• WordPress Core flaw CVE‑2026‑87902 (path traversal, 8.1 severity) enables PHP file inclusion and possible RCE
• Patch released in v7.1.2 and backported to 4.7+; exploitation began within hours, now widespread
• Admins must urgently update; interim mitigations include blocking traversal sequences and disabling risky ARP/PHP settings

Hackers are actively exploiting a high severity vulnerability in WordPress that can lead to full website takeover, researchers are saying. A patch is available, and WordPress users are urged to upgrade immediately or risk losing access to their assets.

Discovered by security researcher Robert Ressl, the vulnerability in question is tracked as CVE-2026-87902. It is an 8.1/10 (high severity) unauthenticated path traversal flaw affecting WordPress Core. According to WordPress itself, as well as the National Vulnerability Database, the bug can lead to local PHP file inclusion and, in certain scenarios, remote code execution (RCE).

"An unauthenticated attacker can make get_page_template() page-template resolution include a chosen readable local .php file outside the active theme directories," it was said in the official security advisory.

Achieving RCE

WordPress is the world’s number one website hosting and builder platform, powering more than half of all websites active on the internet right now. However, that doesn’t mean all of them are susceptible to RCE. Only websites ticking these boxes are at risk:

Sites with parent or child themes that have a top-level directory with a name starting with ‘page-’ (for example, ‘page-templates).

Threat actors must target a local .PHP file that exists and is readable by the web server

The web server account must be able to read the included file (for example, pearcmd.php, if PHP’s register_argc_argv setting is active)

WordPress said that both the official PHP image for Docker, and the default cPanel configuration, are affected (users must be running a PHP version before 8.5, though).

The issue was fixed in version 7.1.2, which is now available for download. Fixes were also backported to older versions up to 4.7. Releases before 4.8 are not supported, it was said, and will not be getting a fix.

Attacking vulnerable websites

Wordpress security company Patchstack said the first exploitation attempts started roughly five hours after the patch was released, and these were primarily reconnaissance efforts. In the hours to follow, malicious activity increased tenfold, it was said, as crooks started attempting to deliver malicious payloads to vulnerable websites, as well.

“When this post first went up, every request we had seen was reconnaissance against harmless core files,” Patchstack said. “That is no longer true. Attackers are now including pearcmd.php and using it to write PHP files to disk, and public scanning tooling for this CVE is in circulation.”

At first, Patchstack said the attacks were coming from a handful of IP addresses, and advised website admins to simply block them. However, the attacks have now become rather widespread, meaning blocking individual addresses is no longer a viable strategy. They urge everyone to apply the patch without delay:

“The first evening came from a small cluster of addresses. It is now spread across a few hundred, so blocklisting individual sources is not a strategy. The heaviest talkers at the time of writing:

43.250.53.42

180.251.159.243

195.178.110.247

107.189.14.87

45.61.184.170

92.246.130.76

The file write attempts specifically come from a much smaller subset of those addresses, which is the usual pattern of a few operators acting on results that a much larger scanning population produced.”

Those that cannot update immediately should reject traversal sequences in the pagename parameter, Patchstack added. A real page slug never contains one, they added, meaning it can be blocked without affecting normal traffic. Furthermore, disabling register_argc_argv does not fix the inclusion but it does break the pearcmd chain, which is the difference between an information leak and code execution.

Via BleepingComputer

• Gambit researchers uncovered ongoing AI‑driven skimming campaign stealing 600,000+ payment records since July 2026
• Attackers used three autonomous harnesses (Strix, Cairn, Hermes) to compromise dozens of retail sites cheaply
• Victims include major US firms; campaign shows AI enables faster, persistent, low‑cost cyberattacks at scale

In July 2026, a hacker tasked autonomous AI agents to attack retail organizations around the world, deploy credit card skimmers, and steal payment data.

Since then, the bots launched hundreds of attack projects, compromised dozens of organizations, and stole at least 600,000 payment records - and to make matters worse, the campaign is still live, attacking and breaking into websites as we speak.

All of this was reported by security researchers Gambit, who said they managed to recover the operator’s staging server and through it - reconstruct the ongoing campaign. They also saw the skimmers live on victim websites, and sifted through logs and AI claims found on the attacker’s server. In just five days, between September 10 and 15, the agents made 105 attack waves and compromised 27 organizations “to varying degrees.”

