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The maintainers of the WinRAR file archiving utility have released an update to address an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability. Tracked as CVE-2025-8088 (CVSS score: 8.8), the issue has been described as a case of path traversal affecting the Windows version of the tool that could be exploited to obtain arbitrary code execution by crafting malicious archive files. "When extracting a file, previous versions of WinRAR, Windows versions of RAR, UnRAR, portable UnRAR source code and UnRAR.dll can be tricked into using a path, defined in a specially crafted archive, instead of a specified path," WinRAR said in an advisory. Anton Cherepanov, Peter Kosinar, and Peter Strycek from ESET have been credited for discovering and reporting the security defect, which has been addressed in WinRAR version 7.13 released on July 31, 2025. It's currently not known how the vulnerability is being weaponized in real-world attacks, and by whom. In 2023, another vulnerability affect...

When an organization's credentials are leaked, the immediate consequences are rarely visible—but the long-term impact is far-reaching. Far from the cloak-and-dagger tactics seen in fiction, many real-world cyber breaches begin with something deceptively simple: a username and password. According to Verizon's 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, leaked credentials accounted for 22% of breaches in 2024, outpacing phishing and even software exploitation. That's nearly a quarter of all incidents, initiated not through zero-days or advanced persistent threats, but by logging in through the front door. This quiet and persistent threat has been growing. New data compiled by Cyberint—an external risk management and threat intelligence company recently acquired by Check Point—shows a 160% increase in leaked credentials in 2025 compared to the previous year. The report, titled The Rise of Leaked Credentials , provides a look into not just the volume of these leaks, but how they are exploi...

Europol on Monday announced the arrest of the suspected administrator of XSS.is (formerly DaMaGeLaB), a notorious Russian-speaking cybercrime platform. The arrest, which took place in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 222, 2025, was led by the French Police and Paris Prosecutor, in collaboration with Ukrainian authorities and Europol. The action is the result of an investigation that was launched by the French Police in July 2021. Coupled with the arrest, law enforcement has also taken control of the clearnet domain of XSS.is, greeting visitors with a seizure notice, "This domain has been seized by la Brigade de Lutte Contre la Cybercriminalité with assistance of the SBU Cyber Department." "The forum, which had more than 50,000 registered users, served as a key marketplace for stolen data, hacking tools and illicit services," the law enforcement agency said . "It has long been a central platform for some of the most active and dangerous cybercriminal networks, used t...

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has levied sanctions against Russia-based bulletproof hosting (BPH) service provider Aeza Group for assisting threat actors in their malicious activities and targeting victims in the country and across the world. The sanctions also extend to its subsidiaries Aeza International Ltd., the U.K. branch of Aeza Group, as well as Aeza Logistic LLC, Cloud Solutions LLC, and four individuals linked to the company - Arsenii Aleksandrovich Penzev, CEO and 33% owner of Aeza Group Yurii Meruzhanovich Bozoyan, general director and 33% owner of Aeza Group Vladimir Vyacheslavovich Gast, technical director who works closely with Penzev and Bozoyan Igor Anatolyevich Knyazev, 33% owner of Aeza Group who manages the operations in the absence of Penzev and Bozoyan It's worth noting that Penzev was arrested in early April 2025 on charges of leading a criminal organization and enabling large-scale drug traffick...

