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Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a Chinese-speaking cybercrime group codenamed UAT-8099 that has been attributed to search engine optimization (SEO) fraud and theft of high-value credentials, configuration files, and certificate data.  The attacks are designed to target Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) servers, with most of the infections reported in India, Thailand, Vietnam, Canada, and Brazil, spanning universities, tech firms, and telecom providers. The group was first discovered in April 2025. The targets are primarily mobile users, encompassing both Android and Apple iPhone devices. UAT-8099 is the latest China-linked actor to engage in SEO fraud for financial gain. As recently as last month, ESET revealed details of another threat actor named GhostRedirector that has managed to compromise at least 65 Windows servers primarily located in Brazil, Thailand, and Vietnam with a malicious IIS module codenamed Gamshen to facilitate SEO fraud. "UAT-809...

A now patched security vulnerability in Zimbra Collaboration was exploited as a zero-day earlier this year in cyber attacks targeting the Brazilian military. Tracked as CVE-2025-27915 (CVSS score: 5.4), the vulnerability is a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Classic Web Client that arises as a result of insufficient sanitization of HTML content in ICS calendar files, resulting in arbitrary code execution. "When a user views an e-mail message containing a malicious ICS entry, its embedded JavaScript executes via an ontoggle event inside a <details> tag," according to a description of the flaw in the NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD). "This allows an attacker to run arbitrary JavaScript within the victim's session, potentially leading to unauthorized actions such as setting e-mail filters to redirect messages to an attacker-controlled address. As a result, an attacker can perform unauthorized actions on the victim's acco...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new attack called CometJacking targeting Perplexity's agentic AI browser Comet by embedding malicious prompts within a seemingly innocuous link to siphon sensitive data, including from connected services, like email and calendar. The sneaky prompt injection attack plays out in the form of a malicious link that, when clicked, triggers the unexpected behavior unbeknownst to the victims. "CometJacking shows how a single, weaponized URL can quietly flip an AI browser from a trusted co-pilot to an insider threat," Michelle Levy, Head of Security Research at LayerX, said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. "This isn't just about stealing data; it's about hijacking the agent that already has the keys. Our research proves that trivial obfuscation can bypass data exfiltration checks and pull email, calendar, and connector data off-box in one click. AI-native browsers need security-by-design for agent...

Threat intelligence firm GreyNoise disclosed on Friday that it has observed a massive spike in scanning activity targeting Palo Alto Networks login portals. The company said it observed a nearly 500% increase in IP addresses scanning Palo Alto Networks login portals on October 3, 2025, the highest level recorded in the last three months. It described the traffic as targeted and structured, and aimed primarily at Palo Alto login portals. As many as 1,300 unique IP addresses have participated in the effort, a significant jump from around 200 unique IP addresses observed before. Of these IP addresses, 93% are classified as suspicious and 7% as malicious. The vast majority of the IP addresses are geolocated to the U.S., with smaller clusters detected in the U.K., the Netherlands, Canada, and Russia. "This Palo Alto surge shares characteristics with Cisco ASA scanning occurring in the past 48 hours," GreyNoise noted. "In both cases, the scanners exhibited regional clu...

A threat actor named Detour Dog has been outed as powering campaigns distributing an information stealer known as Strela Stealer. That's according to findings from Infoblox, which found the threat actor to maintain control of domains hosting the first stage of the stealer, a backdoor called StarFish. The DNS threat intelligence firm said it has been tracking Detour Dog since August 2023, when GoDaddy-owned Sucuri disclosed details of attacks targeting WordPress sites to embed malicious JavaScript that used DNS TXT records as a communication channel for a traffic distribution system (TDS), redirecting site visitors to sketchy sites and malware. Traces of the threat actor date back to February 2020. "While traditionally these redirects led to scams, the malware has evolved recently to execute remote content through the DNS-based command-and-control (C2) system," Infoblox said . "We are tracking the threat actor who controls this malware as Detour Dog." Det...

The threat actor behind Rhadamanthys has also advertised two other tools called Elysium Proxy Bot and Crypt Service on their website, even as the flagship information stealer has been updated to support the ability to collect device and web browser fingerprints, among others. "Rhadamanthys was initially promoted through posts on cybercrime forums, but soon it became clear that the author had a more ambitious plan to connect with potential customers and build visibility," Check Point researcher Aleksandra "Hasherezade" Doniec said in a new report. First advertised by a threat actor named kingcrete2022, Rhadamanthys has emerged as one of the most popular information stealers available under a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model alongside Lumma, Vidar, StealC, and, more recently, Acreed. The current version of the stealer is 0.9.2. Over the years, the stealer's capabilities have extended far beyond simple data collection, representing a comprehensive threat to ...