Among the victims are a Fortune 500 hospitality company, a “major” US airline, a large private US industrial supplies distributor, and a US online fashion retailer. One of the AI tools would use a website ranking service to produce a list of potential targets, focusing primarily on those running custom-built software.

A fistful of dollars

But the victims are not the “interesting” part of this story - the attackers are. Gambit believes they are financially motivated Chinese threat actors. They are using three AI “harnesses” (frameworks, essentially), which can run almost the entire attack chain autonomously, striking around 10 companies a day, for a handful of dollars per company.

In four weeks, the attackers spent around $7,000, meaning that their entire cost for the operation so far was no more than $18,000. Breaking it down, it means that the attacker spent around $25 per target.

“Spread over the companies attacked, this is a marginal cost of a few US dollars to a few tens of US dollars for each targeted company,” Gambit’s researchers said. “The operator’s own cost review gives a similar figure, a mean of $25.46 over 101 completed scans, from $3.13 for the cheapest target to $79.31 for the most expensive.”

“Where access was achieved, it usually took less than a day, and in many cases just a few hours. We also detected instructions in the attacker’s playbook that could disrupt the operations of a company as a result of data deletion or cleanup procedures run by the agent - and this has indeed happened in some of the breaches,” Gambit said.

The three harnesses

The three harnesses are called Strix, Cairn, and Hermes.

Gambit describes Hermes as an open source autonomous AI agent with a persistent memory, skills that the agent wrote and edited itself, a searchable archive of past sessions, scheduled jobs, and a web console. On the staging server the researchers analyzed, it loaded a Chinese system persona called “SOUL - Red Team Operator”, which contained 121 skills (78 attack skills).

“Hermes is the operator’s console for orchestrating the activity and for direct hacking activities,” Gambit explained. “It used Anthropic’s opus-4.6 (after newer models refused its requests), with 1,951 prompts typed by the human across 260 sessions - only a few prompts per target. The human prompts are short instructions in Chinese, usually launching an attack, tasking the agent with a general next step, or what to do next after achieving access.”

Strix is an open-source AI pentest tool, while Cairn is an autonomous pentest engine. It receives target domains and an objective, such as to get a shell or admin access, then runs for hours until it achieves the objective, times out, or is stopped. Cairn used DeepSeek v4.1 Flash, it was said.

Gambit’s researchers seem to be rather impressed with the campaign. They described it as very low cost, with a level of patience, persistence, and creativity that most human attackers would be “unlikely to sustain”, managing to achieve “far greater results, far faster.”

They have also called to arms, urging organizations to “adapt to a reality where attacks are significantly faster and more comprehensive.” To do that, they must adopt a resilience-first mentality and deploy a security stack that can match the AI on speed.

Many of the affected organizations were notified, and the skimmers were removed, they said.

• $1.6 billion has been claimed by scammers impersonating police and government officials
• The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received almost 61,000 complaints concerning such scams between January 2025 and July 2026
• Some scams targeted foreign nationals and immigrants, threatening to cancel passports or impose extradition, unless payment is made

Between January 2025 and July 2026, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received almost 61,000 complaints concerning scams using police and government official impersonation tactics. As a result, around $1.6 billion is believed to have been scammed and extorted.

Tactics used by scammers included unsolicited phone calls and in some cases video calls, with victims losing an average of $26,000 per scam.

Particularly concerning is the targeting of foreign nationals, international students, and immigrant citizens, often with threats to cancel visas and home country passports. Incredibly, 10% of all losses were traced to a single scam, one that targeted fewer than 3% of the victims.

Foreign national victims

According to the FBI, the fake cop/fake government official scam has various angles, from alleging missed jury duty to threatening arrest due to circumstantial links to an alleged crime.

The demand from the scammers, inevitably, is payment.

Making a commitment to extreme lengths of scamming and extortion, the criminals took things to a new level when it came to targeting victims. International students, visiting foreign nationals, and other immigrant citizens were given special treatment. Not only were they threatened with extradition, there was also the implication of victims losing their home country passport.

To convince the target, scammers built actual studio sets, donned uniforms or suits, and appeared in video calls to the victims, who were convinced they were talking to foreign law enforcement agents or US-based diplomats. Creating the illusion of officialdom to sell the scam, victims paid whatever necessary to stay in their adopted country.

