Phishing | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A combination of propagation methods, narrative sophistication, and evasion techniques enabled the social engineering tactic known as ClickFix to take off the way it did over the past year, according to new findings from Guardio Labs. "Like a real-world virus variant, this new ' ClickFix ' strain quickly outpaced and ultimately wiped out the infamous fake browser update scam that plagued the web just last year," security researcher Shaked Chen said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "It did so by removing the need for file downloads, using smarter social engineering tactics, and spreading through trusted infrastructure. The result - a wave of infections ranging from mass drive-by attacks to hyper-targeted spear-phishing lures." ClickFix is the name given to a social engineering tactic where prospective targets are deceived into infecting their own machines under the guise of fixing a non-existent issue or a CAPTCHA verification. It was first det...

Why do SOC teams still drown in alerts even after spending big on security tools? False positives pile up, stealthy threats slip through, and critical incidents get buried in the noise. Top CISOs have realized the solution isn't adding more and more tools to SOC workflows but giving analysts the speed and visibility they need to catch real attacks before they cause damage.  Here's how they're breaking the cycle and turning their SOCs into true threat-stopping machines. Starting with Live, Interactive Threat Analysis The first step to staying ahead of attackers is seeing threats as they happen. Static scans and delayed reports just can't keep up with modern, evasive malware. Interactive sandboxes like ANY.RUN let analysts detonate suspicious files, URLs, and QR codes in a fully isolated, safe environment and actually interact with the sample in real time . Why CISOs give access to interactive sandboxes: Analysts can click links, open files, and mimic real user actions to trig...

Cybersecurity researchers have lifted the veil on a widespread malicious campaign that's targeting TikTok Shop users globally with an aim to steal credentials and distribute trojanized apps. "Threat actors are exploiting the official in-app e-commerce platform through a dual attack strategy that combines phishing and malware to target users," CTM360 said . "The core tactic involves a deceptive replica of TikTok Shop that tricks users into thinking theyʼre interacting with a legitimate affiliate or the real platform." The scam campaign has been codenamed FraudOnTok  by the Bahrain-based cybersecurity company, calling out the threat actor's multi-pronged distribution strategy that involves Meta ads and artificial intelligence (AI)-generated TikTok videos that mimic influencers or official brand ambassadors. Central to the effort is the use of lookalike domains that resemble legitimate TikTok URLs. Over 15,000 such impersonated websites have been identified...

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a new cluster of activity where threat actors are impersonating enterprises with fake Microsoft OAuth applications to facilitate credential harvesting as part of account takeover attacks. "The fake Microsoft 365 applications impersonate various companies, including RingCentral, SharePoint, Adobe, and Docusign," Proofpoint said in a Thursday report. The ongoing campaign, first detected in early 2025, is designed to use the OAuth applications as a gateway to obtain unauthorized access to users' Microsoft 365 accounts by means of phishing kits like Tycoon and ODx that are capable of conducting multi-factor authentication (MFA) phishing. The enterprise security company said it observed the approach being used in email campaigns with more than 50 impersonated applications. The attacks begin with phishing emails sent from compromised accounts and aim to trick recipients into clicking on URLs under the pretext of sharing requests ...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new phishing campaign that conceals malicious payloads by abusing link wrapping services from Proofpoint and Intermedia to bypass defenses. "Link wrapping is designed by vendors like Proofpoint to protect users by routing all clicked URLs through a scanning service, allowing them to block known malicious destinations at the moment of click," the Cloudflare Email Security team said . "While this is effective against known threats, attacks can still succeed if the wrapped link hasn't been flagged by the scanner at click time." The activity, observed over the last two months, once again illustrates how threat actors find different ways to leverage legitimate features and trusted tools to their advantage and perform malicious actions, in this case, redirecting victims to Microsoft 365 phishing pages. It's noteworthy that the abuse of link wrapping involves the attackers gaining unauthorized access to em...

