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Apple on Friday released security updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, visionOS, and its Safari web browser to address two security flaws that it said have been exploited in the wild, one of which is the same flaw that was patched by Google in Chrome earlier this week. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2025-43529 (CVSS score: N/A) - A use-after-free vulnerability in WebKit that may lead to arbitrary code execution when processing maliciously crafted web content CVE-2025-14174 (CVSS score: 8.8) - A memory corruption issue in WebKit that may lead to memory corruption when processing maliciously crafted web content Apple said it's aware that the shortcomings "may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals on versions of iOS before iOS 26." It's worth noting that CVE-2025-14174 is the same vulnerability that Google issued patches for in its Chrome browser on December 10, 2025. It's been...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of two new Android malware families dubbed FvncBot and SeedSnatcher , as another upgraded version of ClayRat has been spotted in the wild. The findings come from Intel 471 , CYFIRMA , and Zimperium , respectively. FvncBot, which masquerades as a security app developed by mBank, targets mobile banking users in Poland. What's notable about the malware is that it's completely written from scratch and is not inspired by other Android banking trojans like ERMAC that have had their source code leaked. The malware "implemented multiple features including keylogging by abusing Android's accessibility services, web-inject attacks, screen streaming and hidden virtual network computing (HVNC) to perform successful financial fraud," Intel 471 said. Similar to the recently uncovered Albiriox banking malware, the malware is protected by a crypting service known as apk0day that's offered by Golden Crypt. The malicious a...

A human rights lawyer from Pakistan's Balochistan province received a suspicious link on WhatsApp from an unknown number, marking the first time a civil society member in the country was targeted by Intellexa's Predator spyware, Amnesty International said in a report. The link, the non-profit organization said, is a "Predator attack attempt based on the technical behaviour of the infection server, and on specific characteristics of the one-time infection link which were consistent with previously observed Predator 1-click links." Pakistan has dismissed the allegations, stating "there is not an iota of truth in it." The findings come from a new joint investigation published in collaboration with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Greek news site Inside Story, and Swiss tech site Inside IT. It's based on documents and other materials leaked from the company, including internal documents, sales and marketing material, and training videos. Intellexa is the mak...

A threat actor known as ShadyPanda has been linked to a seven-year-long browser extension campaign that has amassed over 4.3 million installations over time. Five of these extensions started off as legitimate programs before malicious changes were introduced in mid-2024, according to a report from Koi Security, attracting 300,000 installs. These extensions have since been taken down. "These extensions now run hourly remote code execution – downloading and executing arbitrary JavaScript with full browser access," security researcher Tuval Admoni said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "They monitor every website visit, exfiltrate encrypted browsing history, and collect complete browser fingerprints." To make matters worse, one of the extensions, Clean Master, was featured and verified by Google at one point. This trust-building exercise allowed the attackers to expand their user base and silently issue malicious updates years later without attracting any...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday issued an alert warning of bad actors actively leveraging commercial spyware and remote access trojans (RATs) to target users of mobile messaging applications. "These cyber actors use sophisticated targeting and social engineering techniques to deliver spyware and gain unauthorized access to a victim's messaging app, facilitating the deployment of additional malicious payloads that can further compromise the victim's mobile device," the agency said . CISA cited as examples multiple campaigns that have come to light since the start of the year. Some of them include - The targeting of the Signal messaging app by multiple Russia-aligned threat actors by taking advantage of the service's "linked devices" feature to hijack target user accounts Android spyware campaigns codenamed ProSpy and ToSpy that impersonate apps like Signal and ToTok to target users in the United Arab Emi...

The zero-day exploitation of a now-patched security flaw in Google Chrome led to the distribution of an espionage-related tool from Italian information technology and services provider Memento Labs, according to new findings from Kaspersky. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2025-2783 (CVSS score: 8.3), a case of sandbox escape which the company disclosed in March 2025 as having come under active exploitation as part of a campaign dubbed Operation ForumTroll targeting organizations in Russia. The cluster is also tracked as TaxOff/Team 46 by  Positive Technologies , Dante APT by F6, and  Prosperous Werewolf by BI.ZONE. It's known to be active since at least February 2024. The wave of infections involved sending phishing emails containing personalized, short-lived links inviting recipients to the Primakov Readings forum. Clicking the links through Google Chrome or a Chromium-based web browser was enough to trigger an exploit for CVE-2025-2783, enabling the attackers t...

