri researcher Puja Srivastava said in an analysis. In the incidents analyzed by the website security company, three different kinds of rogue PHP code have been discovered in the directory - "wp-content/mu-plugins/redirect.php," ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered several cryptocurrency packages on the npm registry that have been hijacked to siphon sensitive information such as environment variables from compromised systems. "Some of these packages have lived on npmjs.com for over 9 years, and provide legitimate functionality to blockchain developers," Sonatype researcher Ax Sharma said . "However, [...] the latest versions of each of these packages were laden with obfuscated scripts." The affected packages and their hijacked versions are listed below - country-currency-map (2.1.8) bnb-javascript-sdk-nobroadcast (2.16.16) @bithighlander/bitcoin-cash-js-lib (5.2.2) eslint-config-travix (6.3.1) @crosswise-finance1/sdk-v2 (0.1.21) @keepkey/device-protocol (7.13.3) @veniceswap/uikit (0.65.34) @veniceswap/eslint-config-pancake (1.6.2) babel-preset-travix (1.2.1) @travix/ui-themes (1.1.5) @coinmasters/types (4.8.16) Analysis of these packages by the software supply chain ...

An ongoing campaign that infiltrates legitimate websites with malicious JavaScript injects to promote Chinese-language gambling platforms has ballooned to compromise approximately 150,000 sites to date. "The threat actor has slightly revamped their interface but is still relying on an iframe injection to display a full-screen overlay in the visitor's browser," c/side security analyst Himanshu Anand said in a new analysis. As of writing, there are over 135,800 sites containing the JavaScript payload, per statistics from PublicWWW. As documented by the website security company last month, the campaign involves infecting websites with malicious JavaScript that's designed to hijack the user's browser window to redirect site visitors to pages promoting gambling platforms. The redirections have been found to occur via JavaScript hosted on five different domains (e.g., "zuizhongyj[.]com") that, in turn, serve the main payload responsible for performing...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two malicious packages on the npm registry that are designed to infect another locally installed package, underscoring the continued evolution of software supply chain attacks targeting the open-source ecosystem. The packages in question are ethers-provider2 and ethers-providerz , with the former downloaded 73 times to date since it was published on March 15, 2025. The second package, likely removed by the malware author themselves, did not attract any downloads. "They were simple downloaders whose malicious payload was cleverly hidden," ReversingLabs researcher Lucija Valentić said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The interesting part lay in their second stage, which would 'patch' the legitimate npm package ethers , installed locally, with a new file containing the malicious payload. That patched file would ultimately serve a reverse shell." The development marks a new escalation of threat actors...

Elastic has rolled out security updates to address a critical security flaw impacting the Kibana data visualization dashboard software for Elasticsearch that could result in arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-25015 , carries a CVSS score of 9.9 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as a case of prototype pollution. "Prototype pollution in Kibana leads to arbitrary code execution via a crafted file upload and specifically crafted HTTP requests," the company said in an advisory released Wednesday. Prototype pollution vulnerability is a security flaw that allows attackers to manipulate an application's JavaScript objects and properties, potentially leading to unauthorized data access, privilege escalation, denial-of-service, or remote code execution.  The vulnerability affects all versions of Kibana between 8.15.0 and 8.17.3. It has been addressed in version 8.17.3. That said, in Kibana versions from 8.15.0 and prior to 8.17....

Over 1,000 websites powered by WordPress have been infected with a third-party JavaScript code that injects four separate backdoors. "Creating four backdoors facilitates the attackers having multiple points of re-entry should one be detected and removed," c/side researcher Himanshu Anand said in a Wednesday analysis. The malicious JavaScript code has been found to be served via cdn.csyndication[.]com. As of writing, as many as 908 websites contain references to the domain in question. The functions of the four backdoors are explained below - Backdoor 1, which uploads and installs a fake plugin named "Ultra SEO Processor," which is then used to execute attacker-issued commands Backdoor 2, which injects malicious JavaScript into wp-config.php Backdoor 3, which adds an attacker-controlled SSH key to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file so as to allow persistent remote access to the machine Backdoor 4, which is designed to execute remote commands and fetches anot...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a credit card stealing malware campaign that has been observed targeting e-commerce sites running Magento by disguising the malicious content within image tags in HTML code in order to stay under the radar. MageCart is the name given to a malware that's capable of stealing sensitive payment information from online shopping sites. The attacks are known to employ a wide range of techniques – both on client- and server-side – to compromise websites and deploy credit card skimmers to facilitate theft. Typically, such malware is only triggered or loaded when users visit the checkout pages to enter credit card details by either serving a fake form or capturing the information entered by the victims in real time. The term MageCart is a reference to the original target of these cybercrime groups, the Magento platform that offers checkout and shopping cart features for online retailers. Over the years, such campaigns adapted their tactics by conce...