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Diplomatic organizations in Central Asia have been targeted by a sophisticated new Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) bootkit called BlackX . The activity, which singled out diplomatic entities in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in early 2026, is suspected to be orchestrated by a China-linked state-sponsored hacking group known as APT41 , Kaspersky said in a technical report published this week. The primary objective behind deploying the malware is to undermine Microsoft Windows startup defenses, along with third-party security solutions, while maintaining long-term, covert access to compromised devices. Notably, BlackX is assessed to be an updated version of BlackLotus , a notorious bootkit that was first observed being advertised on cybercrime forums in late 2022, before its existence was officially confirmed by ESET in March 2023. BlackLotus is designed to exploit a now-patched Secure Boot bypass vulnerability tracked as CVE-2022-21894 (CVSS score: 4.4...

Ruby has released versions 4.0.9, 3.4.12, and 3.3.13 to fix three bugs in Onigmo, the regular expression engine built into the language. The bugs lie behind four critical security flaws that GitLab patched over the past month. GitLab found that a specially crafted pattern could corrupt memory while Ruby compiles it, potentially leading to code execution on its own servers. Ruby says any application that builds a regular expression from text an attacker controls is affected, not just GitLab. Which Applications Are Affected In  its advisory , Ruby said an application is affected only if it compiles a regular expression from a string an attacker controls. That happens when a program passes such a string to Regexp.new, Regexp.union or Regexp.compile, or places it inside a pattern through interpolation, as in /#{input}/. Applications that only use regular expressions written by their own developers are not affected. Ruby fixed the bugs in 4.0.9, 3.4.12, and 3.3.13. The...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven intrusion ecosystem run by affiliates of the INC and The Gentlemen ransomware groups. Central to the operation is an "Autonomous Red Team Kill Chain Framework" referred to as Phantom. The threat actor is assessed to be Russian-speaking and functions both as an intrusion and data-extortion operator, as well as an infrastructure provider supporting different partners across the ransomware ecosystem. "The operators exploited edge and remote-access systems at scale, including FortiClient EMS, SimpleHelp, cPanel, and VPN gateways," SOCRadar said . "They used AI-managed knowledge bases to track victims, stolen credentials, and campaign progress." A notable aspect that defines the campaign is its "AI-executed, human-approved operating structure" in which a human operator provides a victim-specific prompt and reviews every step, while the intrusions themselves are e...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a large-scale campaign that has targeted exposed network edge devices such as Fortinet FortiGate and Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect firewalls. "Artifacts from this investigation also indicate that operators in this campaign have obtained access to numerous organizations worldwide, and have attempted to further compromise some victims, resulting in persistent remote access and data exfiltration," according to a joint investigation published by Group-IB and NyxLab. The widespread exploitation activity has been attributed to a threat actor known as k0t, who also goes by the aliases CryptoFeel, Member19, and QazWsxShop. The cybercriminal actor was first seen in the wild on October 22, 2025. The threat actor is assessed to share connections with ransomware groups such as Qilin and The Gentlemen, likely operating as an initial access broker or an affiliate. Analysis of the threat actor's dark web activity reveals a k...

PHP has warned of another way an attacker could run code on a web server, two days after it shipped emergency fixes for the critical PHP2Shell flaws. The new issue, assigned CVE-2026-115560 , affects only web applications configured in an unusual way, and PHP considers it an unlikely risk. The project is not issuing an emergency fix for it. Instead, it recommends turning off a feature called session upload progress until a fix is available in the next routine release. The warning came in a short  informational advisory  published on October 23. It follows the October 21  emergency release  that fixed two critical PHP2Shell flaws, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 , which let an attacker without an account run code on a server. Those were patched in PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35. The new issue is separate and is not fixed by those releases. Only a narrow setup is at risk. PHP says the problem can occur when a web application does all of the followi...

