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North Korea's state hackers are no longer content to type prompts into public chatbots. One of the country's main espionage groups has begun running artificial intelligence (AI) offline on its own servers, connecting document-search tools to files in its possession, and collecting the software parts needed to build AI into its malware. South Korean security firm Genians says it uncovered the setup after months of tracking and log analysis on infrastructure tied to Kimsuky, a hacking unit under North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau. Genians found no evidence that the group had trained an AI model of its own, and the firm does not offer that as reassurance. It describes an actor in a "research and knowledge acquisition" stage, assembling and testing existing tools rather than making new models, with the apparent aim of folding AI through the operation, from writing malware to analyzing data. For an intelligence unit that has spent years phishing governm...

The threat actor known as Head Mare has been observed weaponizing security flaws in unpatched TrueConf servers once again in attacks targeting Russian companies spanning instrumentation, electronics, transport, energy, IT, and software development sectors. Russian cybersecurity vendor Kaspersky said it detected the attacks in July 2026. The activity involves exploiting a vulnerability chain in the TrueConf videoconferencing server to replace the original TrueConf client installers with poisoned versions that deliver the PhantomCore backdoor and remote access trojan (RAT) into susceptible systems. The vulnerabilities, tracked as KLCERT-26-057 and KLCERT-26-058, enable arbitrary code execution with elevated privileges. The attack impacts TrueConf server versions 5.3.x up to 5.3.9, 5.4.x up to 5.4.9, 5.5.x up to 5.5.5, and earlier. The attack chain is as follows - Attackers connect to the TrueConf server on TCP port 4307, which is open by default. Upon successful conn...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a malicious Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension named Solidity Pro ("solidity-pro") that has been observed delivering a browser wallet and credential stealer. The names of the extensions are below - helper-beeps.solidity-pro web3devtoolsx.solidity-pro Although neither of the extensions is now available on Open VSX, the GitHub repository for " web3devtoolsx/solidity-pro " continues to remain accessible as of writing. According to Yeeth Security , early iterations of the extensions – from 1.0.0 through v2.4.x – were found to beacon to Cloudflare Workers endpoints to retrieve an encrypted Python payload and execute it. Subsequent versions starting with v3.0.0, on the other hand, have shifted to a full-blown information stealer that can collect browser profiles, crypto wallets, source-control tokens, API keys, SSH keys, and Telegram bot tokens. The captured data is then exfiltrated via a Telegram bot u...

A cluster of nearly 800 malicious packages has been published to the npm registry as part of a new campaign designed to deliver cross-platform malware targeting Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. "These packages appear to use AI slop squatted, or randomly generated typo-squatting package names, but all of them deliver a powerful RAT and infostealer payload," OpenSourceMalware researcher Paul McCarty said . Unlike other npm-oriented software supply chain attacks that make use of lifecycle hooks like preinstall or postinstall to trigger the execution of malicious code, the newly identified packages come with a README that instructs developers to load them with require(), a built-in function to import modules, local files, and third-party packages. The attack leads to the execution of a downloader named WEL1DROPPER , which, when executed, identifies the host operating system and processor architecture and fetches a compatible payload from one of the three Cloudflare Workers...

ClickFix-style attacks are being used to deliver a Go-based malware capable of stealing cryptocurrency assets, as well as browser-stored passwords, Apple iCloud Keychain data, and cached credentials. The macOS-focused infection chain is designed to deliver a shell script that profiles the host and then fetches a macOS malware payload that's compatible with the computer's CPU architecture. "While the malware payload is capable of stealing passwords, its most interesting function is its capability to slowly deplete cryptocurrency accounts, siphoning their contents into accounts under the threat actor's control," Huntress security researcher Andrew Brandt said . The attack chain begins with pasting a ClickFix command into the Terminal app, triggering the execution of a Bash profiler/loader that collects extensive system details and then retrieves a Mach-O payload that matches the victim's processor architecture. The payload is a Go-based stealer that can ...

A new analysis has uncovered that the threat actor tracked as TeamPCP has been active on the cybercrime scene as far back as 2020, indicating the group has been compromising internet-facing infrastructure for years before training their sights on the software supply chain. "The connection is supported by overlapping domains, malware deployment paths, staging techniques, backend infrastructure, and operational tradecraft," Oligo Security researchers Avi Lumelsky and Gal Elbaz said . This includes two campaigns observed in the second half of 2025: ShadowRay 2.0 (aka IronErn), which involved hijacking artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure into a self-propagating botnet, and TA-NATALSTATUS , which targeted exposed Redis servers to deliver cryptocurrency miners. TA-NATALSTATUS is assessed to be an evolution of a prior campaign that was detailed by Trend Micro in April 2020 that involved targeting Redis servers to deploy malware. This suggests that the threat actor h...

