data breach | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to multiple campaigns that leverage known security vulnerabilities and expose Redis servers to various malicious activities, including leveraging the compromised devices as IoT botnets, residential proxies, or cryptocurrency mining infrastructure. The first set of attacks entails the exploitation of CVE-2024-36401 (CVSS score: 9.8), a critical remote code execution vulnerability impacting OSGeo GeoServer GeoTools that has been weaponized in cyber attacks since late last year. "Criminals have used the vulnerability to deploy legitimate software development kits (SDKs) or modified apps to gain passive income via network sharing or residential proxies," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers Zhibin Zhang, Yiheng An, Chao Lei, and Haozhe Zhang said in a technical report. "This method of generating passive income is particularly stealthy. It mimics a monetization strategy used by some legitimate app developers who choose ...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a novel attack chain that employs phishing emails to deliver an open-source backdoor called VShell . The "Linux-specific malware infection chain that starts with a spam email with a malicious RAR archive file," Trellix researcher Sagar Bade said in a technical write-up. "The payload isn't hidden inside the file content or a macro, it's encoded directly in the filename itself. Through clever use of shell command injection and Base64-encoded Bash payloads, the attacker turns a simple file listing operation into an automatic malware execution trigger." The technique, the cybersecurity company added, takes advantage of a simple yet dangerous pattern commonly observed in shell scripts that arises when file names are evaluated with inadequate sanitization, thereby causing a trivial command like eval or echo to facilitate the execution of arbitrary code. What's more, the technique offers the added advantage of...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to malicious activity orchestrated by a China-nexus cyber espionage group known as Murky Panda that involves abusing trusted relationships in the cloud to breach enterprise networks. "The adversary has also shown considerable ability to quickly weaponize N-day and zero-day vulnerabilities and frequently achieves initial access to their targets by exploiting internet-facing appliances," CrowdStrike said in a Thursday report. Murky Panda, also known as Silk Typhoon (formerly Hafnium), is best known for its zero-day exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server flaws in 2021. Attacks mounted by the hacking group have targeted government, technology, academic, legal, and professional services entities in North America. Earlier this March, Microsoft detailed the threat actor's shift in tactics, detailing its targeting of the information technology (IT) supply chain as a means to obtain initial access to corporate networks....

INTERPOL on Friday announced that authorities from 18 countries across Africa have arrested 1,209 cybercriminals who targeted 88,000 victims. "The crackdown recovered $97.4 million and dismantled 11,432 malicious infrastructures, underscoring the global reach of cybercrime and the urgent need for cross-border cooperation," the agency said . The effort is the second phase of an ongoing law enforcement initiative called Operation Serengeti , which took place between June and August 2025 to tackle severe crimes like ransomware, online scams. and business email compromise (BEC). The first wave of arrests occurred late last year. Among the highlights are the dismantling of 25 cryptocurrency mining centres in Angola, where 60 Chinese nationals were involved in the illicit money-making scheme. "The crackdown identified 45 illicit power stations which were confiscated, along with mining and IT equipment worth more than $37 million, now earmarked by the government to support...

A 55-year-old Chinese national has been sentenced to four years in prison and three years of supervised release for sabotaging his former employer's network with custom malware and deploying a kill switch that locked out employees when his account was disabled. Davis Lu, 55, of Houston, Texas, was convicted of causing intentional damage to protected computers in March 2025. He was arrested and charged in April 2021 for abusing his position as a software developer to execute malicious code on his employer's computer servers. The name of the company was not disclosed, but Cleveland.com revealed he was employed at Eaton Corporation, a multinational power management company that's headquartered in Beachwood, Ohio. "The defendant breached his employer's trust by using his access and technical knowledge to sabotage company networks, wreaking havoc and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses for a U.S. company," said Acting Assistant Attorney General M...