Pillow , the most widely used image library for Python, can be made to run operating system commands on a server by specifying the name of a file it is told to open. The flaw,  CVE-2026-112900 , is in the way Pillow handles EPS images, which it opens by passing the file's name to Ghostscript , a separate program it runs to turn the image into pixels, without checking the name first. Ghostscript can read a name chosen by an attacker as instructions rather than as a file, and point it to a second file that carries commands to run. Pillow's maintainers fixed it in  version 13.0.0 , released on October 16. Pillow turns up almost everywhere Python handles images: web upload forms, avatar and thumbnail tools, document and PDF pipelines, and most machine-learning projects pull it in. OX Security, the firm whose report drew attention to the flaws, estimates the library is downloaded  about 436 million times a month . Version 13.0.0 is a large security release, with fixes...

Malicious Brotli data can make an application on an official build of Node.js run attacker-supplied code, security researchers at Imperva have demonstrated. Their " Node2Shell " proof of concept ran code on the official Node.js 24.22.0 image for Linux arm64, with no debugger or custom build, by feeding crafted data to the bundled Brotli decoder ( CVE-2026-111497 ). Node.js disclosed the flaw and  released fixes on October 21 , and applications that decode untrusted Brotli data should update. Imperva's test did not succeed on every attempt, and code execution took several tries in its Linux arm64 setup. The result covers that one build and application setup, with other architectures and the 22.x and 26.x lines not tested. On the fixed release, 24.22.1, the same data was rejected, and no code ran. The demonstration goes beyond the  first public proof of concept , which achieved code execution only on a deliberately weakened test build. On a standard build, that proo...

AI agents paying for API calls with the  x402 SDKs  could sign a payment for their full balance of a supported token if a malicious API asked for it,  security firm V12 said  on October 22. The cause was the SDKs' default client, which set no spending limit until releases on August 18 added one. The risk was limited to agents who automatically signed payments and whose apps set no limits. The missing limit is one of 25 flaws V12 found in the x402 code, and one of three it rated critical and described in detail. The x402 Foundation, which maintains the SDKs, had already fixed all three critical flaws in the August 18 releases. One of the other two let a facilitator, the service that checks x402 payments, accept a Solana transaction that moved no tokens as a valid payment. Among the x402 SDKs, only the TypeScript one had this flaw. The other let a malicious server get an agent to sign a login message for a different website. V12 found the flaws by reviewing t...

Threat actors have been observed unsuccessfully attempting to exploit the newly disclosed PHP2Shell vulnerabilities to rope infected systems into a Mirai botnet variant called Potassium , as it emerges that weaponizing the flaws may be harder than previously thought. The attacks aim to exploit CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 (CVSS scores: 9.2), which can result in unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) via specially crafted HTTP requests. The vulnerabilities have been patched in PHP versions 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35. "However, analysis of the sample revealed that it is an updated and significantly expanded version of the Mirai-derived botnet variant identified in early 2026," Sophos said . "The sample displays downloader and network disruption functionality." ⚡ WARNING — PHP Warns of Another Unpatched RCE Flaw CVE-2026-115560 Specifically, it resolves a hard-coded, encrypted command-and-control (C2) address, establishes a TCP connec...

Attackers are exploiting a zero-day SQL injection flaw in Arista's VeloCloud Orchestrator (VCO), the  central management system  for VeloCloud SD-WAN networks, the company said in an  advisory  on October 22. The flaw lets anyone who can log in to the orchestrator, even with a read-only customer account, gain operator privileges, the top level of control over it. For on-premises orchestrators, the fix is in VCO 5.2.3.18, 6.1.3.10, and 6.4.2.12, while Hosted and Dedicated orchestrators have already been patched. The flaw is tracked as CVE-2026-114625 and rated 9.9 on the CVSS scale. Orchestrators running the releases that fixed the VCO flaws exploited in July and September are still affected, because those releases are older than the new fixes. Arista bought the VeloCloud SD-WAN product line from Broadcom, announcing the deal in July 2025. The products were earlier known as VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud. To exploit the flaw, an attacker needs network acc...

