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The Russian nation-state threat actor known as Secret Blizzard has been observed orchestrating a new cyber espionage campaign targeting foreign embassies located in Moscow by means of an adversary-in-the-middle ( AitM ) attack at the Internet Service Provider (ISP) level and delivering a custom malware dubbed ApolloShadow. "ApolloShadow has the capability to install a trusted root certificate to trick devices into trusting malicious actor-controlled sites, enabling Secret Blizzard to maintain persistence on diplomatic devices, likely for intelligence collection," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The activity is assessed to be ongoing since at least 2024, with the campaign posing a security risk to diplomatic personnel relying on local ISPs or telecommunications services in Russia. Secret Blizzard (formerly Krypton), affiliated with the Russian Federal Security Service, is also tracked by the broader cybersecurity commu...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new phishing campaign that conceals malicious payloads by abusing link wrapping services from Proofpoint and Intermedia to bypass defenses. "Link wrapping is designed by vendors like Proofpoint to protect users by routing all clicked URLs through a scanning service, allowing them to block known malicious destinations at the moment of click," the Cloudflare Email Security team said . "While this is effective against known threats, attacks can still succeed if the wrapped link hasn't been flagged by the scanner at click time." The activity, observed over the last two months, once again illustrates how threat actors find different ways to leverage legitimate features and trusted tools to their advantage and perform malicious actions, in this case, redirecting victims to Microsoft 365 phishing pages. It's noteworthy that the abuse of link wrapping involves the attackers gaining unauthorized access to em...

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as UNC4899 has been attributed to attacks targeting two different organizations by approaching their employees via LinkedIn and Telegram. "Under the guise of freelance opportunities for software development work, UNC4899 leveraged social engineering techniques to successfully convince the targeted employees to execute malicious Docker containers in their respective workstations," Google's cloud division said [PDF] in its Cloud Threat Horizons Report for H2 2025. UNC4899 overlaps with activity tracked under the monikers Jade Sleet, PUKCHONG, Slow Pisces, and TraderTraitor. Active since at least 2020, the state-sponsored actor is known for its targeting of cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. Notably, the hacking group has been implicated in significant cryptocurrency heists , including that of Axie Infinity in March 2022 ($625 million), DMM Bitcoin in May 2024 ($308 million), and Bybit in February 2025 ($1.4 billion). ...

The financially motivated threat actor known as UNC2891 has been observed targeting Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) infrastructure using a 4G-equipped Raspberry Pi as part of a covert attack. The cyber-physical attack involved the adversary leveraging their physical access to install the Raspberry Pi device and have it connected directly to the same network switch as the ATM, effectively placing it within the target bank's network, Group-IB said. It's currently not known how this access was obtained. "The Raspberry Pi was equipped with a 4G modem, allowing remote access over mobile data," security researcher Nam Le Phuong said in a Wednesday report. "Using the TINYSHELL backdoor, the attacker established an outbound command-and-control (C2) channel via a Dynamic DNS domain. This setup enabled continuous external access to the ATM network, completely bypassing perimeter firewalls and traditional network defenses." UNC2891 was first documented by Googl...

Security Operations Centers (SOCs) are stretched to their limits. Log volumes are surging, threat landscapes are growing more complex, and security teams are chronically understaffed. Analysts face a daily battle with alert noise, fragmented tools, and incomplete data visibility. At the same time, more vendors are phasing out their on-premises SIEM solutions, encouraging migration to SaaS models. But this transition often amplifies the inherent flaws of traditional SIEM architectures. T he Log Deluge Meets Architectural Limits SIEMs are built to process log data—and the more, the better, or so the theory goes. In modern infrastructures, however, log-centric models are becoming a bottleneck. Cloud systems, OT networks, and dynamic workloads generate exponentially more telemetry, often redundant, unstructured, or in unreadable formats. SaaS-based SIEMs in particular face financial and technical constraints: pricing models based on events per second (EPS) or flows-per-minute (FPM) ca...

Threat actors are actively exploiting a critical security flaw in " Alone – Charity Multipurpose Non-profit WordPress Theme " to take over susceptible sites. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-5394 , carries a CVSS score of 9.8. Security researcher Thái An has been credited with discovering and reporting the bug. According to Wordfence, the shortcoming relates to an arbitrary file upload affecting all versions of the plugin prior to and including 7.8.3. It has been addressed in version 7.8.5 released on June 16, 2025. CVE-2025-5394 is rooted in a plugin installation function named "alone_import_pack_install_plugin()" and stems from a missing capability check, thereby allowing unauthenticated users to deploy arbitrary plugins from remote sources via AJAX and achieve code execution. "This vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to upload arbitrary files to a vulnerable site and achieve remote code execution, which is typically lev...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to an ongoing campaign that distributes fake cryptocurrency trading apps to deploy a compiled V8 JavaScript (JSC) malware called JSCEAL that can capture data such as credentials and wallets. The activity leverages thousands of malicious advertisements posted on Facebook in an attempt to redirect unsuspecting victims to counterfeit sites that instruct them to install the bogus apps, according to Check Point. These ads are shared either via stolen accounts or newly created ones. "The actors separate the installer’s functionality into different components and most notably move some functionality to the JavaScript files inside the infected websites," the company said in an analysis. "A modular, multi-layered infection flow enables the attackers to adapt new tactics and payloads at every stage of the operation." It's worth noting that some aspects of the activity were previously documented by Microsoft in April 2...