Commvault has released updates to address four security gaps that could be exploited to achieve remote code execution on susceptible instances. The list of vulnerabilities, identified in Commvault versions before 11.36.60, is as follows - CVE-2025-57788 (CVSS score: 6.9) - A vulnerability in a known login mechanism allows unauthenticated attackers to execute API calls without requiring user credentials CVE-2025-57789 (CVSS score: 5.3) - A vulnerability during the setup phase between installation and the first administrator login that allows remote attackers to exploit the default credentials to gain admin control CVE-2025-57790 (CVSS score: 8.7) - A path traversal vulnerability that allows remote attackers to perform unauthorized file system access through a path traversal issue, resulting in remote code execution CVE-2025-57791 (CVSS score: 6.9) - A vulnerability that allows remote attackers to inject or manipulate command-line arguments passed to internal components due to...

Threat actors have been observed leveraging the deceptive social engineering tactic known as ClickFix to deploy a versatile backdoor codenamed CORNFLAKE.V3. Google-owned Mandiant described the activity, which it tracks as UNC5518, as part of an access-as-a-service scheme that employs fake CAPTCHA pages as lures to trick users into providing initial access to their systems, which is then monetized by other threat groups. "The initial infection vector, dubbed ClickFix, involves luring users on compromised websites to copy a malicious PowerShell script and execute it via the Windows Run dialog box," Google said in a report published today. The access provided by UNC5518 is assessed to be leveraged by at least two different hacking groups, UNC5774 and UNC4108, to initiate a multi-stage infection process and drop additional payloads - UNC5774, another financially motivated group that delivers CORNFLAKE as a way to deploy various subsequent payloads UNC4108, a threat act...

As security professionals, it's easy to get caught up in a race to counter the latest advanced adversary techniques. Yet the most impactful attacks often aren't from cutting-edge exploits, but from cracked credentials and compromised accounts . Despite widespread awareness of this threat vector, Picus Security's Blue Report 2025 shows that organizations continue to struggle with preventing password cracking attacks and detecting the malicious use of compromised accounts . With the first half of 2025 behind us, compromised valid accounts remain the most underprevented attack vector , highlighting the urgent need for a proactive approach focused on the threats that are evading organizations' defenses. A Wake-Up Call: The Alarming Rise in Password Cracking Success The Picus Blue Report is an annual research publication that analyzes how well organizations are preventing and detecting real-world cyber threats. Unlike traditional reports that focus solely on threat t...

A 20-year-old member of the notorious cybercrime gang known as Scattered Spider has been sentenced to ten years in prison in the U.S. in connection with a series of major hacks and cryptocurrency thefts. Noah Michael Urban pleaded guilty to charges related to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft back in April 2025. News of Urban's sentencing was reported by Bloomberg and Jacksonville news outlet News4JAX . In addition, 120 months in federal prison, Urban faces an additional three years of supervised release and has been ordered to pay $13 million in restitution to victims. In a statement shared with security journalist Brian Krebs, Urban called the sentence unjust. Urban, who also went by the aliases Sosa, Elijah, King Bob, Gustavo Fring, and Anthony Ramirez, was arrested by U.S. authorities in Florida in January 2024 for committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft between August 2022 and March 2023. These incidents led to the theft of at least $800,000 from...

Popular password manager plugins for web browsers have been found susceptible to clickjacking security vulnerabilities that could be exploited to steal account credentials, two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, and credit card details under certain conditions. The technique has been dubbed Document Object Model ( DOM )-based extension clickjacking by independent security researcher Marek Tóth, who presented the findings at the DEF CON 33 security conference earlier this month. "A single click anywhere on an attacker-controlled website could allow attackers to steal users' data (credit card details, personal data, login credentials, including TOTP)," Tóth said . "The new technique is general and can be applied to other types of extensions." Clickjacking , also called UI redressing, refers to a type of attack in which users are tricked into performing a series of actions on a website that appear ostensibly harmless, such as clicking on buttons, when, in rea...

Do you know how many AI agents are running inside your business right now? If the answer is "not sure," you're not alone—and that's exactly the concern. Across industries, AI agents are being set up every day. Sometimes by IT, but often by business units moving fast to get results. That means agents are running quietly in the background—without proper IDs, without owners, and without logs of what they're doing. In short: they're invisible. 👉  Register now for Shadow Agents and Silent Threats: Securing AI's New Identity Frontier  and learn how to get ahead of this growing challenge. The Hidden Risk of Shadow AI Agents Shadow agents aren't harmless helpers. Once compromised, they can move through systems, grab sensitive data, or escalate privileges at machine speed. Unlike humans, they don't pause to think—they just execute 24/7. The truth is, most security programs weren't built for this. They manage people, not autonomous software agents. And as adoption grows, these s...

