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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....

Pentesting remains one of the most effective ways to identify real-world security weaknesses before adversaries do. But as the threat landscape has evolved, the way we deliver pentest results hasn't kept pace. Most organizations still rely on traditional reporting methods—static PDFs, emailed documents, and spreadsheet-based tracking. The problem? These outdated workflows introduce delays, create inefficiencies, and undermine the value of the work. Security teams need faster insights, tighter handoffs, and clearer paths to remediation. That's where automated delivery comes in. Platforms like PlexTrac automate pentest finding delivery in real time through robust, rules-based workflows. (No waiting for the final report!) The Static Delivery Problem in a Dynamic World Delivering a pentest report solely as a static document might have made sense a decade ago, but today it's a bottleneck. Findings are buried in long documents that don't align with how teams operate day-to-day. Aft...

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 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 Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "However, the defendant's technical savvy and subterfuge did not save him from the consequences of his actions....

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...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new malware loader called QuirkyLoader that's being used to deliver via email spam campaigns an array of next-stage payloads ranging from information stealers to remote access trojans since November 2024. Some of the notable malware families distributed using QuirkyLoader include Agent Tesla , AsyncRAT , Formbook , Masslogger , Remcos RAT , Rhadamanthys Stealer , and Snake Keylogger . IBM X-Force, which detailed the malware, said the attacks involve sending spam emails from both legitimate email service providers and a self-hosted email server. These emails feature a malicious archive, which contains a DLL, an encrypted payload, and a real executable. "The actor uses DLL side-loading, a technique where launching the legitimate executable also loads the malicious DLL," security researcher Raymond Joseph Alfonso said . "This DLL, in turn, loads, decrypts, and injects the final payload into its target process....

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...

Apple has released security updates to address a security flaw impacting iOS, iPadOS, and macOS that it said has come under active exploitation in the wild. The zero-day out-of-bounds write vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-43300 (CVSS score: 8.8), resides in the ImageIO framework that could result in memory corruption when processing a malicious image. "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 in an advisory. The iPhone maker said the bug was internally discovered and that it was addressed with improved bounds checking. The following versions address the security defect - iOS 18.6.2 and iPadOS 18.6.2 - iPhone XS and later, iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 7th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later iPadOS 17.7.10 ...

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...