How to spot the scam

It is important to note that not all fraud of this type takes place in the US. These may be online or offline, but the so-called fake cop scam is an international criminal phenomenon. So, how do you avoid it?

We’ll assume you’ve answered a call inadvertently rather than having spam calls blocked (that should be set already).

First, remain calm. These situations are designed to impose stress and heightened anxiety. Scammers rely on these factors to cloud their victim’s judgement and force the narrative they are selling (“you missed jury duty”/“your presence in the country is illegal.”)

Second, it is vital to request credentials. Failure to provide these is the first red flag that the person communicating with you is not what they seem. That’s your cue to end the conversation.

Third, check the credentials. It doesn’t matter how long this takes – a legitimate caller will not mind waiting for you to do the necessary background check, even if it means them calling back.

Finally, and most importantly: neither law enforcement, security services, nor the FBI will demand money. If that is happening, it’s time to end the call.

• Cybersecurity company OPSWAT found a login bypass and a crash bug in TP-Link's Tapo C200 cameras
• TP-Link has extended that to include its C120 offering too
• Anyone on the same network could get admin access, live video, and recordings without requiring the owner's credentials

Security researchers at OPSWAT have detailed two high-severity flaws in TP-Link's Tapo C200, a pan-and-tilt indoor camera listed on Amazon for $26.99 and sold as a baby monitor and pet camera.

The more serious issue is that someone on the same network can log in as the camera's administrator without the password, accessing the live feed and stored recordings.

At least one other bug, which OPSWAT rates as critical in the same disclosure but does not detail, has not been published.

A localized login that requires no authentication

The TP-Link Tapo C200, as we noted in previous coverage of the incident, isn't just another security camera that happens to be vulnerable; it is one of the most popular models on the market, clocking in at over 3,000 sales on Amazon alone.

The Tapo C120, in its current iteration, sells over 5,000 units monthly, even as the advisory notes that its V1 hardware version is currently compromised until users update the firmware on their devices.

Both SKUs have received firmware updates that patch the vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-15315 & CVE-2026-15316), which are assigned 'high' scores of 8.7 and 7.1, respectively. However, according to TP-Link, CVE-2026-15316 does not affect the C120 camera.

However, the former vulnerability is the more pressing of the two and, according to OPSWAT, is particularly problematic for users because of how the C120 and C200 cameras function.

Both run a local management interface over HTTPS and use a challenge-response login designed to prove a client knows the owner's password. Khoi Tran, a graduate fellow at OPSWAT, and his mentor, Thai Do of the company's Unit 515 team, found a second verification path in which, under certain conditions, a value the camera hands out during login can be sent back and accepted as a valid authentication response.

The result is an administrator session after a small number of requests, with no password, no existing session, and no requirements for the new 'owner'. As a result, access includes live video, stored footage, and configuration changes.

OPSWAT's researchers pointed out that a C200 used as a baby monitor would expose "live video, night vision, crying detection and two-way audio."

The second flaw, CVE-2026-15316, affects only the C200 and sits in its Wi-Fi onboarding code. Sending the camera an oversized chunk of encrypted Wi-Fi credential data can crash its HTTPS service or restart the device outright, cutting the owner off from management and monitoring until it recovers.

The attacks are somewhat limited in scope: users aiming to exploit such vulnerabilities would need to be on the same Wi-Fi network, or within a certain trusted ecosystem, to begin with.

For now, users upgrading to TP-Link's newest firmware, issued for both models, rectifies both issues, but there might already be another security patch in the works: OPSWAT also found "a critical vulnerability that could allow an attacker to fully compromise the camera," which could then serve as a foothold inside the network.

It is currently holding off on publishing any details about the vulnerability as it waits for TP-Link to issue a patch that rectifies the situation. Neither OPSWAT nor TP-Link, however, has provided a timeline for when the patch will be available to end users.

• Microsoft, UK police, and partners disrupted EvilTokens PhaaS, arresting two suspects and seizing 200+ domains/sites
• EvilTokens used AI to scale device‑code phishing, compromising 12,000 inboxes across 10,000 organizations globally
• Platform ran like a startup with subscriptions, dashboards, and AI‑driven targeting; US victims hit hardest

Two people have been arrested, 50 websites were seized, and 150 domains disabled, in a joint operation against the infamous EvilTokens phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) kit.

