linux | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A Chinese-speaking cybercrime cluster known as Gambling Goblin has been observed installing malicious Apache modules on compromised web servers run by Brazilian government and educational institutions, and using them to divert visitors to attacker-controlled pages promoting online gambling and sports betting. Check Point Research said it has tracked the campaign since mid-2025. The modules reverse-proxy visitors to a set of phishing pages while the traffic still appears to originate from the legitimate domain. The site's own security headers are stripped, allowing the injected content to run freely. Those pages pose as trusted app stores including Google Play, Microsoft Store, and Amazon, and push online gambling and sports betting behind that facade. Check Point said the likely goal is search engine optimization (SEO) manipulation at scale, with compromised high-reputation domains, many of them Brazilian government sites, chained together to inflate search rankings. AN...

Virtualizor said hackers used a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) hijack to divert Softaculous traffic. The hackers then used the diverted update traffic to deliver a malicious Virtualizor package to some installations. A hosting-provider account separately said 5 of its 34 checked Virtualizor hypervisors sustained root-level compromise. The incident window ran from approximately August 28 at 20:57 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to August 30 at 06:10 UTC. Virtualizor said every operator should check its servers because the company has no affected-version range or definitive list of installations that received the package. Virtualizor released Patch 9 with a Security Analyzer on September 1, but the vendor said cryptographic package signing remained future work. Operators should run the official scanner, rotate and restrict application programming interface (API) credentials, and audit each server for persistence and unauthorized access. "This affected a handful of servers rat...

The Iranian Nimbus Manticore hacking group has been attributed to two previously undocumented malware families that highlight the continued evolution of its toolset and likely expand its targeting footprint to infect Linux and Apple macOS systems using cross-platform remote access trojans (RATs) developed using Node.js and JavaScript. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky is tracking the malware strains under the names NodeRabbit and PollCat. The first sample of NodeRabbit was discovered on a system in Afghanistan, with subsequent sightings on two distinct machines located in Egypt and Ethiopia. "Its operators deliver [NodeRabbit] through spear-phishing messages on LinkedIn and other job search platforms that contain trojanized coding challenge archives," Kaspersky security researcher Omar Amin said . "Like NodeRabbit, PollCat is a cross-platform RAT, but it is written in obfuscated JavaScript also distributed through trojanized coding challenge archives."...

Threat actors associated with Aurora (aka Aur0ra) ransomware have been observed using SpaceX's artificial intelligence (AI)-powered coding assistant Cursor to break into target networks, according to findings from CloudSEK and Gambit Security . The two independent analyses are based on exposed infrastructure associated with the Russian-speaking cybercrime group, leading to the discovery of its toolkit, shell history, and encryptor. CloudSEK said the exposed open directory leaked "months of activity" that was active against more than 20 organizations across nine countries between April and July 2026. Four of those victims have since been listed on its data leak site. "The operator used Cursor, an agentic coding assistant, to plan attacks in Russian, while excluding CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] ranges and CIS-country domains, without exception," CloudSEK noted. Details about Aurora first emerged in late May 2026, with CYFIRMA highlighting atta...