Cybersecurity experts have released a decryptor for a ransomware strain called FunkSec, allowing victims to recover access to their files for free. "Because the ransomware is now considered dead, we released the decryptor for public download," Gen Digital researcher Ladislav Zezula said . FunkSec , which emerged towards the end of 2024, has claimed 172 victims , according to data from Ransomware.live. The vast majority of targeted entities are located in the U.S., India, and Brazil, with technology, government, and education being the top three sectors attacked by the group. An analysis of FunkSec by Check Point earlier this January found signs that the encryptor was developed with assistance from artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The group has not added any new victims to its data leak site since March 18, 2025, suggesting that the group may no longer be active. It's also believed that the group consisted of inexperienced hackers seeking visibility and recogniti...

In this article, we will provide a brief overview of Pillar Security's platform to better understand how they are tackling AI security challenges. Pillar Security is building a platform to cover the entire software development and deployment lifecycle with the goal of providing trust in AI systems. Using its holistic approach, the platform introduces new ways of detecting AI threats, beginning at pre-planning stages and going all the way through runtime. Along the way, users gain visibility into the security posture of their applications while enabling safe AI execution. Pillar is uniquely suited to the challenges inherent in AI security. Co-founder and CEO Dor Sarig comes from a cyber-offensive background, having spent a decade leading security operations for governmental and enterprise organizations. In contrast, co-founder and CTO Ziv Karlinger spent over ten years developing defensive techniques, securing against financial cybercrime and securing supply chains. Together, th...

Apple on Tuesday released security updates for its entire software portfolio, including a fix for a vulnerability that Google said was exploited as a zero-day in the Chrome web browser earlier this month. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-6558 (CVSS score: 8.8), is an incorrect validation of untrusted input in the browser's ANGLE and GPU components that could result in a sandbox escape via a crafted HTML page. While there are no details on how the issue has been weaponized by threat actors, Google acknowledged that an "exploit for CVE-2025-6558 exists in the wild." Clément Lecigne and Vlad Stolyarov of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) have been credited with discovering and reporting the shortcoming. The iPhone maker, in its latest round of software updates, also included patches for CVE-2025-6558, stating the vulnerability impacts the WebKit browser engine that powers its Safari browser. "This is a vulnerability in open-source code and Apple Sof...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed now-patched critical security flaws in the firmware of Dahua smart cameras that, if left unaddressed, could allow attackers to hijack control of susceptible devices. "The flaws, affecting the device's ONVIF protocol and file upload handlers, allow unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary commands remotely, effectively taking over the device," Bitdefender said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2025-31700 and CVE-2025-31701 (CVSS scores: 8.1), affect the following devices running versions with built timestamps before April 16, 2025 - IPC-1XXX Series IPC-2XXX Series IPC-WX Series IPC-ECXX Series SD3A Series SD2A Series SD3D Series SDT2A Series SD2C Series It's worth noting that users can view the build time by logging in to the web interface of the device and then navigating to Settings -> System Information -> Version . Both shortcomings are classified as...

Chinese companies linked to the state-sponsored hacking group known as Silk Typhoon (aka Hafnium) have been identified as behind over a dozen technology patents, shedding light on the shadowy cyber contracting ecosystem and its offensive capabilities. The patents cover forensics and intrusion tools that enable encrypted endpoint data collection, Apple device forensics, and remote access to routers and smart home devices, SentinelOne said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. "This new insight into the Hafnium-affiliated firms' capabilities highlights an important deficiency in the threat actor attribution space: threat actor tracking typically links campaigns and clusters of activity to a named actor," Dakota Cary, China-focused strategic advisor for SentinelLabs, said . "Our research demonstrates the strength in identifying not only the individuals behind attacks, but the companies they work for, the capabilities those companies have, and how those capa...

Google has announced that it's making available a security feature called Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC) in open beta to ensure that users are safeguarded against session cookie theft attacks. DBSC, first introduced as a prototype in April 2024, is designed to bind authentication sessions to a device so as to prevent threat actors from using stolen cookies to sign-in to victims' accounts and gain unauthorized access from a separate device under their control. "Available in the Chrome browser on Windows, DBSC strengthens security after you are logged in and helps bind a session cookie – small files used by websites to remember user information – to the device a user authenticated from," Andy Wen, senior director of product management at Google Workspace, said . DBSC is not only meant to secure user accounts post-authentication. It makes it a lot more difficult for bad actors to reuse session cookies and improves session integrity. The company also note...

