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Security experts have disclosed details of an active malware campaign that's exploiting a DLL side-loading vulnerability in a legitimate binary associated with the open-source c-ares library to bypass security controls and deliver a wide range of commodity trojans and stealers. "Attackers achieve evasion by pairing a malicious libcares-2.dll with any signed version of the legitimate ahost.exe (which they often rename) to execute their code," Trellix said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This DLL side-loading technique allows the malware to bypass traditional signature-based security defenses." The campaign has been observed distributing a wide assortment of malware, such as Agent Tesla , CryptBot , Formbook , Lumma Stealer , Vidar Stealer , Remcos RAT , Quasar RAT , DCRat , and XWorm . Targets of the malicious activity include employees in finance, procurement, supply chain, and administration roles within commercial and industrial sectors like ...

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has disclosed details of new cyber attacks targeting its defense forces with malware known as PLUGGYAPE between October and December 2025. The activity has been attributed with medium confidence to a Russian hacking group tracked as Void Blizzard (aka Laundry Bear or UAC-0190). The threat actor is believed to be active since at least April 2024. Attack chains distributing the malware leverage instant messaging Signal and WhatsApp as vectors, with the threat actors masquerading as charity organizations to convince targets into clicking on a seemingly-harmless link ("harthulp-ua[.]com" or "solidarity-help[.]org") impersonating the foundation and download a password-protected archive.

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a malicious Google Chrome extension that's capable of stealing API keys associated with MEXC, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) available in over 170 countries , while masquerading as a tool to automate trading on the platform. The extension, named MEXC API Automator (ID: pppdfgkfdemgfknfnhpkibbkabhghhfh), has 29 downloads and is still available on the Chrome Web Store as of writing. It was first published on September 1, 2025, by a developer named "jorjortan142." "The extension programmatically creates new MEXC API keys, enables withdrawal permissions, hides that permission in the user interface (UI), and exfiltrates the resulting API key and secret to a hardcoded Telegram bot controlled by the threat actor," Socket security researcher Kirill Boychenko said in an analysis. According to the Chrome Web Store listing, the web browser add-on is described as an extension that "simplifies connecti...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a previously undocumented and feature-rich malware framework codenamed VoidLink that's specifically designed for long-term, stealthy access to Linux-based cloud environments According to a new report from Check Point Research, the cloud-native Linux malware framework comprises an array of custom loaders, implants, rootkits, and modular plugins that enable its operators to augment or change its capabilities over time, as well as pivot when objectives change. It was first discovered in December 2025. "The framework includes multiple cloud-focused capabilities and modules, and is engineered to operate reliably in cloud and container environments over extended periods," the cybersecurity company said in an analysis published today. "VoidLink's architecture is extremely flexible and highly modular, centered around a custom Plugin API that appears to be inspired by Cobalt Strike's Beacon Object Files (BOF) appr...

Old Playbook, New Scale: While defenders are chasing trends, attackers are optimizing the basics The security industry loves talking about "new" threats. AI-powered attacks. Quantum-resistant encryption. Zero-trust architectures. But looking around, it seems like the most effective attacks in 2025 are pretty much the same as they were in 2015. Attackers are exploiting the same entry points that worked - they're just doing it better. Supply Chain: Still Cascading Downstream As the Shai Hulud NPM campaign showed us, supply chain remains a major issue. A single compromised package can cascade through an entire dependency tree, affecting thousands of downstream projects. The attack vector hasn't changed. What's changed is how efficiently attackers can identify and exploit opportunities. AI has collapsed the barrier to entry. Just as AI has enabled one-person software projects to build sophisticated applications, the same is true in cybercrime. What used to requi...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new campaign dubbed SHADOW#REACTOR that employs an evasive multi-stage attack chain to deliver a commercially available remote administration tool called Remcos RAT and establish persistent, covert remote access. "The infection chain follows a tightly orchestrated execution path: an obfuscated VBS launcher executed via wscript.exe invokes a PowerShell downloader, which retrieves fragmented, text-based payloads from a remote host," Securonix researchers Akshay Gaikwad, Shikha Sangwan, and Aaron Beardslee said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. "These fragments are reconstructed into encoded loaders, decoded in memory by a .NET Reactor–protected assembly, and used to fetch and apply a remote Remcos configuration. The final stage leverages MSBuild.exe as a living-off-the-land binary (LOLBin) to complete execution, after which the Remcos RAT backdoor is fully deployed and takes control of the comprom...

Threat actors have been observed uploading a set of eight packages on the npm registry that masqueraded as integrations targeting the n8n workflow automation platform to steal developers' OAuth credentials. One such package, named "n8n-nodes-hfgjf-irtuinvcm-lasdqewriit," mimics a Google Ads integration, and prompts users to link their advertising account in a seemingly legitimate form and then siphon OAuth credentials to servers under the attackers' control. "The attack represents a new escalation in supply chain threats," Endor Labs said in a report published last week. "Unlike traditional npm malware, which often targets developer credentials, this campaign exploited workflow automation platforms that act as centralized credential vaults – holding OAuth tokens, API keys, and sensitive credentials for dozens of integrated services like Google Ads, Stripe, and Salesforce in a single location." The complete list of identified packages, which ...

