cybersecurity | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Huntress is warning that threat actors are exploiting three recently disclosed security flaws in Microsoft Defender to gain elevated privileges in compromised systems. The activity involves  the exploitation of three vulnerabilities that are codenamed BlueHammer (requires GitHub sign-in), RedSun , and UnDefend , all of which were released as zero-days by a researcher known as Chaotic Eclipse (aka Nightmare-Eclipse) in response to Microsoft's handling of the vulnerability disclosure process. While both BlueHammer and RedSun are local privilege escalation (LPE) flaws impacting Microsoft Defender, UnDefend can be used to trigger a denial-of-service (DoS) condition and effectively block definition updates. Microsoft moved to address BlueHammer as part of its Patch Tuesday updates released earlier this week. The vulnerability is being tracked under the CVE identifier CVE-2026-33825 . However, the other flaws do not have a fix as of writing. In a series of posts shared on X, Hunt...

Google this week announced a new set of Play policy updates to strengthen user privacy and protect businesses against fraud, even as it revealed it blocked or removed over 8.3 billion ads globally and suspended 24.9 million accounts in 2025. The new policy updates relate to contact and location permissions in Android, allowing third-party apps to access the contact lists and a user's location in a more privacy-friendly manner. This includes a new Contact Picker, which offers a standardized, secure, and searchable interface for contact selection. "This feature allows users to grant apps access only to the specific contacts they choose, aligning with Android's commitment to data transparency and minimized permission footprints," Google said . Previously, apps requiring access to a specific user's contacts relied on READ_CONTACTS, an overly broad permission that granted apps the ability to access all contacts and their associated information. With the latest cha...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced changes to the way it handles cybersecurity vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) listed in its National Vulnerability Database (NVD), stating it will only enrich those that fulfil certain conditions owing to an explosion in CVE submissions. "CVEs that do not meet those criteria will still be listed in the NVD but will not automatically be enriched by NIST ," it said . "This change is driven by a surge in CVE submissions, which increased 263% between 2020 and 2025. We don’t expect this trend to let up anytime soon." The prioritization criteria outlined by NIST, which went into effect on April 15, 2026, are as follows - CVEs appearing in the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. CVEs for software used within the federal government. CVEs for critical software as defined by Executive Order 14028: this includes soft...

An international law enforcement operation has taken down 53 domains and arrested four people in connection with commercial distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) operations that were used by more than 75,000 cybercriminals. The ongoing effort, dubbed Operation PowerOFF , disrupted access to the DDoS-for-hire services, took down the technical infrastructure supporting them, and obtained access to databases containing over 3 million criminal user accounts. Authorities are also sending warning emails and letters to the identified criminal users, and 25 search warrants have been issued. As many as 21 countries participated in the action: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Thailand, the U.K., and the U.S. "Booter services allow users to launch DDoS attacks against targeted websites, servers, or networks," Europol said in a statement. "Their inf...

A recently disclosed high-severity security flaw in Apache ActiveMQ Classic has come under active exploitation in the wild, per the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). To that end, the agency has added the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-34197 (CVSS score: 8.8), to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to apply the fixes by April 30, 2026. CVE-2026-34197 has been described as a case of improper input validation that could lead to code injection, effectively allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary code on susceptible installations. According to Horizon3.ai's Naveen Sunkavally, CVE-2026-34197 has been "hiding in plain sight" for 13 years.  "An attacker can invoke a management operation through ActiveMQ's Jolokia API to trick the broker into fetching a remote configuration file and running arbitrary OS c...

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of an active malicious campaign that's targeting the workforce in the Czech Republic with a previously undocumented botnet dubbed PowMix since at least December 2025. "PowMix employs randomized command-and-control (C2) beaconing intervals, rather than persistent connection to the C2 server, to evade the network signature detections," Cisco Talos researcher Chetan Raghuprasad said in a report published today. "PowMix embeds the encrypted heartbeat data along with unique identifiers of the victim machine into the C2 URL paths, mimicking legitimate REST API URLs. PowMix has the capability to remotely update the new C2 domain to the botnet configuration file dynamically." The attack chain begins with a malicious ZIP file, likely delivered via a phishing email, to activate a multi-stage infection chain that drops PowMix. Specifically, it involves a Windows Shortcut (LNK) that's used to launch a PowerShell loader, which ...

You know that feeling when you open your feed on a Thursday morning and it's just... a lot? Yeah. This week delivered. We've got hackers getting creative in ways that are almost impressive if you ignore the whole "crime" part, ancient vulnerabilities somehow still ruining people's days, and enough supply chain drama to fill a season of television nobody asked for. Not all bad though. Some threat actors got exposed with receipts, a few platforms finally tightened things up, and there's research in here that's genuinely worth your time. Grab your coffee and keep scrolling. Targeted wallet breach Zerion Hack Likely Linked to North Korea Cryptocurrency wallet service Zerion has disclosed that one of its team member's devices was compromised, resulting in the theft of approximately $100K in stolen funds from internal company hot wallets. The company noted that user funds, Zerion apps, or infrastructure were...

