ransomware | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

An active phishing campaign has been observed targeting multiple vectors since at least April 2025 with legitimate Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software as a way to establish persistent remote access to compromised hosts. The activity, codenamed VENOMOUS#HELPER , has impacted over 80 organizations, most of which are in the U.S., according to Securonix. It shares overlaps with clusters previously tracked by Red Canary and Sophos, the latter of which has given it the moniker STAC6405 . While it's not clear who is behind the campaign, the cybersecurity company said it aligns with a financially motivated Initial Access Broker (IAB) or a ransomware precursor operation. "In this case, a customized SimpleHelp and ScreenConnect RMMs are used to bypass defenses as they are legitimately installed by the unsuspecting victim," researchers Akshay Gaikwad, Shikha Sangwan, and Aaron Beardslee said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Setting aside the fact that the ...

A previously unknown threat actor has been observed targeting government and military entities in Southeast Asia, alongside a smaller cluster of managed service providers (MSPs) and hosting providers in the Philippines, Laos, Canada, South Africa, and the U.S., by exploiting the recently disclosed vulnerability in cPanel. The activity, detected by Ctrl-Alt-Intel on May 2, 2026, involves the abuse of CVE-2026-41940 , a critical vulnerability in cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM) that could result in an authentication bypass and allow remote attackers to gain elevated control of the control panel. The attack efforts have originated from the IP address "95.111.250[.]175," primarily singling out government and military domains associated with the Philippines (*.mil.ph and (*.ph)) and Laos (*.gov.la), as well as MSPs and hosting providers, using publicly-available   proof-of-concepts (PoCs). In addition, Ctrl-Alt-Intel revealed that the threat actor used a separate custom exp...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday announced the sentencing of two cybersecurity professionals to four years each in prison for their role in facilitating BlackCat ransomware attacks in 2023. Ryan Goldberg , 40, of Georgia, and Kevin Martin , 36, of Texas, were accused of deploying the ransomware against multiple victims located throughout the U.S. between April and December 2023. The two defendants, who pleaded guilty to their crimes in December 2025, conspired with Angelo Martino, 41, of Florida, to conduct the attacks. "The three men agreed to pay the ALPHV BlackCat administrators a 20% share of any ransoms received in exchange for access to the ransomware and ALPHV/BlackCat's extortion platform," the DoJ said . "All three men worked in the cybersecurity industry – meaning that they had special skills and experience in securing computer systems against harm, including the type of harm they themselves were committing against the victims in this ca...

The internet is noisy this week. We are seeing some wild new tactics, like people using fake cell towers to send scam texts, while some developers are accidentally downloading tools that peek into their private files during a simple install. It is definitely a busy time to be online. Security is always a moving target. Millions of servers are currently sitting online without any passwords, and old software bugs are showing up in the most unexpected places. Even with the right fixes available, staying one step ahead is a full-time job for all of us. Data is shifting in strange ways, too. Some browser tools are now legally selling user history for profit, and new kits are making it simpler for almost anyone to launch a campaign. You have to see these latest updates to believe them. Let’s look at the full list... SMS blaster phishing crackdown Canadian Authorities Arrest 3 Men for Alleged Use of SMS Blaster Canadian authorities have ar...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added two security flaws impacting ConnectWise ScreenConnect and Microsoft Windows to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2024-1708 (CVSS score: 8.4) - A path traversal vulnerability in  ConnectWise ScreenConnect that could allow an attacker to execute remote code or directly impact confidential data and critical systems. (Fixed in February 2024) CVE-2026-32202 (CVSS score: 4.3) - A protection mechanism failure vulnerability in  Microsoft Windows Shell that could allow an unauthorized attacker to perform spoofing over a network. (Fixed in April 2026) The addition of CVE-2026-32202 to the KEV catalog comes a day after Microsoft updated its advisory  for the flaw to acknowledge it had come under active exploitation. Although Microsoft has not disclosed the nature of the attacks weaponizi...

Threat hunters are warning that the cybercriminal operation known as VECT 2.0 acts more like a wiper than a ransomware due to a critical flaw in its encryption implementation across Windows, Linux, and ESXi variants that renders recovery impossible even for the threat actors. The fact that VECT's locker permanently destroys large files rather than encrypting them means even victims who opt to pay the ransom cannot get their data back, as the decryption keys are discarded by the malware during the time encryption occurs. "VECT is being marketed as ransomware, but for any file over 131KB – which is most of what enterprises actually care about – it functions as a data destruction tool," Eli Smadja, group manager at Check Point Research, said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. "CISOs need to understand that in a VECT incident, paying is not a recovery strategy. There is no decrypter that can be handed over, not because the attackers are unwilling, but beca...