A China-nexus cyber espionage actor tracked as Fire Ant has expanded a long-running campaign beyond VMware hypervisors to compromise Cisco IOS XR routers, Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System (TACACS) servers, and Linux management hosts used to route, authenticate, and manage high-value networks. Sygnia, the incident response firm that investigated the intrusion, said the actor turned the compromised routers into collection platforms, capturing network traffic, harvesting credentials, and suppressing the logging and telemetry that defenders rely on to reconstruct an attack. The firm assessed that the hacker group used its foothold to explore paths to connected high-value environments, including critical infrastructure. However, activity against those networks was limited to scanning and connection attempts rather than confirmed compromise. Controlling the routers gave the actor a vantage point over traffic moving through trusted network paths, Sygnia said. "...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Wednesday added six flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, including a high-severity security vulnerability impacting Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2019-1068 - A remote code execution vulnerability in  Microsoft SQL Server that could allow an attacker to execute code in the context of the SQL Server Database Engine service account. CVE-2026-8452 - An improper restriction of operations within the bounds of a memory buffer vulnerability in Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway that could lead to denial-of-service. CVE-2022-0995 - An out-of-bounds memory write vulnerability in  Linux Kernel that could allow a local user to gain privileged access or cause a denial of service on the system. CVE-2015-5287 - A privilege escalation vulnerability in  Red Hat Automatic B...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a set of trojanized npm packages that masquerade as working calendar and streak utilities but are engineered to stealthily deliver an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Linux implant dubbed RedC2 4.0. "When the module loads, it locates the bundled binary, marks it executable, and launches it as a detached background process," TrendAI, Trend Micro's enterprise cybersecurity business, said in a report published Thursday. "No install hook function call is needed; a single import anywhere in the dependency graph, even a transitive one, is enough to execute the payload." The list of identified packages is below - streak-metrics-math@1.0.0,1.0.1 kit-map-vim@1.0.0 streak-map-cache@1.0.0 streak-map-kit@1.0.0 map-streak-kit@1.0.0 streak-cache-map@1.0.0 streak-calc-metrics@1.0.0 streak-calc-math@1.0.0 streak-math-abz@1.0.0 streak-metricsaz@1.0.0 streak-math-metrics@1.0.0 streak-metrica...

A cluster of nearly 800 malicious packages has been published to the npm registry as part of a new campaign designed to deliver cross-platform malware targeting Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. "These packages appear to use AI slop squatted, or randomly generated typo-squatting package names, but all of them deliver a powerful RAT and infostealer payload," OpenSourceMalware researcher Paul McCarty said . Unlike other npm-oriented software supply chain attacks that make use of lifecycle hooks like preinstall or postinstall to trigger the execution of malicious code, the newly identified packages come with a README that instructs developers to load them with require(), a built-in function to import modules, local files, and third-party packages. The attack leads to the execution of a downloader named WEL1DROPPER , which, when executed, identifies the host operating system and processor architecture and fetches a compatible payload from one of the three Cloudflare Workers...

A use-after-free bug in Linux's SCTP networking code can be turned into full root on a host, and Tencent researchers say they used it to escape a container and reach the machine underneath. The flaw has existed since 2008. The fix already shipped: stable kernels 7.1.6, 6.18.42, 6.12.101 and 6.6.148, released August 3, close it. Anyone running an older kernel with SCTP reachable should update. Tracked as  CVE-2026-64564  and named SCTPhantom by its finders, the flaw was disclosed publicly on August 6, two days after the kernel CVE team assigned it. No public exploit code had surfaced at the time of writing, and The Hacker News found no entry for the flaw in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog as of August 7. The flaw is local, not remote, and it needs SCTP reachable on the target, which limits exposure. Where those conditions held, Tencent Zhuque Lab reports it got root on the kernel builds it tested for Debian 13, Ubuntu 24.04, Rocky Linux 9 and RHEL 9, and ...

Security researcher Malcolm Stagg has disclosed a new attack class called  NatJack  that manipulates network address translation (NAT) connection state to hijack active TCP sessions, spoof DNS responses, expose mapped ports, and exhaust NAT tables. Presented at Black Hat USA 2026 , the research found affected behavior across independently developed implementations, including Windows and Linux. Two implementation-specific flaws have been assigned CVEs:  CVE-2026-56181  (CVSS score: 8.3) in Windows NAT used by Hyper-V, and  CVE-2026-63913  (CVSS score: 8.2) in Linux Netfilter conntrack. NatJack generally requires the attacker to have privileged access to a system behind the same NAT as the victim. The mitigation guidance therefore emphasizes separating untrusted workloads from trusted systems that share NAT infrastructure. There is no single patch for the broader attack class. Organizations should apply available Windows and Linux updates and encryp...