Threat actors have been observed exploiting a now-patched critical SAP NetWeaver flaw to deliver the Auto-Color backdoor in an attack targeting a U.S.-based chemicals company in April 2025. "Over the course of three days, a threat actor gained access to the customer's network, attempted to download several suspicious files and communicated with malicious infrastructure linked to Auto-Color malware," Darktrace said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2025-31324 , a severe unauthenticated file upload bug in SAP NetWeaver that enables remote code execution (RCE). It was patched by SAP in April. Auto-Color, first documented by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 earlier this February, functions akin to a remote access trojan, enabling remote access to compromised Linux hosts. It was observed in attacks targeting universities and government organizations in North America and Asia between November and December 2024. The malware has been...

Google Cloud's Mandiant Consulting has revealed that it has witnessed a drop in activity from the notorious Scattered Spider group, but emphasized the need for organizations to take advantage of the lull to shore up their defenses. "Since the recent arrests tied to the alleged Scattered Spider (UNC3944) members in the U.K., Mandiant Consulting hasn't observed any new intrusions directly attributable to this specific threat actor," Charles Carmakal, CTO of Mandiant Consulting at Google Cloud, told The Hacker News in a statement. "This presents a critical window of opportunity that organizations must capitalize on to thoroughly study the tactics UNC3944 wielded so effectively, assess their systems, and reinforce their security posture accordingly." Carmakal also warned businesses not to "let their guard down entirely," as other threat actors like UNC6040 are employing similar social engineering tactics as Scattered Spider to breach target netwo...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a now-patched critical security flaw in a popular vibe coding platform called Base44 that could allow unauthorized access to private applications built by its users. "The vulnerability we discovered was remarkably simple to exploit -- by providing only a non-secret 'app_id' value to undocumented registration and email verification endpoints, an attacker could have created a verified account for private applications on their platform," cloud security firm Wiz said in a report shared with The Hacker News. A net result of this issue is that it bypasses all authentication controls, including Single Sign-On (SSO) protections, granting full access to all the private applications and data contained within them. Following responsible disclosure on July 9, 2025, an official fix was rolled out by Wix, which owns Base44, within 24 hours. There is no evidence that the issue was ever maliciously exploited in the wild. While vibe codin...

The maintainers of the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository have issued a warning about an ongoing phishing attack that's targeting users in an attempt to redirect them to fake PyPI sites. The attack involves sending email messages bearing the subject line "[PyPI] Email verification" that are sent from the email address noreply@pypj[.]org (note that the domain is not " pypi[.]org "). "This is not a security breach of PyPI itself, but rather a phishing attempt that exploits the trust users have in PyPI," Mike Fiedler, PyPI Admin, said in a post Monday. The email messages instruct users to follow a link to verify their email address, which leads to a replica phishing site that impersonates PyPI and is designed to harvest their credentials. But in a clever twist, once the login information is entered on the bogus site, the request is routed to the legitimate PyPI site, effectively fooling the victims into thinking that nothing is amiss when, in r...

A newly emerged ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) gang called Chaos is likely made up of former members of the BlackSuit crew , as the latter's dark web infrastructure has been the subject of a law enforcement seizure. Chaos, which sprang forth in February 2025, is the latest entrant in the ransomware landscape to conduct big-game hunting and double extortion attacks. "Chaos RaaS actors initiated low-effort spam flooding, escalating to voice-based social engineering for access, followed by RMM tool abuse for persistent connection and legitimate file-sharing software for data exfiltration," Cisco Talos researchers Anna Bennett, James Nutland, and Chetan Raghuprasad said . "The ransomware utilizes multi-threaded rapid selective encryption, anti-analysis techniques, and targets both local and network resources, maximizing impact while hindering detection and recovery." It's important to note here that the ransomware group is unrelated to the Chaos ransomware ...

Until recently, the cyber attacker methodology behind the biggest breaches of the last decade or so has been pretty consistent: Compromise an endpoint via software exploit, or social engineering a user to run malware on their device;  Find ways to move laterally inside the network and compromise privileged identities; Repeat as needed until you can execute your desired attack — usually stealing data from file shares, deploying ransomware, or both.  But attacks have fundamentally changed as networks have evolved. With the SaaS-ification of enterprise IT, core business systems aren’t locally deployed and centrally managed in the way they used to be. Instead, they’re logged into over the internet, and accessed via a web browser. Attacks have shifted from targeting local networks to SaaS services, accessed through employee web browsers. Under the shared responsibility model, the part that’s left to the business consuming a SaaS service is mostly constrained to how they ma...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new, large-scale mobile malware campaign that's targeting Android and iOS platforms with fake dating, social networking, cloud storage, and car service apps to steal sensitive personal data. The cross-platform threat has been codenamed SarangTrap by Zimperium zLabs. Users in South Korea appear to be the primary focus. "This extensive campaign involved over 250 malicious Android applications and more than 80 malicious domains, all disguised as legitimate dating and social media applications," security researcher Rajat Goyal said . The bogus domains, which impersonate legitimate app store listing pages, are used as a lure to trick users into installing these apps, resulting in the exfiltration of contact lists and images, all while keeping up an illusion of legitimacy. Once installed, the Android apps also prompt the victim to enter an invitation code, after which it's validated against a command-and-control (C2) server. ...