Vulnerability | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Thursday. Another week, another batch of things that probably should've been caught sooner but weren't. This one's got some range — old vulnerabilities getting new life, a few "why was that even possible" moments, attackers leaning on platforms and tools you'd normally trust without thinking twice. Quiet escalations more than loud zero-days, but the kind that matter more in practice anyway. Mix of malware, infrastructure exposure, AI-adjacent weirdness, and some supply chain stuff that's... not great. Let's get into it. Resilient hybrid botnet surge Phorpiex Botnet Detailed A new variant of the botnet known as Phorpiex (aka Trik) has been observed, using a hybrid communication model that combines traditional C2 HTTP polling with a peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol over both TCP and UDP to ensure operational continuity in the face of server takedowns. The malware acts as a conduit for encrypted payloads, ma...

Threat actors have been exploiting a previously unknown zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Reader using maliciously crafted PDF documents since at least December 2025. The finding, detailed by EXPMON's Haifei Li, has been described as a highly-sophisticated PDF exploit. The artifact ("Invoice540.pdf") first appeared on the VirusTotal platform on November 28, 2025. A second sample was uploaded to VirusTotal on March 23, 2026. Given the name of the PDF document, it's likely that there is an element of social engineering involved, with the attackers luring unsuspecting users into opening the files on Adobe Reader. Once launched, it automatically triggers the execution of obfuscated JavaScript to harvest sensitive data and receive additional payloads. Security researcher Gi7w0rm, in an X post , said the PDF documents observed contain Russian language lures and refer to issues regarding current events related to the oil and gas industry i...

Cybersecurity researchers have lifted the curtain on a stealthy botnet that's designed for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Called Masjesu , the botnet has been advertised via Telegram as a DDoS-for-hire service since it first surfaced in 2023. It's capable of targeting a wide range of IoT devices, such as routers and gateways, spanning multiple architectures. "Built for persistence and low visibility, Masjesu favors careful, low-key execution over widespread infection, deliberately avoiding blocklisted IP ranges such as those belonging to the Department of Defense (DoD) to ensure long-term survival," Trellix security researcher Mohideen Abdul Khader F said in a Tuesday report. It's worth noting that the commercial offering also goes by the moniker XorBot owing to its use of XOR-based encryption to conceal strings, configurations, and payload data. It was first documented by Chinese security vendor NSFOCUS in December 2023, linking it to an ope...

The Russian threat actor known as APT28 (aka Forest Blizzard and Pawn Storm) has been linked to a fresh spear-phishing campaign targeting Ukraine and its allies to deploy a previously undocumented malware suite codenamed PRISMEX . "PRISMEX combines advanced steganography, component object model (COM) hijacking, and legitimate cloud service abuse for command-and-control," Trend Micro researchers Feike Hacquebord and Hiroyuki Kakara said in a technical report. The campaign is believed to be active since at least  September 2025. The activity has targeted various sectors in Ukraine, including central executive bodies, hydrometeorology, defense, and emergency services, as well as rail logistics (Poland), maritime and transportation (Romania, Slovenia, Turkey), and logistical support partners involved in ammunition initiatives (Slovakia, Czech Republic), and military and NATO partners. The campaign is notable for the rapid weaponization of newly disclosed ...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) company Anthropic announced a new cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing  that will use a preview version of its new frontier model, Claude Mythos , to find and address security vulnerabilities. The model will be used by a small set of organizations, including Amazon Web Services, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorgan Chase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Palo Alto Networks, along with Anthropic, to secure critical software. The company said it's forming this initiative in response to capabilities observed in its general-purpose frontier model that demonstrate a "level of coding capability where they can surpass all but the most skilled humans at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities." Because of its cybersecurity capabilities and concerns that they could be abused, Anthropic has opted not to make the model generall...