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The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added a maximum-severity security flaw impacting Widget Factory Joomla Content Editor (JCE) to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-48907 (CVSS score: 10.0), is a case of improper access control that could facilitate arbitrary code execution. "Widget Factory Joomla Content Editor contains an improper access control vulnerability which could allow for upload and execution of PHP code via the creation of new editor profiles for unauthenticated users," CISA said . According to a description of the vulnerability published on CVE.org, the issue resides in the JCE editor extension for Joomla, allowing a bad actor to create new editor profiles for unauthenticated users, effectively paving the way for PHP code upload and execution. The issue impacts JCE versions from 1.0.0 through 2.9.99.4. It has been pa...

An attacker tampered with trusted JavaScript files used by WordPress sites running PushEngage , OptinMonster , and TrustPulse , turning those files into a way to break into the sites. When a site administrator was logged in as the file loaded, the code created an admin account under the attacker's control and installed a hidden plugin that opened a way back in. Ordinary visitors did not trigger it. Any site that was hit should be treated as compromised. All three plugins are run by one company, Awesome Motive, which had not commented on the two larger plugins as of June 15. Security firm Sansec disclosed the wider campaign on June 13, finding the same malicious code in JavaScript served for all three plugins. PushEngage followed a day later with its own incident notice , confirming an attacker had served tampered copies of its script and that sites loading them could be taken over. PushEngage, acquired by Awesome Motive years ago, is so far the only one of the three to ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a previously unreported threat cluster dubbed OP-512 (where "OP" stands for "opponent") that has been observed targeting Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) servers to deploy a bespoke web shell framework. ReliaQuest has assessed with moderate to high confidence that the espionage-focused activity is linked to China. "OP-512 was highly likely conducting espionage through a compromised Internet Information Services (IIS) web server on an organization whose sector and geography align with China-linked intelligence priorities," the company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Although no overlaps have been found between OP-512 and other known China-aligned adversaries, it's the fourth such threat group after CL-STA-0048 , DragonRank , and GhostRedirector to single out IIS web servers over the past 12 months. As recently as last month, Cisco Talos revealed that multiple Chinese-speaking...

A now-patched high-severity security flaw affecting Digital Knowledge KnowledgeDeliver , a Learning Management System (LMS) popular in Japan, was exploited as a zero-day to deliver the Godzilla web shell and ultimately facilitate the deployment of Cobalt Strike Beacon. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-5426 (CVSS score: 7.5), stems from the use of hard-coded ASP.NET machine keys, leading to unauthenticated remote code execution via a ViewState deserialization attack. The abuse of publicly disclosed ASP.NET machine keys by threat actors was first documented by Microsoft in February 2025. "An unknown threat actor leveraged this access to inject malicious code into the LMS platform, with the goal of infecting users visiting the site," Google Mandiant and Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said . The security flaw impacted Digital Knowledge KnowledgeDeliver deployments prior to February 24, 2026. It's worth noting that similar vulnerabilities in Sitecore Ex...

A newly disclosed security flaw impacting NGINX Plus and NGINX Open has come under active exploitation in the wild, days after its public disclosure, according to VulnCheck . The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-42945 (CVSS score: 9.2), is a heap buffer overflow in ngx_http_rewrite_module affecting NGINX versions 0.6.27 through 1.30.0. According to AI-native security company depthfirst, the vulnerability was introduced in 2008. Successful exploitation of the flaw can permit an unauthenticated attacker to crash worker processes or execute remote code with crafted HTTP requests. However, it bears noting that code execution is possible only on devices where Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), a safeguard against memory-based attacks, is turned off.

The U.S.Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday added a newly disclosed vulnerability impacting Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to remediate the issue by May 17, 2026. The vulnerability is a critical authentication bypass tracked as CVE-2026-20182 . It's rated 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system, indicating maximum severity. "Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller and Manager contain an authentication bypass vulnerability that allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and obtain administrative privileges on an affected system," CISA said . In a separate advisory, Cisco attributed the active exploitation of CVE-2026-20182 with high confidence to UAT-8616 , the same cluster behind the weaponization of CVE-2026-20127 to gain unauthorized access to SD-WAN systems. "UAT-8616 performed similar post-compromise ...

Threat actors are increasingly using HTTP cookies as a control channel for PHP-based web shells on Linux servers and to achieve remote code execution, according to findings from the Microsoft Defender Security Research Team. "Instead of exposing command execution through URL parameters or request bodies, these web shells rely on threat actor-supplied cookie values to gate execution, pass instructions, and activate malicious functionality," the tech giant said . The approach offers added stealth as it allows malicious code to stay dormant during normal application execution and activate the web shell logic only when specific cookie values are present. This behavior, Microsoft noted, extends to web requests, scheduled tasks, and trusted background workers. The malicious activity takes advantage of the fact that cookie values are available at runtime through the $_COOKIE superglobal variable, allowing attacker-supplied inputs to be consumed with...

