Phishing | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The threat actors behind the Darcula phishing-as-a-service ( PhaaS ) platform have released new updates to their cybercrime suite with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) capabilities. "This addition lowers the technical barrier for creating phishing pages, enabling less tech-savvy criminals to deploy customized scams in minutes," Netcraft said in a fresh report shared with The Hacker News. "The new AI-assisted features amplify Darcula's threat potential by simplifying the process to build tailored phishing pages with multi-language support and form generation — all without any programming knowledge." Darcula was first documented by the cybersecurity company in March 2024 as a toolkit that leveraged Apple iMessage and RCS to send smishing messages to users that trick recipients into clicking on bogus links under the guise of postal services like USPS. Earlier this year, the operators of Darcula PhaaS began testing a major update that enabled cust...

Multiple threat activity clusters with ties to North Korea (aka Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK) have been linked to attacks targeting organizations and individuals in the Web3 and cryptocurrency space. "The focus on Web3 and cryptocurrency appears to be primarily financially motivated due to the heavy sanctions that have been placed on North Korea," Google-owned Mandiant said in its M-Trends report for 2025 shared with The Hacker News. "These activities aim to generate financial gains, reportedly funding North Korea's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program and other strategic assets." The cybersecurity firm said DPRK-nexus threat actors have developed custom tools written in a variety of languages such as Golang, C++, and Rust, and are capable of infecting Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. At least three threat activity clusters it tracks as UNC1069, UNC4899, and UNC5342 have been found to target members of the cryptocurren...

The problem is simple: all breaches start with initial access, and initial access comes down to two primary attack vectors – credentials and devices. This is not news; every report you can find on the threat landscape depicts the same picture.  The solution is more complex. For this article, we'll focus on the device threat vector. The risk they pose is significant, which is why device management tools like Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) are essential components of an organization's security infrastructure. However, relying solely on these tools to manage device risk actually creates a false sense of security. Instead of the blunt tools of device management, organizations are looking for solutions that deliver device trust . Device trust provides a comprehensive, risk-based approach to device security enforcement, closing the large gaps left behind by traditional device management solutions. Here are 5 of those limitations and how to ov...

The Iran-nexus threat actor known as UNC2428 has been observed delivering a backdoor known as MURKYTOUR as part of a job-themed social engineering campaign aimed at Israel in October 2024. Google-owned Mandiant described UNC2428 as a threat actor aligned with Iran that engages in cyber espionage-related operations. The intrusion set is said to have distributed the malware through a "complex chain of deception techniques." "UNC2428's social engineering campaign targeted individuals while posing as a recruitment opportunity from Israeli defense contractor, Rafael," the company said in its annual M-Trends report for 2025. Individuals who expressed interest were redirected to a site that impersonated Rafael, from where they were asked to download a tool to assist with applying for the job. The tool ("RafaelConnect.exe") was an installer dubbed LONEFLEET that, once launched, presented a graphical user interface (GUI) to the victim in order to enter th...

Cybersecurity researchers have revealed that Russian military personnel are the target of a new malicious campaign that distributes Android spyware under the guise of the Alpine Quest mapping software. "The attackers hide this trojan inside modified Alpine Quest mapping software and distribute it in various ways, including through one of the Russian Android app catalogs," Doctor Web said in an analysis. The trojan has been found embedded in older versions of the software and propagated as a freely available variant of Alpine Quest Pro , a paid offering that removes advertising and analytics features. The Russian cybersecurity vendor said it also observed the malware, dubbed Android.Spy.1292.origin, being distributed in the form of an APK file via a fake Telegram channel. While the threat actors initially provided a link for downloading the app in one of the Russian app catalogs through the Telegram channel, the trojanized version was later distributed directly as an A...

Phishing attacks remain a huge challenge for organizations in 2025. In fact, with attackers increasingly leveraging identity-based techniques over software exploits, phishing arguably poses a bigger threat than ever before.  Attackers are increasingly leveraging identity-based techniques over software exploits, with phishing and stolen credentials (a byproduct of phishing) now the primary cause of breaches. Source: Verizon DBIR Attackers are increasingly leveraging identity-based techniques over software exploits, with phishing and stolen credentials (a byproduct of phishing) now the primary cause of breaches. Source: Verizon DBIR Attackers are turning to identity attacks like phishing because they can achieve all of the same objectives as they would in a traditional endpoint or network attack, simply by logging into a victim's account. And with organizations now using hundreds of internet apps across their workforce, the scope of accounts that can be phished or targeted with s...

Multiple suspected Russia-linked threat actors are "aggressively" targeting individuals and organizations with ties to Ukraine and human rights with an aim to gain unauthorized access to Microsoft 365 accounts since early March 2025. The highly targeted social engineering operations, per Volexity, are a shift from previously documented attacks that leveraged a technique known as device code phishing to achieve the same goals, indicating that indicating that the Russian adversaries behind these campaigns are actively refining their tradecraft to fly under the radar. "These recently observed attacks rely heavily on one-on-one interaction with a target, as the threat actor must both convince them to click a link and send back a Microsoft-generated code," security researchers Charlie Gardner, Josh Duke, Matthew Meltzer, Sean Koessel, Steven Adair, and Tom Lancaster said in an exhaustive analysis. At least two different threat clusters tracked as UTA0352 and UTA03...

