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Category — Malware
New ForumTroll Phishing Attacks Target Russian Scholars Using Fake eLibrary Emails

New ForumTroll Phishing Attacks Target Russian Scholars Using Fake eLibrary Emails

Dec 17, 2025 Vulnerability / Malware
The threat actor linked to Operation ForumTroll has been attributed to a fresh set of phishing attacks targeting individuals within Russia, according to Kaspersky. The Russian cybersecurity vendor said it detected the new activity in October 2025. The origins of the threat actor are presently unknown. "While the spring cyberattacks focused on organizations, the fall campaign honed in on specific individuals: scholars in the field of political science, international relations, and global economics, working at major Russian universities and research institutions," security researcher Georgy Kucherin said . Operation ForumTroll refers to a series of sophisticated phishing attacks exploiting a then-zero-day vulnerability in Google Chrome (CVE-2025-2783) to deliver the LeetAgent backdoor and a spyware implant known as Dante. The latest attack wave also commences with emails that claimed to be from eLibrary, a Russian scientific electronic library, with the messages sent f...
Fix SOC Blind Spots: See Threats to Your Industry & Country in Real Time

Fix SOC Blind Spots: See Threats to Your Industry & Country in Real Time

Dec 17, 2025 Threat Intelligence / Endpoint Security
Modern security teams often feel like they're driving through fog with failing headlights. Threats accelerate, alerts multiply, and SOCs struggle to understand which dangers matter right now for their business. Breaking out of reactive defense is no longer optional. It's the difference between preventing incidents and cleaning up after them. Below is the path from reactive firefighting to a proactive, context-rich SOC that actually sees what's coming. When the SOC Only Sees in the Rear-View Mirror Many SOCs still rely on a backward-facing workflow. Analysts wait for an alert, investigate it, escalate, and eventually respond. This pattern is understandable: the job is noisy, the tooling is complex, and alert fatigue bends even the toughest teams into reactive mode. But a reactive posture hides several structural problems: No visibility into what threat actors are preparing. Limited ability to anticipate campaigns targeting the organization's sector. Inability to adjust defenses...
China-Linked Ink Dragon Hacks Governments Using ShadowPad and FINALDRAFT Malware

China-Linked Ink Dragon Hacks Governments Using ShadowPad and FINALDRAFT Malware

Dec 17, 2025 Malware / Cyber Espionage
The threat actor known as Jewelbug has been increasingly focusing on government targets in Europe since July 2025, even as it continues to attack entities located in Southeast Asia and South America. Check Point Research is tracking the cluster under the name Ink Dragon . It's also referenced by the broader cybersecurity community under the names CL-STA-0049 , Earth Alux , and REF7707 . The China-aligned hacking group is assessed to be active since at least March 2023. "The actor's campaigns combine solid software engineering, disciplined operational playbooks, and a willingness to reuse platform-native tools to blend into normal enterprise telemetry," the cybersecurity company said in a technical breakdown published Tuesday. "This mix makes their intrusions both effective and stealthy." Eli Smadja, group manager of Products R&D at Check Point Software, told The Hacker News that the activity is still ongoing, and that the campaign has "impacte...
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GhostPoster Malware Found in 17 Firefox Add-ons with 50,000+ Downloads

GhostPoster Malware Found in 17 Firefox Add-ons with 50,000+ Downloads

Dec 17, 2025 Ad Fraud / Browser Security
A new campaign named GhostPoster has leveraged logo files associated with 17 Mozilla Firefox browser add-ons to embed malicious JavaScript code designed to hijack affiliate links, inject tracking code, and commit click and ad fraud. The extensions have been collectively downloaded over 50,000 times, according to Koi Security, which discovered the campaign. The add-ons are no longer available. These browser programs were advertised as VPNs, screenshot utilities, ad blockers, and unofficial versions of Google Translate. The oldest add-on, Dark Mode, was published on October 25, 2024, offering the ability to enable a dark theme for all websites. The full list of the browser add-ons is below - Free VPN Screenshot Weather (weather-best-forecast) Mouse Gesture (crxMouse) Cache - Fast site loader Free MP3 Downloader Google Translate (google-translate-right-clicks) Traductor de Google Global VPN - Free Forever Dark Reader Dark Mode Translator - Google Bing Baidu DeepL Weather...
Compromised IAM Credentials Power a Large AWS Crypto Mining Campaign

Compromised IAM Credentials Power a Large AWS Crypto Mining Campaign

Dec 16, 2025 Malware / Threat Detection
An ongoing campaign has been observed targeting Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers using compromised Identity and Access Management ( IAM ) credentials to enable cryptocurrency mining. The activity, first detected by Amazon's GuardDuty managed threat detection service and its automated security monitoring systems on November 2, 2025, employs never-before-seen persistence techniques to hamper incident response and continue unimpeded, according to a new report shared by the tech giant ahead of publication. "Operating from an external hosting provider, the threat actor quickly enumerated resources and permissions before deploying crypto mining resources across ECS and EC2," Amazon said . "Within 10 minutes of the threat actor gaining initial access, crypto miners were operational." The multi-stage attack chain essentially begins with the unknown adversary leveraging compromised IAM user credentials with admin-like privileges to initiate a discovery phase des...
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