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Threat actors are exploiting a nearly two-year-old security flaw in Apache ActiveMQ to gain persistent access to cloud Linux systems and deploy malware called DripDropper . But in an unusual twist, the unknown attackers have been observed patching the exploited vulnerability after securing initial access to prevent further exploitation by other adversaries and evade detection, Red Canary said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Follow-on adversary command-and-control (C2) tools varied by endpoint and included Sliver , and Cloudflare Tunnels to maintain covert command and control over the long term," researchers Christina Johns, Chris Brook, and Tyler Edmonds said. The attacks exploit a maximum-severity security flaw in Apache ActiveMQ ( CVE-2023-46604 , CVSS score: 10.0), a remote code execution vulnerability that could be exploited to run arbitrary shell commands. It was addressed in late October 2023. The security defect has since come under heavy exploitation...

Financial institutions like trading and brokerage firms are the target of a new campaign that delivers a previously unreported remote access trojan called GodRAT . The malicious activity involves the "distribution of malicious .SCR (screen saver) files disguised as financial documents via Skype messenger," Kaspersky researcher Saurabh Sharma said in a technical analysis published today. The attacks, which have been active as recently as August 12, 2025, employ a technique called steganography to conceal within image files shellcode used to download the malware from a command-and-control (C2) server. The screen saver artifacts have been detected since September 9, 2024, targeting countries and territories like Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Jordan. Assessed to be based on Gh0st RAT, GodRAT follows a plugin-based approach to augment its functionality in order to harvest sensitive information and deliver secondary payloads like AsyncRAT. It'...

A new exploit combining two critical, now-patched security flaws in SAP NetWeaver has emerged in the wild, putting organizations at risk of system compromise and data theft. The exploit in question chains together CVE-2025-31324 and CVE-2025-42999 to bypass authentication and achieve remote code execution, SAP security company Onapsis said . CVE-2025-31324 (CVSS score: 10.0) - Missing Authorization check in SAP NetWeaver's Visual Composer development server CVE-2025-42999 (CVSS score: 9.1) - Insecure Deserialization in SAP NetWeaver's Visual Composer development server The vulnerabilities were addressed by SAP back in April and May 2025, but not before they were abused by threat actors as zero-days since at least March. Multiple ransomware and data extortion groups, including Qilin, BianLian, and RansomExx, have been observed weaponizing the flaws , not to mention several China-nexus espionage crews who have also put them to use in attacks targeting critical infra...

The U.K. government has apparently abandoned its plans to force Apple to weaken encryption protections and include a backdoor that would have enabled access to the protected data of U.S. citizens. U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, in a statement posted on X, said the U.S. government had been working with its partners with the U.K. over the past few months to ensure that Americans' civil liberties are protected.  "As a result, the U.K. has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a 'backdoor' that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties," Gabbard said . The development comes after Apple switched off its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature for iCloud in the U.K. earlier this February, following government demands for backdoor access to encrypted user data. "We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available t...

After two decades of developing increasingly mature security architectures, organizations are running up against a hard truth: tools and technologies alone are not enough to mitigate cyber risk. As tech stacks have grown more sophisticated and capable, attackers have shifted their focus. They are no longer focusing on infrastructure vulnerabilities alone. Instead, they are increasingly exploiting human behavior. In most modern breaches, the initial attack vector is not a zero-day technology exploit. It's exploiting vulnerabilities in people.  The data is well-documented. For five years running, Verizon's Data Breach Investigations Report has shown that human risk represents the greatest driver of breaches globally. The latest version of the report found that nearly 60% of all breaches in 2024 involved a human element. However, in that context, it's important to address a common misconception. The phrase "people are the weakest link" implies that employees are at fault when brea...

The maintainers of the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository have announced that the package manager now checks for expired domains to prevent supply chain attacks. "These changes improve PyPI's overall account security posture, making it harder for attackers to exploit expired domain names to gain unauthorized access to accounts," Mike Fiedler, PyPI safety and security engineer at the Python Software Foundation (PSF), said . With the latest update, the intention is to tackle domain resurrection attacks, which occur when bad actors purchase an expired domain and use it to take control of PyPI accounts through password resets. PyPI said it has unverified over 1,800 email addresses since early June 2025, as soon as their associated domains entered expiration phases. While this is not a foolproof solution, it helps plug a significant supply chain attack vector that would otherwise appear legitimate and hard to detect, it added. Email addresses are tied to domain names...

The threat actors behind the Noodlophile malware are leveraging spear-phishing emails and updated delivery mechanisms to deploy the information stealer in attacks aimed at enterprises located in the U.S., Europe, Baltic countries, and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. "The Noodlophile campaign, active for over a year, now leverages advanced spear-phishing emails posing as copyright infringement notices, tailored with reconnaissance-derived details like specific Facebook Page IDs and company ownership information," Morphisec researcher Shmuel Uzan said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Noodlophile was previously detailed by the cybersecurity vendor in May 2025, uncovering the attackers' use of fake artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools as lures to propagate the malware. These counterfeit programs were found to be advertised on social media platforms like Facebook. That said, the adoption of copyright infringement lures is not a new development. Back in Nov...

Cybersecurity researchers have lifted the lid on the threat actors' exploitation of a now-patched security flaw in Microsoft Windows to deploy the PipeMagic malware in RansomExx ransomware attacks. The attacks involve the exploitation of CVE-2025-29824, a privilege escalation vulnerability impacting the Windows Common Log File System (CLFS) that was addressed by Microsoft in April 2025, Kaspersky and BI.ZONE said in a joint report published today. PipeMagic was first documented in 2022 as part of RansomExx ransomware attacks targeting industrial companies in Southeast Asia, capable of acting as a full-fledged backdoor providing remote access and executing a wide range of commands on compromised hosts. In those attacks, the threat actors have been found to exploit CVE-2017-0144 , a remote code execution flaw in Windows SMB, to infiltrate victim infrastructure. Subsequent infection chains observed in October 2024 in Saudi Arabia were spotted leveraging a fake OpenAI ChatGPT...

Power doesn't just disappear in one big breach. It slips away in the small stuff—a patch that's missed, a setting that's wrong, a system no one is watching. Security usually doesn't fail all at once; it breaks slowly, then suddenly. Staying safe isn't about knowing everything—it's about acting fast and clear before problems pile up. Clarity keeps control. Hesitation creates risk. Here are this week's signals—each one pointing to where action matters most. ⚡ Threat of the Week Ghost Tap NFC-Based Mobile Fraud Takes Off — A new Android trojan called PhantomCard has become the latest malware to abuse near-field communication (NFC) to conduct relay attacks for facilitating fraudulent transactions in attacks targeting banking customers in Brazil. In these attacks, users who end up installing the malicious apps are instructed to place their credit/debit card on the back of the phone to begin the verification process, only for the card data to be sent to an attacker-controlled NFC relay...