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Google is rolling out a new banner to highlight the "Independent security review" badge in the Play Store's Data safety section for Android VPN apps that have undergone a Mobile Application Security Assessment ( MASA ) audit. "We've launched this banner beginning with VPN apps due to the sensitive and significant amount of user data these apps handle," Nataliya Stanetsky of the Android Security and Privacy Team  said . MASA allows developers to have their apps independently validated against a global security standard such as the Mobile Application Security Verification Standard ( MASVS ), thereby providing more transparency and enabling users to make informed choices prior to downloading them. The efforts are part of Google's broader push to make the Data safety section a  one-stop   shop  that presents a "unified view of app safety," offering details about the kind of data that's being collected, for what purpose, and if it's be...

Ever wonder what happens when attackers don't break the rules—they just follow them better than we do? When systems work exactly as they're built to, but that "by design" behavior quietly opens the door to risk? This week brings stories that make you stop and rethink what's truly under control. It's not always about a broken firewall or missed patch—it's about the small choices, default settings, and shortcuts that feel harmless until they're not. The real surprise? Sometimes the threat doesn't come from outside—it's baked right into how things are set up. Dive in to see what's quietly shaping today's security challenges. ⚡ Threat of the Week FBI Warns of Scattered Spider's on Airlines — The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned of a new set of attacks mounted by the notorious cybercrime group Scattered Spider targeting the airline sector using sophisticated social engineering techniques to obtain initial access. Cybersecurity vendors Palo Alto Networks Unit 4...

Cyber threats didn't slow down last week—and attackers are getting smarter. We're seeing malware hidden in virtual machines, side-channel leaks exposing AI chats, and spyware quietly targeting Android devices in the wild. But that's just the surface. From sleeper logic bombs to a fresh alliance between major threat groups, this week's roundup highlights a clear shift: cybercrime is evolving fast, and the lines between technical stealth and strategic coordination are blurring. It's worth your time. Every story here is about real risks that your team needs to know about right now. Read the whole recap. ⚡ Threat of the Week Curly COMrades Abuses Hyper-V to Hide Malware in Linux VMs — Curly COMrades, a threat actor supporting Russia's geopolitical interests, has been observed abusing Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor in compromised Windows machines to create a hidden Alpine Linux-based virtual machine and deploy malicious payloads. This method allows the malware to run completel...

Facebook has introduced a new feature in its platform that has been designed to make it easier for bug bounty hunters to find security flaws in Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram Android applications. Since almost all Facebook-owned apps by default use security mechanisms such as Certificate Pinning to ensure integrity and confidentiality of the traffic, it makes it harder for white hat hackers and security researchers to intercept and analyze network traffic to find server-side security vulnerabilities. For those unaware, Certificate Pinning is a security mechanism designed to prevent users of an application from being a victim of network-based attacks by automatically rejecting the whole connection from sites that offer bogus SSL certificates. Dubbed " Whitehat Settings ," the new option now lets researchers easily bypass Certificate Pinning on the Facebook-owned mobile apps by: Disabling Facebook's TLS 1.3 support Enabling proxy for Platform API requests ...

Email protection and network security services provider Barracuda is warning users about a zero-day flaw that it said has been exploited to breach the company's Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances. The zero-day is being tracked as  CVE-2023-2868  and has been described as a remote code injection vulnerability affecting versions 5.1.3.001 through 9.2.0.006. The California-headquartered firm  said  the issue is rooted in a component that screens the attachments of incoming emails. "The vulnerability arises out of a failure to comprehensively sanitize the processing of .tar file (tape archives)," according to an  advisory  from the NIST's national vulnerability database. "The vulnerability stems from incomplete input validation of a user-supplied .tar file as it pertains to the names of the files contained within the archive. As a consequence, a remote attacker can specifically format these file names in a particular manner that will result in remote...

Today's enterprise networks are complex environments with different types of wired and wireless devices being connected and disconnected. The current device discovery solutions have been mainly focused on identifying and monitoring servers, workstation PCs, laptops and infrastructure devices such as network firewalls, switches and routers, because the most valuable information assets of organizations are being stored, processed and transferred over those devices, hence making them the prime target of security breaches and intrusions. However, a new trend has been emerging in the past four years,  where attackers have been targeting purpose-built connected devices  such as network printers and video conferencing systems as an entry point and data exfiltration route. These devices cannot be identified properly by the current IT asset discovery solutions for the following main reasons: Proprietary protocols are often used for managing and monitoring such devices that are not...

