Threat Intelligence | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

An exhaustive evaluation of three firewall models from Palo Alto Networks has uncovered a host of known security flaws impacting the devices' firmware as well as misconfigured security features. "These weren't obscure, corner-case vulnerabilities," security vendor Eclypsium said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Instead these were very well-known issues that we wouldn't expect to see even on a consumer-grade laptop. These issues could allow attackers to evade even the most basic integrity protections, such as Secure Boot, and modify device firmware if exploited." The company said it analyzed three firewall appliances from Palo Alto Networks, PA-3260, PA-1410, and PA-415, the first of which officially reached end-of-sale on August 31, 2023. The other two models are fully supported firewall platforms. The list of identified flaws, collectively named PANdora's Box , is as follows - CVE-2020-10713 aka BootHole (Affects PA-3260, PA-14...

An analysis of HellCat and Morpheus ransomware operations has revealed that affiliates associated with the respective cybercrime entities are using identical code for their ransomware payloads. The findings come from SentinelOne, which analyzed artifacts uploaded to the VirusTotal malware scanning platform by the same submitter towards the end of December 2024. "These two payload samples are identical except for victim specific data and the attacker contact details," security researcher Jim Walter said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. Both HellCat and Morpheus are nascent entrants to the ransomware ecosystem, having emerged in October and December 2024, respectively. A deeper examination of the Morpheus/HellCat payload, a 64-bit portable executable, has revealed that both samples require a path to be specified as an input argument. They are both configured to exclude the \Windows\System32 folder, as well as a hard-coded list of extensions from the encryp...

SonicWall is alerting customers of a critical security flaw impacting its Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 1000 Series appliances that it said has been likely exploited in the wild as a zero-day. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-23006 , is rated 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. "Pre-authentication deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability has been identified in the SMA1000 Appliance Management Console (AMC) and Central Management Console (CMC), which in specific conditions could potentially enable a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary OS commands," the company said in an advisory. It's worth noting that CVE-2025-23006 does not affect its Firewall and SMA 100 series products. The flaw has been addressed in version 12.4.3-02854 (platform-hotfix). SonicWall also said that it has been notified of "possible active exploitation" by unspecified threat actors, necessitating that customers apply the fixes as soon as p...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new BackConnect (BC) malware that has been developed by threat actors linked to the infamous QakBot loader. "BackConnect is a common feature or module utilized by threat actors to maintain persistence and perform tasks," Walmart's Cyber Intelligence team told The Hacker News. "The BackConnect(s) in use were 'DarkVNC' alongside the IcedID BackConnect ( KeyHole )." The company noted that the BC module was found on the same infrastructure that was observed distributing another malware loader called ZLoader, which was recently updated to incorporate a Domain Name System (DNS) tunnel for command-and-control (C2) communications. QakBot, also called QBot and Pinkslipbot, suffered a major operational setback in 2023 after its infrastructure was seized as part of a coordinated law enforcement effort named Duck Hunt. Since then, sporadic campaigns have been uncovered propagating the malware. Origina...

Google on Wednesday shed light on a financially motivated threat actor named TRIPLESTRENGTH for its opportunistic targeting of cloud environments for cryptojacking and on-premise ransomware attacks. "This actor engaged in a variety of threat activity, including cryptocurrency mining operations on hijacked cloud resources and ransomware activity," the tech giant's cloud division said in its 11th Threat Horizons Report . TRIPLESTRENGTH engages in a trifecta of malicious attacks, including illicit cryptocurrency mining, ransomware and extortion, and advertising access to various cloud platforms, such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Linode, OVHCloud, and Digital Ocean, to other threat actors. Initial access to target cloud instances is facilitated by means of stolen credentials and cookies, some of which originate from Raccoon information stealer infection logs. The hijacked environments are then abused to create compute resources for mining cryp...