eMudhra , an Indian certificate authority (CA), will withdraw from its global SSL/TLS certificate business,  its board decided on Thursday . The decision came five days after a researcher  reported recovering the private keys  of eight of its intermediate CA certificates. eMudhra said it will replace affected customers' certificates with free ones from partners, though its announcement did not name the partners or provide a date for the exit. Six of those eight were for website (TLS) certificates. Chrome will stop trusting the eMudhra root certificate above them, emSign ECC Root CA - G3. The change is expected to reach users on the morning of October 27, Pacific time. On October 20, Mozilla decided to stop trusting the same root in Firefox. Removing a root from a browser also cuts off legitimate certificates issued beneath it. About 30,800 unexpired certificates chained to that root as of October 21,  by Chrome's count  of public Certificate Transparenc...

This week has already been rough for cybersecurity. Critical PHP and GitLab RCE flaws, serious Linux security bugs , compromised eMudhra certificates , a Node.js RCE flaw , a hacked LiteLLM release, and hundreds of hijacked Tor relays . That's a lot to deal with in just a few days. And the week isn't even over yet. But those big headlines are only half the story. Stolen passwords, exposed databases, broken login checks, and trusted tools being turned against their users are causing trouble too. Some attacks are clever. Others work because someone left a simple security gap open. This ThreatsDay, we're digging into the stories that didn't make as much noise but still deserve attention. Some are strange, some are serious, and a few might surprise you. Here's everything else you shouldn't miss this week. The threats change every week. Subscribe, and we’ll alert you when each new ThreatsDay Bulletin is out.

Linux servers running KSMBD, the kernel's built-in SMB server, are exposed to two publicly reported remote code execution flaws rated 9.0 by  Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative , with no fix yet in the mainline kernel. One of them, ZDI-CAN-33774, can be triggered before any network authentication. The other, ZDI-CAN-33549, requires the SMB Direct transport and an RDMA-capable network interface. ZDI-CAN-33549  is an integer underflow in KSMBD's SMB Direct path. A client can supply RDMA buffer descriptors in which the first is longer than the declared payload, causing the server's size counter to wrap and allowing a subsequent memory copy to overrun the end of an allocated buffer. It requires three things: an RDMA-capable interface (hardware or the rxe software driver), a writable KSMBD share, and a client negotiating SMB Direct. ZDI-CAN-33774  requires no authentication, exposing any server running KSMBD on port 445. The flaw is a race in how KSMBD assign...

A flaw in the OpenCode AI coding agent allowed a malicious or hijacked MCP server to run code on a developer's Windows or WSL machine when the developer signed in. OpenCode connects to MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers to add outside tools, and such code would run with the developer's own access. Anomaly , the company behind OpenCode, fixed the flaw in  version 1.18.33  on September 28. It did not request a CVE or publish a security advisory, so vulnerability scanners will not flag the builds still at risk: 1.0.137 through 1.18.32. During that sign-in, the server itself supplies the web address the user is sent to, an OAuth "authorization endpoint." On Windows and WSL, OpenCode handed that address to a helper that opens it in a browser. The helper built a PowerShell command around the address without escaping it, so an address written to carry a PowerShell command would run that command. The browser step runs only when a developer starts the sign-in, by ru...

Node.js released  security updates  on October 21 for its three supported release lines, 22.x, 24.x and 26.x, fixing 10 flaws. The most serious is a bug in the Brotli decompression code that Node.js bundles, which the project says can allow remote code execution, meaning an attacker could run code of their choosing on the affected system. Each supported line has one fixed version:  22.23.4  and  24.22.1  on the long-term support lines, and  26.12.1  on the current line. Node.js 20.x and earlier have  reached end of life  and will not receive the fix, so they should be moved to a supported line. The Brotli flaw is in code Node.js bundles, not in a user's own program. Node.js runs that code whenever it decompresses Brotli data, either directly through the  node:zlib  module or automatically when code calls fetch() on a response sent with Brotli compression. An application is exposed where it decompresses Brotli data an att...

