Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. I've been following a lot of (sometimes heated) threads and discussions lately about the current vulnerability landscape. I learned new words/phrases such as Summer of Hell (although I'm writing this with 1°C/34°F outside), Vulnpocalypse, Bugmageddon, Bugpocalypse, Breachpocalypse... Let's look at some numbers: We crossed the 70k mark, and it's only the end of September. This has never been seen before — I think we can agree this…
Photos you take with your phone and some digital cameras can contain hidden information, including where they were taken. You can strip that data out before sharing a photo with someone, which would help to protect your location. But the image itself may still give you away. A company called Graylark says its Raven AI tool can match an indoor photo to a specific property using visual clues alone. No GPS data or view out of the window required. We’ve seen this company before. Its tool, GeoSpy,…
Written by: Tyler McLellan Introduction Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) and Mandiant investigated a software supply chain compromise campaign targeting the update infrastructure belonging to AOMEI Technology between April 2026 and July 2026. The threat actor conducted repeated, short-burst configuration tampering against AOMEI origin servers. Each tampering window remained active for only five to ten minutes before reverting to authentic versions. This is the first time that we have…
[This is a Guest Diary by Zachary Norwood, an ISC intern as part of the SANS.edu BACS program] Crypto mining malware has been active and spreading across the internet for quite some time now. Moreover, the DShield honeypot picked up a worm that self-propagates through a plethora of means. One of them is stealing SSH keys after it gains access to a system. Furthermore, it also leverages a rootkit to maintain access to infected systems. One would hope that threat actors would have moved on past…
CISA added CVE-2026-21589 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Affected product: Atlassian Multiple Products. Remediation due date: 2026-10-18.
We investigated an intrusion where attackers exploited CVE-2024-47575 to target 500+ firewalls and deploy PEERSTITCH, a memory-resident ARM64 malware. The post Unit 42 Uncovers PEERSTITCH, a Stealthy FortiGate Implant appeared first on Unit 42.
Your streaming box might not look like much of a computer. But connect enough inexpensive devices together, and they can run an AI model. Researchers at Anthropic demonstrated this by running a Google Gemma model across 15 off-brand Android TV boxes. They warn that small models could soon spread across vulnerable internet-of-things (IoT) devices, including smart ovens and TV boxes, stating: “Our experiments suggest that small AI models may be months away from being capable enough to self…
This research was conducted jointly with Julian-Ferdinand Vögele of Recorded Future’s Insikt Group. Details of the joint research and presentation are available here. Cisco Talos identified UAT-6275 (TAG-193 by Recorded Future) activity targeting government organizations across the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Recovered artifacts show additional interest in water resources and energy. This focus is consistent with intelligence collection and may reflect the regional effects of the…
In this article Uncovering the shadow world of a phishing kit ecosystem Storm-3119: YAM Store, the power broker Storm-2990: The Iron Man System phishing kit Downstream activity from Storm-2990 phishing kits Mitigation and protection guidance Microsoft Defender detections Over the past year, Microsoft uncovered a Chinese-language cybercriminal ecosystem, an interconnected network of phishing kit operators, developers, and an illicit marketplace selling tools and infrastructure for large-scale…
The Joint Economic Committee on Tuesday released the results of a year-long investigation into Tinder, Hinge, Match, Plenty of Fish and several other dating sites owned by Match Group.
A new Android malware called Hirudo steals bank account credentials by replacing legitimate banking apps with modified versions that disable security checks. [...]
We found a wave of websites posing as Calendly booking pages for job interviews at Meta. Visitors pick a slot for a 30-minute phone call with a recruiter, fill in their details, and pass what looks like a CAPTCHA. Then the page asks them to log in to Facebook. The interview is fake. The pages are designed to steal the visitor’s Facebook login details, including the two-factor authentication (2FA) codes meant to protect the account. Visitors are then asked to sign in to their Google account too,…
Group-IB researchers analyze KGB RAT, a Windows Remote Access Trojan advertised on underground forums as being fully undetectable, featuring a built-in crypter, HVNC, credential theft, ransomware, and an unusual set of psychological harassment capabilities.