A pro-Ukrainian hacktivist group called PhantomCore has been attributed to attacks actively targeting servers running TrueConf video conferencing software in Russia since September 2025. That's according to a report published by Positive Technologies, which found the threat actors to be leveraging an exploit chain comprising three vulnerabilities to execute commands remotely on susceptible servers.     "Despite the fact that there are no exploits for this chain of vulnerability in public access, attackers from PhantomCore managed to conduct their research and reproduce vulnerabilities, which led to a large number of cases of its operation in Russian organizations," researchers Daniil Grigoryan and Georgy Khandozhko said . PhantomCore , also called Fairy Trickster, Head Mare, Rainbow Hyena, and UNG0901, is the name assigned to a politically- and financially-motivated hacking crew that has been active since 2022 following the Russo-Ukrainian war. Attacks   mo...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added four vulnerabilities impacting SimpleHelp, Samsung MagicINFO 9 Server, and D-Link DIR-823X series routers to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The list of vulnerabilities is below - CVE-2024-57726 (CVSS score: 9.9) - A missing authorization vulnerability in SimpleHelp that could allow low-privileged technicians to create API keys with excessive permissions, which can then be used to escalate privileges to the server admin role. CVE-2024-57728 (CVSS score: 7.2) - A path traversal vulnerability in SimpleHelp that allows admin users to upload arbitrary files anywhere on the file system by uploading a crafted zip file (i.e., zip slip), which can be exploited to execute arbitrary code on the host in the context of the SimpleHelp server user. CVE-2024-7399 (CVSS score: 8.8) - A path traversal vulnerability in Samsung MagicINFO 9 Server that cou...

A previously undocumented threat activity cluster known as UNC6692 has been observed leveraging social engineering tactics via Microsoft Teams to deploy a custom malware suite on compromised hosts. "As with many other intrusions in recent years, UNC6692 relied heavily on impersonating IT help desk employees, convincing their victim to accept a Microsoft Teams chat invitation from an account outside their organization," Google-owned Mandiant said in a report published today. UNC6692 has been attributed to a large email campaign that's designed to overwhelm a target's inbox with a flood of spam emails, creating a false sense of urgency. The threat actor then approaches the target over Microsoft Teams by sending a message claiming to be from the IT support team to offer assistance with the email bombing problem. It's worth noting that this combination of bombarding a victim's email inbox followed by Microsoft Teams-based help desk impersonation has been a ...

You scroll past one incident and see another that feels familiar, like it should have been fixed years ago, but it still works with small changes. Same bugs. Same mistakes. The supply chain is messy. Packages you did not check are stealing data, adding backdoors, and spreading. Attacking the systems behind apps is easier than breaking the apps themselves. The exploits are simple but still work, giving attackers easy access. AI tools are also part of the problem now. They trust bad input and take real actions, which makes the damage bigger. Then there are quieter issues. Apps take data they should not. Devices behave in strange ways. Attackers keep testing what they can get away with. No noise. Just ongoing damage. Here is the list for this week’s ThreatsDay Bulletin. State-backed crypto heist North Korea Likely Behind KelpDAP $290M Crypto Heist Inter-blockchain communication protocol LayerZero has revealed that North Korean thr...

Threat actors associated with The Gentlemen ransomware‑as‑a‑service (RaaS) operation have been observed attempting to deploy a known proxy malware called SystemBC . According to new research published by Check Point, the command-and-control (C2 or C&C) server linked to SystemBC has led to the discovery of a botnet of more than 1,570 victims. "SystemBC establishes SOCKS5 network tunnels within the victim’s environment and connects to its C&C server using a custom RC4‑encrypted protocol," Check Point said. "It can also download and execute additional malware, with payloads either written to disk or injected directly into memory." Since its emergence in July 2025, The Gentlemen has quickly established itself as one of the most prolific ransomware groups, claiming more than 320 victims on its data leak site. Operating under a classic double-extortion model, the group is versatile as it's sophisticated, exhibiting capabilities to target Windows, Linux, N...

A third individual who was employed as a ransomware negotiator has pleaded guilty to conducting ransomware attacks against U.S. companies in 2023. Angelo Martino , 41, of Land O'Lakes, Florida, teamed up with the operators of the BlackCat ransomware starting in April 2023 to assist the e-crime gang in extracting higher amounts as ransoms. "Working as a negotiator on behalf of five different ransomware victims, Martino provided BlackCat attackers with confidential information about the negotiating position and strategy of his company's clients without the clients' or his employer’s knowledge or permission," the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said in a Monday announcement. The information, which included the victims' insurance policy limits and internal negotiation positions, maximized the ransoms they were required to pay. Martino was financially compensated in exchange for providing the details. Martino, who was charged last month, also admitted to co...

