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A new malware family is turning forgotten home routers into a distributed reconnaissance and proxy network, not the DDoS botnet these devices usually end up in. QiAnXin's  XLab  calls it AryStinger and counts at least 4,300 infected routers, a total it says is still rising. The distinction matters. AryStinger exists for the stage of an attack that comes before the break-in. Infected devices scan the internet, fingerprint services, enumerate subdomains, tunnel traffic, and run commands on demand, then ship the results back to the operator. Each router becomes a footprinting node and a relay that hides where the real attacker is. Old chips, older bugs The campaign goes after routers built on Realtek's RTL819X chips, hardware that was current around 2012 to 2015. XLab first saw it on March 12, 2026, spreading from a single IP, 107.150.106.14. The binary it pushed was a Linux ELF that no engine on VirusTotal flagged, exploiting two flaws from another era: CVE-2013-3307 ...

Threat actors are exploiting a recently patched security flaw impacting Gravity SMTP, a WordPress plugin that's installed on about 100,000 sites. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-4020 (CVSS score: 5.3), is a medium-severity information disclosure flaw that can allow unauthenticated attackers to extract sensitive data, such as configuration data, API keys, secrets, and OAuth tokens configured for the plugin's email integrations. "This is due to a REST API endpoint registered at /wp-json/gravitysmtp/v1/tests/mock-data with a permission_callback that unconditionally returns true, allowing any unauthenticated visitor to access it," Wordfence said . "When the ?page=gravitysmtp-settings query parameter is appended, the plugin's register_connector_data() method populates internal connector data, causing the endpoint to return approximately 365 KB of JSON containing the full System Report." As a result, an unauthenticated attacker can weaponize ...

Microsoft researchers have detailed an exploit chain, named  AutoJack , that turns an AI browsing agent into a delivery vehicle for remote code execution. Steer the agent to load an attacker's web page, and that page's JavaScript can reach a privileged local service on the same machine and spawn a process on the host. No credentials, no sign-in screen, and no further user interaction once the agent loads the page. The attacker only has to get the agent to open it, and a planted link, a URL field, or a prompt injection will do. The flaw sits in  AutoGen Studio , the open-source prototyping interface for Microsoft Research's AutoGen multi-agent framework. This is not a bug that hits everyone who installs the package, and the packaging detail is worth getting right. A plain pip install autogenstudio pulls the current stable release, 0.4.2.2, the build Microsoft inspected, and it has no Model Context Protocol (MCP) route at all. That is the basis for Microsoft...

Apple has updated its Beats Studio Buds wireless earbuds to patch a high-severity vulnerability that could be exploited by nearby hackers to eavesdrop on users. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-20701 (CVSS score: 8.8), refers to a case of incorrect authorization impacting the Airoha Bluetooth audio SDK that makes it possible to pair a Bluetooth audio device without user consent. Successful exploitation of the flaw could lead to remote escalation of privilege without requiring any additional execution privileges or user interaction. The issue has been addressed in Beats Firmware Update 1B211. "An attacker within Bluetooth range may be able to listen through the microphone of a device which is not yet paired and actively seeking pair requests," Apple said in an advisory released this week. Details of the vulnerability first emerged in June 2025 when ERNW GmbH researchers Dennis Heinze and Frieder Steinmetz flagged it alongside two other flaws in Airoha SoCs...

F5 has released security updates to address two critical security flaws in NGINX Open Source that could be exploited to achieve code execution on affected systems. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2026-42530 (CVSS v4 score: 9.2) - A use-after-free vulnerability in the ngx_http_v3_module that could be triggered by a remote unauthenticated attacker when NGINX Open Source is configured to use the HTTP/3 QUIC module to reopen a QPACK encoder stream by means of a specially crafted HTTP/3 session, and execute code on systems with Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) disabled or when the attacker can bypass ASLR. CVE-2026-42055 (CVSS v4 score: 9.2) - A heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the ngx_http_proxy_v2_module and ngx_http_grpc_module modules that could be triggered by a remote unauthenticated attacker when the proxy_http_version to 2 or grpc_pass directives are used to proxy HTTP/2 traffic, the ignore_invalid_headers directive is set to off, and the ...