The threat actors behind the Qilin ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) scheme are now offering legal counsel for affiliates to put more pressure on victims to pay up, as the cybercrime group intensifies its activity and tries to fill the void left by its rivals. The new feature takes the form of a "Call Lawyer" feature on the affiliate panel, per Israeli cybersecurity company Cybereason. The development represents a newfound resurgence of the e-crime group as once-popular ransomware groups like LockBit, Black Cat, RansomHub, Everest, and BlackLock have suffered abrupt cessations, operational failures, and defacements. The group, also tracked as Gold Feather and Water Galura, has been active since October 2022. Data compiled from the dark web leak sites run by ransomware groups shows that Qilin led with 72 victims in April 2025. In May, it is estimated to be behind 55 attacks , putting it behind Safepay (72) and Luna Moth (67). It's also the third most active group after...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday announced the seizure of cryptocurrency funds and about 145 clearnet and dark web domains associated with an illicit carding marketplace called BidenCash. "The operators of the BidenCash marketplace use the platform to simplify the process of buying and selling stolen credit cards and associated personal information," the DoJ said . "BidenCash administrators charged a fee for every transaction conducted on the website." BidenCash launched in March 2022 to fill the void left by the shutdown of Joker's Stash a year earlier and several other carding forums like UniCC . Since the time it went operational, the illegal bazaar ("bidencash[.]asia," "bidencash[.]bd," and "bidencash[.]ws") is estimated to have supported more than 117,000 customers, facilitated the trafficking of over 15 million payment card numbers and personally identifiable information, and generated no less than $17 mi...

As part of the latest "season" of Operation Endgame , a coalition of law enforcement agencies have taken down about 300 servers worldwide, neutralized 650 domains, and issued arrest warrants against 20 targets. Operation Endgame, first launched in May 2024, is an ongoing law enforcement operation targeting services and infrastructures assisting in or directly providing initial or consolidating access for ransomware. The previous edition focused on dismantling the initial access malware families that have been used to deliver ransomware. The latest iteration, per Europol, targeted new malware variants and successor groups that re-emerged after last year's takedowns such as Bumblebee, Lactrodectus, QakBot, HijackLoader, DanaBot, TrickBot, and WARMCOOKIE . The interaction action was carried out between May 19 and 22, 2025. "In addition, €3.5 million in cryptocurrency was seized during the action week, bringing the total amount seized during the Operation Endgame to...

Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (aka Bundeskriminalamt or BKA) has seized the online infrastructure and shutdown linked to the eXch cryptocurrency exchange over allegations of money laundering and operating a criminal trading platform. The operation was carried out on April 30, 2025, authorities said, adding they also confiscated 8 terabytes worth of data and cryptocurrency assets worth €34 million ($38.25 million) in Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, and Dash. According to the BKA, eXch[.]cx, existed since 2014 and offered cryptocurrency swapping services, allowing its users to exchange digital assets. It was available both on the clearnet and the dark web. eXch "specifically advertised on platforms of the criminal underground economy (UE) that it did not implement any anti-money laundering measures," the BKA said in a statement. "Users were neither required to identify themselves to the service, nor was user data stored there. Crypto swapping via eXch was...

Europol has announced the takedown of distributed denial of service (DDoS)-for-hire services that were used to launch thousands of cyber-attacks across the world. In connection with the operation, Polish authorities have arrested four individuals aged between 19 and 22 and the United States has seized nine domains that are associated with the now-defunct platforms. "The suspects are believed to be behind six separate stresser/booter services that enabled paying customers to flood websites and servers with malicious traffic — knocking them offline for as little as EUR 10," Europol said in a statement. The services, named cfxapi, cfxsecurity, neostress, jetstress, quickdown and zapcut, are said to have been instrumental in launching widespread attacks on schools, government services, businesses, and gaming platforms between 2022 and 2025.  Europol said the platforms offered "slick user interfaces," enabling malicious actors with little to no technical expertis...

What are IABs? Initial Access Brokers (IABs) specialize in gaining unauthorized entry into computer systems and networks, then selling that access to other cybercriminals. This division of labor allows IABs to concentrate on their core expertise: exploiting vulnerabilities through methods like social engineering and brute-force attacks.  By selling access, they significantly mitigate the risks associated with directly executing ransomware attacks or other complex operations. Instead, they capitalize on their skill in breaching networks, effectively streamlining the attack process for their clients. This business model enables IABs to operate with a lower profile and reduced risk, while still profiting from their technical skills. Operating primarily on dark web forums and underground markets, IABs can function independently or as part of larger organizations like Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) gangs.  They act as a crucial link in the cybercrime ecosystem, providing the i...