A rapidly evolving Android spyware campaign called ClayRat has targeted users in Russia using a mix of Telegram channels and lookalike phishing websites by impersonating popular apps like WhatsApp, Google Photos, TikTok, and YouTube as lures to install them. "Once active, the spyware can exfiltrate SMS messages, call logs, notifications, and device information; taking photos with the front camera; and even send SMS messages or place calls directly from the victim's device," Zimperium researcher Vishnu Pratapagiri said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The malware is also designed to propagate itself by sending malicious links to every contact in the victim's phone book, indicating aggressive tactics on the part of the attackers to leverage compromised devices as a distribution vector. The mobile security company said it has detected no less than 600 samples and 50 droppers over the last 90 days, with each successive iteration incorporating new layers of o...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two Android spyware campaigns dubbed ProSpy and ToSpy that impersonate apps like Signal and ToTok to target users in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). Slovak cybersecurity company ESET said the malicious apps are distributed via fake websites and social engineering to trick unsuspecting users into downloading them. Once installed, both the spyware malware strains establish persistent access to compromised Android devices and exfiltrate data. "Neither app containing the spyware was available in official app stores; both required manual installation from third-party websites posing as legitimate services," ESET researcher Lukáš Štefanko said . Notably, one of the websites distributing the ToSpy malware family mimicked the Samsung Galaxy Store, luring users into manually downloading and installing a malicious version of the ToTok app." The ProSpy campaign, discovered in June 2025, is believed to have been ongoing since 2024, ...

Apple on Monday backported fixes for a recently patched security flaw that has been actively exploited in the wild. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2025-43300 (CVSS score: 8.8), an out-of-bounds write issue in the ImageIO component that could result in memory corruption when processing a malicious image file. "Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals," the company said. Since then, WhatsApp has acknowledged that a vulnerability in its messaging apps for Apple iOS and macOS (CVE-2025-55177, CVSS score: 5.4) had been chained with CVE-2025-43300 as part of highly-targeted spyware attacks aimed at less than 200 individuals. While the shortcoming was first addressed by the iPhone maker late last month with the release of iOS 18.6.2 and iPadOS 18.6.2, iPadOS 17.7.10, macOS Ventura 13.7.8, macOS Sonoma 14.7.8, and macOS Sequoia 15.6.1, it has also been released for the f...

Apple has notified users in France of a spyware campaign targeting their devices, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team of France (CERT-FR). The agency said the alerts were sent out on September 3, 2025, making it the fourth time this year that Apple has notified citizens in the county that at least one of the devices linked to their iCloud accounts may have been compromised as part of highly-targeted attacks. The agency did not share further details on what triggered these alerts. Previous threat notifications were sent on March 5, April 29 , and June 25. Apple has been sending these notices since November 2021. "These complex attacks target individuals for their status or function: journalists, lawyers, activists, politicians, senior officials, members of steering committees of strategic sectors, etc," CERT-FR said. The development comes less than a month after it emerged that a security flaw in WhatsApp ( CVE-2025-55177 , CVSS score: 5.4) was chained wi...

Apple on Tuesday revealed a new security feature called Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) that's built into its newly introduced iPhone models, including iPhone 17 and iPhone Air. MIE, per the tech giant, offers "always-on memory safety protection" across critical attack surfaces such as the kernel and over 70 userland processes without sacrificing device performance by designing its A19 and A19 Pro chips keeping this aspect in mind. "Memory Integrity Enforcement is built on the robust foundation provided by our secure memory allocators, coupled with Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE) in synchronous mode, and supported by extensive Tag Confidentiality Enforcement policies," the company noted . The effort is an aim to improve memory safety and prevent bad actors, specifically those leveraging mercenary spyware , from weaponizing such flaws in the first place to break into devices as part of highly-targeted attacks. The technology that underpins MIE...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a new shift in the Android malware landscape where dropper apps, which are typically used to deliver banking trojans, to also distribute simpler malware such as SMS stealers and basic spyware. These campaigns are propagated via dropper apps masquerading as government or banking apps in India and other parts of Asia, ThreatFabric said in a report last week. The Dutch mobile security firm said the change is driven by recent security protections that Google has piloted in select markets like Singapore, Thailand, Brazil, and India to block sideloading of potentially suspicious apps requesting dangerous permissions like SMS messages and accessibility services , a heavily abused setting to carry out malicious actions on Android devices.  "Google Play Protect's defences, particularly the targeted Pilot Program, are increasingly effective at stopping risky apps before they run," the company said. "Second, actors want t...

