cyber espionage | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday announced the disruption of two hacking platforms named QScan and QTRouter operated by Chinese threat actors to target critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks in the country. The activity has been attributed to a Chinese state-sponsored group known as QTFY, employed by Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company (南京鑫玖维网络科技有限公司).  "Among the victims of QTFY computer intrusion activity are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Federal Reserve, Department of Energy, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Senate," DoJ said. Damon Rouse, a security researcher at Lumen Black Lotus Labs who has been tracking the activity for over the past 18 months, told The Hacker News that the digital quartermaster has been active since May 2018. Nanjing counts both China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) and the People's Liberation Army...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered additional infrastructure and previously undocumented malware associated with Nimbus Manticore , an Iranian state-sponsored hacking group affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Group-IB, in a new analysis published today, described the cyber espionage actor as among the most active Iranian APT groups in 2026. Nimbus Manticore (aka GalaxyGato, Mirage Kitten, Screening Serpens, Smoke Sandstorm, Subtle Snail, and UNC1549) is assessed to be linked to Tortoiseshell (aka Imperial Kitten and Unyielding Wasp), which is part of the Charming Kitten (aka Eclipsed Wasp) cluster. Tortoiseshell is known to be active since at least July 2018, mainly targeting defense, aerospace, IT service providers, and military organizations in the Middle East and the U.S. Nimbus Manticore also has a history of orchestrating its own version of the Dream Job campaign to deliver malware under the pretext of job opportunity-themed social engine...

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has announced fresh sanctions on Iranian cyber actors as part of what it called an "unprecedented, whole-of-government, economic campaign" against the nation and its enablers. "We are launching an economic onslaught against Iran's financial connections around the globe. Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone," said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. The action, codenamed Operation Economic Outcast, aims to cut the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the financial "lifelines" that support the "leading state sponsor of terror." To that end, the sanctions designate nearly 60 Iran-linked entities, individuals, and vessels across nuclear, missile, oil, and cyber networks, including the digital assets sector. Specifically, the sanctions take aim at a malicious cyber group affiliated with Iran...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a cyber espionage campaign targeting Myanmar that uses graduation ceremony invitation lures to deliver a Go backdoor called QUICAgent. The campaign, codenamed Operation QUICSILVER , has been found to target government and information technology sectors, per Seqrite Labs. The activity is assessed to be the work of a China-nexus threat actor with moderate confidence. It was first observed in April 2026, when the attack was observed delivering a file named "HolidayNotice.pdf.exe" along with a lure that was a fabricated Belgian–Myanmar public holiday calendar. Two subsequent artifacts, each detected in June and July 2026, make use of a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file that activates the infection chain. Present within the VHD file is a Windows Shortcut (LNK) that mimics a PDF document. Opening the document displays a decoy PDF to the victim, an official graduation ceremony invitation that's written in Burmese and purports to be from t...

Three distinct suspected Russian cyber espionage threat clusters have been observed leveraging legitimate authentication flows to single out individuals working in academia, aerospace and defense, governments, and think tanks across Europe, as well as academia and think tanks within the U.S. These clusters include UNC6293 , UNC7005 , and UNC5976 . "These clusters engage in persistent, adaptive phishing campaigns, using sophisticated social engineering tactics to compromise personal accounts across multiple platforms," Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) researchers Gabby Roncone and Wesley Shields said in a report published today. UNC6293, first detailed by the tech giant and the Citizen Lab in June 2025, is assessed to be a sub-cluster of Ice Relic (formerly APT29), which is also tracked under the monikers Cozy Bear and Midnight Blizzard. The hacking crew was previously attributed to a campaign that abused a Google account feature called application specific pas...