Brazilian users have emerged as the target of a new self-propagating malware dubbed SORVEPOTEL that spreads via the popular messaging app WhatsApp. The campaign, codenamed Water Saci by Trend Micro, weaponizes the trust with the platform to extend its reach across Windows systems, adding the attack is "engineered for speed and propagation" rather than data theft or ransomware. "SORVEPOTEL has been observed to spread across Windows systems through convincing phishing messages with malicious ZIP file attachments," researchers Jeffrey Francis Bonaobra, Maristel Policarpio, Sophia Nilette Robles, Cj Arsley Mateo, Jacob Santos, and Paul John Bardon said . "Interestingly, the phishing message that contains the malicious file attachment requires users to open it on a desktop, suggesting that threat actors might be more interested in targeting enterprises rather than consumers." Once the attachment is opened, the malware automatically propagates via the deskt...

Passwork is positioned as an on-premises unified platform for both password and secrets management, aiming to address the increasing complexity of credential storage and sharing in modern organizations. The platform recently received a major update that reworks all the core mechanics. Passwork 7 introduces significant changes to how credentials are organized, accessed, and managed, reflecting feedback from real-world users. The redesign prioritizes usability and security, with a focus on streamlining workflows and making key features more accessible. Passwork isn't trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, it focuses on solving a very real problem: how do businesses keep credentials organized, secure, and accessible without adding complexity or risk? In this article, we'll look at what Passwork 7 delivers, how it fits into a business environment, and what makes it different. Below is a walkthrough of its main features and workflows. Getting started: User experience and onboarding The...

A threat actor that's known to share overlaps with a hacking group called YoroTrooper has been observed targeting the Russian public sector with malware families such as FoalShell and StallionRAT. Cybersecurity vendor BI.ZONE is tracking the activity under the moniker Cavalry Werewolf . It's also assessed to have commonalities with clusters tracked as SturgeonPhisher, Silent Lynx, Comrade Saiga, ShadowSilk, and Tomiris. "In order to gain initial access, the attackers sent out targeted phishing emails disguising them as official correspondence from Kyrgyz government officials," BI.ZONE said . "The main targets of the attacks were Russian state agencies, as well as energy, mining, and manufacturing enterprises." In August 2025, Group-IB revealed attacks mounted by ShadowSilk targeting government entities in Central Asia and Asia-Pacific (APAC), using reverse proxy tools and remote access trojans written in Python and subsequently ported to PowerShell. C...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday added a high-severity security flaw impacting Smartbedded Meteobridge to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, CVE-2025-4008 (CVSS score: 8.7), is a case of command injection in the Meteobridge web interface that could result in code execution. "Smartbedded Meteobridge contains a command injection vulnerability that could allow remote unauthenticated attackers to gain arbitrary command execution with elevated privileges (root) on affected devices," CISA Said. According to ONEKEY, which discovered and reported the issue in late February 2025, the Meteobridge web interface lets an administrator manage their weather station data collection and control the system through a web application written in CGI shell scripts and C. Specifically, the web interface exposes a "template.cgi" script through "/cgi-bin/tem...

The threat actor known as Confucius has been attributed to a new phishing campaign that has targeted Pakistan with malware families like WooperStealer and Anondoor. "Over the past decade, Confucius has repeatedly targeted government agencies, military organizations, defense contractors, and critical industries -- especially in Pakistan – using spear-phishing and malicious documents as initial access vectors," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin said . Confucius is a long-running hacking group that's believed to have been active since 2013 and operating across South Asia. Recent campaigns undertaken by the threat actor have employed a Python-based backdoor called Anondoor, signaling an evolution of the group's tradecraft and its technical agility. One of the attack chains documented by Fortinet targeted users in Pakistan sometime in December 2024, tricking recipients into opening a .PPSX file, which then triggers the delivery of WooperStealer using DLL ...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that claims to offer the ability to create a SOCKS5 proxy service, while also providing a stealthy backdoor-like functionality to drop additional payloads on Windows systems. The deceptive package, named soopsocks, attracted a total of 2,653 downloads before it was taken down. It was first uploaded by a user named " soodalpie " on September 26, 2025, the same date the account was created. "While providing this capability, it exhibits behavior as a backdoor proxy server targeting Windows platforms, using automated installation processes via VBScript or an executable version," JFrog said in an analysis. The executable ("_AUTORUN.EXE") is a compiled Go file that, besides including a SOCKS5 implementation as advertised, is also designed to run PowerShell scripts, set firewall rules, and relaunch itself with elevated permissions. It also carries out ...

Penetration testing is critical to uncovering real-world security weaknesses. With the shift into continuous testing and validation, it is time we automate the delivery of these results. The way results are delivered hasn't kept up with today's fast-moving threat landscape. Too often, findings are packaged into static reports, buried in PDFs or spreadsheets, and handed off manually to already-overloaded IT and engineering teams. By the time remediation begins, days or even weeks may have passed since the issues were first discovered. As we explored in our recent article on how automation is redefining pentest delivery , static, manual processes no longer cut it. Security teams need faster insights, cleaner handoffs, and more consistent workflows if they want to keep pace with modern exposure management.  That's where automation makes the difference, ensuring findings move seamlessly from discovery to remediation in real time. Where Should You Start? Knowing automation matters...