WhatsApp has addressed a security vulnerability in its messaging apps for Apple iOS and macOS that it said may have been exploited in the wild in conjunction with a recently disclosed Apple flaw in targeted zero-day attacks. The vulnerability, CVE-2025-55177 (CVSS score: 5.4), relates to a case of insufficient authorization of linked device synchronization messages. Internal researchers on the WhatsApp Security Team have been credited with discovering and rerating the bug. The Meta-owned company said the issue "could have allowed an unrelated user to trigger processing of content from an arbitrary URL on a target's device." The flaw affects the following versions - WhatsApp for iOS prior to version 2.25.21.73 (Patched on July 28, 2025) WhatsApp Business for iOS version 2.25.21.78 (Patched on August 4, 2025), and WhatsApp for Mac version 2.25.21.78  (Patched on August 4, 2025) It also assessed that the shortcoming may have been chained with CVE-2025-43300, a ...

An abandoned update server associated with input method editor (IME) software Sogou Zhuyin was leveraged by threat actors as part of an espionage campaign to deliver several malware families, including C6DOOR and GTELAM, in attacks primarily targeting users across Eastern Asia. "Attackers employed sophisticated infection chains, such as hijacked software updates and fake cloud storage or login pages, to distribute malware and collect sensitive information," Trend Micro researchers Nick Dai and Pierre Lee said in an exhaustive report. The campaign, identified in June 2025, has been codenamed TAOTH by the cybersecurity company. Targets of the activity mainly include dissidents, journalists, researchers, and technology/business leaders in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and overseas Taiwanese communities. Taiwan accounts for 49% of all targets, followed by Cambodia (11%) and the U.S. (7%). It's said the attackers, in October 2024, took control of the laps...

A threat activity cluster known as ShadowSilk has been attributed to a fresh set of attacks targeting government entities within Central Asia and Asia-Pacific (APAC). According to Group-IB, nearly three dozen victims have been identified, with the intrusions mainly geared towards data exfiltration. The hacking group shares toolset and infrastructural overlaps with campaigns undertaken by threat actors dubbed YoroTrooper, SturgeonPhisher, and Silent Lynx. Victims of the group's campaigns span Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan, a majority of which are government organizations, and to a lesser extent, entities in the energy, manufacturing, retail, and transportation sectors. "The operation is run by a bilingual crew – Russian-speaking developers tied to legacy YoroTrooper code and Chinese-speaking operators spearheading intrusions, resulting in a nimble, multi-regional threat profile," researchers Nikita Rostovcev and Sergei Turner ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new variant of an Android banking trojan called HOOK that features ransomware-style overlay screens to display extortion messages. "A prominent characteristic of the latest variant is its capacity to deploy a full-screen ransomware overlay, which aims to coerce the victim into remitting a ransom payment," Zimperium zLabs researcher Vishnu Pratapagiri said . "This overlay presents an alarming '*WARNING*' message, alongside a wallet address and amount, both of which are dynamically retrieved from the command-and-control server." The mobile security company said the overlay is remotely initiated when the command "ransome" is issued by the C2 server. The overlay can be dismissed by the attacker by sending the "delete_ransome" command. HOOK is assessed to be an offshoot of the ERMAC banking trojan, which, coincidentally, had its source code leaked on a publicly accessible directory over the int...

Google has released security updates to address multiple security flaws in Android, including fixes for two Qualcomm bugs that were flagged as actively exploited in the wild. The vulnerabilities include CVE-2025-21479 (CVSS score: 8.6) and CVE-2025-27038 (CVSS score: 7.5), both of which were disclosed alongside CVE-2025-21480 (CVSS score: 8.6), by the chipmaker back in June 2025. CVE-2025-21479 relates to an incorrect authorization vulnerability in the Graphics component that could lead to memory corruption due to unauthorized command execution in GPU microcode. CVE-2025-27038, on the other hand, use-after-free vulnerability in the Graphics component that could result in memory corruption while rendering graphics using Adreno GPU drivers in Chrome. There are still no details on how these shortcomings have been weaponized in real-world attacks, but Qualcomm noted at the time that "there are indications from Google Threat Analysis Group that CVE-2025-21479, CVE-2025-21480, CV...