The Racoon Stealer malware as a service platform gained notoriety several years ago for its ability to extract data that is stored within a Web browser. This data initially included passwords and cookies, which sometimes allow a recognized device to be authenticated without a password being entered. Racoon Stealer was also designed to steal auto-fill data, which can include a vast trove of personal information ranging from basic contact data to credit card numbers. As if all of that were not enough, Racoon Stealer also had the ability to steal cryptocurrency and to steal (or drop) files on an infected system. As bad as Racoon Stealer might have been, its developers have recently created a new version that is designed to be far more damaging than the version that previously existed.  New Racoon Stealer Capabilities The new version of Raccoon Stealer  still has the ability to steal browser passwords, cookies, and auto-fill data. It also has the ability to steal any credit c...

The US Government has yet again shuttered several domain names this week. The Department of Justice and Homeland Security's ICE office proudly announced that they had seized domains related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. What they failed to mention, however, is that one of the targeted domains belongs to a free DNS provider, and that 84,000 websites were wrongfully accused of links to child pornography crimes. As part of "Operation Save Our Children" ICE's Cyber Crimes Center has again seized several domain names, but not without making a huge error. Last Friday, thousands of site owners were surprised by a rather worrying banner that was placed on their domain. "Advertisement, distribution, transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography constitute federal crimes that carry penalties for first time offenders of up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution," was the worrying message they read on their websites. As with prev...

This week's cyber stories show how fast the online world can turn risky. Hackers are sneaking malware into movie downloads, browser add-ons, and even software updates people trust. Tech giants and governments are racing to plug new holes while arguing over privacy and control. And researchers keep uncovering just how much of our digital life is still wide open. The new Threatsday Bulletin brings it all together—big hacks, quiet exploits, bold arrests, and smart discoveries that explain where cyber threats are headed next. It's your quick, plain-spoken look at the week's biggest security moves before they become tomorrow's headlines. Maritime IoT under siege Mirai-Based Broadside Botnet Exploits TBK DVR Flaw A new Mirai botnet variant dubbed Broadside has been exploiting a critical-severity vulnerability in TBK DVR ( CVE-2024-3721 ) in attacks targeting the maritime logistics sector. "Unlike previous Mirai variants, Broadside e...

Multiple security flaws have been disclosed in the Nagios XI network monitoring software that could result in privilege escalation and information disclosure. The four security vulnerabilities, tracked from CVE-2023-40931 through CVE-2023-40934, impact Nagios XI versions 5.11.1 and lower. Following responsible disclosure on August 4, 2023, They have been  patched  as of September 11, 2023, with the release of version 5.11.2. "Three of these vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-40931, CVE-2023-40933 and CVE-2023-40934) allow users, with various levels of privileges, to access database fields via SQL Injections," Outpost24 researcher Astrid Tedenbrant  said . "The data obtained from these vulnerabilities may be used to further escalate privileges in the product and obtain sensitive user data such as password hashes and API tokens." CVE-2023-40932, on the other hand, relates to a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw in the Custom Logo component that could be used to read sensiti...

The threat actors behind the  BlackCat ransomware  have shut down their darknet website and likely pulled an exit scam after uploading a bogus law enforcement seizure banner. "ALPHV/BlackCat did not get seized. They are exit scamming their affiliates," security researcher Fabian Wosar  said . "It is blatantly obvious when you check the source code of the new takedown notice." "There is absolutely zero reason why law enforcement would just put a saved version of the takedown notice up during a seizure instead of the original takedown notice." The U.K.'s National Crime Agency (NCA)  told  Reuters that it had no connection to any disruptions to the BlackCat infrastructure. Recorded Future security researcher Dmitry Smilyanets  posted  screenshots on the social media platform X in which the BlackCat actors claimed that the "feds screwed us over" and that they intended to sell the ransomware's source code for $5 million. The disappearing...

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...

Iranian computer hackers on Monday hijacked the website of the Voice of America, replacing its Internet home page with a banner bearing an Iranian flag and an image of an AK-47 assault rifle. The group called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "hear the voice of oppressed nations." The banner stated that "we have proven that we can." The message called on the United States to "stop interfering in Islamic countries." It then listed more 90 websites of VOA it claimed has also been hacked. A State Department spokesman could not be reached for comment. An administration official said the group identified with the banner is known as the Iranian Cyber Army. VOA operates a global network of news and information outlets that reflect official U.S. foreign policies. It broadcasts, through radio, television and the Internet to scores of nations around the world. Little is known about the group. It was credited with hacking and defacing Twitter in December 2009, replacing the...