The Shadowserver Foundation has revealed that over 900 Sangoma FreePBX instances still remain infected with web shells as part of attacks that exploited a command injection vulnerability starting in December 2025. Of these, 401 instances are located in the U.S., followed by 51 in Brazil, 43 in Canada, 40 in Germany, and 36 in France. The non-profit entity said the compromises are likely accomplished via the exploitation of CVE-2025-64328 (CVSS score: 8.6), a high-severity security flaw that could enable post-authentication command injection. "The impact is that any user with access to the FreePBX Administration panel could leverage this vulnerability to execute arbitrary shell commands on the underlying host," FreePBX said in an advisory for the flaw in November 2025. "An attacker could leverage this to obtain remote access to the system as the asterisk user." Security researcher M. Cory Billington, who is credited with discovering and reporting the vulnera...

Threat actors have been observed exploiting a recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting BeyondTrust Remote Support (RS) and Privileged Remote Access (PRA) products to conduct a wide range of malicious actions, including deploying VShell and Spark RAT. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-1731 (CVSS score: 9.9), allows attackers to execute operating system commands in the context of the site user. In a report published Thursday, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said it detected the security flaw being actively exploited in the wild for network reconnaissance, web shell deployment, command-and-control (C2), backdoor and remote management tool installs, lateral movement, and data theft. The campaign has targeted financial services, legal services, high technology, higher education, wholesale and retail, and healthcare sectors across the U.S., France, Germany, Australia, and Canada. The cybersecurity company described the vulnerability as a case of sanitization failure that ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new campaign attributed to a China-linked threat actor known as UAT-8099 that took place between late 2025 and early 2026. The activity, discovered by Cisco Talos, has targeted vulnerable Internet Information Services (IIS) servers located across Asia, but with a specific focus on targets in Thailand and Vietnam. The scale of the campaign is currently unknown. "UAT-8099 uses web shells and PowerShell to execute scripts and deploy the GotoHTTP tool, granting the threat actor remote access to vulnerable IIS servers," security researcher Joey Chen said in a Thursday breakdown of the campaign. UAT-8099 was first documented by the cybersecurity company in October 2025, detailing the threat actor's exploitation of IIS servers in India, Thailand, Vietnam, Canada, and Brazil to facilitate search engine optimization (SEO) fraud. The attacks involve infecting the servers with a known malware referred to as BadIIS. The hacking gro...

Threat actors with ties to China have been attributed to a novel campaign that compromised an ArcGIS system and turned it into a backdoor for more than a year. The activity, per ReliaQuest, is the handiwork of a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group called Flax Typhoon , which is also tracked as Ethereal Panda and RedJuliett. According to the U.S. government, it's assessed to be a publicly-traded, Beijing-based company known as Integrity Technology Group. "The group cleverly modified a geo-mapping application's Java server object extension (SOE) into a functioning web shell," the cybersecurity company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "By gating access with a hardcoded key for exclusive control and embedding it in system backups, they achieved deep, long-term persistence that could survive a full system recovery." Flax Typhoon is known for living up to the "stealth" in its tradecraft by extensively incorporating living-off-the-l...

CrowdStrike on Monday said it's attributing the exploitation of a recently disclosed security flaw in Oracle E-Business Suite with moderate confidence to a threat actor it tracks as Graceful Spider (aka Cl0p ), and that the first known exploitation occurred on August 9, 2025. The malicious activity involves the exploitation of CVE-2025-61882 (CVSS score: 9.8), a critical vulnerability that facilitates remote code execution without authentication. The cybersecurity company also noted that it's currently not known how a Telegram channel "insinuating" collaboration between Scattered Spider, LAPSUS$ (aka Slippy Spider), and ShinyHunters came into the possession of an exploit for the flaw, and if they and other threat actors have leveraged it in real-world attacks. The Telegram channel has been observed sharing the purported Oracle EBS exploit, while criticizing Graceful Spider's tactics. It's worth noting that the binaries dropped by the Cl0p actors contain...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning campaign likely undertaken by a Chinese-speaking threat actor using a malware called BadIIS in attacks targeting East and Southeast Asia, particularly with a focus on Vietnam. The activity, dubbed Operation Rewrite , is being tracked by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 under the moniker CL-UNK-1037, where "CL" stands for cluster and "UNK" refers to unknown motivation. The threat actor has been found to share infrastructure and architectural overlaps with an entity referred to as Group 9 by ESET and DragonRank . "To perform SEO poisoning, attackers manipulate search engine results to trick people into visiting unexpected or unwanted websites (e.g., gambling and porn websites) for financial gain," security researcher Yoav Zemah said . "This attack used a malicious native Internet Information Services ( IIS ) module called BadIIS." BadIIS is designed to i...

The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) has warned of cyber attacks exploiting a recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting Citrix NetScaler ADC products to breach organizations in the country. The NCSC-NL said it discovered the exploitation of CVE-2025-6543 targeting several critical organizations within the Netherlands, and that investigations are ongoing to determine the extent of the impact. CVE-2025-6543 (CVSS score: 9.2) is a critical security vulnerability in NetScaler ADC that results in unintended control flow and denial-of-service (DoS) when the devices are configured as a Gateway (VPN virtual server, ICA Proxy, CVPN, RDP Proxy) OR AAA virtual server. The vulnerability was first disclosed in late June 2025, with patches released in the following versions - NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 14.1 prior to 14.1-47.46 NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.1 prior to 13.1-59.19 NetScaler ADC 13.1-FIPS and NDcPP prior to 13.1-37.236-FIPS and NDcPP ...