A previously unreported cyber espionage operation dubbed SilkParasite has been observed targeting government bodies in Central Asia. The intrusion set makes use of seven remote access tool (RAT) families, five of which have never been previously documented: DriveSilkRAT, CookiETagRAT, NomadRAT, GoginRAT, and NodeEdgeRAT. SilkParasite, first discovered in late 2025, is assessed to be a China-nexus threat cluster with medium confidence. "What makes SilkParasite interesting is the traces of AI-assisted development running through otherwise expert code, which is a different thing from AI-generated malware," Bitdefender Labs said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. Unlike other operations that rely on AI-generated malware, SilkParasite's arsenal exhibits all hallmarks typically associated with professional espionage tooling that's developed by a team of human operators while AI is likely used to streamline the process. The Romanian cybersecurity v...

Cybersecurity researchers have traced the continued evolution of the Cavern (aka Cav3rn) command-and-control (C2) framework used by Iranian nation-state hackers in attacks targeting entities in Israel. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said its ongoing monitoring of the threat activity cluster since December 2025 has led to the discovery of previously unreported components that expand the toolkit's communication capabilities. "The main finding is a complex C2 module that uses DNS A-record responses to choose between direct HTTPS and a Google Apps Script relay for each transaction," Kaspersky said in an analysis. "The same DNS infrastructure can validate and replace the relay deployment ID, allowing the operator to rotate the Google channel." Cavern, first publicly documented by Check Point Research in early July 2026, consists of multiple moving parts, including an Agent and an assortment of modules, that work in tandem to enable mission-specific...

The threat actor known as HoneyMyte (aka  Mustang Panda ) has been observed deploying an updated version of the CoolClient backdoor with a signed Windows kernel-mode rootkit that can hide and protect malicious processes, files, registry objects, and command-and-control (C2) network information. Russian cybersecurity vendor Kaspersky said it identified victims in Myanmar, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Russia, including confirmed government entities, with CoolClient consistently deployed as a secondary backdoor following a  PlugX  infection. The kernel component is deployed when CoolClient has full access to the Service Control Manager (SCM) and the SeTcbPrivilege privilege. If those conditions are not met, the malware skips driver deployment and proceeds to the final-stage implant. Kaspersky has also published file hashes, paths, and C2 domains as indicators of compromise (IoCs). "Our analysis confirms that the investigated malware is a new CoolClient variant ...

Apple on Thursday sent a fresh batch of notifications to customers whom it suspects may have been targeted by mercenary spyware attacks. In a statement shared with TechCrunch, the iPhone maker said it alerted an unspecified number of users targeted in 110 countries and that it has notified customers in over 150 countries to date. Apple began sending threat notifications to users in late 2021. "The extreme cost, sophistication, and worldwide nature of mercenary spyware attacks make them some of the most advanced digital threats in existence today," the tech giant said . "As a result, Apple does not attribute the attacks or resulting threat notifications to any specific attackers or geographical regions." Typically, such notifications are sent to people who may have been individually targeted because of "who they are or what they do," including journalists, activists, politicians, and diplomats. They tend to focus on a very small number of speci...

The China-linked threat actor known as Jewelbug has been observed carrying out cyber espionage operations targeting governments and militaries, while simultaneously engaging in cryptocurrency fraud. "Both missions are administered from a single control panel, XG-Web , a browser-centric remote-access and information-stealing framework that turns a victim's browser into a full remote-control channel and reaches from there into the host and the internal network behind it," Broadcom's Symantec and Carbon Black Threat Hunter Team said . Jewelbug is assessed to be a China-based hackers-for-hire group that runs parallel operations, including espionage against governments and militaries across the Middle East, Southeast Asia and South Asia, and a for-profit cryptocurrency fraud business. "The group has developed five generations of command-and-control (C&C) code and a family of implants spanning browsers, Windows endpoints, Linux servers and network devices,...