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, on Thursday announced an expansion of its Facebook Protect security program to include human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and government officials who are more likely to be targeted by bad actors across its social media platforms. "These people are at the center of critical communities for public debate," said Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Meta. "They enable democratic elections, hold governments and organizations accountable, and defend human rights around the world. Unfortunately this also means that they are highly targeted by bad actors." Facebook Protect , currently being launched globally in phases, enables users who enroll for the initiative to adopt stronger account security protections, like two-factor authentication (2FA), and watch out for potential hacking threats. Meta said more than 1.5 million accounts have enabled Facebook Protect to date, of which nearly 950,000 account...

After the success of Pokémon Go , Nintendo's " Super Mario Run " has become the hottest game to hit the market with enormous popularity and massive social impact. The game has taken the world by storm since its launch for iOS devices over a week ago. Can you believe  —  it was downloaded more than 40 million times worldwide in its first four days of release. But if you have downloaded a Super Mario Run APK for your Android device, Beware! That's definitely a malware. Since Super Mario Run has currently been released only for iOS devices and is not on Google Play, it caused a lot of disappointment among Android users. So, eventually, many Android device owners who love Mario games and can not wait to play Super Mario Run ended up downloading APKs outside of the Google Play Store. But those tons of phony copycat unofficial Super Mario apps on many third-party Android app stores turn out to be malware or viruses that attempt to look like the legitimate Super...

SWSE - Most Advanced Wi-Fi Hacking and Security Course online We covered the launch of the SecurityTube Wi-Fi Security Expert in a previous article. As their entire courseware is available online free of charge to evaluate: , I took a look over the weekend and I was very impressed. The instructor assumes you are an absolute n00b to the subject and starts from the very basics of how to get started with creating your own lab for doing Wireless Hacking exercises. He then slowly gains momentum and touches upon a ton of topics - Honeypots, Hotspot attacks, MITM over wireless, WEP/WPA/WPA2 Cracking, WPA/WPA2-Enterprise hacking, PEAP, EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS cracking, creating backdoors with wireless, Wi-Fi malware etc. All of this is covered in over 12+ hours of HD videos. I would strongly recommend you to download the full courseware here and see for yourself: https://securitytube.net/downloads If you are interested in using this for your job and desire to get a certification then, Security...

China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) has accused the U.S. of breaking into Huawei's servers, stealing critical data, and implanting backdoors since 2009, amid mounting geopolitical tensions between the two countries. In a  message  posted on WeChat, the government authority said U.S. intelligence agencies have "done everything possible" to conduct surveillance, secret theft, and intrusions on many countries around the world, including China, using a "powerful cyber attack arsenal." Specifics about the alleged hacks were not shared. It explicitly singled out the U.S. National Security Agency's (NSA) Computer Network Operations (formerly the Office of Tailored Access Operations or TAO) as having "repeatedly carried out systematic and platform-based attacks" against the country to plunder its "important data resources." The post went on to claim that the cyber-warfare intelligence-gathering unit hacked Huawei's servers in 200...

Microsoft on Monday said it's taking steps to disable Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default across its products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Visio, for documents downloaded from the web in an attempt to eliminate an entire class of attack vector. "Bad actors send macros in Office files to end users who unknowingly enable them, malicious payloads are delivered, and the impact can be severe including malware, compromised identity, data loss, and remote access," Kellie Eickmeyer  said  in a post announcing the move. While the company does warn users about permitting macros in Office files, unsuspecting victims — e.g., recipients of phishing emails — can still be lured into enabling the feature, effectively granting the attackers the ability to gain an initial foothold into the system. As part of the new change, when a user opens an attachment or downloads from the internet an untrusted Office file containing macros, the app displays a ...

The Australian and New Zealand shopping site of cosmetics retailer Lush has been hacked just weeks after a similar breach occurred on the UK site.  Credit card details and other intimate information of shoppers have been exposed. If you visit the Lush Cosmetics Australian  website  you will find a single banner page announcing that the site has suffered a "Privacy Breach."  This is contained as a single JPG image with no other links on the page.  In fact if you use your favourite search engine to find sub-pages, they all return a 404 error.  It would appear that the entire site has been removed from the server and the single banner page put in its place. In part, the site statement says: We are sorry to have to announce that the Lush Australian and New Zealand websites have been hacked.  We have been alerted today to advise us that entry has been gained and customer personal data may have been obtained by the hackers. We urgently advise custom...