Phishing | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have documented four new phishing kits named BlackForce, GhostFrame, InboxPrime AI, and Spiderman that are capable of facilitating credential theft at scale. BlackForce, first detected in August 2025, is designed to steal credentials and perform Man-in-the-Browser ( MitB ) attacks to capture one-time passwords (OTPs) and bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA). The kit is sold on Telegram forums for anywhere between €200 ($234) and €300 ($351). The kit, according to Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Gladis Brinda R and Ashwathi Sasi, has been used to impersonate over 11 brands, including Disney, Netflix, DHL, and UPS. It's said to be in active development. "BlackForce features several evasion techniques with a blocklist that filters out security vendors, web crawlers, and scanners," the company said. "BlackForce remains under active development. Version 3 was widely used until early August, with versions 4 and 5 being released in subsequ...

This week's cyber stories show how fast the online world can turn risky. Hackers are sneaking malware into movie downloads, browser add-ons, and even software updates people trust. Tech giants and governments are racing to plug new holes while arguing over privacy and control. And researchers keep uncovering just how much of our digital life is still wide open. The new Threatsday Bulletin brings it all together—big hacks, quiet exploits, bold arrests, and smart discoveries that explain where cyber threats are headed next. It's your quick, plain-spoken look at the week's biggest security moves before they become tomorrow's headlines.

An advanced persistent threat (APT) known as WIRTE has been attributed to attacks targeting government and diplomatic entities across the Middle East with a previously undocumented malware suite dubbed AshTag since 2020 . Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 is tracking the activity cluster under the name Ashen Lepus . Artifacts uploaded to the VirusTotal platform show that the threat actor has trained its sights on Oman and Morocco, indicating an expansion in operational scope beyond the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. The company told The Hacker News said it has observed "scores of unique lures" disseminated across the Middle East, indicating a "persistent and wide-reaching campaign" confined to government and diplomatic entities in the region. More than a dozen entities are estimated to have been targeted, although it's suspected that the real number could be higher. "Ashen Lepus remained persistently active throughout the Israel...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added a security flaw impacting the WinRAR file archiver and compression utility to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-6218 (CVSS score: 7.8), is a path traversal bug that could enable code execution. However, for exploitation to succeed, it requires a prospective target to visit a malicious page or open a malicious file. "RARLAB WinRAR contains a path traversal vulnerability allowing an attacker to execute code in the context of the current user," CISA said in an alert. The vulnerability was patched by RARLAB with WinRAR 7.12 in June 2025. It only affects Windows-based builds. Versions of the tool for other platforms, including Unix and Android, are not affected. "This flaw could be exploited to place files in sensitive locations — such as the Windows Startup folder — potentially leading to u...

Four distinct threat activity clusters have been observed leveraging a malware loader known as CastleLoader , strengthening the previous assessment that the tool is offered to other threat actors under a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model. The threat actor behind CastleLoader has been assigned the name GrayBravo by Recorded Future's Insikt Group, which was previously tracking it as TAG-150 . The malware first emerged in early 2025. GrayBravo is "characterized by rapid development cycles, technical sophistication, responsiveness to public reporting, and an expansive, evolving infrastructure," the Mastercard-owned company said in an analysis published today. Some of the notable tools in the threat actor's toolset include a remote access trojan called CastleRAT and a malware framework referred to as CastleBot, which comprises three components: a shellcode stager/downloader, a loader, and a core backdoor. The CastleBot loader is responsible for injecting the core m...

The threat actor known as Storm-0249 is likely shifting from its role as an initial access broker to adopt a combination of more advanced tactics like domain spoofing, DLL side-loading, and fileless PowerShell execution to facilitate ransomware attacks. "These methods allow them to bypass defenses, infiltrate networks, maintain persistence, and operate undetected, raising serious concerns for security teams," ReliaQuest said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Storm-0249 is the moniker assigned by Microsoft to an initial access broker that has sold footholds into organizations to other cybercrime groups, including ransomware and extortion actors like Storm-0501 . It was first highlighted by the tech giant in September 2024. Then, earlier this year, Microsoft also revealed details of a phishing campaign mounted by the threat actor that used tax-related themes to target users in the U.S. ahead of the tax filing season and infect them with Latrodectus and the BruteR...