Zapscape , a new Linux kernel vulnerability, could allow an attacker with kernel privileges inside an L1 guest virtual machine (VM) to escape KVM isolation and execute code on the host. The risk applies when nested virtualization is exposed to untrusted guests. The flaw is tracked as  CVE-2026-64561  and affects KVM/x86's shadow memory management unit (MMU), which manages shadow page tables used for nested guest memory translation. Security researcher Hyunwoo Kim, who disclosed the bug, said the demonstrated exploit path can run commands on the host with kernel, or root, privileges. The upstream fix has been merged, and administrators running KVM hosts that expose nested virtualization to untrusted guests should update to a fixed stable kernel or a vendor package that backports the patch. The required L1 kernel privilege usually means guest root. Intel systems also require both EPT page-walk length 4 and 5 to be exposed to the L1 guest. AMD has no equivalent conditio...

An unprivileged Linux program can time a hardware interrupt to land in the gap between a processor sanitizing its branch predictor and the kernel using it, re-poisoning the predictor after the defense has run. MIT CSAIL researchers Daniël Trujillo and Mengjia Yan named the technique INTERRUPT INJECTION . On an AMD Zen 2 machine running Linux 6.14 with every default Spectre v2 mitigation on, their exploit leaked arbitrary kernel memory at 5.47 bytes per second with 91.97% accuracy, enough to locate and read /etc/shadow, which stores the system's password hashes, in five of ten attempts. It needs no privileges, only local code execution, so the risk sits on shared systems running an affected processor. The pair disclosed to AMD and Intel on February 5. AMD told them it plans a kernel patch; MIT says one has since shipped and arrives in a normal operating system update. A fix is in the Linux kernel. The commit, "x86/bugs: Make Safe-RET robust against interrupt inject...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a "factory-shipped backdoor" implanted in at least 20 Chinese router models from Zbtlink. According to a new report from VulnCheck, the implant appears in all 21 firmware images currently available from Zbtlink that span more than 2 years. The backdoors are designed such that they start automatically and attempt to beacon to Chinese command-and-control (C2) infrastructure as often as every 35 seconds. They masquerade as a Linux kernel thread, but are actually userland processes running with root privileges while blending their true functionality with other legitimate kworker processes. The "phone home" implants have been codenamed ENDLESSDOORS . "ENDLESSDOORS, at its core, is a small tool called rctl (remote control linux)," Jacob Baines, VulnCheck Chief Technology Officer, said. "Uploaded to GitHub on January 14, 2015 and never touched again, this obscure repository implements a simple co...

A memory corruption flaw in the Linux kernel's Open vSwitch datapath gives ordinary local users a path to root on a broad set of default-configured distributions, and a public exploit ships with pre-built records for roughly 800 kernel builds. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-64531 (CVSS score: 7.8) and codenamed OVSwrap by its discoverer, was disclosed by security researcher Asim Manizada on July 28, 2026. The bug sits in the kernel datapath, not the userspace ovs-vswitchd daemon. In a technical write-up , Manizada said an attacker needs "no existing OVS bridge, no running ovs-vswitchd, no host-level CAP_NET_ADMIN." On affected systems where the OVS kernel datapath is available and unprivileged user namespaces are enabled, an ordinary user can create private user and network namespaces with unshare -Urn, gain CAP_NET_ADMIN inside that namespace, and reach the vulnerable flow-installation path. If the openvswitch module is installed but not loaded, resolvi...

cPanel has patched a flaw that let an authenticated hosting customer execute SQL in the database's root context, crossing the privilege boundary between a cPanel account and the server's administrative database identity. It shipped in a targeted security release that closes two other routes past account boundaries. The database bug is tracked as CVE-2026-58048 (CVSS 4.0 score: 9.4) and affects all supported versions of cPanel & WHM, along with WP Squared. Reaching it requires a valid cPanel account and access to the MySQL/MariaDB feature. From there, the vendor says the account holder could execute arbitrary database commands with full administrative privileges. Depending on the operating system and database engine configuration, “this may extend to operating-system-level compromise.” cPanel patched CVE-2026-58048 in these builds: 11.110.0.137 11.118.0.71 11.126.0.78 11.134.0.48 11.136.0.32 138.1.6 for WP Squared Servers that cannot update immediately can ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new set of malicious npm packages that target users of Alibaba developer tools with a cross-platform remote access trojan (RAT) as part of a sophisticated, targeted software supply chain attack targeting Chinese-speaking environments. One of the packages in question is " lib-mtop ," an unscoped package with the same name as a private Alibaba package under the "@ali" scope. Although the npm package was first published sometime in November 2023 with no functionality, three new versions (v1.0.1, v1.0.2, and v1.0.3) were uploaded earlier this March and April. It's currently not clear if this was the result of a maintainer account takeover or the project developer opting to go rogue. Regardless of how the malicious changes were pushed, the newly added changes feature a loader that's designed to fetch a remote JavaScript payload using curl and then execute it. The same maintainer account " ch4ce ," whic...

