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Researchers at  Shandong University  have shown a fast new way to pull data off computers that are cut off from every network. The technique, called  TrojPix , tweaks on-screen pixels in ways the eye cannot see, so that the video cable carrying them radiates a faint radio signal a nearby receiver can decode. But TrojPix works only once malware is already on the target machine, so it is a way for stolen data to get out, not a way in. In the researchers' tests, TrojPix hit a peak throughput of 8.1 Mbps and reached as far as 208 meters, the two measured separately rather than together. Most air-gap covert channels crawl along at bits or kilobits per second; at 8.1 megabits, roughly a megabyte a second, TrojPix could move a 100 MB file in under two minutes. That turns the threat from leaking a password into moving whole files while the monitor looks switched off. Real-world range is another matter: a receiver still has to fight through walls, shielding, and noise. Th...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a novel Java-based remote access trojan (RAT) called QuimaRAT that's capable of targeting Windows, Linux, and macOS environments. According to LevelBlue, the cross-platform malware is advertised under a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model, costing anywhere between $150 for one month to $1,200 for lifetime access. Other subscription tiers include $300 for three months, $500 for six months, and $700 for twelve months. "Built around a modular architecture, the RAT supports dynamic capability expansion through encrypted plugins that can be delivered, loaded, unloaded, and updated directly from its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure," the cybersecurity company said in an analysis of the malware. The malware author also advertises a builder capable of generating multiple output formats, including JAR, EXE, APP, SH, BAT, and VBS, indicating an attempt to help prospective customers package the client tailored for different enviro...

Researchers found a flaw in  Opera GX , the gaming-focused version of the Opera browser, that let a malicious website silently install a browser add-on and use it to lift specific data from the pages a victim visits. In a proof of concept, they reconstructed a signed-in user's full Gmail address from a single visit, with no click. Opera has patched the flaw and says it found no evidence that it was ever used in the wild. The fix shipped in Opera GX version 130.0.5847.89, so anyone on a current build is already covered; you can confirm yours at opera://about. There is no CVE. Because the attack needed no clicks or approvals, there was no workaround short of the patch. Opera's bug bounty team rated the issue P1, its top severity, and paid the maximum $5,000 award for a critical bug. How the attack works GX Mods let you reskin Opera GX with custom sounds, themes, wallpapers, and CSS that restyles the sites you visit. They ship as .crx files, like browser...

Scanners meant to catch malicious add-on "skills" for AI coding agents can be fooled by a few simple changes that leave the malware working, according to a  new study  from researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Their strongest trick slipped past every scanner tested more than 90% of the time, and the same team built a runtime checker that catches most of the disguised skills the scanners miss. Skills are small packages, usually a Markdown instruction file plus a few scripts, that agents such as Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and OpenClaw load to pick up a new capability. Because a skill is just a bundle of files, the same one can run across different agents. And it runs with the agent's own access: your files, your terminal, your saved passwords. A bad one can steal credentials, copy source code, or install a backdoor. Most of what a public marketplace lists is uploaded by strangers with little vetting. The main defense so far has been th...

A U.S. government entity paid about $1 million to keep stolen files from being leaked, according to a new  case study by Rakesh Krishnan for Ransom-ISAC , built on a leaked negotiation chat and the blockchain trail the payment left. The odd part: the group that took the money calls itself Kairos , but it may not be a ransomware gang at all. Krishnan found no sign that it ever locked a single machine: no encryptor, no locker, no demand for a decryption key. The threat was simpler. Steal the files, then charge the victim not to publish them. Krishnan does not name the victim, but the chat points to Union County, Ohio. The proof-of-theft files carry names like Union.xlsx, 1 union co psi template.doc, and a final archive called union.rar. The victim calls itself a small county with limited resources. The attacker leans on one folder in particular, marked "prosecutors office," warning that leaking it would help criminals dodge charges. The clues fit a real case. I...

The North Korean threat actors linked to the Contagious Interview campaign have been observed publishing 108 unique packages and web browser extensions spanning npm, Packagist, Go, and Google Chrome as part of an ongoing activity referred to as PolinRider . "The campaign remains active, and new malicious packages are likely to continue appearing as threat actors compromise maintainer accounts, modify legitimate repositories, and publish infected package versions where they retain or obtain registry access," Socket security researcher Karlo Zanki said in an analysis published this week. The 162 malicious release artifacts span multiple release versions corresponding to 108 unique packages and extensions, including 19 npm libraries, 10 Composer packages, 61 Go modules, and one Google Chrome extension. Contagious Interview is the moniker assigned to a North Korea-aligned campaign that weaponizes job recruitment to target software developers and individuals working i...

Security firm runZero has disclosed seven vulnerabilities in  FatFs , a small filesystem library that lets a device read and write the FAT and exFAT formats used on USB drives and SD cards. The flaws matter because FatFs is nearly everywhere. It ships inside the firmware that runs security cameras, drones, industrial controllers, hardware crypto wallets, and other devices built on real-time operating systems. On the worst-affected systems, an attacker who gets a booby-trapped USB drive, SD card, or update file onto a device can corrupt its memory and run their own code. Many embedded devices lack the memory protections found on phones and desktops, which is why runZero says "any physical access leads to a jailbreak." A public kiosk, a camera with an SD slot, an ATM, or a voting machine with a USB port should not hand over full control after a moment of physical access, but here it can. All seven bugs work the same basic way. The device tries to read a storage vo...