A remote attacker who has not logged in can crash many HTTP/3 web servers with a single connection, security firm FoxIO  disclosed , releasing working proof-of-concept code. By sending a small batch of compressed HTTP headers that expands in memory to a much larger set, the attacker can force the server to use thousands of times more memory than it received, enough to run a default server out of memory. The flaws cause only denial-of-service attacks, with no evidence of data theft or code execution and no public reports of attacks in the wild. Fixes are out for quic-go, Cloudflare quiche, lsquic and Wireshark, but Bun, the h3 Rust library and aioquic were still unpatched at disclosure. FoxIO found the same class of flaw in seven of ten HTTP/3 stacks it tested. The common cause is in QPACK, the scheme HTTP/3 uses to compress request headers so repeated fields travel as a short code instead of the full text. A server is supposed to cap the size of the headers after it unpack...

Amazon's Threat Intelligence team on Wednesday said it detected an attempt to exploit the newly disclosed PHP2Shell vulnerabilities dating back to October 17, 2026, against its MadPot honeypot service, as the flaws come under broad exploitation in the wild following the release of the patches. "The exploit attempt originated from an IP address associated with a commercial anonymization network," CJ Moses, CISO of Amazon Integrated Security, said in a post shared with The Hacker News. "While the vulnerability was under embargo, the targeting of a honeypot from an anonymized IP address suggests the activity was conducted by a threat actor, though it remains unclear how the actor acquired exploit information prior to disclosure." The attempt, Amazon said, was recorded from " 103.216.220[.]92 ," an IP address geolocated to Australia. An Amazon spokesperson told The Hacker News that the activity was largely a one-off probe. ⚡ WARNING — PHP Warns...

GitLab released fixes on October 21 for a flaw that lets an attacker run code on a self-managed server without logging in, and it affects every version of the software going back to 7.0, released in 2014. The fix matters even for administrators who patched nine days earlier: the October 12 update covered only versions 19.2 and later, and the new fixed versions sit one patch above it, so an instance updated then is in range again. The flaw, tracked as  CVE-2026-110264 , is rated 10.0 on the CVSS scale, the maximum. GitLab says that, under certain conditions, it could allow an unauthenticated user to run arbitrary code on the server due to an integer overflow during the compilation of a specially crafted regular expression. GitLab has not said what those conditions are. The company reports no sign the flaw has been used in attacks, and it is not listed in the U.S. CISA catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities as of October 22. Only self-managed installations need to act. G...

PHP has released emergency updates that fix two critical flaws in the language itself, letting an attacker without an account run code on a web server. The fixes are in PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35, and the PHP team says only updating fully protects a server. The flaws, together called PHP2Shell , sit in the PHP runtime, not in any application, so a site is exposed even when its own code is secure. The risk is highest on servers using Apache's mod_php, where a working exploit triggers the attack before any application code runs. Both flaws are rated 9.2 on the CVSS v4.0 scale and carry the identifiers  CVE-2026-109618  and  CVE-2026-109619 . PHP published them around the scheduled release time of 14:00 UTC on October 21, a day after details leaked ahead of a planned October 22 disclosure. ⚡ WARNING — PHP Warns of Another Unpatched RCE Flaw CVE-2026-115560 Researchers at Wiz, Calif, and OpenAI found and reported the flaws, which affect nearly every ...

You cannot fully block the two critical PHP flaws called PHP2Shell before today's fix, and the one setting being passed around as a workaround is not enough on its own, the security firm that suggested it now says. PHP will release the fix at  14:00 UTC on October 21  for two flaws it rates 9.2 out of 10, and has given no workaround of its own. Until you can install it, what lowers your risk is taking exposed PHP off the internet or behind access controls, cutting what a compromised server can reach, and having the update ready to apply the moment it lands. Cloudflare says it is seeing early attempts to exploit the flaws, and has pushed emergency rules for sites behind it that it calls a stopgap until you patch. No compromise has been confirmed, the public exploit code going around has not been shown to work, and neither flaw is in CISA's catalog of known exploited flaws. PHP has not said which versions are affected, which part of PHP is involved, or whether any setting ...