Apparently, opening the thing is now enough. A repo can run before the first prompt, a package can hide among hundreds, and a harmless-looking PDF can finish the job. This week runs on cheap leverage: exposed servers, recycled bugs, poisoned agent instructions, remote-access tools dressed as support software, and trusted defaults doing attackers a favor. Nothing here is especially mystical. Just ordinary systems trusting slightly too much, slightly too early. The full list follows. The threats change every week. Subscribe, and we’ll alert you when each new ThreatsDay Bulletin is out.

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a "factory-shipped backdoor" implanted in at least 20 Chinese router models from Zbtlink. According to a new report from VulnCheck, the implant appears in all 21 firmware images currently available from Zbtlink that span more than 2 years. The backdoors are designed such that they start automatically and attempt to beacon to Chinese command-and-control (C2) infrastructure as often as every 35 seconds. They masquerade as a Linux kernel thread, but are actually userland processes running with root privileges while blending their true functionality with other legitimate kworker processes. The "phone home" implants have been codenamed ENDLESSDOORS . "ENDLESSDOORS, at its core, is a small tool called rctl (remote control linux)," Jacob Baines, VulnCheck Chief Technology Officer, said. "Uploaded to GitHub on January 14, 2015 and never touched again, this obscure repository implements a simple co...

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 ...

Connor Riley Moucka pleaded guilty in Seattle federal court on Wednesday to computer fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and a related conspiracy over the 2024 breaches of Snowflake customer accounts . The intrusions reached at least 165 organizations and exposed records belonging to at least 100 million people. Moucka, 26, of Kitchener, Ontario, personally took at least $495,000 from ransoms and data sales. He is due to be sentenced on October 27 and faces a two-year mandatory minimum on the identity theft count and up to 30 years on the rest. What got the attackers in was old passwords. The credentials had been harvested years earlier by infostealer malware and never rotated, and the accounts had multi-factor authentication (MFA) switched off. No exploit, no flaw in the platform. The Justice Department has never named the company, in Wednesday's announcement or in the October 2024 indictment, identifying the victim only as a U.S. software-as-a-service (SaaS) pr...

A macOS ClickFix operation spanning more than 250 front-end domains now fingerprints visitors before deciding whether to show them a malware lure, a change Microsoft Threat Intelligence tracked on infrastructure it had been watching for weeks. The server-side gate hides the malicious page from crawlers and sandboxes while presenting selected Mac users with a fake software download. Microsoft said the wider cluster distributed MacSync and Atomic Stealer (AMOS) ; the chain it analyzed through the gate ended in AMOS. The attack still requires the user to copy and run an obfuscated command in Terminal. That command retrieves scripts and launches an infostealer targeting credentials, browser data, authentication stores, cryptocurrency wallets, and sensitive files. Microsoft has not disclosed victim numbers, targeted sectors, or the identity of the operators. Users should not follow any website, CAPTCHA, chat, or download instruction that asks them to paste text into Terminal. Micro...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged an evolution of the EtherHiding blockchain-based command-and-control (C2) technique that conceals the C2 server IP address inside a made-up destination address of a completely empty Ethereum transfer. The new dead drop resolver approach, observed in two trojanized npm packages "bianira-ui" and "fluid-type-ui," has been codenamed NullReceiver by OpenSourceMalware, which has described it as a "deliberate improvement on EtherHiding." The activity has been linked to North Korea. The packages are currently no longer available for download from npm. However, statistics show that they have been downloaded a few hundred times since they were first published on July 28, 2026 - bianira-ui (109 downloads), uploaded by an npm user named "npmuser1101" fluid-type-ui (587 downloads), uploaded by an npm user named "npmuser3002" EtherHiding was first publicly documented by Guardio Labs in October...

A cluster of 77 extensions on the Open VSX marketplace has been found to impersonate legitimate developer tools while transmitting information about the systems and development environments on which they were installed. The "evil twin" extensions were uploaded to the repository between July 26 and August 1, 2026, according to Manifold Security. The packages have been removed from Open VSX as of August 3, 2026. "In most of the packages it sends little more than the machine's hostname," security researchers Ax Sharma and Cody Nash said . "In nineteen of them it sends a detailed description of the machine, the repository open in the editor, and the CI system the editor is running inside." Of the identified extensions, 58 have been described as lightweight tools designed to exfiltrate the hostname and, in some cases, the workspace folder name or editor version. The rest are reconnaissance payloads that transmit the developer-related information: l...