In its report, Microsoft said the UK Metropolitan Police Service’s cybercrime team “arrested two men on suspicion of offenses connected with the alleged operation of EvilTokens.”

The two men, whose identities were not disclosed, are aged 32 and 38, and have been released on bail, subject to conditions while the investigation continues. Their digital services and other items have been confiscated, as well.

Among the partners are Health-ISAC, Cloudflare, Coinbase, OpenAI, Railway, SpyCloud, The Shadowserver Foundation, and TRM Labs. We don’t know if these arrests and takedowns will be enough to completely obliterate EvilTokens, or if the platform will continue to operate. Usually, criminal infrastructure is a lot less resilient to disruptions when arrests are made, compared to when law enforcement simply disables the hardware.

The tech startup of organized crime

EvilTokens has been turning heads for a little while now. The platform was first spotted in February 2026, rising quickly to become one of the most widely used PhaaS solutions out there.

It can be bought through Telegram for $1,500, after which there is a recurring $500 subscription cost. Cybercriminals use it to run large-scale, personalized phishing attacks: they can create spoofed websites, landing pages, and other credential-capture assets; they can create custom-tailored phishing emails, and can even grab session tokens, one-time passwords, and other codes designed to protect accounts against phishing, granting attackers access to people’s inboxes.

But what makes EvilTokens particularly impressive is its use of artificial intelligence. The platform comes with an AI assistant that can sift through the inboxes, suggest which targets are of high value, and even how to approach them. Attackers can conduct Microsoft Graph reconnaissance as well, mapping out organizational structure and permissions, keeping access and moving laterally throughout the target network.

Microsoft said it found evidence of large portions of EvilTokens being vibe coded, “with AI helping its creators build the platform itself.”

The researchers also found the platform drawing on capabilities from multiple AI models. Looking at the platform as a whole, it runs like a well-organized startup, with subscription pricing, customer support, management dashboards, and tools designed to move customers from account access toward financial exploitation.

According to Microsoft, EvilTokens facilitated business email compromise (BEC) campaigns that compromised more than 12,000 inboxes in more than 10,000 organizations worldwide. Victims are mostly in wholesale distribution, construction, and financial services, but those in real estate, higher education, and healthcare are not spared, either.

The victims are primarily located in the United States, with notable numbers found in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and France. Microsoft said affected customers were notified, and that the company “helped remediate compromised accounts and shared intelligence to support further defensive and investigative action."

Popularizing device-code phishing

Device-code phishing as an attack technique is not that new. More than a year ago, in February 2025, security researchers Huntress reported on Russian threat actors Storm-2372 deploying the same technique, and while it’s been steadily growing in popularity, it wasn’t until EvilTokens’ appearance that it really exploded.

The same researchers said, in June 2026, that EvilTokens was used to run 1,380% more device-code phishing attacks in 2026, compared to the same period last year.

“We’re seeing a clear maturation of the phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) market as threat actors increasingly integrate AI workflows into their product offerings,” Huntress said in a report.

“The result is directly observable in our telemetry: a 1,380% increase in device code phishing attacks detected between July–December 2025 and January–April 2026, with over 50% of those incidents linked to two major waves of correlated incidents.”

• Burger King Russia’s 2024 breach via Mindbox exposed 3.2 million customer records, now leaked online
• Data includes emails, names, genders, birth dates, phone numbers, and geolocations (2018–2024)
• Payment details weren’t compromised; users warned of phishing and identity theft risks

Back in 2024, the Russian arm of Burger King suffered a data breach at the hands of unknown threat actors - now, that data has finally been leaked online.

In October 2024, Burger King told TASS, Russia’s national news agency, that unidentified hackers attacked Mindbox, a domestic marketing automation platform the company had been using.

Through Mindbox, the crooks managed to obtain sensitive company data, including information belonging to the customers.

As a customer data and marketing automation platform, Mindbox helps businesses gather and use customer information for personalized, omnichannel marketing campaigns. Its tools cover email and SMS campaigns, push notifications, loyalty programs, chatbots, and more. According to the company, more than 1,100 businesses use its platform, including L’Oréal, Panasonic, KFC, JBL and United Colors of Benetton.

One victim in a supply-chain attack

At the time, there was no word on the nature of the information that was taken, apart from the fact that payment information was not compromised.

"Among the victims of the attack may also be the data of customers of the Burger King restaurant chain," the company said at the time.

