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…
VOLTA is a mature stealer implant with an optional AI-integration layer. After stealing credentials, sessions, and cryptocurrency wallets, VOLTA sends a structured evidence bundle to an LLM to rank the victim’s assets by monetization value. If a model refuses to perform the target assessment, VOLTA fails over to a three-model chain, implying a direct engineering effort and expectation of hitting model guardrails. This stealer is self-deleting, and there is no attacker-owned infrastructure. The…
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
Last month, Volexity published two blog posts in its Mind the (Patch) Gap series. The series details Volexity’s discovery of multiple Chinese threat actors simultaneously using zero-day exploits in Google Chrome and Microsoft Windows in campaigns that, if successful, would download and run malware on an exploited system. Those posts covered technical details of the exploits and malware Volexity observed, along with general detection methods for each case. Behind those findings was one of the…
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…
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
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…
KEV ✓ EPSS 0.11 CVSS 8.7 CVE-2026-88779 Cisco Citrix Google US CA FI GB FR IT
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. [...]
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
Researchers at Zimperium’s zLabs have analyzed an Android Trojan that uses an automated, multi-stage infection process. What’s new is that RatHat gives a live AI assistant the keys to the accessibility tree of the infected device and uses it to determine where to tap or scroll, rather than following a hardcoded script. The variable attack path makes it harder for signature- and rule-based mobile security tools to detect this Trojan. It also abuses Android Debug Bridge (ADB), a legitimate tool…
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…
Multiple extensions for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge delivered a malware framework that deployed modules to steal cryptocurrency, sensitive data, and browser history, as well as inject ClickFix lures. [...]
Researchers have uncovered ToxicPanda 2.0, an Android banking Trojan and remote-access tool designed for account takeover and “on-device fraud.” Not only does ToxicPanda 2.0 have a much larger target list of banks and e-wallets, it has also expanded its capabilities by combining banking overlays, remote access, PIN capture, Android accessibility abuse, and attempted Wireless Debugging automation. Together, those functions can help operators turn a compromised phone into a platform for account…
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…