A Russian state-sponsored cyber espionage group known as Static Tundra has been observed actively exploiting a seven-year-old security flaw in Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XE software as a means to establish persistent access to target networks. Cisco Talos, which disclosed details of the activity, said the attacks single out organizations in telecommunications, higher education and manufacturing sectors across North America, Asia, Africa and Europe. Prospective victims are chosen based on their "strategic interest" to Russia, it added, with recent efforts directed against Ukraine and its allies following the onset of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2018-0171 (CVSS score: 9.8), a critical flaw in the Smart Install feature of Cisco IOS Software and Cisco IOS XE software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to trigger a denial-of-service (DoS) condition or execute arbitrary code. It's worth noting that the security ...

Threat actors are exploiting a nearly two-year-old security flaw in Apache ActiveMQ to gain persistent access to cloud Linux systems and deploy malware called DripDropper . But in an unusual twist, the unknown attackers have been observed patching the exploited vulnerability after securing initial access to prevent further exploitation by other adversaries and evade detection, Red Canary said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Follow-on adversary command-and-control (C2) tools varied by endpoint and included Sliver , and Cloudflare Tunnels to maintain covert command and control over the long term," researchers Christina Johns, Chris Brook, and Tyler Edmonds said. The attacks exploit a maximum-severity security flaw in Apache ActiveMQ ( CVE-2023-46604 , CVSS score: 10.0), a remote code execution vulnerability that could be exploited to run arbitrary shell commands. It was addressed in late October 2023. The security defect has since come under heavy exploitation...

Financial institutions like trading and brokerage firms are the target of a new campaign that delivers a previously unreported remote access trojan called GodRAT . The malicious activity involves the "distribution of malicious .SCR (screen saver) files disguised as financial documents via Skype messenger," Kaspersky researcher Saurabh Sharma said in a technical analysis published today. The attacks, which have been active as recently as August 12, 2025, employ a technique called steganography to conceal within image files shellcode used to download the malware from a command-and-control (C2) server. The screen saver artifacts have been detected since September 9, 2024, targeting countries and territories like Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Jordan. Assessed to be based on Gh0st RAT, GodRAT follows a plugin-based approach to augment its functionality in order to harvest sensitive information and deliver secondary payloads like AsyncRAT. It'...

A new exploit combining two critical, now-patched security flaws in SAP NetWeaver has emerged in the wild, putting organizations at risk of system compromise and data theft. The exploit in question chains together CVE-2025-31324 and CVE-2025-42999 to bypass authentication and achieve remote code execution, SAP security company Onapsis said . CVE-2025-31324 (CVSS score: 10.0) - Missing Authorization check in SAP NetWeaver's Visual Composer development server CVE-2025-42999 (CVSS score: 9.1) - Insecure Deserialization in SAP NetWeaver's Visual Composer development server The vulnerabilities were addressed by SAP back in April and May 2025, but not before they were abused by threat actors as zero-days since at least March. Multiple ransomware and data extortion groups, including Qilin, BianLian, and RansomExx, have been observed weaponizing the flaws , not to mention several China-nexus espionage crews who have also put them to use in attacks targeting critical infra...

After two decades of developing increasingly mature security architectures, organizations are running up against a hard truth: tools and technologies alone are not enough to mitigate cyber risk. As tech stacks have grown more sophisticated and capable, attackers have shifted their focus. They are no longer focusing on infrastructure vulnerabilities alone. Instead, they are increasingly exploiting human behavior. In most modern breaches, the initial attack vector is not a zero-day technology exploit. It's exploiting vulnerabilities in people.  The data is well-documented. For five years running, Verizon's Data Breach Investigations Report has shown that human risk represents the greatest driver of breaches globally. The latest version of the report found that nearly 60% of all breaches in 2024 involved a human element. However, in that context, it's important to address a common misconception. The phrase "people are the weakest link" implies that employees are at fault when brea...