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Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new dual-vector campaign that leverages stolen credentials to deploy legitimate Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software for persistent remote access to compromised hosts. "Instead of deploying custom viruses, attackers are bypassing security perimeters by weaponizing the necessary IT tools that administrators trust," KnowBe4 Threat Labs researchers Jeewan Singh Jalal, Prabhakaran Ravichandhiran, and Anand Bodke said . "By stealing a 'skeleton key' to the system, they turn legitimate Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software into a persistent backdoor." The attack unfolds in two distinct waves, where the threat actors leverage fake invitation notifications to steal victim credentials, and then leverage those pilfered credentials to deploy RMM tools to establish persistent access. The bogus emails are disguised as an invitation from a legitimate platform called Greenvelope, and aim to tri...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new ransomware family called Osiris that targeted a major food service franchisee operator in Southeast Asia in November 2025. The attack leveraged a malicious driver called POORTRY as part of a known technique referred to as bring your own vulnerable driver (BYOVD) to disarm security software, the Symantec and Carbon Black Threat Hunter Team said. It's worth noting that Osiris is assessed to be a brand-new ransomware strain, sharing no similarities with another variant of the same name that emerged in December 2016 as an iteration of the Locky ransomware. It's currently not known who the developers of the locker are, or if it's advertised as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS). However, the Broadcom-owned cybersecurity division said it identified clues that suggest the threat actors who deployed the ransomware may have been previously associated with INC ransomware (aka Warble). "A wide range of living off...

Most of this week's threats didn't rely on new tricks. They relied on familiar systems behaving exactly as designed, just in the wrong hands. Ordinary files, routine services, and trusted workflows were enough to open doors without forcing them. What stands out is how little friction attackers now need. Some activity focused on quiet reach and coverage, others on timing and reuse. The emphasis wasn't speed or spectacle, but control gained through scale, patience, and misplaced trust. The stories below trace where that trust bent, not how it broke. Each item is a small signal of a larger shift, best seen when viewed together. Spear-phishing delivers custom backdoor Operation Nomad Leopard Targets Afghanistan Government entities in Afghanistan have been at the receiving end of a spear-phishing campaign dubbed Operation Nomad Leopard that employs bogus administrative documents as decoys to distribute a backdoor named FALSECUB by means o...

A new malicious package discovered in the Python Package Index (PyPI) has been found to impersonate a popular library for symbolic mathematics to deploy malicious payloads, including a cryptocurrency miner, on Linux hosts. The package, named sympy-dev , mimics SymPy , replicating the latter's project description verbatim in an attempt to deceive unsuspecting users into thinking that they are downloading a "development version" of the library. It has been downloaded over 1,100 times since it was first published on January 17, 2026. Although the download count is not a reliable yardstick for measuring the number of infections, the figure likely suggests some developers may have fallen victim to the malicious campaign. The package remains available for download as of writing. According to Socket , the original library has been modified to act as a downloader for an XMRig cryptocurrency miner on compromised systems. The malicious behavior is designed to trigger only when ...

As many as 3,136 individual IP addresses linked to likely targets of the Contagious Interview activity have been identified, with the campaign claiming 20 potential victim organizations spanning artificial intelligence (AI), cryptocurrency, financial services, IT services, marketing, and software development sectors in Europe, South Asia, the Middle East, and Central America. The new findings come from Recorded Future's Insikt Group, which is tracking the North Korean threat activity cluster under the moniker PurpleBravo . First documented in late 2023, the campaign is also known as CL-STA-0240, DeceptiveDevelopment, DEV#POPPER, Famous Chollima, Gwisin Gang, Tenacious Pungsan, UNC5342, Void Dokkaebi, and WaterPlum. The 3,136 individual IP addresses, primarily concentrated around South Asia and North America, are assessed to have been targeted by the adversary from August 2024 to September 2025. The 20 victim companies are said to be based in Belgium, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, In...