The National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NÚKIB) is warning about targeted phishing campaigns aimed at users of the Signal messaging app. These activities are primarily linked to actors connected to the Russian Federation, and their goal is to gain access to victims’ communications by exploiting human error. Given the popularity of the Signal app among high-profile individuals and the occurrence of cyber incidents associated with it in the Czech Republic, NÚKIB is publishing an…
Years ago I wrote diary entries about VBA code stored inside AutoCAD drawing files (.dwg). In a nutshell: the VBA code is stored inside an OLE file, that is embedded inside the DWG file. You can do a brute-force search for the embedded OLE file, or you can follow a pointer inside the header of the DWG file. I wrote a small Python script (autocad.py) for this second case. It looks at a 32-bit pointer at position 0x24 inside the DWG file. This points to a 16-byte long header, followed by the…
De multiples vulnérabilités ont été découvertes dans Microsoft Windows. Certaines d'entre elles permettent à un attaquant de provoquer une exécution de code arbitraire à distance, une élévation de privilèges et un déni de service à distance. Microsoft indique que la vulnérabilité CVE-2026-96951...
Unit 42 dissects a cyberattack targeting a European bank's IT infrastructure, delivering concrete defense strategies to help organizations detect and counter comparable threats. The post The Noise Inside the Network: How an Unsophisticated Attack Exposed a Third-Party Risk appeared first on Unit 42.
Anthropic is warning that small AI models could soon be able to self-replicate across consumer IoT devices, from Android TV boxes to smart ovens, creating distributed botnets capable of running AI workloads without relying on data centers. [...]
The new research, published by AI security startup AIR, found that a network filtering flaw in Vercel Sandbox — a tool used to run code in isolated environments — could allow agents to exploit certificate validation processes to transmit data outside approved networks.
TL;DR; Our security assessment of LiteLLM (v1.77.7), a widely used open-source LLM gateway, uncovered multiple high-impact vulnerabilities (tracked as CVE-2026-35029, CVE-2026-59823) which have been resolved as of LiteLLM version 1.83.9. The most significant issues stemmed from a missing authorization check on the /config/update endpoint, which allowed any authenticated user (including low-privileged accounts) to modify the proxy’s runtime configuration. This single flaw enabled arbitrary file…
Doris searched for ChatGPT and ended up in a BEC scam. See how ClickFix, a stolen session cookie, and a hidden inbox rule chain into an OH $#!T moment.
<p>This article was first published <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-intent-based-access-control-without-reading-minds-borges-dxg6e/" target="_self">on LinkedIn</a>.</p> Categories: AI Research, Threat Research Tags: AI, AI RESEARCH, Threat Research
A new Windows malware loader called AvisLoader uses encrypted peer-to-peer communications to make command-and-control infrastructure harder to disrupt. Varonis researchers explain how the malware uses ClickFix delivery, shortcut-based persistence, and remote command execution capabilities. [...]
You ignored the suspicious email. You didn’t open the attachment, click the link, or reply to the sender. Then you asked your AI assistant to summarize your inbox. Could the message you wisely avoided find its way back onto your to-do list—only this time presented as an urgent recommendation from a tool you trust? That’s the risk behind phishing emails containing hidden instructions aimed at AI assistants. Instead of relying only on persuading you, attackers are also trying to influence the…
Elastic Security Labs identified a malicious npm package, @apexacc/cli, which led us to an operation posing as a Web3 accelerator. That operation had spent months building a public presence, targeting cryptocurrency start-ups and founders with offers of free AI credits and coding tools, along with security audits. The group also advertised an in-person event through a dedicated invitation page, adding to its efforts to appear legitimate. The tools delivered information-stealing malware and…
Agentic AI is the breakthrough of the moment, in security as everywhere else: agents that are threat-aware, active, and proactive in investigation. But it is also the technology behind a recent documented autonomous AI intrusion. Both facts are true, and the distance between them is what this article is about.
