In this article Star Blizzard TTPs observed in 2026Defending against Star Blizzard and RedFlick-related activityMicrosoft Defender detectionsHunting queriesIndicators of compromise Since January 2026, Microsoft has observed Russian state threat actor Star Blizzard evolve their detection evasion capabilities through large-scale phishing campaigns, the use of accounts on compromised websites, and a novel malware delivery technique that Microsoft tracks as “RedFlick”. These changes represent a…
Government agencies are warning that Iranian state-linked hackers are using a Windows malware strain named CHOSEN BRICK to target dissidents, activists, and journalists worldwide. [...]
According to the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Iran has used this and similar cyber activity to “support the repression of individuals who are seen as a threat to the regime, such as dissidents, activists and journalists.”
Researchers at Hudson Rock found that cybercriminals hijacked HBO Max’s verified Reddit account and used it to run 108 malicious ads over roughly 48 hours. The ads used HBO Max’s trusted corporate account to promote fake AI tools, developer software, and macOS utilities, lowering potential victims’ guards. Some ads directed users to convincing HBO lookalike sites that claimed to offer a native HBO Max app for macOS or a promotional download. But instead of providing an installer, the sites…
Hackers compromised HBO Max's official Reddit account and used it to push malicious ads that launched ClickFix attacks to infect Windows and macOS devices with information-stealing malware. [...]
Executive Summary Since the release of our May 2026 report detailing adversarial misuse of artificial intelligence (AI), Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) has observed forward leaning adversaries transition from basic prompting to agentic AI workflows and AI-enabled automation. In these operations, human-in-the-loop latency is dramatically reduced, compressing the traditional window for defenders to respond. In Q2 2026, GTIG observed threat actors compromise a cloud resource, then plan,…
OverviewA new Linux toolkit, identified by Rapid7 Labs, has been targeting organizations across South Korea’s automotive and media industries with minimal detection. The campaign made use of a HAProxy instance named “ted backdoor”, alongside trojanized versions of crond, agetty, atd, sshd, and polkitd. This previously undocumented framework enabled threat actors to execute remote commands on compromised servers, inject malicious scripts into web traffic, perform credential harvesting, and…