A new wave of GoBruteforcer attacks has targeted databases of cryptocurrency and blockchain projects to co-opt them into a botnet that's capable of brute-forcing user passwords for services such as FTP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and phpMyAdmin on Linux servers. "The current wave of campaigns is driven by two factors: the mass reuse of AI-generated server deployment examples that propagate common usernames and weak defaults, and the persistence of legacy web stacks such as XAMPP that expose FTP and admin interfaces with minimal hardening," Check Point Research said in an analysis published last week. GoBruteforcer, also called GoBrut, was first documented by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 in March 2023, documenting its ability to target Unix-like platforms running x86, x64, and ARM architectures to deploy an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) bot and a web shell for remote access, along with fetching a brute-force module to scan for vulnerable systems and expand the botnet's reach. ...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on two service providers that supply online criminal networks with the necessary tools and infrastructure to fuel the pig butchering-as-a-service (PBaaS) economy. At least since 2016, Chinese-speaking criminal groups have erected industrial-scale scam centers across Southeast Asia, creating special economic zones that are devoted to fraudulent investment and impersonation operations. These compounds are host to thousands of people who are lured with the promise of high-paying jobs, only to have their passports and be forced to conduct scams under the threat of violence. INTERPOL has characterized these networks as human trafficking-fuelled fraud on an industrial scale. One of the crucial drivers of the pig butchering (aka romance baiting) scams is service providers who supply the networks with all the tools to run and manage social engineering operations, as well as swiftly launder stolen funds and cryptocurrencies and move ill-gotten p...

The Iranian threat actor known as MuddyWater has been attributed to a spear-phishing campaign targeting diplomatic, maritime, financial, and telecom entities in the Middle East with a Rust-based implant codenamed RustyWater . "The campaign uses icon spoofing and malicious Word documents to deliver Rust based implants capable of asynchronous C2, anti-analysis, registry persistence, and modular post-compromise capability expansion," CloudSEK resetter Prajwal Awasthi said in a report published this week. The latest development reflects continued evolution of MuddyWater's tradecraft, which has gradually-but-steadily reduced its reliance on legitimate remote access software as a post-exploitation tool in favor of a diverse custom malware arsenal comprising tools like Phoenix, UDPGangster , BugSleep (aka MuddyRot), and MuddyViper . Also tracked as Mango Sandstorm, Static Kitten, and TA450, the hacking group is assessed to be affiliated with Iran's Ministry of Intelli...

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Thursday released an advisory warning of North Korean state-sponsored threat actors leveraging malicious QR codes in spear-phishing campaigns targeting entities in the country. "As of 2025, Kimsuky actors have targeted think tanks, academic institutions, and both U.S. and foreign government entities with embedded malicious Quick Response (QR) codes in spear-phishing campaigns," the FBI said in the flash alert. "This type of spear-phishing attack is referred to as quishing." The use of QR codes for phishing is a tactic that forces victims to shift from a machine that's secured by enterprise policies to a mobile device that may not offer the same level of protection, effectively allowing threat actors to bypass traditional defenses. Kimsuky, also tracked as APT43, Black Banshee, Emerald Sleet, Springtail, TA427, and Velvet Chollima, is a threat group that's assessed to be affiliated with North Korea's...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new campaign that uses WhatsApp as a distribution vector for a Windows banking trojan called Astaroth in attacks targeting Brazil. The campaign has been codenamed Boto Cor-de-Rosa by Acronis Threat Research Unit. "The malware retrieves the victim's WhatsApp contact list and automatically sends malicious messages to each contact to further spread the infection," the cybersecurity company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "While the core Astaroth payload remains written in Delphi and its installer relies on Visual Basic script, the newly added WhatsApp-based worm module is implemented entirely in Python, highlighting the threat actors' growing use of multi-language modular components." Astaroth, also called Guildma, is a banking malware that has been detected in the wild since 2015, primarily targeting users in Latin America, notably Brazil, to facilitate data theft. In 2024, two diffe...

A China-nexus threat actor known as UAT-7290 has been attributed to espionage-focused intrusions against entities in South Asia and Southeastern Europe. The activity cluster, which has been active since at least 2022, primarily focuses on extensive technical reconnaissance of target organizations before initiating attacks, ultimately leading to the deployment of malware families such as RushDrop, DriveSwitch, and SilentRaid, according to a Cisco Talos report published today. "In addition to conducting espionage-focused attacks where UAT-7290 burrows deep inside a victim enterprise's network infrastructure, their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and tooling suggest that this actor also establishes Operational Relay Box (ORBs) nodes," researchers Asheer Malhotra, Vitor Ventura, and Brandon White said . "The ORB infrastructure may then be used by other China-nexus actors in their malicious operations, signifying UAT-7290's dual role as an espionage-motiva...