The recently leaked trove of internal chat logs among members of the Black Basta ransomware operation has revealed possible connections between the e-crime gang and Russian authorities. The leak, containing over 200,000 messages from September 2023 to September 2024, was published by a Telegram user @ExploitWhispers last month. According to an analysis of the messages by cybersecurity company Trellix, Black Basta's alleged leader Oleg Nefedov (aka GG or AA) may have received help from Russian officials following his arrest in Yerevan, Armenia, in June 2024, allowing him to escape three days later. In the messages, GG claimed that he contacted high-ranking officials to pass through a "green corridor" and facilitate the extraction. "This knowledge from chat leaks makes it difficult for the Black Basta gang to completely abandon the way they operate and start a new RaaS from scratch without a reference to their previous activities," Trellix researchers Ja...

The financially motivated threat actor known as EncryptHub has been observed orchestrating sophisticated phishing campaigns to deploy information stealers and ransomware, while also working on a new product called EncryptRAT . "EncryptHub has been observed targeting users of popular applications, by distributing trojanized versions," Outpost24 KrakenLabs said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. "Furthermore, the threat actor has also made use of third-party Pay-Per-Install (PPI) distribution services." The cybersecurity company described the threat actor as a hacking group that makes operational security errors and as someone who incorporates exploits for popular security flaws into their attack campaigns. EncryptHub, also tracked by Swiss cybersecurity company PRODAFT as LARVA-208, is assessed to have become active towards the end of June 2024, relying on a variety of approaches ranging from SMS phishing (smishing) to voice phishing (vishing) in an at...

The threat actors behind the Darcula phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform appear to be readying a new version that allows prospective customers and cyber crooks to clone any brand's legitimate website and create a phishing version, further bringing down the technical expertise required to pull off phishing attacks at scale. The latest iteration of the phishing suite "represents a significant shift in criminal capabilities, reducing the barrier to entry for bad actors to target any brand with complex, customizable phishing campaigns," Netcraft said in a new analysis. The cybersecurity company said it has detected and blocked more than 95,000 new Darcula phishing domains, nearly 31,000 IP addresses, and taken down more than 20,000 fraudulent websites since it was first exposed in late March 2024. The biggest change incorporated into Darcula is the ability for any user to generate a phishing kit for any brand in an on-demand fashion. "The new and remastered v...

Source: The Nation A coordinated law enforcement operation has taken down the dark web data leak and negotiation sites associated with the 8Base ransomware gang. Visitors to the data leak site are now greeted with a seizure banner that says: "This hidden site and the criminal content have been seized by the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office on behalf of the Office of the Public Prosecutor General in Bamberg." The takedown involved the U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA), the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Europol, as well as agencies from Bavaria, Belgium, Czechia, France, Germany, Japan, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, and Thailand. Thai media reports have revealed that four European nationals – two men and two women – were arrested across four different locations on Monday as part of an effort codenamed Operation Phobos Aetor. The identities of the suspects were not disclosed. Authorities are said to have seized more than 40 pieces of evidence, including ...

An international law enforcement operation has dismantled the domains associated with various online platforms linked to cybercrime such as Cracked, Nulled, Sellix, and StarkRDP. The effort, which took place between January 28 and 30, 2025, targeted the following domains - www.cracked.io www.nulled.to www.mysellix.io www.sellix.io www.starkrdp.io Visitors to these websites are now greeted by a seizure banner that says they were confiscated as part of Operation Talent that involved authorities from Australia, France, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the United States, along with Europol. "This website, as well as the information on the customers and victims of the website, has been seized by international law enforcement partners," the message reads. Operational since at 2015 and 2018, both Nulled and Cracked have been used to peddle various hack tools, such as ScrubCrypt, a malware obfuscation engine that has been observed delivering stealer malware in the pas...