Nebula Security says a patched Firefox JIT flaw could be triggered by simply visiting a malicious webpage and was also used to compromise Tor Browser. Tracked as CVE-2026-10702 , the bug provides arbitrary code execution inside the browser's renderer process. Mozilla rated it High and fixed it in the Firefox 151.0.3 update . "No settings or additional user interaction are required," Eten Zou, CEO of Nebula Security, told The Hacker News. "Visiting a malicious webpage is enough to trigger it," Zou said every Tor Browser release that incorporated a vulnerable Firefox version was affected, though researchers have not identified the exact Tor releases. On its own, the bug runs code only inside Firefox's sandboxed content process. Nebula released public exploit material and used the flaw as the first stage of IonStack, a browser-to-kernel chain built for an ARM64 device running Android 17. The released end-to-end code targets one supported Google build, a...

A new Mirai-derived botnet called Tengu can use a compromised Linux device's hardware watchdog to trigger a reboot when defenders kill its main process. If that happens, Tengu's other persistence mechanisms get another chance to relaunch it. Nozomi Networks Labs observed the dropper reaching its honeypots through Telnet credential brute force. Tengu supports 25 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) methods. It can also run a SOCKS5 proxy, execute shell commands, and collect system and network data. The malware can update itself and retrieve additional Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) or Android package (APK) payloads. Nozomi listed architecture-specific samples for i386, amd64, MIPS, ARM, PowerPC, and m68k. The report identifies no specific vendor or device model. It also names no operator, infection count, or real-world DDoS victims. It shows what Tengu can do, not how far it has spread. Defenders should start by removing internet exposure for Telnet and other unne...

STAR Labs has published a Linux kernel exploit that turns an ordinary local user into root on the CentOS Stream 9 build it targeted. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-53264 (CVSS score: 7.8), is a use-after-free race in the kernel's network traffic-control subsystem. Researcher Lee Jia Jie said artificial intelligence (AI) helped him find the bug and speed up exploit development. This is local privilege escalation, not remote code execution, so an attacker needs a foothold on the machine before any of it applies. The demonstrated exploit also requires unprivileged user namespaces, the CONFIG_NET_ACT_GACT and CONFIG_NET_CLS_FLOWER kernel options, and a kernel-specific return-oriented programming (ROP) chain containing hardcoded offsets. Those conditions narrow the immediate exposure, but full exploit source code is now public. The upstream fix landed on June 1, 2026, and has since been backported to several stable kernel branches. The Linux CNA record lists vulnerable ranges begi...

The operators of the DevMan ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) scheme are maintaining a dedicated web platform that offers affiliates the ability to build payloads, oversee earnings, and manage various aspects related to victims. Swiss cybersecurity company PRODAFT is tracking the centrally administered RaaS operation under the name Funky Mantis . "The portal combined build generation, finance, victim chat, support, victim records, teams, and payout functions," the company said in an extensive report shared with The Hacker News. "The service integrated access brokerage or access distribution with ransomware deployment. Administrators offered country-specific 'networks,' asked whether an affiliate would use personal or program-supplied access, and imposed two-to-three-day completion windows." Various analyses show that DevMan first emerged on the scene in April 2025 as an affiliate for Qilin, DragonForce, Apos, and RansomHub, before shifting to their o...