Afghan telecom providers and South Asian critical infrastructure organizations have emerged as the target of a new ongoing campaign that delivers a previously undocumented backdoor called PATCHCORD . According to Acronis Threat Research Unit (TRU) , the backdoor is a compiled C/C++ implant delivered by means of sector-specific lures, including fake VPN installers impersonating Afghan Telecom (AFTEL) and telecom management tools. An analysis of the threat actor's infrastructure has also led to the discovery of another Go-based backdoor dubbed SHEETCORD that uses Google Sheets for command-and-control (C2) communications. The malware has been found to be delivered via a domain impersonating India's National Informatics Center (NIC). "The campaign's infrastructure centers on a single C2 server with multiple associated domains, including domains impersonating Afghan telecom operators and a hijacked legitimate healthcare domain," researchers Darrel Virtusio, San...

Companies are used to thinking about attackers as outsiders trying to break in. North Korean IT workers flip that model. They apply for jobs, pass interviews, receive legitimate credentials, and can end up inside the same systems companies spend millions trying to protect. That risk is no longer theoretical. The FBI is now investigating a North Korean remote IT worker who reportedly worked for a U.S. federal agency. For CISOs, the priority is clear: spot the warning signs before a fraudulent hire becomes trusted access. When the Threat Gets Hired A recent joint investigation by Mauro Eldritch ( BCA LTD ), Heiner García ( NorthScan ), and ANY.RUN showed what this looks like from inside the operation. Researchers deliberately hired suspected DPRK developers linked to Lazarus Group and gave them what looked like ordinary virtual desktops. In reality, they were controlled ANY.RUN Sandboxes, capturing their activity in real time. The operation exposed forged identities, re...

The North Korean threat actor known as Lazarus Group has been attributed to the zero-day exploitation of a newly patched security flaw impacting Microsoft Windows to deliver a never-before-seen backdoor targeting defense and aerospace companies across France, Germany, Brazil, and India. The activity, per Check Point Research, is part of Operation Dream Job , a long-running cyber espionage and social engineering campaign orchestrated by Pyongyang-backed hackers to target professionals worldwide with fake-but-compelling job offers at firms like Lockheed Martin and Enveil to steal sensitive data and install malware by approaching them on platforms like LinkedIn, pretending to be recruiters in an attempt to build trust. The attacks have been found to exploit CVE-2026-68820 (CVSS score: 7.0), a privilege escalation flaw affecting Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock ("AFD.sys") that was patched by Microsoft as part of its Patch Tuesday updates for August 2026. C...

Security researchers invented a cryptocurrency startup, advertised developer jobs, and hired three people they believe were North Korean operatives. Every virtual machine the company issued was recording. The onboarding paperwork is the part hiring teams can use. The first hire claimed to live in Pasadena, Texas, then sent a California driver's license and a New York bank account. The researchers said the image metadata showed it had been processed with Google Gemini. They also reported a SynthID watermark, the invisible marker Google embeds in images its AI tools create or edit. The second supplied a Texas license, a valid Social Security number, and a bank account in Kansas City. The third sent a New York license belonging to someone else, a genuine iPhone 15 photograph with the GPS coordinates stripped. A successful placement gives the operative a real employee account and real access to source code and internal systems. The July 31 joint alert says North Korean IT work...

North Korea's state hackers are no longer content to type prompts into public chatbots. One of the country's main espionage groups has begun running artificial intelligence (AI) offline on its own servers, connecting document-search tools to files in its possession, and collecting the software parts needed to build AI into its malware. South Korean security firm Genians says it uncovered the setup after months of tracking and log analysis on infrastructure tied to Kimsuky, a hacking unit under North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau. Genians found no evidence that the group had trained an AI model of its own, and the firm does not offer that as reassurance. It describes an actor in a "research and knowledge acquisition" stage, assembling and testing existing tools rather than making new models, with the apparent aim of folding AI through the operation, from writing malware to analyzing data. For an intelligence unit that has spent years phishing governm...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged an evolution of the EtherHiding blockchain-based command-and-control (C2) technique that conceals the C2 server IP address inside a made-up destination address of a completely empty Ethereum transfer. The new dead drop resolver approach, observed in two trojanized npm packages "bianira-ui" and "fluid-type-ui," has been codenamed NullReceiver by OpenSourceMalware, which has described it as a "deliberate improvement on EtherHiding." The activity has been linked to North Korea. The packages are currently no longer available for download from npm. However, statistics show that they have been downloaded a few hundred times since they were first published on July 28, 2026 - bianira-ui (109 downloads), uploaded by an npm user named "npmuser1101" fluid-type-ui (587 downloads), uploaded by an npm user named "npmuser3002" EtherHiding was first publicly documented by Guardio Labs in October...

