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Anthropic has warned that cybercriminals and state-sponsored hackers alike are using its Claude models for cyber attacks, weapons design, propaganda, and mass surveillance between December 2025 and August 2026. The threat actors, which the artificial intelligence (AI) company has branded Generative Threat Groups (GTGs), span state-sponsored groups, financially motivated criminals, commercial spyware vendors, state propaganda institutions, and politically motivated individuals. "The cybersecurity skills of AI models means that AI has collapsed the labor and tooling gap that used to separate well-resourced, state-sponsored operations from individual operators," Anthropic said . "The use of AI went beyond simple questions and responses from a chatbot but rather involved the use of multi-agent frameworks executing reconnaissance, exploitation, and data exfiltration." Among the notable cases highlighted by Anthropic is the development of an AI-assisted workflow by...

Anthropic on Thursday revealed it disrupted a campaign mounted by a Russian state-sponsored threat actor that abused Claude for developing an AI-assisted workflow to get ahead of the detection curve. The operation has been attributed to a cyber espionage group it calls GTG-20006 (where "GTG" stands for Generative Threat Group), which aligns with broader reporting linking the cluster to Midnight Blizzard (aka APT29 and Cozy Bear). This actor is said to have developed an AI-driven process to automatically rebuild and re-deploy their toolkit if it was detected by security products, thereby undermining defenders' ability to block the artifacts via static detections. Attacks mounted by GTG-20006 have targeted military intelligence targets in Ukrainian and European governments, along with diplomatic and defense organizations and individuals connected to U.S. foreign policy. The toolkit includes a number of programs - Two Windows-based implants A mobile explo...

A China-linked hacking group exploited a flaw in Sogou Input Method , one of the most widely used tools for typing Chinese characters on Windows, to install a backdoor on victims' computers, security company Gen Digital said in  research published Thursday . The attack started with a crafted link and ended with the attacker able to do anything the logged-in user could do. Tencent, which owns and develops Sogou, fixed the flaw in April 2026. Gen found the flaw while investigating a live intrusion by UNC3569 , a group that  Google Threat Intelligence ties to China  and places in the country's hacker-for-hire scene. Google has tracked the group since 2021 and says it has targeted government, education, technology, and finance sectors, mostly in East and Southeast Asia. The backdoor it installed is GRAYRABBIT , a small program the group has used for years and that Google describes as its first step onto a machine. It gives an attacker a remote command shell, allows fil...

Cisco has revealed that three distinct threat clusters linked to ransomware and state-sponsored attacks have been exploiting two recently patched Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) vulnerabilities. The attacks leverage CVE-2026-20079 (CVSS score: 10.0), an authentication bypass vulnerability in the web interface of FMC software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and execute script files on an affected device to obtain root access to the underlying operating system. The second flaw under exploitation is CVE-2026-20316 (CVSS score: 5.3), which could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to log in to an affected device using a low-privilege account to access sensitive data within susceptible systems. It can be paired with other Cisco Secure FMC vulnerabilities to elevate privileges. Cisco Talos said it identified three clusters of post-compromise activity of FMC instances associated with state-sponsored and crimeware threat act...

A lot of this week’s security news has the same awkward answer to one question: “Why was that allowed to work?” An extension asks for access and takes too much. A trusted service becomes part of a phishing chain. An old bug still gets results. An exposed system stays exposed. A package looks useful right up until it isn’t. Different stories, same basic problem: the path in was often already there. Nothing here needed magic. Mostly access, trust, weak edges, and someone willing to keep poking. That’s the week. The threats change every week. Subscribe, and we’ll alert you when each new ThreatsDay Bulletin is out.

The Gigabud banking trojan now installs a second Android app that creates a work profile on an infected phone and drops a tampered banking app inside it, security firm Group-IB said in a report published on September 9. A work profile is a separate space that Android typically reserves for employer apps, and what's inside it is kept separate from everything in the personal space. That split hides the trojan from the banking app's own malware checks, Group-IB said, so a fraudulent payment can look unrelated to the alert already raised on the phone. It has confirmed the full chain on infected devices in Indonesia. Android's  platform documentation  says any app in the phone's main profile can start the setup for a work profile, and that the user is told what a work profile does before one is created. Group-IB said banking apps carry security code that looks for known malware on the phone. From inside a work profile, that scan does not reach the personal space wher...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Wednesday added three flaws, each impacting Cisco, Citrix, and Fortinet, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to apply the patches by September 12, 2026. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2026-20079 (CVSS score: 10.0) - An authentication bypass vulnerability in the web interface of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) Software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and execute script files on an affected device to obtain root access to the underlying operating system. CVE-2026-19490 (CVSS score: 9.3) - An authentication bypass vulnerability in  Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway when the appliance is configured as an AAA virtual server or as a Gateway (SSL VPN, ICA Proxy, CVPN, or RDP Proxy). CVE-2025-25249 (CVSS score: 7.3) - A heap-based buffer overflow ...