The maintainers of the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository have issued a warning about an ongoing phishing attack that's targeting users in an attempt to redirect them to fake PyPI sites. The attack involves sending email messages bearing the subject line "[PyPI] Email verification" that are sent from the email address noreply@pypj[.]org (note that the domain is not " pypi[.]org "). "This is not a security breach of PyPI itself, but rather a phishing attempt that exploits the trust users have in PyPI," Mike Fiedler, PyPI Admin, said in a post Monday. The email messages instruct users to follow a link to verify their email address, which leads to a replica phishing site that impersonates PyPI and is designed to harvest their credentials. But in a clever twist, once the login information is entered on the bogus site, the request is routed to the legitimate PyPI site, effectively fooling the victims into thinking that nothing is amiss when, in r...

Until recently, the cyber attacker methodology behind the biggest breaches of the last decade or so has been pretty consistent: Compromise an endpoint via software exploit, or social engineering a user to run malware on their device;  Find ways to move laterally inside the network and compromise privileged identities; Repeat as needed until you can execute your desired attack — usually stealing data from file shares, deploying ransomware, or both.  But attacks have fundamentally changed as networks have evolved. With the SaaS-ification of enterprise IT, core business systems aren't locally deployed and centrally managed in the way they used to be. Instead, they're logged into over the internet, and accessed via a web browser. Attacks have shifted from targeting local networks to SaaS services, accessed through employee web browsers. Under the shared responsibility model, the part that's left to the business consuming a SaaS service is mostly constrained to how they ma...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new, large-scale mobile malware campaign that's targeting Android and iOS platforms with fake dating, social networking, cloud storage, and car service apps to steal sensitive personal data. The cross-platform threat has been codenamed SarangTrap by Zimperium zLabs. Users in South Korea appear to be the primary focus. "This extensive campaign involved over 250 malicious Android applications and more than 80 malicious domains, all disguised as legitimate dating and social media applications," security researcher Rajat Goyal said . The bogus domains, which impersonate legitimate app store listing pages, are used as a lure to trick users into installing these apps, resulting in the exfiltration of contact lists and images, all while keeping up an illusion of legitimacy. Once installed, the Android apps also prompt the victim to enter an invitation code, after which it's validated against a command-and-control (C2) server. ...

The threat actor known as Patchwork has been attributed to a new spear-phishing campaign targeting Turkish defense contractors with the goal of gathering strategic intelligence. "The campaign employs a five-stage execution chain delivered via malicious LNK files disguised as conference invitations sent to targets interested in learning more about unmanned vehicle systems," Arctic Wolf Labs said in a technical report published this week. The activity, which also singled out an unnamed manufacturer of precision-guided missile systems, appears to be geopolitically motivated as the timing coincides amid deepening defense cooperation between Pakistan and Türkiye, and the recent India-Pakistan military skirmishes. Patchwork, also called APT-C-09, APT-Q-36, Chinastrats, Dropping Elephant, Operation Hangover, Quilted Tiger, and Zinc Emerson, is assessed to be a state-sponsored actor of Indian origin. Known to be active since at least 2009, the hacking group has a track record ...

Russian aerospace and defense industries have become the target of a cyber espionage campaign that delivers a backdoor called EAGLET to facilitate data exfiltration. The activity, dubbed Operation CargoTalon , has been assigned to a threat cluster tracked as UNG0901 (short for Unknown Group 901). "The campaign is aimed at targeting employees of Voronezh Aircraft Production Association (VASO), one of the major aircraft production entities in Russia via using товарно-транспортная накладная (TTN) documents — critical to Russian logistics operations," Seqrite Labs researcher Subhajeet Singha said in an analysis published this week. The attack commences with a spear-phishing email bearing cargo delivery-themed lures that contain a ZIP archive, within which is a Windows shortcut (LNK) file that uses PowerShell to display a decoy Microsoft Excel document, while also deploying the EAGLET DLL implant on the host. The decoy document, per Seqrite, references Obltransterminal, a ...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new versatile malware loader called CastleLoader that has been put to use in campaigns distributing various information stealers and remote access trojans (RATs). The activity employs Cloudflare-themed ClickFix phishing attacks and fake GitHub repositories opened under the names of legitimate applications, Swiss cybersecurity company PRODAFT said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The malware loader, first observed in the wild earlier this year, has been used to distribute DeerStealer , RedLine , StealC , NetSupport RAT , SectopRAT , and even other loaders like Hijack Loader . "It employs dead code injection and packing techniques to hinder analysis," the company said. "After unpacking itself at runtime, it connects to a C2 (command-and-control) server, downloads target modules, and executes them." CastleLoader's modular structure allows it to act as both a delivery mechanism and a staging utility, enabling...

