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Windows Security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Category — Windows Security
Malvertising Sends Malware in Pieces, Then Makes the Browser Build the Executable

Malvertising Sends Malware in Pieces, Then Makes the Browser Build the Executable

Jul 25, 2026 Browser Security / Malvertising
A malvertising operation dubbed SourTrade is making victims' browsers build the final Windows executable themselves, using a legitimate Bun runtime as its base instead of serving one complete malicious file from a fixed URL. Confiant, which detailed the campaign on July 23, 2026, said it has operated since late 2024 and impersonated TradingView, Solana, and Luno to target retail traders and cryptocurrency investors across 12 countries in 25 languages. Its landing pages fingerprint visitors, showing suspected researchers and bots an empty page while selected targets receive a convincing copy of the impersonated service. The defense against that is the ordinary one: install trading and wallet software from the vendor's own site, not from an ad. The documented chain does not rely on a browser vulnerability or remove Mark of the Web (MotW). Confiant's analysis documents the delivery, not execution of the file inside the browser, and does not establish whether the fina...
BlueNoroff Zoom Phishing Kit Profiles Crypto Wallets Before Malware Delivery

BlueNoroff Zoom Phishing Kit Profiles Crypto Wallets Before Malware Delivery

Jul 24, 2026 Malware / Artificial Intelligence
The North Korean threat actors behind the ClickFix-style campaigns that employ typosquatted Zoom and Microsoft Teams domains have been found to operate an active phishing kit to impersonate the videoconferencing platforms in social engineering campaigns designed to deliver malware. " BlueNoroff has operationalised trust abuse by combining compromised industry contacts, social engineering, wallet reconnaissance and malware delivery into a repeatable victim acquisition pipeline," JUMPSEC said in a detailed report shared with The Hacker News. "The platform profiles victims' cryptocurrency wallets before malware delivery, enabling selective targeting of high-value victims." Describing the campaign as an operator-driven victim acquisition platform, the cybersecurity company noted that the activity involves using compromised trusted contacts as the initial access vector to create a self-propagating attack chain via Telegram. Details of the activity have been...
Certighost Exploit Lets Low-Privileged Active Directory Users Impersonate a Domain Controller

Certighost Exploit Lets Low-Privileged Active Directory Users Impersonate a Domain Controller

Jul 24, 2026 Vulnerability / Enterprise Security
Researchers H0j3n and Aniq Fakhrul published a working exploit on July 24 that lets a low-privileged Active Directory user obtain a certificate for a Domain Controller and authenticate as that machine. They codenamed the flaw Certighost . Because Domain Controller accounts carry directory replication rights, the resulting Kerberos credential can retrieve the krbtgt secret through DCSync . Microsoft patched the Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) issue ten days earlier as CVE-2026-54121 . Microsoft classed the flaw as improper authorization and assigned it a CVSS score of 8.8. Exploitation requires network access and a domain account, but no administrator rights or user interaction. In the researchers' test, a normal Domain Users account could create a computer account under the default ms-DS-MachineAccountQuota value of 10 or reuse one it already controlled. The chain also required an Enterprise CA that followed the vulnerable chain path, enrollment through t...
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SANS SEC401: The Security Foundation Every Specialization Needs

websiteSANSCyber Defense / Training
Foster Nethercott explains how, then SANS SEC535 teaches the tradecraft. GOAA cert path.
cyber security

Webinar: The State of Shadow AI in 2026 (And How Attackers Are Taking Advantage)

websitePush SecurityShadow AI / SaaS Security
Network defense, hardening, and IR across Windows, Linux, and macOS. 20 labs, GSEC.
Bing Images Flaws Let Crafted SVGs Run Commands as SYSTEM on Microsoft's Servers

Bing Images Flaws Let Crafted SVGs Run Commands as SYSTEM on Microsoft's Servers

Jul 24, 2026 Vulnerability / Web Security
A crafted SVG submitted to Bing's image search ran commands as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM on Microsoft's production image-processing workers, and as root on the Linux machines in the same fleet. XBOW's testing got the same result on workers across different hosts and network ranges, so the problem sat in Bing's image tier, not on one bad machine. Microsoft issued two critical CVEs, CVE-2026-32194 and CVE-2026-32191, and rated both 9.8 on the CVSS scale. XBOW, the autonomous offensive security startup, found both and reported them privately. Bing users have no patch or mitigation to apply: Microsoft fixed both server-side before the advisories went out in March, and the records state there is "no customer action to resolve." Neither advisory recorded exploitation or public disclosure when they went up on March 19. XBOW published the exploit mechanics on July 23, after holding them back at Microsoft's request until the remediation had landed. What outlive...
Fake Notepad++ Plugin Delivers MATCHBOIL.V2 in UAC-0099 Attacks

