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A new Android threat codenamed Manic has been observed actively targeting Ukrainian banks, government and identity services, and messaging applications, as well as Russian and European financial institutions, global fintech and cryptocurrency services, and military-focused communications. "Manic sits at the intersection of Android banking malware and mobile spyware, combining financial-fraud capabilities with broader surveillance and device-control features," ThreatFabric said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The malware, besides targeting sensitive applications and enabling extensive device takeover, introduces a novel Wi‑Fi mesh technique that makes it possible for the infected devices to relay data through nearby compromised devices with internet access. It's distributed via phishing sites and dropper apps impersonating utilities. The Dutch security company said the malware family's activity dates back to February 2026, when the first dom...

Apple on Thursday sent a fresh batch of notifications to customers whom it suspects may have been targeted by mercenary spyware attacks. In a statement shared with TechCrunch, the iPhone maker said it alerted an unspecified number of users targeted in 110 countries and that it has notified customers in over 150 countries to date. Apple began sending threat notifications to users in late 2021. "The extreme cost, sophistication, and worldwide nature of mercenary spyware attacks make them some of the most advanced digital threats in existence today," the tech giant said . "As a result, Apple does not attribute the attacks or resulting threat notifications to any specific attackers or geographical regions." Typically, such notifications are sent to people who may have been individually targeted because of "who they are or what they do," including journalists, activists, politicians, and diplomats. They tend to focus on a very small number of speci...

Source code for the Flying Eagle Android remote access trojan (RAT) framework is circulating through criminal Telegram channels. Hunt.io and independent researcher NetAskari traced matching control panels and certificates to 170 internet servers. They linked the framework to a fake "公安一网通办" Public Security service application targeting Android users in China. The kit supports payment-password and keystroke capture, screen recording, camera access, and phishing prompts for financial, adult-content, and government-service applications. Hunt.io's search of the preceding 30 days of telemetry found infrastructure fingerprints on 170 servers, a count that does not establish 170 infected phones, victims, operators, or confirmed command-and-control (C2) systems. The researchers found 158 servers through the AdminPro page title, HTTPS redirect behaviour, and matching response headers, then identified 12 more through a default certificate packaged with Flying Eagle. They sa...

A new report from the Citizen Lab has revealed that former Member of the European Parliament Stelios Kouloglou had his mobile device repeatedly hacked with the notorious Pegasus spyware while serving on a committee that was tasked with investigating the abuse of such commercial surveillance tools in the bloc. "Through forensic analysis of his device, we found that the attackers could have had access to confidential documents and committee deliberations," the Citizen Lab researchers John Scott-Railton, Bill Marczak, Bahr Abdul Razzak, Kate Pundyk, Siena Anstis, and Ron Deibert said . The infections have not been attributed to a particular government at this time, and there is no evidence that the Greek government is behind the activity. However, the Canadian interdisciplinary research laboratory noted that it identified an overlap between the first infection and a previous campaign targeting Russian and Belarusian-speaking exiled journalists and activists in Europe. ...

Meta on Monday said it detected and blocked spear-phishing attempts linked to Israeli spyware vendor NSO Group . In addition, the tech giant said it's filing a federal court contempt order against the company for violating a permanent injunction that barred it from targeting WhatsApp and its users. "They tried to trick people into clicking on malicious links to drive them to external websites outside of WhatsApp, similar to previously reported 1-click phishing campaigns linked to NSO," Meta said . The social media company also said it caught NSO Group creating test accounts and groups on WhatsApp. They have since been taken down by Meta. The list of malicious domains linked to the activity is listed below - fr24cast[.]com ghazacast[.]com ikhwancast[.]com Meta did not disclose any technical details about the campaign, including when the activity occurred, how many users were targeted, if any of those attacks were successful, and how the activity was t...

Arabic-speaking users have emerged as the target of a new Android spyware codenamed Asin , according to findings from ESET. The Slovakian cybersecurity company said it first detected the malware spread via multiple campaigns in early 2025, with each attack wave making use of distinct websites mimicking utilities, war-related updates, and a government news source: govlens[.]net, which impersonates a government news source (registered on May 27, 2025) pdf-reader[.]help, which impersonates a secure PDF editor (registered on May 29, 2025) live-war-map[.]com, which claims to offer updates on military incidents (registered on January 20, 2025) Two of these websites - govlens[.]net and live-war-map[.]com - were also marketed via dedicated accounts on social media platforms like Facebook and Telegram - www.facebook[.]com/GovLens t[.]me/liveuamap_ar "Each of these websites distributes a malicious app that combines legitimate functionality with stealthy spyware ca...

Google on Tuesday unveiled a new opt-in Android feature called Intrusion Logging for storing forensic logs to better analyze sophisticated spyware attacks. Intrusion Logging, available as part of Advanced Protection Mode , enables "persistent and privacy-preserving forensics logging to allow for investigation of devices in the event of a suspected compromise," the company said. The feature, it added, was developed in partnership with Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders. According to a help document shared by Google, it logs device and network activities on a daily basis, including information about device behavior and the various applications that run on it. The kinds of activities recorded are listed below - App activity (e.g., when an app process starts) App installations, updates, and uninstalls Network connections like starting and stopping Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, DNS lookups, and IP addresses File transfers to or from the device over USB Changes to...