Threat actors are exploiting an unspecified zero-day vulnerability in Cambium Networks cnPilot routers to deploy a variant of the AISURU botnet called AIRASHI to carry out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. According to QiAnXin XLab, the attacks have leveraged the security flaw since June 2024. Additional details about the shortcomings have been withheld to prevent further abuse. Some of the other flaws weaponized by the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) botnet include CVE-2013-3307 , CVE-2016-20016 , CVE-2017-5259 , CVE-2018-14558 , CVE-2020-25499 , CVE-2020-8515 , CVE-2022-3573 , CVE-2022-40005 , CVE-2022-44149 , CVE-2023-28771 , as well as those impacting AVTECH IP cameras, LILIN DVRs, and Shenzhen TVT devices. "The operator of AIRASHI has been posting their DDoS capability test results on Telegram," XLab said. "From historical data, it can be observed that the attack capacity of the AIRASHI botnet remains stable around 1-3 Tbps." A majority ...

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a new adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) phishing kit that's capable of Microsoft 365 accounts with an aim to steal credentials and two-factor authentication (2FA) codes since at least October 2024. The nascent phishing kit has been dubbed Sneaky 2FA by French cybersecurity company Sekoia, which detected it in the wild in December. Nearly 100 domains hosting Sneaky 2FA phishing pages have been identified as of this month, suggesting moderate adoption by threat actors. "This kit is being sold as phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) by the cybercrime service 'Sneaky Log,' which operates through a fully-featured bot on Telegram," the company said in an analysis. "Customers reportedly receive access to a licensed obfuscated version of the source code and deploy it independently." Phishing campaigns have been observed sending payment receipt-related emails to entice recipients into opening bogus PDF documents containing QR co...

The Russian threat actor known as Star Blizzard has been linked to a new spear-phishing campaign that targets victims' WhatsApp accounts, signaling a departure from its longstanding tradecraft in a likely attempt to evade detection. "Star Blizzard's targets are most commonly related to government or diplomacy (both incumbent and former position holders), defense policy or international relations researchers whose work touches on Russia, and sources of assistance to Ukraine related to the war with Russia," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said in a report  shared with The Hacker News. Star Blizzard (formerly SEABORGIUM) is a Russia-linked threat activity cluster known for its credential harvesting campaigns. Active since at least 2012, it's also tracked under the monikers Blue Callisto, BlueCharlie (or TAG-53), Calisto (alternately spelled Callisto), COLDRIVER, Dancing Salome, Gossamer Bear, Iron Frontier, TA446, and UNC4057. Previously observed attack ...

You can tell the story of the current state of stolen credential-based attacks in three numbers: Stolen credentials were the #1 attacker action in 2023/24, and the breach vector for 80% of web app attacks . (Source: Verizon). Cybersecurity budgets grew again in 2024, with organizations now spending almost $1,100 per user (Source: Forrester).  Stolen credentials on criminal forums cost as little as $10 (Source: Verizon). Something doesn’t add up. So, what’s going on? In this article, we’ll cover: What’s contributing to the huge rise in account compromises linked to stolen creds and why existing approaches aren’t working.  The world of murky intelligence on stolen credentials, and how to cut through the noise to find the true positives. Recommendations for security teams to stop attackers from using stolen creds to achieve account takeover. Stolen credential-based attacks are on the rise There’s clear evidence that identity attacks are now the #1 cyber threat f...

The North Korea-linked Lazarus Group has been attributed to a new cyber attack campaign dubbed Operation 99 that targeted software developers looking for freelance Web3 and cryptocurrency work to deliver malware. "The campaign begins with fake recruiters, posing on platforms like LinkedIn, luring developers with project tests and code reviews," Ryan Sherstobitoff, senior vice president of Threat Research and Intelligence at SecurityScorecard, said in a new report published today. "Once a victim takes the bait, they're directed to clone a malicious GitLab repository – seemingly harmless, but packed with disaster. The cloned code connects to command-and-control (C2) servers, embedding malware into the victim's environment." Victims of the campaign have been identified across the globe, with a significant concentration recorded in Italy. A lesser number of impacted victims are located in Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico,...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday disclosed that a court-authorized operation allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to delete PlugX malware from over 4,250 infected computers as part of a "multi-month law enforcement operation." PlugX, also known as Korplug, is a remote access trojan (RAT) widely used by threat actors associated with the People's Republic of China (PRC), allowing for information theft and remote control of compromised devices. An affidavit filed by the FBI noted that the identified PlugX variant is linked to a state-sponsored hacking group called Mustang Panda , which is also referred to as BASIN, Bronze President, Camaro Dragon, Earth Preta, HoneyMyte, RedDelta, Red Lich, Stately Taurus, TA416, and Twill Typhoon. "Since at least 2014, Mustang Panda hackers then infiltrated thousands of computer systems in campaigns targeting U.S. victims, as well as European and Asian governments and businesses, and Chinese dissident...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a nascent artificial intelligence (AI) assisted ransomware family called FunkSec that sprang forth in late 2024, and has claimed more than 85 victims to date. "The group uses double extortion tactics, combining data theft with encryption to pressure victims into paying ransoms," Check Point Research said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. "Notably, FunkSec demanded unusually low ransoms, sometimes as little as $10,000, and sold stolen data to third parties at reduced prices." FunkSec launched its data leak site (DLS) in December 2024 to "centralize" their ransomware operations, highlighting breach announcements, a custom tool to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and a bespoke ransomware as part of a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model. A majority of the victims are located in the U.S., India, Italy, Brazil, Israel, Spain, and Mongolia. Check Point's analysis of the group...