A newly disclosed Linux kernel flaw called Bad Epoll (CVE-2026-46242) lets an ordinary user with no special access take full control of a machine as root. It affects Linux desktops, servers, and Android, and a fix is out. Bad Epoll sits in the same small stretch of kernel code where Anthropic's most powerful AI model, Mythos , recently found a different bug. The AI caught one flaw and missed this one. A researcher, Jaeyoung Chung, found it and built a working attack. How the Bug Works Epoll is a standard Linux feature that lets a program watch many files or network connections at once. Servers, network services, and web browsers all lean on it. You cannot simply switch it off. Bad Epoll is a "use-after-free" bug. Two parts of the kernel try to clean up the same internal object at the same time. One frees the memory while the other is still writing into it. That brief collision lets an attacker corrupt kernel memory, then climb from a normal account up to root...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a previously undocumented modular malware framework codenamed Avalon that's distributed by means of a multi-stage phishing chain capable of bypassing traditional security controls. Avalon combines credential collection, lateral movement, remote access, recovery disruption, and ransomware execution, bringing together diverse functions under one umbrella. The ransomware component has been internally named CrownX.  "The attack began with a spoofed legal document email directing recipients to a password protected archive on Proton Drive," Blackpoint Cyber researchers Nevan Beal and Sam Decker said . "Malicious content was embedded inside an ISO image rather than attached directly, reducing the likelihood of detection at the email layer." Should the email recipient interact with a document-themed Windows Shortcut ("Secure Document CA-283505.pdf.lnk") inside the mounted image, it triggers a staged malware s...

Threat actors with ties to North Korea have been linked to a fresh set of malicious npm packages that masquerade as Rollup polyfill tooling to facilitate remote access and data theft. According to JFrog, the packages "rollup-packages-polyfill-core" and "rollup-runtime-polyfill-core" mimic the legitimate " rollup-plugin-polyfill-node " project, down to the description, repository metadata, and package shape. "The lookalike packages place themselves in the same rollup, polyfill, core, and node naming space, which can look plausible during a quick dependency review," JFrog said in a technical write-up of the campaign. The campaign also involves four other packages, all of which have since been removed from the npm registry - quirky-token react-icon-svgs rollup-plugin-polyfill-connect swift-parse-stream What's noteworthy here is that "rollup-packages-polyfill-core" installs and loads "swift-parse-stream,...

A previously undocumented threat actor known as Armored Likho has been attributed to cyber attacks targeting government agencies and the electric power sector across Russia, Brazil, and Kazakhstan. "Armored Likho blends financially motivated campaigns targeting private individuals with targeted cyber espionage aimed at organizations," Kaspersky said in a technical analysis published today. "Their toolkit features obfuscated, modular RATs and infostealers specifically engineered to bypass dynamic analysis." The attacks are also characterized by the use of tools like Go2Tunnel for remote access and network tunneling. The wide variety of tools in its arsenal allows the threat actor to maintain persistent access to compromised hosts, steal credentials and sensitive data, and dynamically deliver modules tailored to the victim's profile. The Russian cybersecurity vendor said Armored Likho shares possible overlaps with a threat cluster tracked by BI.ZONE under...

A new report from the Citizen Lab has revealed that former Member of the European Parliament Stelios Kouloglou had his mobile device repeatedly hacked with the notorious Pegasus spyware while serving on a committee that was tasked with investigating the abuse of such commercial surveillance tools in the bloc. "Through forensic analysis of his device, we found that the attackers could have had access to confidential documents and committee deliberations," the Citizen Lab researchers John Scott-Railton, Bill Marczak, Bahr Abdul Razzak, Kate Pundyk, Siena Anstis, and Ron Deibert said . The infections have not been attributed to a particular government at this time, and there is no evidence that the Greek government is behind the activity. However, the Canadian interdisciplinary research laboratory noted that it identified an overlap between the first infection and a previous campaign targeting Russian and Belarusian-speaking exiled journalists and activists in Europe. ...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new macOS information stealer called PamStealer that employs a series of clever tricks to infect systems and siphon sensitive data. The stealer, discovered by Jamf Threat Labs, is distributed as a compiled AppleScript (.scpt) file impersonating Maccy, a legitimate open-source clipboard manager. It has been codenamed PamStealer owing to its ability to validate the victim's login password through the macOS Pluggable Authentication Modules ( PAM ) before capturing it. The malware is delivered in two stages: A compiled AppleScript distributed inside a disk image that's designed to download and stage a follow-on payload. The secondary artifact is a Rust-based infostealer capable of credential theft, browser data collection, persistence, and exfiltration. The initial access vector for the malware is a lookalike site ("maccyapp[.]com") that mimics Maccy ("maccy[.]app"). The AppleScript ("Maccy.scpt") pres...