The internet never stays quiet. Every week, new hacks, scams, and security problems show up somewhere. This week's stories show how fast attackers change their tricks, how small mistakes turn into big risks, and how the same old tools keep finding new ways to break in. Read on to catch up before the next wave hits. Honeypot Traps Hackers Hackers Fall for Resecurity's Honeypot Cybersecurity company Resecurity revealed that it deliberately lured threat actors who claimed to be associated with Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters ( SLH ) into a trap, after the group claimed on Telegram that it had hacked the company and stolen internal and client data. The company said it set up a honeytrap account populated with fake data designed to resemble real-world business data and planted a fake account on an underground marketplace for compromised credentials after it uncovered a threat actor attempting to conduct malicious activity targeting its resou...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered three malicious npm packages that are designed to deliver a previously undocumented malware called NodeCordRAT . The names of the packages, all of which were taken down as of November 2025, are listed below. They were uploaded by a user named "wenmoonx." bitcoin-main-lib (2,300 Downloads) bitcoin-lib-js (193 Downloads) bip40 (970 Downloads) "The bitcoin-main-lib and bitcoin-lib-js packages execute a postinstall.cjs script during installation, which installs bip40, the package that contains the malicious payload," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Satyam Singh and Lakhan Parashar said. "This final payload, named NodeCordRAT by ThreatLabz, is a remote access trojan (RAT) with data-stealing capabilities." NodeCordRAT gets its name from the use of npm as a propagation vector and Discord servers for command-and-control (C2) communications. The malware is equipped to steal Google Chrome credentials, API tokens,...

Security teams are still catching malware. The problem is what they're not catching. More attacks today don't arrive as files. They don't drop binaries. They don't trigger classic alerts. Instead, they run quietly through tools that already exist inside the environment — scripts, remote access, browsers, and developer workflows. That shift is creating a blind spot. Join us for a deep-dive technical session with the Zscaler Internet Access team. They will reveal how to unmask "hidden-in-plain-sight" tactics, why traditional defenses fall short, and exactly what needs to change. Secure your spot for the live session ➜ In this session, experts will cover: "Living off the Land" Attacks: These use trusted system tools like PowerShell, WMI, or remote desktop. File-based detection often sees nothing wrong because, technically, nothing new was installed. Fileless "Last Mile" Reassembly Attacks: Obfuscated HTML and JavaScript can e...

A cybercrime gang known as Black Cat has been attributed to a search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning campaign that employs fraudulent sites advertising popular software to trick users into downloading a backdoor capable of stealing sensitive data. According to a report published by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC) and Beijing Weibu Online (aka ThreatBook), the activity is designed to strategically push bogus sites to the top of search results on search engines like Microsoft Bing, specifically targeting users looking for programs like Google Chrome, Notepad++, QQ International, and iTools. "After visiting these high-ranking phishing pages, users are lured by carefully constructed download pages, attempting to download software installation packages bundled with malicious programs," CNCERT/CC and ThreatBook said. "Once installed, the program implants a backdoor Trojan without the user's k...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two new malicious extensions on the Chrome Web Store that are designed to exfiltrate OpenAI ChatGPT and DeepSeek conversations alongside browsing data to servers under the attackers' control. The names of the extensions, which collectively have over 900,000 users, are below - Chat GPT for Chrome with GPT-5, Claude Sonnet & DeepSeek AI (ID: fnmihdojmnkclgjpcoonokmkhjpjechg, 600,000 users) AI Sidebar with Deepseek, ChatGPT, Claude, and more. (ID: inhcgfpbfdjbjogdfjbclgolkmhnooop, 300,000 users) The findings come weeks after Urban VPN Proxy , another extension with millions of installations on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, was caught spying on users' chats with artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. This tactic of using browser extensions to stealthily capture AI conversations has been codenamed Prompt Poaching by Secure Annex. The two newly identified extensions "were found exfiltrating user conversations and all ...

Source: Securonix Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new campaign dubbed PHALT#BLYX that has leveraged ClickFix -style lures to display fixes for fake blue screen of death ( BSoD ) errors in attacks targeting the European hospitality sector. The end goal of the multi-stage campaign is to deliver a remote access trojan known as DCRat , according to cybersecurity company Securonix. The activity was detected in late December 2025. "For initial access, the threat actors utilize a fake Booking.com reservation cancellation lure to trick victims into executing malicious PowerShell commands, which silently fetch and execute remote code," researchers Shikha Sangwan, Akshay Gaikwad, and Aaron Beardslee said . The starting point of the attack chain is a phishing email impersonating Booking.com that contains a link to a fake website (e.g., "low-house[.]com"). The messages warn recipients of unexpected reservation cancellations, urging them to click the ...

Popular artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) forks such as Cursor, Windsurf, Google Antigravity, and Trae have been found to recommend extensions that are non-existent in the Open VSX registry, potentially opening the door to supply chain risks when bad actors publish malicious packages under those names. The problem, according to Koi , is that these integrated development environments (IDEs) inherit the list of officially recommended extensions from Microsoft's extensions marketplace. These extensions don't exist in Open VSX. The VS Code extension recommendations can take two different forms: file-based, which are displayed as toast notifications when users open a file in specific formats, or software-based, which are suggested when certain programs are already installed on the host. "The problem: these recommended extensions didn't exist on Open VSX," Koi security researcher Oren Yomtov said. "The namespaces were u...