Fake Notepad++ Plugin Delivers MATCHBOIL.V2 in UAC-0099 Attacks

Jul 24, 2026 Cyber Espionage / Web Security
The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of a new campaign that involves the use of a malicious program that's dressed up as a Notepad++ plugin to compromise Windows systems. The activity has been attributed by the agency to a threat cluster it tracks as UAC-0099 , a Russia-aligned group that has previously observed weaponizing security flaws in WinRAR software to deliver a malware strain called LONEPAGE. Other cyber attacks mounted by the adversary have employed phishing emails as an initial access method to deploy MATCHBOIL, MATCHWOK, and DRAGSTARE. It's known to be active since at least mid-2022. The latest set of attacks begins, observed earlier this summer, with a phishing email containing an image attachment, which, when clicked, opens a URL that's concealed using a link shortener from where the request is sent to a file-sharing service like EasySend[.]co to retrieve a ZIP archive. The ZIP file contains a Visual Basic Script (VBSc...
Chaos Ransomware Uses msaRAT to Route C2 Traffic Through Headless Chrome and Edge

Chaos Ransomware Uses msaRAT to Route C2 Traffic Through Headless Chrome and Edge

Jul 23, 2026 Ransomware / Network Security
The Chaos ransomware group ran its command-and-control through the victim's own browser. Cisco Talos on Thursday detailed msaRAT , the Rust implant behind it, found on a compromised Windows machine ahead of the encryptor. The implant never opens an outbound connection of its own. Its process talks to 127.0.0.1 and nothing else. It starts Chrome or Edge in headless mode and drives the browser over the Chrome DevTools Protocol, the browser's own debugging API. Every C2 message travels out from there through a WebRTC data channel relayed by Twilio's TURN service, so what a defender sees on the wire is a browser calling Cloudflare and Twilio. The attacker's own server address never appears at all. Chrome Does the Talking msaRAT looks for Chrome or Edge through environment variables first, then falls back to the registry for Chrome. If no matching browser is found, the CDP path is skipped. When it finds one, it starts the browser without a visible window using -...
China-Nexus JadeProx Uses New TriBack Loader in Government and Healthcare Attacks

China-Nexus JadeProx Uses New TriBack Loader in Government and Healthcare Attacks

Jul 23, 2026 Malware / Threat Intelligence
An exposed Alibaba Cloud server has revealed a China-nexus operation that Group-IB tracks as JadeProx . The cluster has targeted government, healthcare, and education organizations across Asia and Latin America with a previously undocumented Windows loader called TriBack Loader. Group-IB found the server in mid-April 2026 in Alibaba Cloud's Singapore region; it was offline by the time the report published on July 23, 2026. Its bash history, phishing packages, post-exploitation tools, and webshell paths laid the operation out: active intrusions against a Vietnamese public hospital's medical imaging system and Malaysia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, scanning and exploitation follow-up against Hong Kong education infrastructure, and a spear-phishing package addressed to the National Congress of Honduras. The operators reached the hospital's imaging server through webshells planted on an exposed Java management interface. One Loader, Four Builds TriBack Loader a...
Qilin Ransomware Attackers Exploit PAN-OS Authentication Bypass for Initial Access

Qilin Ransomware Attackers Exploit PAN-OS Authentication Bypass for Initial Access

Jul 21, 2026 Vulnerability / Network Security
Threat actors have been observed exploiting a now-patched high-severity Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS vulnerability as an entry point to deploy Qilin (aka Agenda) ransomware on victim environments. Arctic Wolf Labs said it investigated multiple intrusions in June 2026 that began with the exploitation of CVE-2026-0257 (CVSS score: 7.8), an authentication bypass flaw affecting the portal and gateway components of PAN-OS software. Successful exploitation of the flaw allows unauthenticated remote attackers to sidestep authentication and establish VPN sessions without valid credentials when authentication override cookies are enabled with specific certificate configurations. "Post-exploitation tradecraft varied across intrusions, from rapid encryption-only operations to full double-extortion, possibly suggesting multiple affiliates operating under the Qilin ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) umbrella," the cybersecurity company said .
Exposed Server Reveals AI-Assisted Phishing Toolkit Behind WebDAV Malware Campaign