The cybersecurity industry has spent the last several years chasing sophisticated threats like zero-days, supply chain compromises, and AI-generated exploits. However, the most reliable entry point for attackers still hasn't changed: stolen credentials. Identity-based attacks remain a dominant initial access vector in breaches today. Attackers obtain valid credentials through credential stuffing from prior breach databases, password spraying against exposed services, or phishing campaigns — and use them to walk through the front door. No exploits needed. Just a valid username and password. What makes this difficult to defend against is how unremarkable the initial access looks. A successful login from a legitimate credential doesn't trigger the same alarms as a port scan or a malware callback. The attacker looks like an employee. Once inside, they dump and crack additional passwords, reuse those credentials to move laterally, and expand their foothold across the environment....

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added eight new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, including three flaws impacting Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, citing evidence of active exploitation. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2023-27351 (CVSS score: 8.2) - An improper authentication vulnerability in PaperCut NG/MF that could allow an attacker to bypass authentication on affected installations via the SecurityRequestFilter class. CVE-2024-27199 (CVSS score: 7.3) - A relative path traversal vulnerability in JetBrains TeamCity that could allow an attacker to perform limited admin actions. CVE-2025-2749 (CVSS score: 7.2) - A path traversal vulnerability in Kentico Xperience that could allow an authenticated user's Staging Sync Server to upload arbitrary data to path relative locations. CVE-2025-32975 (CVSS score: 10.0) - An improper authentication vulnerability in Quest KACE Systems Ma...

Grinex, a Kyrgyzstan-incorporated cryptocurrency exchange sanctioned by the U.K. and the U.S. last year, said it's suspending operations after it blamed Western intelligence agencies for a $13.74 million hack. The exchange said it fell victim to what it described as a large-scale cyber attack that bore hallmarks of foreign intelligence agency involvement. This attack led to the theft of over 1 billion rubles in user funds. "Digital forensic evidence and the nature of the attack point to an unprecedented level of resources and technological sophistication – capabilities typically available exclusively to the agencies of hostile states," the company said in a statement posted on its website. "Preliminary findings suggest the attack was coordinated with the specific objective of inflicting direct damage upon Russia's financial sovereignty." A spokesperson for the company went on to state that the exchange's infrastructure had been under attack since ...

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...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added half a dozen security flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2026-21643 (CVSS score: 9.1) -  An SQL injection vulnerability in  Fortinet FortiClient EMS that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute unauthorized code or commands via specifically crafted HTTP requests. CVE-2020-9715 (CVSS score: 7.8) - A use-after-free vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader that could result in remote code execution. CVE-2023-36424 (CVSS score: 7.8) - An out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Common Log File System Driver that could result in privilege escalation. CVE-2023-21529 (CVSS score: 8.8) - A deserialization of untrusted data in Microsoft Exchange Server that could allow an authenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution.  CVE-2025-60...

OpenAI revealed a GitHub Actions workflow used to sign its macOS apps led to the download of the malicious Axios library on March 31, but noted that no user data or internal system was compromised. "Out of an abundance of caution, we are taking steps to protect the process that certifies our macOS applications are legitimate OpenAI apps," OpenAI said in a post last week. "We found no evidence that OpenAI user data was accessed, that our systems or intellectual property were compromised, or that our software was altered." The disclosure comes a little over a week after Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) attributed the supply chain compromise of the popular npm package to a North Korean hacking group it tracks as UNC1069 . The attack enabled the threat actors to hijack the package maintainer's npm account to push two poisoned versions 1.14.1 and 0.30.4 that came embedded with a malicious dependency named "plain-crypto-js," which depl...

Thursday. Another week, another batch of things that probably should've been caught sooner but weren't. This one's got some range — old vulnerabilities getting new life, a few "why was that even possible" moments, attackers leaning on platforms and tools you'd normally trust without thinking twice. Quiet escalations more than loud zero-days, but the kind that matter more in practice anyway. Mix of malware, infrastructure exposure, AI-adjacent weirdness, and some supply chain stuff that's... not great. Let's get into it. Resilient hybrid botnet surge Phorpiex Botnet Detailed A new variant of the botnet known as Phorpiex (aka Trik) has been observed, using a hybrid communication model that combines traditional C2 HTTP polling with a peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol over both TCP and UDP to ensure operational continuity in the face of server takedowns. The malware acts as a conduit for encrypted payloads, ma...

A China-based threat actor known for deploying Medusa ransomware has been linked to the weaponization of a combination of zero-day and N-day vulnerabilities to orchestrate "high-velocity" attacks and break into susceptible internet-facing systems. "The threat actor's high operational tempo and proficiency in identifying exposed perimeter assets have proven successful, with recent intrusions heavily impacting healthcare organizations, as well as those in the education, professional services, and finance sectors in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said . Attacks mounted by Storm-1175 have also leveraged zero-day exploits, in some cases, before they have been publicly disclosed, as well as recently disclosed vulnerabilities to obtain initial access. Select incidents have involved the threat actor chaining together multiple exploits (e.g., OWASSRF ) for post-compromise activity. Upon...