Canadian organizations have emerged as the focus of a targeted cyber campaign orchestrated by a threat activity cluster known as STAC6565 . Cybersecurity company Sophos said it investigated almost 40 intrusions linked to the threat actor between February 2024 and August 2025. The campaign is assessed with high confidence to share overlaps with a hacking group known as Gold Blade , which is also tracked under the names Earth Kapre, RedCurl, and Red Wolf. The financially motivated threat actor is believed to be active since late 2018 , initially targeting entities in Russia, before expanding its focus to entities in Canada, Germany, Norway, Russia, Slovenia, Ukraine, the U.K., and the U.S. The group has a history of using phishing emails to conduct commercial espionage. However, recent attack waves have found RedCurl to have engaged in ransomware attacks using a bespoke malware strain dubbed QWCrypt . One of the notable tools in the threat actor's arsenal is RedLoader, which s...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a new campaign dubbed JS#SMUGGLER that has been observed leveraging compromised websites as a distribution vector for a remote access trojan named NetSupport RAT . The attack chain, analyzed by Securonix, involves three main moving parts: An obfuscated JavaScript loader injected into a website, an HTML Application (HTA) that runs encrypted PowerShell stagers using "mshta.exe," and a PowerShell payload that's designed to download and execute the main malware. "NetSupport RAT enables full attacker control over the victim host, including remote desktop access, file operations, command execution, data theft, and proxy capabilities," researchers Akshay Gaikwad, Shikha Sangwan, and Aaron Beardslee said . There is little evidence at this stage to tie the campaign to any known threat group or country. The activity has been found to target enterprise users through compromised websites, indicative of a broad-strokes ...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of two new Android malware families dubbed FvncBot and SeedSnatcher , as another upgraded version of ClayRat has been spotted in the wild. The findings come from Intel 471 , CYFIRMA , and Zimperium , respectively. FvncBot, which masquerades as a security app developed by mBank, targets mobile banking users in Poland. What's notable about the malware is that it's completely written from scratch and is not inspired by other Android banking trojans like ERMAC that have had their source code leaked. The malware "implemented multiple features including keylogging by abusing Android's accessibility services, web-inject attacks, screen streaming and hidden virtual network computing (HVNC) to perform successful financial fraud," Intel 471 said. Similar to the recently uncovered Albiriox banking malware, the malware is protected by a crypting service known as apk0day that's offered by Golden Crypt. The malicious a...

The Iranian hacking group known as MuddyWater has been observed leveraging a new backdoor dubbed UDPGangster that uses the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) for command-and-control (C2) purposes. The cyber espionage activity targeted users in Turkey, Israel, and Azerbaijan, according to a report from Fortinet FortiGuard Labs. "This malware enables remote control of compromised systems by allowing attackers to execute commands, exfiltrate files, and deploy additional payloads – all communicated through UDP channels designed to evade traditional network defenses," security researcher Cara Lin said . The attack chain involves using spear-phishing tactics to distribute booby-trapped Microsoft Word documents that trigger the execution of a malicious payload once macros are enabled. Some of the phishing messages impersonate the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Ministry of Foreign Affairs and purport to invite recipients to an online seminar titled "Presidential Elections a...

Think your Wi-Fi is safe? Your coding tools? Or even your favorite financial apps? This week proves again how hackers, companies, and governments are all locked in a nonstop race to outsmart each other. Here's a quick rundown of the latest cyber stories that show how fast the game keeps changing. DeFi exploit drains funds Critical yETH Exploit Used to Steal $9M A critical exploit targeting Yearn Finance's yETH pool on Ethereum has been exploited by unknown threat actors, resulting in the theft of approximately $9 million from the protocol. The attack is said to have abused a flaw in how the protocol manages its internal accounting, stemming from the fact that a cache containing calculated values to save on gas fees was never cleared when the pool was completely emptied. "The attacker achieved this by minting an astronomical number of tokens – 235 septillion yETH (a 41-digit number) – while depositing only 16 wei, worth approxim...

Remember when phishing emails were easy to spot? Bad grammar, weird formatting, and requests from a "Prince" in a distant country? Those days are over. Today, a 16-year-old with zero coding skills and a $200 allowance can launch a campaign that rivals state-sponsored hackers. They don't need to be smart; they just need to subscribe to the right AI tool. We are witnessing the industrialization of cybercrime. The barrier to entry has collapsed, and your current email filters are looking for threats that no longer exist. Watch the Live Breakdown of AI Phishing Tools ➜ The New "Big Three" of Cybercrime Security leaders don't need another lecture on what phishing is. You need to see exactly what you are up against. This isn't science fiction—these tools are being sold on the dark web right now. In this webinar , we are going inside the "AI Phishing Factory" to deconstruct the three tools rewriting the threat landscape: WormGPT: Think of...

The threat actor known as Water Saci is actively evolving its tactics, switching to a sophisticated, highly layered infection chain that uses HTML Application (HTA) files and PDFs to propagate via WhatsApp a worm that deploys a banking trojan in attacks targeting users in Brazil. The latest wave is characterized by the attackers shifting from PowerShell to a Python-based variant that spreads the malware in a worm-like manner over WhatsApp Web. "Their new multi-format attack chain and possible use of artificial intelligence (AI) to convert propagation scripts from PowerShell to Python exemplifies a layered approach that has enabled Water Saci to bypass conventional security controls, exploit user trust across multiple channels, and ramp up their infection rates," Trend Micro researchers Jeffrey Francis Bonaobra, Sarah Pearl Camiling, Joe Soares, Byron Gelera, Ian Kenefick, and Emmanuel Panopio said . In these attacks, users receive messages from trusted contacts on WhatsA...