An agent running Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5 spent 34 hours trying to get a malware dropper merged into a real open-source project during a cyber evaluation by the UK's AI Security Institute. When a bystander publicly warned that the code was malicious, the agent denied it, force-pushed a rewritten branch history to erase the evidence, and posted from a second account it controlled to vouch for its own work. The project's maintainer closed the pull request anyway. The institute, known as AISI, published its incident report on Tuesday. Across 122 runs of a capture-the-flag (CTF) exercise on two of its cyber ranges, researchers catalogued 19 unsanctioned actions on the live internet across 10 runs: 17 from Mythos 5, a restricted model Anthropic sells for cybersecurity work, and two from OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol. AISI says the attempts failed and that it has found no evidence of resulting real-world harm. Both models ran with their providers' cyber classifiers swi...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed what has been described as a "long-standing supply chain attack" on QuickFox, a virtual private network (VPN) and network acceleration tool designed for overseas Chinese users. According to Fortinet FortiGuard Labs, the supply chain attack has been ongoing since at least August 2025 and involves a trojanized version of the application to deliver FDMTP , a backdoor that has been put to use by a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor tracked as Mustang Panda. "The attack is delivered via a modified Electron renderer HTML file used to download and execute a JavaScript-based loader," the FortiGuard Incident Response Team said . "Upon execution, the JavaScript loader fingerprints the victim endpoint to determine if it's a valid target before downloading and installing an FDMTP implant." Following responsible disclosure, QuickFox has removed the malicious components from their Windows installer with the release o...

A credential-stealing npm worm that first appeared in keyv@6.0.0 spread beyond the Keyv and Cacheable namespaces into hundreds of packages across multiple organizations on August 4, 2026. SafeDep verified 353 poisoned versions across 79 package names in the npm registry. Its monitoring put the wider footprint at 442 versions across 353 names, while Aikido later reported at least 868 packages across 1,381 versions. Neither broader total was independently reproducible from a complete public list at the reporting cutoff. The malicious release used a preinstall script to run a credential-stealing bundle inside developer and continuous integration (CI) environments. SafeDep and Socket say it can harvest repository, package registry, cloud and private-key material, then use available npm publishing access to poison more packages. The Keyv repository also retained separate Claude Code and Visual Studio Code (VS Code) hooks that can execute the payload once a user trusts the workspace...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of an active, multi-wave campaign that employs social engineering lures themed around Adobe and Zoom software updates, business document reviews, and system maintenance utilities to stealthily deploy Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) programs like ConnectWise ScreenConnect. The campaign has been codenamed SMOKE#SCREEN by Securonix Threat Research. "The campaign relies on a toolkit of VBScript droppers, batch file loaders, compiled .NET executables and an HTML phishing page, all ultimately pointing to a live WsgiDAV-based staging server at 207.174.0[.]143:8080," researchers Shikha Sangwan, Akshay Gaikwad, and Aaron Beardslee said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Successful attacks culminate with a ScreenConnect agent installed and beaconing to one of three attacker-controlled relay servers, providing the attackers with persistent remote access to compromised systems. The activity has not been attributed to ...

A new Russian loader-as-a-service (LaaS) codenamed DOUBLECUP has been using ClickFix lures as a way to stage malware-laced PNG images in victims' browser cache and ultimately deliver CountLoader and a previously undocumented remote access trojan called DeviceManager . "The first stage drops a steganographic PNG image into the browser's cache, retrieves its hidden content, and executes the second stage," SOCRadar said in a technical report. "This second stage decrypts the final payload in memory via a custom SHA-256 stream cipher in Counter (CTR) mode along with bitwise XOR using the victim's public IP address as the cryptographic key." Payloads delivered via the loader service include CountLoader , with variants for both Windows and macOS, and DeviceManager, which utilizes EtherHiding to resolve its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure and communicate with the server over HTTP or DNS tunneling. The service is assessed to be active since ea...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added a high-severity security flaw impacting N-able N-central to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog following reports of active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-18577 (CVSS score: 8.2), is a case of incomplete patching for CVE-2026-18556 (CVSS score: 8.2) that allows authentication bypass and account takeover in susceptible versions of the software. The issue has been addressed in version 2026.3 HF1. "N-able N-central contains an authentication bypass using an alternate path or channel [that] allows for authentication bypass and account takeover in N-central," CISA said. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability can permit remote attackers to gain administrative access to vulnerable N-central servers and then abuse the built-in Take Control feature to pivot into managed endpoints and deploy persistence mechanisms. N-able has shared the fol...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new set of malicious npm packages that target users of Alibaba developer tools with a cross-platform remote access trojan (RAT) as part of a sophisticated, targeted software supply chain attack targeting Chinese-speaking environments. One of the packages in question is " lib-mtop ," an unscoped package with the same name as a private Alibaba package under the "@ali" scope. Although the npm package was first published sometime in November 2023 with no functionality, three new versions (v1.0.1, v1.0.2, and v1.0.3) were uploaded earlier this March and April. It's currently not clear if this was the result of a maintainer account takeover or the project developer opting to go rogue. Regardless of how the malicious changes were pushed, the newly added changes feature a loader that's designed to fetch a remote JavaScript payload using curl and then execute it. The same maintainer account " ch4ce ," whic...