In 2024, compromised service accounts and forgotten API keys were behind 68% of cloud breaches. Not phishing. Not weak passwords. Unmanaged non-human identities that nobody was watching. For every employee in your org, there are 40 to 50 automated credentials: service accounts, API tokens, AI agent connections, andOAuth grants. When projects end or employees leave, most of these stay active. Fully privileged. Completely unmonitored. Attackers don't need to break in. They just pick up the keys you left out. Join our upcoming webinar where we’ll show you how to find and eliminate these "Ghost Identities" before they become a back door for hackers. AI agents and automated workflows are multiplying these credentials at a pace security teams can't manually track. Many carry admin-level access they never needed. One compromised token can give an attacker lateral movement across your entire environment, and the average dwell time for...

Cisco has announced patches to address four critical security flaws impacting Identity Services and Webex Services that could result in arbitrary code execution and allow an attacker to impersonate any user within the service. The details of the vulnerabilities are below - CVE-2026-20184 (CVSS score: 9.8) - An improper certificate validation in the integration of single sign-on (SSO) with Control Hub in Webex Services that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to impersonate any user within the service and gain unauthorized access to legitimate Cisco Webex services. CVE-2026-20147 (CVSS score: 9.9) - An insufficient validation of user-supplied input vulnerability in Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC) that could allow an authenticated, remote attacker in possession of valid administrative credentials to achieve remote code execution by sending crafted HTTP requests. CVE-2026-20180 and CVE-2026-20186 (CVSS scores: 9.9) ...

A "novel" social engineering campaign has been observed abusing Obsidian, a cross-platform note-taking application, as an initial access vector to distribute a previously undocumented Windows remote access trojan called PHANTOMPULSE in attacks targeting individuals in the financial and cryptocurrency sectors. Dubbed REF6598 by Elastic Security Labs, the activity has been found to leverage elaborate social engineering tactics through LinkedIn and Telegram to breach both Windows and macOS systems, approaching prospective individuals on the professional social network under the guise of a venture capital firm and then moving the conversation to a Telegram group where several purported partners are present. The Telegram group chat is engineered to lend the operation a smidgen of credibility, with the members discussing topics related to financial services and cryptocurrency liquidity solutions. The target is then instructed to use Obsidian to access what appears to be a s...

The Computer Emergencies Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has disclosed details of a new campaign that has targeted governments and municipal healthcare institutions, mainly clinics and emergency hospitals, to deliver malware capable of stealing sensitive data from Chromium-based web browsers and WhatsApp. The activity, which was observed between March and April 2026, has been attributed to a threat cluster dubbed UAC-0247 . The origins of the campaign are presently unknown. According to CERT-UA, the starting point of the attack chain is an email message claiming to be a humanitarian aid proposal, urging recipients to click on a link that redirects to either a legitimate website compromised via a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability or a bogus site created with help from artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Regardless of what the site is, the goal is to download and run a Windows Shortcut (LNK) file, which then execut...

Threat actors have been observed weaponizing n8n , a popular artificial intelligence (AI) workflow automation platform, to facilitate sophisticated phishing campaigns and deliver malicious payloads or fingerprint devices by sending automated emails. "By leveraging trusted infrastructure, these attackers bypass traditional security filters, turning productivity tools into delivery vehicles for persistent remote access," Cisco Talos researchers Sean Gallagher and Omid Mirzaei said in an analysis published today. N8n is a workflow automation platform that allows users to connect various web applications, APIs, and AI model services to sync data, build agentic systems, and run repetitive rule-based tasks. Users can register for a developer account at no extra cost to avail a managed cloud-hosted service and run automation workflows without having to set up their own infrastructure.Doing so, however, creates a unique custom domain t...

A recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting nginx-ui, an open-source, web-based Nginx management tool, has come under active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-33032 (CVSS score: 9.8), an authentication bypass vulnerability that enables threat actors to seize control of the Nginx service. It has been codenamed MCPwn by Pluto Security. "The nginx-ui MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration exposes two HTTP endpoints: /mcp and /mcp_message," according to an advisory released by nginx-ui maintainers last month. "While /mcp requires both IP whitelisting and authentication (AuthRequired() middleware), the /mcp_message endpoint only applies IP whitelisting -- and the default IP whitelist is empty, which the middleware treats as 'allow all.'"  "This means any network attacker can invoke all MCP tools without authentication, including restarting nginx, creating/modifying/deleting nginx configuration files, and t...

A number of critical vulnerabilities impacting products from Adobe, Fortinet, Microsoft, and SAP have taken center stage in April's Patch Tuesday releases. Topping the list is an SQL injection vulnerability impacting SAP Business Planning and Consolidation and SAP Business Warehouse ( CVE-2026-27681 , CVSS score: 9.9) that could result in the execution of arbitrary database commands. "The vulnerable ABAP program allows a low-privileged user to upload a file with arbitrary SQL statements that will then be executed," Onapsis said in an advisory. In a potential attack scenario, a bad actor could abuse the affected upload-related functionality to run malicious SQL against BW/BPC data stores, extract sensitive data, and delete or corrupt database content. "Manipulated planning figures, broken reports, or deleted consolidation data can undermine close processes, executive reporting, and operational planning," Pathlock said . "In the wrong hands, t...