A fake browser update served over hijacked hotel Wi-Fi has been used to deliver CornFlake , a remote access trojan (RAT) that can capture webcam images, microphone audio, and keystrokes, Microsoft said in its latest report. Researchers track the operation as CaptiveCrunch and attribute it to Storm-2945 . It assesses Storm-2945 to be an operational sub-cluster of Midnight Blizzard , also known as APT29 and Cozy Bear. The U.S. and U.K. governments attribute the broader actor to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). On the compromised networks ReliaQuest investigated, the captive portal gateway also served as the DNS resolver assigned to connected devices. Administrative control of that gateway let the attackers forge Domain Name System (DNS) answers and redirect the resulting traffic. They could then redirect a laptop's automatic connectivity check to a fake browser or operating system update. Some pages use ClickFix instructions that tell victims to open a termina...

South Korean authorities and four security firms have disclosed a state-sponsored campaign that compromised trusted domestic websites. The attackers used those sites to exploit locally installed financial-security software and infect targeted visitors with SIGNBT or COPPERHEDGE backdoors. A compromised page could infect a system running a vulnerable AnySign4PC version without a prompt or user-initiated download. The Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) says AnySign4PC versions 1.1.4.4 through 1.1.4.6 are affected and lists version 1.1.5.0 as the fixed release. It recommends deleting vulnerable installations. AhnLab refers to two exploited products only as financial-security software A and I. Its report does not disclose their identities, affected or fixed versions, or vulnerability identifiers. AhnLab said it identified evidence of related attacks at 72 organizations in 2026. The company also found 15 legitimate websites used as watering holes. Its investigation also foun...

The Russian threat actors recently linked to the exploitation of a now-patched vulnerability in Zimbra have been observed exploiting another vulnerability, this time in Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA), to target U.S. and European government entities, as well as the telecommunications, financial, hospitality, and aerospace sectors. The activity, which began on July 22, 2026, involves the weaponization of CVE-2026-42897 (CVSS score: 8.1), a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in OWA. It was flagged by Microsoft as having been exploited in attacks as far back as May 2026. Enterprise security company Proofpoint has attributed the activity to Laundry Bear (aka CL-STA-1114, TA488, UNK_PitStop, and Void Blizzard), which was recently attributed to the zero-day exploitation of CVE-2025-66376, an XSS flaw in Zimbra's Classic UI, since at least July 2025 before it was patched four months later. In these attacks, the threat actors sent out messages from adversary-controlled P...

The Iranian state-backed hacking group tracked as Nimbus Manticore (aka GalaxyGato, Mirage Kitten, Smoke Sandstorm, Subtle Snail, and UNC1549) has been attributed to a fresh set of attacks targeting entities across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. The intrusions involve the use of a previously undocumented Windows backdoor called NightLedger and two custom WebSocket tunnelers, BridgeHead and ArcBridge, with an aim to maintain covert access. Targets of the campaign include Egypt, SMB and government environments in Jordan and Tanzania, aviation organizations in Pakistan, telecommunication companies in Ethiopia, and financial-sector entities in Burkina Faso, per Kaspersky. "The toolset includes NightLedger, a new Windows backdoor for reconnaissance, command execution, file operations, process discovery, and screenshot capture; and two custom WebSocket-based tunnelers, ArcBridge and BridgeHead, for covert network access and operator-controlled tunneling," Kasper...