Exposed Server Reveals AI-Assisted Phishing Toolkit Behind WebDAV Malware Campaign

Jul 20, 2026 Malware / Vulnerability
A malware operator left its delivery server wide open, and Rapid7 pulled down the whole toolkit: 1,048 files spanning lure templates, filename-spoofing tests, execution experiments, droppers, builder notes, and two campaign chains. One was already live against Windows users in Mexico, delivering an infostealer through a fake government ID-lookup site over WebDAV. What makes it more than a payload dump: it caught the operation mid-build. Testing notes, failed experiments, documentation, and live delivery logs sat in one place, the kind of complete development trail defenders rarely see. Rapid7 reads the artifacts, down to a hardcoded path pointing at an open-source AI coding tool, as an operator using generative AI to produce, test, and document phishing delivery at speed. The most developed test set focused on CVE-2025-33053 (CVSS 8.8, now in CISA's KEV catalog ), the WebDAV working-directory hijack Check Point documented last year in its Stealth Falcon reporting. The...
SleeperGem Uses Three Malicious RubyGems Packages to Target Developer Machines

SleeperGem Uses Three Malicious RubyGems Packages to Target Developer Machines

Jul 20, 2026 Malware / Application Security
Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new software supply chain attack codenamed SleeperGem targeting the Ruby ecosystem after three malicious gems were published to RubyGems with the end goal of serving additional payloads. The rogue gems are listed below - git_credential_manager (versions 2.8.0, 2.8.1, 2.8.2, 2.8.3) - Published on July 18, 2026 Dendreo (versions 1.1.3, 1.1.4) - Published on October 14, 2017 fastlane-plugin-run_tests_firebase_testlab (version 0.3.2) - Published on February 06, 2018 "Each malicious release is a loader," StepSecurity said in an analysis. "It fetches a second stage from an attacker controlled Forgejo host, checks whether it is running in a build system and skips if it is, and on a developer machine it drops a native daemon and installs persistence." One aspect of the attack that immediately stands out is that "git_credential_manager" impersonates the official Microsoft Git Credential Manager, while t...
GoldenEyeDog Subgroup Linked to DigiCert Breach and Code-Signing Certificate Theft

GoldenEyeDog Subgroup Linked to DigiCert Breach and Code-Signing Certificate Theft

Jul 17, 2026 Malware / Threat Intelligence
Cybersecurity researchers have attributed the April 2026 DigiCert security incident to a threat activity cluster dubbed CylindricalCanine . Expel, which shared technical details of the event, described the threat actor as a sub-group of GoldenEyeDog (aka APT-Q-27, Dragon Breath, and Miuuti Group), a Chinese cybercrime group known for its targeting of the gambling and gaming sectors using counterfeit websites to push malware-laced software. It's known to be active since at least 2015. "In April 2026, GoldenEyeDog used their malware to access a support member's device at DigiCert, a code-signing certificate provider, and leveraged their access to steal certificates intended for DigiCert customers," Expel security researcher Aaron Walton said in an analysis. "This attack highlighted the capability of the malware and operators." Central to the threat actor's operations is a modified version of Gh0st RAT (aka Farfli), a remote access trojan (RAT) w...
ACR Stealer Uses ClickFix Lures to Steal Browser Tokens and Microsoft 365 Files

ACR Stealer Uses ClickFix Lures to Steal Browser Tokens and Microsoft 365 Files

Jul 17, 2026 Malware / Windows Security
ACR Stealer , an infostealer in circulation since 2024, is walking out of enterprise networks with saved browser passwords, live session tokens, PDFs, Microsoft 365 documents, and files from synced OneDrive and SharePoint folders. It gets in because someone pasted a command into a Run box and pressed Enter. Microsoft laid out two of the delivery chains on Thursday. Its Defender Experts team, the company's managed detection arm, had watched ACR Stealer activity climb across customer environments from late April to mid-June, and says the campaigns are "successfully using ClickFix lures to steal browser credentials, authentication tokens, and sensitive documents." Both chains open with the same prompt, then split: one leaves traces on disk, the other runs almost entirely in memory. Microsoft's remediation guidance tells victims to revoke tokens, not just rotate passwords. A payload in the pixels The prompt likely arrives through malvertising or SEO-manipulated...
New TELEPUZ Malware Spreads via ClickFix to Steal Data and Run Commands