The Tibetan community has been targeted by a China-nexus cyber espionage group as part of two campaigns conducted last month ahead of the Dalai Lama's 90th birthday on July 6, 2025. The multi-stage attacks have been codenamed Operation GhostChat and Operation PhantomPrayers by Zscaler ThreatLabz. "The attackers compromised a legitimate website, redirecting users via a malicious link and ultimately installing either the Gh0st RAT or PhantomNet (aka SManager) backdoor onto victim systems," security researchers Sudeep Singh and Roy Tay said in a Wednesday report. This is not the first time Chinese threat actors have resorted to watering hole attacks (aka strategic web compromises), a technique where adversaries break into websites frequently visited by a specific group to infect their devices with malware. Over the past two years, hacking groups like EvilBamboo , Evasive Panda , and TAG-112 have all resorted to the approach to target the Tibetan diaspora with the u...

Mexican organizations are still being targeted by threat actors to deliver a modified version of AllaKore RAT and SystemBC as part of a long-running campaign.  The activity has been attributed by Arctic Wolf Labs to a financially motivated hacking group called Greedy Sponge . It's believed to be active since early 2021, indiscriminately targeting a wide range of sectors, such as retail, agriculture, public sector, entertainment, manufacturing, transportation, commercial services, capital goods, and banking. "The AllaKore RAT payload has been heavily modified to enable the threat actors to send select banking credentials and unique authentication information back to their command-and-control (C2) server, for the purpose of conducting financial fraud," the cybersecurity company said in an analysis published last week. Details of the campaign were first documented by the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team (which is now part of Arctic Wolf) in January 2024, with ...

Cybersecurity firm Expel, in an update shared on July 25, 2025, said it's retracting its findings about a phishing attack that it said leveraged cross-device sign-in to get around FIDO account protections despite being not in physical proximity to the authenticating client device. "The evidence does show the targeted user's credentials (username and password) being phished and that the attacker successfully passed password authentication for the targeted user," the company said . "It also shows the user received a QR code from the attacker. This QR code, when scanned by a mobile device, initiates a FIDO Cross-Device Authentication flow, which according to FIDO specification requires local proximity to the device which generated the QR code (the WebAuthn client). When properly implemented, without proximity, the request will time out and fail." The company further said that while the attackers managed to breach the password barrier, further analysis of t...

Cybersecurity researchers have alerted to a supply chain attack that has targeted popular npm packages via a phishing campaign designed to steal the project maintainers' npm tokens. The captured tokens were then used to publish malicious versions of the packages directly to the registry without any source code commits or pull requests on their respective GitHub repositories. The list of affected packages and their rogue versions, according to Socket, is listed below - eslint-config-prettier (versions 8.10.1, 9.1.1, 10.1.6, and 10.1.7) eslint-plugin-prettier (versions 4.2.2 and 4.2.3) synckit (version 0.11.9) @pkgr/core (version 0.2.8) napi-postinstall (version 0.3.1) got-fetch (versions 5.1.11 and 5.1.12) is (versions 3.3.1 and 5.0.0) "The injected code attempted to execute a DLL on Windows machines, potentially allowing remote code execution," the software supply chain security firm said. The development comes in the aftermath of a phishing campaign that...