Nearly one in ten of the internet-facing LiteLLM servers that  Wiz Research  scanned in February accepted  sk-1234 , the example admin key in LiteLLM's own setup guide. LiteLLM is an open-source AI gateway, the software a company puts between its applications and the model providers it pays for. That key is the gateway's administrator credential. Anyone who holds it can read every model provider's API key stored on the server. In Wiz's tests, it also reached the cloud IAM credentials of the machine the gateway runs on. Changing the key needs no upgrade, and it closes every path in Wiz's report that depends on holding it. Where the Number Comes From Wiz ran one scan. It found 3,074 LiteLLM gateways on Shodan in February, and 294 of them accepted the key. In 191 of those 294, no key was set at all, so they would have accepted anything. The rest had the setup guide's value left in place. A second scan in August found more than 85,000 instances, but W...

Multiple espionage-motivated threat activity clusters have been found deploying a previously undocumented exploit kit called BlueMoon that chains together multiple vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows and Google Chrome. The first in-the-wild use of BlueMoon has been attributed to the China-aligned state-sponsored group tracked as APT31 (aka Bronze Vinewood, Judgement Panda, JungleBamboo, PerplexedGoblin, RedBravo, TA412, Tide Castle, and Violet Typhoon) on August 28, 2026. "Within days, several other espionage-motivated clusters began using BlueMoon, the majority of which have a suspected China nexus," Proofpoint said in a report published today. "However, BlueMoon may not be exclusive to China-aligned actors, as some usage remains unattributed and there are also potentially more actors using the exploit kit." The exploit chain employs three vulnerabilities - CVE-2026-85046 , a type confusion in V8 in Google Chrome CVE-2026-87491 , an out-of-bounds...

Cybercriminals are hijacking artificial intelligence (AI) user accounts via information stealer logs to create "stolen keys" that grant illicit access to tools from model providers like Google, Anthropic, and others.  Information stealers like Lumma Stealer or Vidar are equipped to harvest a wide range of data from compromised systems. This can include credential, session tokens, and API keys. Once the data is stolen, threat actors who have purchased access to these off-the-shelf offerings put them up for sale on underground forums in the form of stealer logs to enable follow-on attacks. "Session tokens and API keys are sought specifically by threat actors because it is often possible to replay those secrets and bypass credential-based authentication," Jeremy Kirk, director of threat intelligence at Okta, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Once successfully replayed, a threat actor is effectively logged in to an LLM service without actua...

Malware linked to break-ins at F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager appliances hides a PHP web shell in memory instead of in a file on disk, Sophos said in an analysis published on September 7. When Apache loads any of the three appliances' own PHP scripts, the malware adds the web shell to the copy held in memory, so a check of the file on disk can come back clean. Those three scripts are the same ones F5 pointed customers to in March, when it said changes to them alone do not show a break-in. A web shell is usually a small script an attacker drops into a web server's folders to run commands through ordinary web requests. Because it sits on disk, defenders look for it by scanning files and comparing them against known-good copies. That approach does not work here. As the researchers put it, the web shell "does not need to exist in its final form on disk." The three scripts are apm_css.php3, full_wt.php3 and webtop_popup_css.php3, part of the BIG-IP APM webtop. ...

Threat actors are continuing to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline their operations , with one financially motivated hacking group employing an autonomous, multi-agent attack framework to carry out a large-scale credential harvesting campaign within six hours. Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said it has observed attackers with diverse motivations targeting proprietary AI models across healthcare, government, and media sectors, exfiltrating API credentials, and co-opting victim cloud environments to sustain unauthorized AI workloads. This highlights growing attacker focus on enterprise AI assets for espionage, extortion, and resource theft. "At this point, we can assume that all threat actors are using AI in some capacity and their operations have benefited," John Hultquist, chief analyst at GTIG, said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. "Like everyone else, we're concerned about the vulnerability problem, but AI is being applie...

Adobe on Monday released security patches to address a maximum-severity flaw impacting Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source that has come under active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability, now tracked as CVE-2026-75650 (CVSS score: 10.0), has been codenamed StyleSmuggler by Sansec, which discovered zero-day exploitation starting September 4, 2026. "This update resolves a critical vulnerability that could result in arbitrary code execution," Adobe said , adding it's "aware that CVE-2026-75650 has been exploited in the wild targeting Adobe Commerce merchants." At its core, the flaw abuses Magento's template system through PHP code injection to generate a "Payment Transaction Failed Reminder" email, triggering code execution in the process.

