Vulnerability | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has ordered Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to strengthen asset lifecycle management for edge network devices and remove those that no longer receive security updates from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) over the next 12 to 18 months. The agency said the move is to drive down technical debt and minimize the risk of compromise, as state-sponsored threat actors turn such devices as a preferred access pathway for breaking into target networks. Edge devices is an umbrella term that encompasses load balancers, firewalls, routers, switches, wireless access points, network security appliances, Internet of Things (IoT) edge devices, software-defined networks, and other physical or virtual networking components that route network traffic and hold privileged access. "Persistent cyber threat actors are increasingly exploiting unsupported edge devices -- hardware and software that no longer receiv...

Artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic revealed that its latest large language model (LLM), Claude Opus 4.6, has found more than 500 previously unknown high-severity security flaws in open-source libraries, including Ghostscript , OpenSC , and CGIF . Claude Opus 4.6, which was launched Thursday, comes with improved coding skills, including code review and debugging capabilities, along with enhancements to tasks like financial analyses, research, and document creation. Stating that the model is "notably better" at discovering high-severity vulnerabilities without requiring any task-specific tooling, custom scaffolding, or specialized prompting, Anthropic said it is putting it to use to find and help fix vulnerabilities in open-source software. "Opus 4.6 reads and reasons about code the way a human researcher would—looking at past fixes to find similar bugs that weren't addressed, spotting patterns that tend to cause problems, or understanding a piece of...

This week didn’t produce one big headline. It produced many small signals — the kind that quietly shape what attacks will look like next. Researchers tracked intrusions that start in ordinary places: developer workflows, remote tools, cloud access, identity paths, and even routine user actions. Nothing looked dramatic on the surface. That’s the point. Entry is becoming less visible while impact scales later. Several findings also show how attackers are industrializing their work — shared infrastructure, repeatable playbooks, rented access, and affiliate-style ecosystems. Operations are no longer isolated campaigns. They run more like services. This edition pulls those fragments together — short, precise updates that show where techniques are maturing, where exposure is widening, and what patterns are forming behind the noise. Startup espionage expansion Operation Nomad Leopard Targets Afghanistan In a sign that the threat actor has moved beyond government targets, th...

The elusive Iranian threat group known as Infy (aka Prince of Persia) has evolved its tactics as part of efforts to hide its tracks, even as it readied new command-and-control (C2) infrastructure coinciding with the end of the widespread internet blackout the regime imposed at the start of January 2026. "The threat actor stopped maintaining its C2 servers on January 8 for the first time since we began monitoring their activities," Tomer Bar, vice president of security research at SafeBreach, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This was the same day a country-wide internet shutdown was imposed by Iranian authorities in response to recent protests, which likely suggests that even government-affiliated cyber units did not have the ability or motivation to carry out malicious activities within Iran." The cybersecurity company said it observed renewed activity on January 26, 2026, as the hacking crew set up new C2 servers, one day before the Iranian gov...

A new, critical security vulnerability has been disclosed in the n8n workflow automation platform that, if successfully exploited, could result in the execution of arbitrary system commands. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-25049 (CVSS score: 9.4), is the result of inadequate sanitization that bypasses safeguards put in place to address CVE-2025-68613 (CVSS score: 9.9), another critical defect that was patched by n8n in December 2025. "Additional exploits in the expression evaluation of n8n have been identified and patched following CVE-2025-68613," n8n's maintainers said in an advisory released Wednesday. "An authenticated user with permission to create or modify workflows could abuse crafted expressions in workflow parameters to trigger unintended system command execution on the host running n8n." The issue affects the following versions - <1.123.17 (Fixed in 1.123.17) <2.5.2 (Fixed in 2.5.2)

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of an active web traffic hijacking campaign that has targeted NGINX installations and management panels like Baota (BT) in an attempt to route it through the attacker's infrastructure. Datadog Security Labs said it observed threat actors associated with the recent React2Shell ( CVE-2025-55182 , CVSS score: 10.0) exploitation using malicious NGINX configurations to pull off the attack. "The malicious configuration intercepts legitimate web traffic between users and websites and routes it through attacker-controlled backend servers," security researcher Ryan Simon said. "The campaign targets Asian TLDs (.in, .id, .pe, .bd, .th), Chinese hosting infrastructure (Baota Panel), and government and educational TLDs (.edu, .gov)." The activity involves the use of shell scripts to inject malicious configurations into NGINX, an open-source reverse proxy and load balancer for web traffic management. These "locatio...