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. My name is Pierre Cadieux, and I’ll be helping contribute to these newsletters. A little about me: I’ve been working in the cybersecurity industry in many roles over the past 20+ years, first focusing on endpoint security, policies, and firewalls, then moving to risk management and compliance, disaster recovery, and investigations. I spent about 15 years as a consultant working across many well-known consultancy firms and…
We just did a major update to FOR577 and added a lot of new material on day 5 about investigating AI usage in incident response. In the new material we dicsuss 8 of the most popular AI coding assistants and agents including Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, Copilot, Warp, Windsurf, and Qwen Code. I've been using Claude Code and a little bit of Codex, but I also have recently been playing with OpenCode and am setting up Hermes. I decided to figure out where the chat history was in OpenCode…
In leaked chats, members track dozens of victims, haggle over multimillion-dollar payments and direct operatives based in the United States whom they call “agents.”
Community-built AI agents, skills, and MCP servers are landing in SOC workflows fast. Here’s what the Exchange Inspector tests before a listing earns its vetted tag on the CyberAgents Exchange. Three tools have already passed. Key takeaways Every Inspector-vetted listing clears three gates: an automated check, a frontier model assessment, and human verification. Tenable uses Tenable One AI Exposure to screen for prompt injection and exposed secrets, and OpenAI GPT Cyber models to assess the…
Russian-aligned hackers have targeted Ukrainian transportation, manufacturing and energy companies with a constantly evolving malware strain designed to harvest system data, according to new research.
If you thought that having companies trawling your social media, browsing history, and TV habits for behavioral clues was bad, sit tight. Meta is just getting started. Its Muse personal AI agent is taking surveillance to the next level. TIME magazine analyzed the software’s internal instructions and found that it maintains constantly updated dossiers on users and the people they know. Meta released Muse last month, positioning it as a digital assistant that can handle different parts of your…
Cisco Talos identified an advanced persistent threat (APT) spear-phishing campaign against individuals affiliated with Taiwan research organizations. The operation leveraged legitimate public event themes and impersonated reputable academic and policy institutions to establish credibility. The phishing emails exhibited highly consistent structure, rhetoric, and personalization patterns, suggesting the threat actor likely used AI-assisted content generation to rapidly customize invitation lures…
“AI-analysis evasion” encapsulates the real-world techniques malware authors are developing in attempt to obstruct or defeat any layers of automated AI analysis. This technique is cheap to add but inconsistently impactful — the best techniques steered the outcome in the attacker’s favor in about 35% of test runs. Further, it must always be plaintext and therefore is always detectable. The operators are not wrong to assume AI tools are in the analysis pipeline, but the answer is not to remove…
On the second day of Pwn2Own Ireland 2026, security researchers collected $232,500 in cash awards after exploiting 45 unique zero-day vulnerabilities. [...]
For months, GreyNoise recorded almost no Hikvision camera exploit attempts against Ukraine. On Sept 21 activity surged for nine days during Russian strikes, almost all from four IPs, then stopped. We can't say if the two are linked.
Unit 42 details how threat actors leverage Web3 infrastructure and open-source supply chain attacks to breach enterprise cloud environments The post Evolution of Web3 in Cloud Supply Chain Attacks appeared first on Unit 42.
Most industries manage one major compliance framework. Universities might manage four simultaneously, each bringing with it unique requirements, enforcement mechanisms, and consequences for failure. Here's what that actually looks like in practice. In Part 1 of this series, we laid out the scale of the threat facing higher education: 4,388 cyberattacks per organization per week, a 24% year-over-year increase, and the fundamental architectural flaw of defending each campus independently. If the…
Cisco Talos’ Vulnerability Discovery & Research team recently disclosed vulnerabilities in Adobe, Apple, Foxit Reader, and Microsoft. The vulnerabilities mentioned in this blog post have been patched by their respective vendors, in adherence to Cisco’s third-party vulnerability disclosure policy. For Snort coverage that can detect the exploitation of these vulnerabilities, download the latest rule sets from Snort.org, and our latest Vulnerability Advisories are always posted on Talos…
