Google and industry partners have dismantled the XCPE malware botnet consisting of more than 1.3 million Android TV streaming TV boxes that Google says its manufacturer intentionally infected with malware to generate revenue through cybercrime activities. [...]
Google US
Introduction Last week, Google and industry partners dismantled the XCPE backdoor which enrolled more than 1.3 million set-top boxes into a botnet. We assess with high confidence that the backdoor and botnet were intentionally developed, deployed, and operated for financial gain by Videostrong Technology Co., an Android Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Original Device Manufacturer (ODM). Videostrong monetized the backdoor by selling access to criminal affiliates and loading those…
Ads promoted browser extensions as tools to find manuals, convert PDFs, or make searches safer. But many of these extensions sent users’ search queries through servers controlled by their operators. Socket researcher John Tuckner identified 319 extensions with an estimated 13.4 million installs over a decade. The extensions hijacked users’ default search settings and routed their searches through servers controlled by the operators before sending them to Yahoo or Bing. This gave the operators…
Google US
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Wiz identified threat actors hijacking Google Cloud Platform (GCP) billing accounts via search-ad phishing to fund unauthorized Gemini API usage. By stealing corporate credentials and MFA tokens, attackers gain access, dismantle IAM domain restrictions, and link external GCP p...
Google US
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…
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,…
Hackers are abusing legitimate Bing search-result redirects as click URLs in Google search ads to direct users to fake Claude installers that deliver ClickFix attacks. [...]
Google US
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…
A plausible-sounding sponsorship offer could mask an attempt to compromise your Google account
Custom variants of OpenAI's ChatGPT promoted in sponsored Google results are directing unsuspecting users to malicious sites that use ClickFix attacks to deliver malware. [...]
Phishing follows whatever people want at the moment, and right now that includes AI subscriptions they don’t have to pay for. We recently uncovered a new variation on this theme: A fake Claude Max giveaway that uses a convincing Google sign-in window to steal login information.Claude’s paid plans start at $20 a month and cost considerably more for higher usage limits, while free accounts have stricter limits. That makes the promise of a free upgrade an attractive lure.Microsoft reported in June…
CERT Polska uncovered a toll fraud operation targeting Polish users through deceptive Meta advertisements and malicious applications distributed via Google Play. We preserved 1235 ads, linked 852 to 17 applications through code or infrastructure, reconstructed the complete execution chain, and observed live premium SMS and carrier billing tasking.
On September 9, 2026, Volexity published a blog post detailing the simultaneous use of multiple chained zero-day exploits in Google Chrome (CVE-2026-85046, CVE-2026-87491) and Microsoft Windows (CVE-2026-85880) by two different Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) actors. Shortly after that blog post was published, Volexity discovered additional campaigns—this time from a third Chinese threat actor, tracked by Volexity under the alias UTA0565—that used the same chained exploits on September…
KEV ✓ EPSS 0.04 CVE-2026-85046 CVE-2026-85880 CVE-2026-87491 Google Microsoft veřejná správa US
Elastic Security Labs has tracked REF9334, a Brazilian banking malware operation, since May 2025. Its toolkit is called KREMLIN (as named by the malware author, Kr3mlin4rt1st), though nothing about the operation is Russian. Lures impersonate twelve Brazilian banks; error messages and code comments are written in Portuguese, and the operators' Ethereum transactions cluster during São Paulo working hours. Over 15 months and seven campaigns, they built a malicious browser extension that installs…
A single X DM split into two malware chains: AMOS stealer on Mac, NetSupport Manager on Windows, see the Huntress SOC analyst breakdown.
Google US
BlueMoon, a shared Chrome and Windows exploit kit, shows why “patch later” is becoming a dangerous gamble. Security updates are easy to put off. The browser still opens, Windows still works, and choosing to relaunch your browser or restart your computer later can feel harmless. But a newly documented exploit kit called “BlueMoon” shows how quickly patching delays can become dangerous. Proofpoint Researchers found four espionage groups using the same exploit chain against Chrome browsers running…
Cisco Talos began an investigation after observing a DLL named "verification.google" executing from WebDAV at a Ukrainian government organization. We assess with moderate confidence that the attacks are not targeted at a particular organization, but are a part of a cryptocurrency and credentials-stealing operation using the Amatera stealer as the primary payload. Pivoting around the similar WebDAV behavior led to a second loader named "pf.ch" and allowed us to reconstruct its earlier delivery…
Cisco Talos is tracking a cryptocurrency-stealing campaign that abuses the Google Visualization API for command and control (C2), retrieving obfuscated JavaScript from a publicly published Google Sheets document and injecting it into the victim's browser session. The actors use a variation on ClickFix social engineering. Instead of convincing targets to run commands against the operating system, they convince targets to paste JavaScript into the Chrome address bar or install it into the…
Researchers at Group-IB have discovered a new NFC relay malware family, purpose-built to capture live card data via NFC and forward it in real time to attackers. They dubbed it “WindRelay.” NFC (Near Field Communication) is wireless technology that allows devices such as smartphones, payment cards, and payment terminals to communicate when they’re very close together. So, instead of stealing your physical bank card, the attackers capture NFC activity on an infected mobile phone and relay it in…
A previously undocumented Windows loader tracked as OXLOADER is delivering the CASTLESTEALER infostealer via malicious Google Ads, with low detection rates across static engines and sandbox detonations. The loader uses several obfuscation layers (control-flow flattening, opaque predicates, mixed Boolean-Arithmetic), self-modifying decryption stubs, and abuses the Windows .reloc section to stage shellcode. Elastic Security Labs identified OXLOADER in an active campaign targeting one of our…
Tycoon 2FA is currently the most prolific Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) platform among AiTM phishing kits. First observed in August 2023 and attributed to Storm-1747 (per Microsoft Threat Intelligence), the kit provides turnkey adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) capabilities that bypass multi-factor authentication and steal authenticated session tokens from Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace accounts. At its peak, Tycoon 2FA accounted for roughly 62% of phishing attempts blocked by Microsoft,…