Threat actors affiliated with China have been attributed to a fresh set of cyber espionage campaigns targeting government and law enforcement agencies across Southeast Asia throughout 2025. Check Point Research is tracking the previously undocumented activity cluster under the moniker Amaranth-Dragon , which it said shares links to the APT 41 ecosystem. Targeted countries include Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines. "Many of the campaigns were timed to coincide with sensitive local political developments, official government decisions, or regional security events," the cybersecurity company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "By anchoring malicious activity in familiar, timely contexts, the attackers significantly increased the likelihood that targets would engage with the content." The Israeli firm added that the attacks were "narrowly focused" and "tightly scoped," indicating efforts on the part o...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added a critical security flaw impacting SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, flagging it as actively exploited in attacks. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-40551 (CVSS score: 9.8), is a untrusted data deserialization vulnerability that could pave the way for remote code execution. "SolarWinds Web Help Desk contains a deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability that could lead to remote code execution, which would allow an attacker to run commands on the host machine," CISA said. "This could be exploited without authentication." SolarWinds issued fixes for the flaw last week, along with CVE-2025-40536 (CVSS score: 8.1), CVE-2025-40537 (CVSS score: 7.5), CVE-2025-40552 (CVSS score: 9.8), CVE-2025-40553 (CVSS score: 9.8), and CVE-2025-40554 (CVSS score: 9.8), in WHD version 2026.1. There are currently no public reports about ...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a now-patched security flaw impacting Ask Gordon , an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant built into Docker Desktop and the Docker Command-Line Interface (CLI), that could be exploited to execute code and exfiltrate sensitive data. The critical vulnerability has been codenamed DockerDash by cybersecurity company Noma Labs. It was addressed by Docker with the release of version 4.50.0 in November 2025. "In DockerDash, a single malicious metadata label in a Docker image can be used to compromise your Docker environment through a simple three-stage attack: Gordon AI reads and interprets the malicious instruction, forwards it to the MCP [Model Context Protocol] Gateway, which then executes it through MCP tools," Sasi Levi, security research lead at Noma, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Every stage happens with zero validation, taking advantage of current agents and MCP Gateway architecture." ...

Threat actors have been observed exploiting a critical security flaw impacting the Metro Development Server in the popular "@react-native-community/cli" npm package. Cybersecurity company VulnCheck said it first observed exploitation of CVE-2025-11953 (aka Metro4Shell) on December 21, 2025. With a CVSS score of 9.8, the vulnerability allows remote unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary operating system commands on the underlying host. Details of the flaw were first documented by JFrog in November 2025. Despite more than a month after initial exploitation in the wild, the "activity has yet to see broad public acknowledgment," it added. In the attack detected against its honeypot network, the threat actors have weaponized the flaw to deliver a Base64-encoded PowerShell script that, once parsed, is configured to perform a series of actions, including Microsoft Defender Antivirus exclusions for the current working directory and the temporary folder (...

The Russia-linked state-sponsored threat actor known as APT28 (aka UAC-0001) has been attributed to attacks exploiting a newly disclosed security flaw in Microsoft Office as part of a campaign codenamed Operation Neusploit . Zscaler ThreatLabz said it observed the hacking group weaponizing the shortcoming on January 29, 2026, in attacks targeting users in Ukraine, Slovakia, and Romania, three days after Microsoft publicly disclosed the existence of the bug. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-21509 (CVSS score: 7.8), a security feature bypass in Microsoft Office that could allow an unauthorized attacker to send a specially crafted Office file and trigger it. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC), Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), and Office Product Group Security Team, along with Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), have been credited with discovering and reporting the flaw. "Social engineering lures were crafted in both English and localized ...

A high-severity security flaw has been disclosed in OpenClaw (formerly referred to as Clawdbot and Moltbot) that could allow remote code execution (RCE) through a crafted malicious link. The issue, which is tracked as CVE-2026-25253 (CVSS score: 8.8), has been addressed in version 2026.1.29 released on January 30, 2026. It has been described as a token exfiltration vulnerability that leads to full gateway compromise. "The Control UI trusts gatewayUrl from the query string without validation and auto-connects on load, sending the stored gateway token in the WebSocket connect payload," OpenClaw's creator and maintainer Peter Steinberger said in an advisory. "Clicking a crafted link or visiting a malicious site can send the token to an attacker-controlled server. The attacker can then connect to the victim's local gateway, modify config (sandbox, tool policies), and invoke privileged actions, achieving 1-click RCE."

Every week brings new discoveries, attacks, and defenses that shape the state of cybersecurity. Some threats are stopped quickly, while others go unseen until they cause real damage. Sometimes a single update, exploit, or mistake changes how we think about risk and protection. Every incident shows how defenders adapt — and how fast attackers try to stay ahead. This week’s recap brings you the key moments that matter most, in one place, so you can stay informed and ready for what’s next. ⚡ Threat of the Week Google Disrupts IPIDEA Residential Proxy Network — Google has crippled IPIDEA, a massive residential proxy network consisting of user devices that are being used as the last-mile link in cyberattack chains. According to the tech giant, not only do these networks permit bad actors to conceal their malicious traffic, but they also open up users who enroll their devices to further attacks. Residential IP addresses in the U.S., Canada, and Europe were seen as the most desirable. ...