Microsoft has formally tied the exploitation of security flaws in internet-facing SharePoint Server instances to two Chinese hacking groups called Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as early as July 7, 2025 , corroborating earlier reports. The tech giant said it also observed a third China-based threat actor, which it tracks as Storm-2603, weaponizing the flaws as well to obtain initial access to target organizations. "With the rapid adoption of these exploits, Microsoft assesses with high confidence that threat actors will continue to integrate them into their attacks against unpatched on-premises SharePoint systems," the tech giant said in a report published today. A brief description of the threat activity clusters is below - Linen Typhoon (aka APT27 , Bronze Union, Emissary Panda, Iodine, Lucky Mouse, Red Phoenix, and UNC215), which is active since 2012 and has been previously attributed to malware families like SysUpdate, HyperBro, and PlugX Violet Typhoon (aka ...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed three security flaws in the popular Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) that could be chained to achieve pre-authenticated remote code execution. Sitecore Experience Platform is an enterprise-oriented software that provides users with tools for content management, digital marketing, and analytics and reports. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2025-34509 (CVSS score: 8.2) - Use of hard-coded credentials CVE-2025-34510 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Post-authenticated remote code execution via path traversal CVE-2025-34511 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Post-authenticated remote code execution via Sitecore PowerShell Extension watchTowr Labs researcher Piotr Bazydlo said the default user account "sitecore\ServicesAPI" has a single-character password that's hard-coded to " b ." In its documentation, Sitecore advises customers against changing default user account credentials. While the user has no roles and permission...

A Chinese-speaking threat actor tracked as UAT-6382 has been linked to the exploitation of a now-patched remote-code-execution vulnerability in Trimble Cityworks to deliver Cobalt Strike and VShell. "UAT-6382 successfully exploited CVE-2025-0944, conducted reconnaissance, and rapidly deployed a variety of web shells and custom-made malware to maintain long-term access," Cisco Talos researchers Asheer Malhotra and Brandon White said in an analysis published today. "Upon gaining access, UAT-6382 expressed a clear interest in pivoting to systems related to utility management." The network security company said it observed the attacks targeting enterprise networks of local governing bodies in the United States starting January 2025. CVE-2025-0944 (CVSS score: 8.6) refers to the deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability affecting the GIS-centric asset management software that could enable remote code execution. The vulnerability, since patched, was added to ...

Cybersecurity researchers are warning about a large-scale phishing campaign targeting WooCommerce users with a fake security alert urging them to download a "critical patch" but deploy a backdoor instead. WordPress security company Patchstack described the activity as sophisticated and a variant of another campaign observed in December 2023 that employed a fake CVE ploy to breach sites running the popular content management system (CMS). Given the similarities in the phishing email lures, the bogus web pages, and the identical methods employed to conceal the malware, it's believed the latest attack wave is either the work of the same threat actor or it's a new cluster closely mimicking the earlier one. "They claim the targeted websites are impacted by a (non-existent) 'Unauthenticated Administrative Access' vulnerability, and they urge you to visit their phishing website, which uses an IDN homograph attack to disguise itself as the official WooComm...

Threat actors are likely exploiting a new vulnerability in SAP NetWeaver to upload JSP web shells with the goal of facilitating unauthorized file uploads and code execution.  "The exploitation is likely tied to either a previously disclosed vulnerability like CVE-2017-9844 or an unreported remote file inclusion (RFI) issue," ReliaQuest said in a report published this week. The cybersecurity company said the possibility of a zero-day stems from the fact that several of the impacted systems were already running the latest patches. The flaw is assessed to be rooted in the "/developmentserver/metadatauploader" endpoint in the NetWeaver environment, enabling unknown threat actors to upload malicious JSP-based web shells in the "servlet_jsp/irj/root/" path for persistent remote access and deliver additional payloads. Put differently, the lightweight JSP web shell is configured to upload unauthorized files, enable entrenched control over the infected host...

Threat actors have been observed exploiting multiple security flaws in various software products, including Progress Telerik UI for ASP.NET AJAX and Advantive VeraCore, to drop reverse shells and web shells, and maintain persistent remote access to compromised systems. The zero-day exploitation of security flaws in VeraCore has been attributed to a threat actor known as XE Group , a cybercrime group likely of Vietnamese origin that's known to be active since at least 2010. "XE Group transitioned from credit card skimming to targeted information theft, marking a significant shift in their operational priorities," cybersecurity firm Intezer said in a report published in collaboration with Solis Security. "Their attacks now target supply chains in the manufacturing and distribution sectors, leveraging new vulnerabilities and advanced tactics." The vulnerabilities in question are listed below - CVE-2024-57968 (CVSS score: 9.9) - An unrestricted upload of f...