In this article Shift 1. From frontier capability to scale Shift 2. From token consumption to reasoning economics Shift 3. Validation and remediation as a continuous learning loop Transferring security research to help open source projects Open-source vulnerability reporting snapshot Measured costs of automated validation FORGE OSS Bug Hunt Party: Human coordination at scale (Hackathon) Akrites: Coordinated effort to remediate vulnerabilities What’s next for FORGE Lab? The mission of Microsoft…
In August, the Malwarebytes research team reported on a new malicious turnkey kit that makes it possible for almost anyone to launch a sophisticated online scam. The kit was not simply a fake website. It bundled the command center, victim tracking, and administrative tools into a ready-to-use package, reducing the technical knowledge needed to operate a scam. The discovery highlights an important feature of the cybercrime economy: criminals don’t necessarily need to build their own…
ASOS customers opened their phones to find a hostile push notification delivered through the retailer’s own app. The message claimed the company’s Snowflake environment had been compromised and directed ASOS to engage with the sender through Telegram. ASOS later confirmed to Sky News that an unauthorized customer notification had been sent and said it was investigating activity involving third-party platforms used to communicate with customers. The company also said basic personal information,…
Najviše je zabilježeno phishing napada, neželjenih poruka i financijski motiviranih prijevara, a listopad donosi kampanju za građane te nacionalna i europska natjecanja iz kibernetičke sigurnosti Tijekom Europskog mjeseca kibernetičke sigurnosti, koji se svake godine obilježava u listopadu, CARNET-ov Nacionalni CERT provodi niz aktivnosti usmjerenih na podizanje razine svijesti javnosti o važnosti kibernetičke sigurnosti. Riječ je o dijelu aktivnosti koje Nacionalni CERT kontinuirano provodi…
As organizations deploy autonomous AI agents, security teams face a significant shift as non-human non-human entities making decisions, invoking tools, and delegating tasks to other agents without human intervention. Security architectures built around human users, static APIs, and distinct endpoints break down when AI agents dynamically collaborate across an environment. As these interactions become more common, securing agent-to-agent communication without blocking adoption will require…
Facebook users are reporting receiving a message with a fake Facebook Marketplace listing that has their name as the seller. It works like this. You receive a message (in this case iMessage) asking “Is this still available for purchase?” Attached to the message is a fabricated Facebook Marketplace listing. Tapping on the picture, you might notice that the seller’s name is the same as your name. This is known as a conversation lure, adding legitimacy to a message and giving you an additional…
Analysis of Blinder Tunnel, an Iran-nexus campaign using fake Dubai Airports recruitment lures and GitHub C2 malware to target critical infrastructure. The post Blinder Tunnel Campaign Targets Iraqi Infrastructure appeared first on Unit 42.
It seems that a trend started… I continue my journey discovering more RMM ("Remote Management & Monitoring") tools abused by threat actors! A few days ago, I wrote a diary[1] about ScreenConnect used in the wild. Today, I found another one. Same scenario, it started with a phishing email that delivers a fake PDF invoice to the victim: When the PDF is opened, it just redirect to a malicious VBS file. Indeed, the PDF contains an “OpenAction” and “URI” keywords, that sounds weird! remnux@remnux:~…
ClickFix attacks leave no file to scan or block, which is why most endpoint tools miss it. See how Huntress Attack Disruption kills the chain in under a second.
For an experiment, I created a script [1] that parses and send the TTY logs collected from actors or bots activity that run various commands after they successfully login the DShield sensor. Those TTY logs are sent daily at the end of each day to the DShield SIEM [2] to be correlated with all the data. The following ES|QL query provides a summary of all contab commands matching a TTYLog hash performed by different actors while logged in the sensor over a 90 day period. TTYLogs Correlation FROM…
Of Elastic's 2100+ prebuilt detection rules, 385 are tagged Profile: Recommended and 296 are tagged Aggressive. The rest (62% of the list) are deliberately left untagged. Prebuilt rule now carries tags like Noise: Low, Performance: Fast, and Profile: Recommended, recalculated every month from real fleet telemetry rather than fixed once and left alone. This post covers how the scoring actually works and how to use the tags to decide what to enable first. Elastic SIEM rule metadata has two jobs…
Sometimes I have to smile, or my interest is triggered, when I review new User Agent Strings in the honeypot logs. Like when I see an "authorized" scan: Or when I'm owned for the umpteenth time: I regularly see URLs or email addresses for when you want to know more, or get in touch, with the persons behind a scanner: (around the end of this list, you'll see the Belarus email address we wrote about recently) Many variants of masscan: Even a KGB variant. As you can guess, "scan" is a popular word…