Few technologies have moved from experimentation to boardroom mandate as quickly as AI. Across industries, leadership teams have embraced its broader potential, and boards, investors, and executives are already pushing organizations to adopt it across operational and security functions. Pentera’s AI Security and Exposure Report 2026 reflects that momentum: every CISO surveyed reported that AI is already in use across their organizations. Security testing is inevitably part of that shift. Modern environments are too dynamic, and attack techniques too variable, for purely static testing logic to remain sufficient on its own. Adaptive payload generation, contextual interpretation of controls, and real-time execution adjustments are necessary to get closer to how attackers, and increasingly their own AI agents, operate. For experienced security teams, the need to incorporate AI into testing is no longer in question. You have to fight fire with fire. Wh...

Microsoft on Tuesday released updates to address a record 169 security flaws across its product portfolio, including one vulnerability that has been actively exploited in the wild. Of these 169 vulnerabilities, 157 are rated Important, eight are rated Critical, three are rated Moderate, and one is rated Low in severity. Ninety-three of the flaws are classified as privilege escalation, followed by 21 information disclosure, 21 remote code execution, 14 security feature bypass, 10 spoofing, and nine denial-of-service vulnerabilities. Also included among the 169 flaws are four non-Microsoft issued CVEs impacting AMD (CVE-2023-20585), Node.js (CVE-2026-21637), Windows Secure Boot (CVE-2026-25250), and Git for Windows (CVE-2026-32631). The updates are in addition to 78 vulnerabilities that have been addressed in its Chromium-based Edge browser since the update that was released last month . T...

OpenAI on Tuesday unveiled GPT-5.4-Cyber , a variant of its latest flagship model, GPT‑5.4 , that's specifically optimized for defensive cybersecurity use cases, days after rival Anthropic unveiled its own frontier model, Mythos . "The progressive use of AI accelerates defenders – those responsible for keeping systems, data, and users safe – enabling them to find and fix problems faster in the digital infrastructure everyone relies on," OpenAI said . In conjunction with the announcement, the artificial intelligence (AI) company said it's ramping up its Trusted Access for Cyber ( TAC ) program to thousands of authenticated individual defenders and hundreds of teams responsible for securing critical software. AI systems are inherently dual-use, as bad actors can repurpose technologies developed for legitimate applications to their own advantage and achieve malicious goals. One core area of concern is that adversaries could invert the models fine...

Two high-severity security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Composer, a package manager for PHP, that, if successfully exploited, could result in arbitrary command execution. The vulnerabilities have been described as command injection flaws affecting the Perforce VCS (version control software) driver. Details of the two flaws are below - CVE-2026-40176 (CVSS score: 7.8) - An improper input validation vulnerability that could allow an attacker controlling a repository configuration in a malicious composer.json declaring a Perforce VCS repository to inject arbitrary commands, resulting in command execution in the context of the user running Composer. CVE-2026-40261 (CVSS score: 8.8) - An improper input validation vulnerability stemming from inadequate escaping that could allow an attacker to inject arbitrary commands through a crafted source reference containing shell metacharacters. In both cases, Composer would execute these injected ...

Google has announced the integration of a Rust-based Domain Name System (DNS) parser into the modem firmware as part of its ongoing efforts to beef up the security of Pixel devices and push memory-safe code at a more foundational level. "The new Rust-based DNS parser significantly reduces our security risk by mitigating an entire class of vulnerabilities in a risky area, while also laying the foundation for broader adoption of memory-safe code in other areas," Jiacheng Lu, a software engineer part of the Google Pixel Team, said . The security boost via Rust integration is available for Pixel 10 devices, making it the first Pixel device to integrate a memory-safe language into its modem. The move builds upon a series of initiatives the tech giant has taken to harden the cellular baseband modem against exploitation. In late 2023, it highlighted the role played by Clang sanitizers like Overflow Sanitizer (IntSan) and BoundsSanitizer (BoundSan) to cat...

Cybersecurity researchers have unmasked a novel ad fraud scheme that has been found to leverage search engine poisoning (SEO) techniques and artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content to push deceptive news stories into Google's Discover feed and trick users into enabling persistent browser notifications that lead to scareware and financial scams. The campaign, which has been found to target the personalized content feeds of Android and Chrome users, has been codenamed Pushpaganda by HUMAN's Satori Threat Intelligence and Research Team. "This operation, named for push notifications central to the scheme, generates invalid organic traffic from real mobile devices by tricking users into subscribing to enabling notifications that presented alarming messages," researchers Louisa Abel, Vikas Parthasarathy, João Santos, and Adam Sell said in a report shared with The Hacker News. At its peak, about 240 million bid requests have been associated wit...