New TELEPUZ Malware Spreads via ClickFix to Steal Data and Run Commands

Jul 16, 2026 Cybercrime / Endpoint Security
Cybersecurity researchers have called attention to a new modular malware called TELEPUZ that's been spreading via websites infected with ClickFix lures since late April 2026. "The malware is full-featured, lightweight, and modular," Elastic Security Labs researcher Cyril François said in a technical report. "While the number of C2 [command-and-control] domains is currently small, the daily volume of builds uploaded to VirusTotal and the rapid pace of updates indicate active development and likely further growth." The disclosure makes it the second new threat cluster after SCMBANKER to be propagated via ClickFix , a pervasive social engineering attack that tricks users into manually running malicious commands by disguising them as innocent fixes for fake browser errors, software updates, or CAPTCHA verifications. Underpinning the technique is an approach called clipboard hijacking. Because web pages using ClickFix inject malicious script or commands i...
Daxin Resurfaces in Taiwan Alongside Stupig Pre-Login SYSTEM Backdoor

Daxin Resurfaces in Taiwan Alongside Stupig Pre-Login SYSTEM Backdoor

Jul 16, 2026 Cyber Espionage / Malware
An advanced malware previously attributed to a China-linked threat actor has resurfaced after more than four years within a Taiwan manufacturing firm, along with a previously unreported backdoor dubbed Stupig . Daxin ("srt64.sys"), as the kernel-mode rootkit is referred to, was first documented by Broadcom-owned Symantec in March 2022, with evidence indicating its use in targeted attacks aimed at governments and other critical infrastructure targets since 2013. The latest findings from the Symantec and Carbon Black Threat Hunter Team show that Daxin is still operational, after it was found running on a compromised host in Taiwan in 2026. The same machine, belonging to a Taiwan-based subsidiary of a multinational high-tech manufacturer, is also said to have been infected with Stupig ("a.dll" or "kbdus1.dll"). The file name is an attempt to masquerade as "kbdus.dll," a legitimate Microsoft DLL associated with the U.S. English keyboard layout...
OkoBot Malware Framework Injects Seed Phrase Phishing Into Ledger and Trezor Apps

OkoBot Malware Framework Injects Seed Phrase Phishing Into Ledger and Trezor Apps

Jul 15, 2026 Endpoint Security / Malware
A malware framework called OkoBot has been running on Windows machines since April 2025, and one of its modules is built to con hardware wallet owners out of their recovery phrase. On an infected PC, the request comes from inside the wallet's own desktop software. Sometimes it waits until you plug the device in first. The page is malicious. The app around it is the real one you installed, and the phrase is the wallet. Kaspersky's GReAT team  published the teardown  on Wednesday, counting hundreds of victims in its telemetry across more than 25 countries. The largest share of attacked users is in Brazil, Vietnam, Canada, Mexico, and Türkiye. How many of them typed a phrase in, the report does not say. OkoBot carries more than 20 payloads and implants and was still active as of the July 15 report. SeedHunter Waits for the Device SeedHunter is the OkoBot module that steals the phrase. Once the framework lands, it watches for Trezor Suite, Ledger Wallet, and Ledger Live...
Researcher Drops New Windows Zero-Day PoC Hours After Microsoft Patch Tuesday

Researcher Drops New Windows Zero-Day PoC Hours After Microsoft Patch Tuesday

Jul 15, 2026 Vulnerability / Enterprise Security
Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse (aka Nightmare-Eclipse ) has released a new proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit called LegacyHive. It has been described as a Windows User Profile Service arbitrary hive load elevation of privileges vulnerability. The Windows User Profile Service, also referred to as ProfSvc, is a core system component that manages user accounts and environments. "The PoC requires another standard user credential and a third username (which can be an administrator account)," Chaotic Eclipse said . "If the PoC is successful, it will end up mounting the target user hive in the current user classes root." The researcher said the exploit was stripped down to prevent public exploitation, adding the original exploit did not require additional user credentials and was not limited to the "usrclass.dat" hive. "Any hive could be loaded using this vulnerability, but you would need some brain cells to make the PoC do it," the researc...
Cursor Flaw Lets Malicious Cloned Repositories Trigger Windows Code Execution