SmarterTools has addressed two more security flaws in SmarterMail email software, including one critical security flaw that could result in arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-24423 , carries a CVSS score of 9.3 out of 10.0. "SmarterTools SmarterMail versions prior to build 9511 contain an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in the ConnectToHub API method," according to a description of the flaw in CVE.org. "The attacker could point the SmarterMail to the malicious HTTP server, which serves the malicious OS [operating system] command. This command will be executed by the vulnerable application." watchTowr researchers Sina Kheirkhah and Piotr Bazydlo, CODE WHITE GmbH's Markus Wulftange , and VulnCheck's Cale Black have been credited with discovering and reporting the vulnerability. The security hole has been addressed in version Build 9511, released on January 15, 2026. The same build also patches another ...

Ivanti has rolled out security updates to address two security flaws impacting Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) that have been exploited in zero-day attacks, one of which has been added by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency ( CISA ) to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. The critical-severity vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2026-1281 (CVSS score: 9.8) - A code injection allowing attackers to achieve unauthenticated remote code execution CVE-2026-1340 (CVSS score: 9.8) - A code injection allowing attackers to achieve unauthenticated remote code execution They affect the following versions - EPMM 12.5.0.0 and prior, 12.6.0.0 and prior, and 12.7.0.0 and prior (Fixed in RPM 12.x.0.x) EPMM 12.5.1.0 and prior and 12.6.1.0 and prior (Fixed in RPM 12.x.1.x) However, it bears noting that the RPM patch does not survive a version upgrade and must be reapplied if the appliance is upgraded to a new version. The vulnerabilities will...

This week’s updates show how small changes can create real problems. Not loud incidents, but quiet shifts that are easy to miss until they add up. The kind that affects systems people rely on every day. Many of the stories point to the same trend: familiar tools being used in unexpected ways. Security controls are being worked on. Trusted platforms turning into weak spots. What looks routine on the surface often isn’t. There’s no single theme driving everything — just steady pressure across many fronts. Access, data, money, and trust are all being tested at once, often without clear warning signs. This edition pulls together those signals in short form, so you can see what’s changing before it becomes harder to ignore. Major cybercrime forum takedown FBI Seizes RAMP Forum The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has seized the notorious RAMP cybercrime forum. Visitors to the forum's Tor site and its clearnet domain, ramp4u...

SolarWinds has released security updates to address multiple security vulnerabilities impacting SolarWinds Web Help Desk, including four critical vulnerabilities that could result in authentication bypass and remote code execution (RCE). The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2025-40536 (CVSS score: 8.1) - A security control bypass vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to gain access to certain restricted functionality CVE-2025-40537 (CVSS score: 7.5) - A hard-coded credentials vulnerability that could allow access to administrative functions using the "client" user account CVE-2025-40551 (CVSS score: 9.8) - An untrusted data deserialization vulnerability that could lead to remote code execution, which would allow an unauthenticated attacker to run commands on the host machine CVE-2025-40552 (CVSS score: 9.8) - An authentication bypass vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute actions and methods CVE-202...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed two new security flaws in the n8n workflow automation platform, including a crucial vulnerability that could result in remote code execution. The weaknesses, discovered by the JFrog Security Research team, are listed below - CVE-2026-1470 (CVSS score: 9.9) - An eval injection vulnerability that could allow an authenticated user to bypass the Expression sandbox mechanism and achieve full remote code execution on n8n's main node by passing specially crafted JavaScript code CVE-2026-0863 (CVSS score: 8.5) - An eval injection vulnerability that could allow an authenticated user to bypass n8n's python-task-executor sandbox restrictions and run arbitrary Python code on the underlying operating system Shachar Menashe, JFrog's vice president of security research, told The Hacker news that one of the reasons for CVE-2026-1470's high CVSS score despite requiring authentication is that "any user of n8n can exploit this issu...

A critical sandbox escape vulnerability has been disclosed in the popular vm2 Node.js library that, if successfully exploited, could allow attackers to run arbitrary code on the underlying operating system. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-22709 , carries a CVSS score of 9.8 out of 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. "In vm2 for version 3.10.0, Promise.prototype.then Promise.prototype.catch callback sanitization can be bypassed," vm2 maintainer Patrik Simek said . "This allows attackers to escape the sandbox and run arbitrary code." vm2 is a Node.js library used to run untrusted code within a secure sandboxed environment by intercepting and proxying JavaScript objects to prevent sandboxed code from accessing the host environment. The newly discovered flaw stems from the library's improper sanitization of Promise handlers , which creates an escape vector that results in the execution of arbitrary code outside the sandbox boundaries. "The critical...

Google on Tuesday revealed that multiple threat actors, including nation-state adversaries and financially motivated groups, are exploiting a now-patched critical security flaw in RARLAB WinRAR to establish initial access and deploy a diverse array of payloads. "Discovered and patched in July 2025, government-backed threat actors linked to Russia and China as well as financially motivated threat actors continue to exploit this n-day across disparate operations," the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said . "The consistent exploitation method, a path traversal flaw allowing files to be dropped into the Windows Startup folder for persistence, underscores a defensive gap in fundamental application security and user awareness." The vulnerability in question is CVE-2025-8088 (CVSS score: 8.8), which was patched by WinRAR version 7.13 released on July 30, 2025. Successful exploitation of the flaw could allow an attacker to obtain arbitrary code execution by c...