Japan's National Police Agency (NPA) and National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NCSC) accused a China-linked threat actor named MirrorFace of orchestrating a persistent attack campaign targeting organizations, businesses, and individuals in the country since 2019. The primary objective of the attack campaign is to steal information related to Japan's national security and advanced technology, the agencies said . MirrorFace, also tracked as Earth Kasha, is assessed to be a sub-group within APT10. It has a track record of systematically striking Japanese entities, often leveraging tools like ANEL, LODEINFO, and NOOPDOOR (aka HiddenFace). Last month, Trend Micro revealed details of a spear-phishing campaign that targeted individuals and organizations in Japan with an aim to deliver ANEL and NOOPDOOR . Other campaigns observed in recent years have also been directed against Taiwan and India. According to NPA and NCSC, attacks mounted by Mirro...

Ransomware isn’t slowing down—it’s getting smarter. Encryption, designed to keep our online lives secure, is now being weaponized by cybercriminals to hide malware, steal data, and avoid detection. The result? A 10.3% surge in encrypted attacks over the past year and some of the most shocking ransom payouts in history, including a $75 million ransom in 2024. Are you prepared to fight back? Join Emily Laufer , Director of Product Marketing at Zscaler, for an eye-opening session, " Preparing for Ransomware and Encrypted Attacks in 2025 " filled with practical insights and cutting-edge strategies to outsmart these evolving threats. What You'll Learn: ThreatLabz Insights: Get the latest findings from Zscaler’s experts on ransomware and encrypted attacks, including the trends making the biggest impact. 2025 Predictions: Find out how ransomware groups are refining their tactics to stay one step ahead—and what you can do to stop them. Encrypted DNS Attacks: Learn how cyb...

Threat actors are attempting to take advantage of a recently disclosed security flaw impacting GFI KerioControl firewalls that, if successfully exploited, could allow malicious actors to achieve remote code execution (RCE). The vulnerability in question, CVE-2024-52875 , refers to a carriage return line feed ( CRLF ) injection attack, paving the way for HTTP response splitting , which could then lead to a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw. Successful exploitation of the 1-click RCE flaw permits an attacker to inject malicious inputs into HTTP response headers by introducing carriage return (\r) and line feed (\n) characters.  The flaw impacts KerioControl versions 9.2.5 through 9.4.5, according to security researcher Egidio Romano, who discovered and reported the flaw in early November 2024. The HTTP response splitting flaws have been uncovered in the following URI paths - /nonauth/addCertException.cs /nonauth/guestConfirm.cs /nonauth/expiration.cs "User input passed ...

Cybersecurity researchers have found that bad actors are continuing to have success by spoofing sender email addresses as part of various malspam campaigns. Faking the sender address of an email is widely seen as an attempt to make the digital missive more legitimate and get past security mechanisms that could otherwise flag it as malicious. While there are safeguards such as DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC), and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) that can be used to prevent spammers from spoofing well-known domains, such measures have increasingly led them to leverage old, neglected domains in their operations. In doing so, the email messages are likely to bypass security checks that rely on the domain age as a means to identify spam. DNS threat intelligence firm Infoblox, in a new analysis shared with The Hacker News, discovered that threat actors, including Muddling Meerkat and others, have abused some of it...