Cursor Flaw Lets Malicious Cloned Repositories Trigger Windows Code Execution

Jul 15, 2026 Endpoint Security / Vulnerability
Open a repository in Cursor on Windows and, if a file named git.exe is sitting in the project root, Cursor runs it. No click, no approval dialog, no warning that anything in the folder is about to execute. Whatever that binary does, it does as you, with your source, your SSH keys and your cloud tokens. Cursor keeps re-running it for as long as the project stays open. No prompt injection, no agent, no model in the loop, and no prior access to the machine: opening the folder is the entire exploit, and the result is arbitrary code execution as the logged-in user. AI security firm Mindgard reported the flaw to Cursor on December 15, 2025 and  published full technical details  on Tuesday, seven months later. There is still no patch, and Cursor has published no advisory for the issue. The mechanism takes about a sentence. Cursor checks several locations for a Git binary when a project loads, and one of them is the workspace itself. Process Monitor output in t...
Microsoft Patches Record 622 Flaws, Including Two Zero-Days Under Active Attack

Microsoft Patches Record 622 Flaws, Including Two Zero-Days Under Active Attack

Jul 14, 2026 Vulnerability / Enterprise Security
Microsoft shipped its largest Patch Tuesday on record today, and two of the fixes close holes that attackers are already exploiting. The release covers 622 of Microsoft's own CVEs by its  Security Update Guide  count, more than triple  June's previous high of around 200 . Those two live bugs are the ones to grab first. Microsoft credits incident responders for both. Both are elevation-of-privilege flaws in identity and collaboration infrastructure: CVE-2026-56164 in on-premises SharePoint Server and CVE-2026-56155 in Active Directory Federation Services. Neither is one of the splashy remote code execution criticals. They are privilege bugs in two systems that matter more than their scores suggest: the company document store, and the box that signs its logins. The two zero-days to patch first CVE-2026-56164 , a SharePoint Server flaw Microsoft says is being exploited in attacks, lets an unauthenticated attacker escalate privileges over the ne...
LabubaRAT Masquerades as NVIDIA Software to Control Windows Hosts

LabubaRAT Masquerades as NVIDIA Software to Control Windows Hosts

Jul 14, 2026 Malware / Threat Intelligence
Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a previously undocumented Rust-based remote access trojan (RAT) codenamed LabubaRAT that masquerades as NVIDIA software to blend into target environments. "LabubaRAT creates a reusable foothold for hands-on activity," Blackpoint Cyber researchers Sam Decker and Nevan Beal said in an analysis published today. "Once deployed, it can profile the host, identify security tools, receive operator commands, move files, capture screenshots, and proxy traffic through the affected system." The implant also supports multiple communication methods, including HTTPS, WebView2, and DNS tunneling, allowing attackers to maintain access to compromised hosts even if one pathway is detected and closed off. There are some signs that LabubuRAT is being offered under a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model. The starting point of the attack chain is an executable named "nvidia-sysruntime.exe," which impersonates NVIDIA's container ru...
Attacker Uses Suspected AI-Generated PowerShell Script to Map Active Directory

Attacker Uses Suspected AI-Generated PowerShell Script to Map Active Directory

Jul 13, 2026 Artificial Intelligence / Threat Intelligence
Cybersecurity researchers have flagged an intrusion in which an unknown threat actor leveraged a vibe-coded PowerShell script for Active Directory (AD) enumeration. "The script looked for the Domain Controller (DC) and mapped users, computers, and domains, before creating a directory and exporting out a number of files, and finally creating AD_Report.html to measure the success of the enumeration attempt," Huntress researchers Jevon Ang and Dray Agha said . The attack chain involved the threat actor establishing Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access onto a domain-joined Windows Server with a set of pre-compromised credentials, followed by staging the tools in the "C:\ProgramData\" folder. The incident took place in early June 2026. This included an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated payload to map the Active Directory environment. The assessment is based on various telltale signs, such as the prompt iteration title, placeholder strings, over-engineered cod...
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