As SaaS and cloud-native work reshape the enterprise, the web browser has emerged as the new endpoint. However, unlike endpoints, browsers remain mostly unmonitored, despite being responsible for more than 70% of modern malware attacks . Keep Aware's recent State of Browser Security report highlights major concerns security leaders face with employees using the web browser for most of their work. The reality is that traditional security tools are blind to what happens within the browser , and attackers know it. Key Findings: 70% of phishing campaigns impersonate Microsoft, OneDrive, or Office 365 to exploit user trust. 150+ trusted platforms like Google Docs and Dropbox are being abused to host phishing and exfiltrate data. 10% of AI prompts involve sensitive business content, posing risks across thousands of browser-based AI tools. 34% of file uploads on company devices go to personal accounts, often undetected. New Attack Patterns Bypass Traditional Defenses From phis...

In what has been described as an "extremely sophisticated phishing attack," threat actors have leveraged an uncommon approach that allowed bogus emails to be sent via Google's infrastructure and redirect message recipients to fraudulent sites that harvest their credentials. "The first thing to note is that this is a valid, signed email – it really was sent from no-reply@google.com," Nick Johnson, the lead developer of the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), said in a series of posts on X. "It passes the DKIM signature check, and Gmail displays it without any warnings – it even puts it in the same conversation as other, legitimate security alerts." The email message informs prospective targets of a subpoena from a law enforcement authority asking for unspecified content present in their Google Account and urges them to click on a sites.google[.]com URL in order to "examine the case materials or take measures to submit a protest." The Google Si...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new malicious campaign related to the North Korean state-sponsored threat actor known as Kimsuky that exploits a now-patched vulnerability impacting Microsoft Remote Desktop Services to gain initial access. The activity has been named Larva-24005 by the AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC). "In some systems, initial access was gained through exploiting the RDP vulnerability (BlueKeep, CVE-2019-0708)," the South Korean cybersecurity company said . "While an RDP vulnerability scanner was found in the compromised system, there is no evidence of its actual use." CVE-2019-0708 (CVSS score: 9.8) is a critical wormable bug in Remote Desktop Services that could enable remote code execution, allowing unauthenticated attackers to install arbitrary programs, access data, and even create new accounts with full user rights. However, in order for an adversary to exploit the flaw, they would need to send a specially crafted...

A new Android malware-as-a-service (MaaS) platform named SuperCard X can facilitate near-field communication ( NFC ) relay attacks, enabling cybercriminals to conduct fraudulent cashouts. The active campaign is targeting customers of banking institutions and card issuers in Italy with an aim to compromise payment card data, fraud prevention firm Cleafy said in an analysis. There is evidence to suggest that the service is promoted on Telegram channels. SuperCard X "employs a multi-stage approach combining social engineering (via smishing and phone calls), malicious application installation, and NFC data interception for highly effective fraud," security researchers Federico Valentini‍, Alessandro Strino, and Michele Roviello said . The new Android malware, the work of a Chinese-speaking threat actor, has been observed being propagated via three different bogus apps, duping victims into installing them via social engineering techniques like deceptive SMS or WhatsApp mess...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a surge in "mass scanning, credential brute-forcing, and exploitation attempts" originating from IP addresses associated with a Russian bulletproof hosting service provider named Proton66 . The activity, detected since January 8, 2025, targeted organizations worldwide, according to a two-part analysis published by Trustwave SpiderLabs last week.  "Net blocks 45.135.232.0/24 and 45.140.17.0/24 were particularly active in terms of mass scanning and brute-force attempts," security researchers Pawel Knapczyk and Dawid Nesterowicz said . "Several of the offending IP addresses were not previously seen to be involved in malicious activity or were inactive for over two years." The Russian autonomous system Proton66 is assessed to be linked to another autonomous system named PROSPERO. Last year, French security firm Intrinsec detailed their connections to bulletproof services marketed on Russian cybercrime forums under ...

The Russian state-sponsored threat actor known as APT29 has been linked to an advanced phishing campaign that's targeting diplomatic entities across Europe with a new variant of WINELOADER and a previously unreported malware loader codenamed GRAPELOADER. "While the improved WINELOADER variant is still a modular backdoor used in later stages, GRAPELOADER is a newly observed initial-stage tool used for fingerprinting, persistence, and payload delivery," Check Point said in a technical analysis published earlier this week. "Despite differing roles, both share similarities in code structure, obfuscation, and string decryption. GRAPELOADER refines WINELOADER's anti-analysis techniques while introducing more advanced stealth methods." The use of WINELOADER was first documented by Zscaler ThreatLabz in February 2024, with the attacks leveraging wine-tasting lures to infect diplomatic staff systems. While the campaign was first attributed to a threat activity...