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a sprawling search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning campaign that paves the way for malware deployment and tech support scams. The campaign, discovered by the DFIR Report in March 2026, has been codenamed BengalSEO . It has operated out of the Indian state of Rajasthan since at least 2015, driven by two IT service providers named WeConnect Solutions LLC (previously iConnect Soft Solutions LLC) and Garage2Global. Although Garage2Global claims to be a website design, SEO, and digital marketing services provider, the cyber threat intelligence platform said it unearthed evidence indicating the company develops malicious web infrastructure used in SEO poisoning campaigns as part of the BengalSEO scam cluster. "This group utilizes its extensive SEO and web development capabilities to create and promote lure pages with multiple Black Hat SEO techniques," the DFIR Report said in a technical analysis published late last mo...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a complex Chromium-based post-exploitation toolkit called PEEP that masquerades as a bookmarks extension for the web browser. "Requiring prior administrative or code execution access, its installer injects the extension directly into Chrome/Edge profiles, bypassing Web Store checks and user prompts by forging Chromium's own Secure Preferences integrity values," SOCRadar said . "A native-messaging tool then extends it beyond browser telemetry to host-level command execution and file management." Once installed, the PEEP "extension" agent polls its command-and-control (C2) server ("206.237.30[.]232" or " xfjcc[.]fun ") every 30 seconds over plaintext HTTP for new commands, while exfiltrating browsing history, active-tab metadata, and session cookies. It also functions as a remote access and browser monitoring toolkit that runs host commands, steals credentials, hijacks sessions...

Turning off email images should at least stop the pictures. This week, attackers had a workaround: a scannable QR code built out of text. It still appears, even with images blocked. A small detail, but an annoying one if that was a precaution you were counting on. Elsewhere, a trusted software source delivered code that stole credentials, and a protocol designed for secure network management gave outsiders useful clues before login. Add active attacks on browsers, routers, and online stores, and there’s plenty to check—even for teams that have kept up with the patches. Read the full recap for the week’s major developments, plus more research, attacks, and security news beyond what we covered last week. ⚡ Threat of the Week N-able Patches Critical N-central Flaws — N-able has released hotfixes to address two severe N-central flaws (CVE-2026-86206 and CVE-2026-86207) that could allow an unauthorized party to bypass authentication controls and gain full access to the platform. ...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of worm-like activity that abuses ConnectWise ScreenConnect to distribute a malicious Visual Basic Script (VBScript) payload to newly connected systems. According to Huntress , three unrelated incidents have been found to use diverse initial access methods, namely a Quick Assist tech-support scam, a phishing-delivered MSI installer, and a fake Geek Squad refund form lure, to activate a four-stage VBScript chain that leads to rogue ScreenConnect installations. However, once the ScreenConnect instances were installed, the cybersecurity company said it observed the clients repeatedly spawning "wscript.exe" to execute VBScripts named 1.vbs, 2.vbs, 3.vbs, and 4.vbs. The incidents were observed in August 2026. The details of the three attacks are below - A social engineering attack that persuaded a user into executing Quick Assist as part of a tech support scam, after which a rogue ScreenConnect remote access client was d...

Cybersecurity researchers have unpacked JSCeal , a sophisticated compiled V8 JavaScript (JSC) malware with credential harvesting, surveillance, and traffic-interception capabilities. "The payloads are protected with javascript-obfuscator , using multiple techniques including RC4-protected strings, control-flow flattening, proxy functions, and operation wrappers," Check Point Research said in a technical report published last week. JSCeal was first documented by Check Point in July 2025, highlighting the threat actors' use of fake cryptocurrency trading sites to which unsuspecting users are redirected via malicious ads on Facebook and Google. The counterfeit sites instruct them to download bogus installers for TradingView that lead to the deployment of the malware. The activity overlaps with a threat cluster tracked under the monikers WEEVILPROXY and MeadowLocust. Malvertising campaigns distributing the malware make use of two ZIP archives delivered via PowerShell...

Elastic Security Labs has documented four previously unreported programs associated with REVSTEALER, an emerging Windows information stealer, that remain on an infected machine after the stealer deletes itself. One of them switches off Windows Update and Microsoft Defender before running a cryptocurrency miner. The company named the four programs ProManager , WinUpdate , SoftManager , and LockAppHost and  published the findings on September 2 , along with a  technical white paper . REVSTEALER has been sold as a commercial infostealer since at least February 2026, when the earliest sample was first detected on VirusTotal. The core stealer exfiltrates browser passwords and cookies, cryptocurrency wallets, gaming accounts, messaging data, and files, then reports "complete" to its server, deletes itself, and leaves no persistence. The four newly documented programs work differently. Each installs itself into the user's profile and stays there. Elastic recovered the ...

Attackers are exploiting a new unpatched vulnerability in Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce that lets them run malicious code on an online store's server without logging in, Dutch e-commerce security company Sansec said in an  advisory published on September 5 . Sansec, which discovered the flaw and named it StyleSmuggler , said attacks started on September 4. "Sansec is publishing early because stores are being compromised right now," the company said. As of September 6, Adobe has not published an advisory, a CVE identifier, a patch, or a workaround, and its  Adobe Commerce security bulletin index  lists nothing after the August 11 update. A successful attack gives the attacker code execution on the store's server and installs a persistent backdoor. Sansec said all current versions are affected, including 2.4.9, and that it reproduced the full unauthenticated chain on clean Magento Open Source installations of 2.4.7, 2.4.8, and 2.4.9. Its ...