“Burger King confirms that among the personal data, the accuracy of which is being clarified, there is no information about payment details: open information about transactions is not transmitted or stored by third parties.”

The details about the hack were also not disclosed. We don’t know if the platform contained a zero-day, or if a company employee had their login credentials or session tokens exposed. Third-party supply chain attacks such as this one are common and often rather disruptive, affecting numerous companies using the same tools. For Mindbox, however, there have been no reports of additional victims.

In its 2024 results announcement, Mindbox said the attack was its “first serious information security incident”, which was quickly detected and contained “thanks to threat detection tools.”

In the aftermath of the breach, Mindbox said it “found and eliminated points where employees without access rights to sensitive data could indirectly obtain them,” hinting that the attack was, in fact, an identity-based attack rather than a zero-day exploit.

The company also “changed development processes to find such points before they get into the product,” and reformed Mindbox's internal role system to make permissions stricter and more granular. It also limited project access scenarios, introduced a mechanism for confirming access by another employee, and introduced mandatory two-factor authentication, among other things.

Have you been pwned?

Today, more details were released on Have I Been Pwned?, a website that aggregates information stolen in various hacks and helps people learn if their email addresses and other information had been compromised in the past. According to the newest entry, more than three million people have had their data exposed in this incident:

“The breach exposed 3.2M unique email addresses along with names, genders, dates of birth, phone numbers and approximate geolocations, with the data spanning 2018 to August 2024,” Have I Been Pwned? writes. “Burger King Russia acknowledged the incident and advised it did not include payment or passport details.”

The latest findings seem to be somewhat in line with what the media reported at the time. According to The Register, initial reports claimed around 5.6 million lines of data as exposed, which included information about a customer’s favorite dish and previous order dates. While this information was not mentioned in the newest report, if every data line includes one email, one name, or one phone number, it could amount to around 5.6 million.

While the information might be a few years old, things like names and birth dates, and genders rarely change, but are vital in identity theft, social engineering, and similar attacks. Burger King users, especially those in Russia, should be wary of incoming email messages, particularly those claiming to come from the fast food chain.

• Seller claims to be offering Mistral AI's full source code and says the company was breached again after May 2026 attack
• Mistral says an investigation found no evidence of new unauthorized access but has not stated whether the listed code is genuine
• No customer data has surfaced in analyzed samples, and nobody has shown files created after the May incident

A seller on a cybercrime forum says French giant Mistral AI has been hacked again and is offering what they call the company's full source code for sale.

The September 16 2026 post by an account using the handle "mrwho" consists of a listing titled "Selling mistral.ai Source Code" on an English-language cybercrime forum, according to The CyberSec Guru, pricing the material in Monero only before it attempted to steer potential buyers to Session or Telegram.

Mistral AI's own team has refuted this, stating it has "found no evidence to support this claim."

Not Mistral's first hacking-centric PR problem

Mistral's earlier hacking incident is undisputed - in May 2026, the Mini Shai-Hulud supply chain campaign, attributed to the TeamPCP group, spread from compromised TanStack packages to hundreds of npm and PyPI projects.

Mistral's own security advisory MAI-2026-002 says an automated worm led to compromised versions of its SDKs being published for a few hours on May 11 and 12, and that an affected developer device was involved. Microsoft Threat Intelligence found that a poisoned Mistral AI Python package fetched a second-stage credential stealer that allowed the attack to exploit users.

Mistral went further in statements to reporters than in its advisory. It told BleepingComputer that attackers had compromised a codebase management system and "contaminated some of our SDK packages for a brief period," while insisting that hosted services, managed user data, and research and testing environments were untouched. It also told HackRead that only certain non-core repositories were accessed.

TeamPCP, meanwhile, advertised roughly 450 repositories, about 5GB in total, for $25,000, and threatened to dump them for free if no buyer appeared within a week. One can therefore contend that this could be the same dump being remarketed by a different account, and the seller's profile is already suspect.

The CyberSec Guru noted that the account joined in September 2026 and had four posts and a reputation score of 30, despite displaying a top-tier "GOD User" rank. That profile could fit a scam in the making, but as the outlet pointed out, it could also fit a broker fronting for someone else or a freshly minted alias.

HackRead published 24 sample repository names from TeamPCP's May post. FrenchBreaches, which examined the 339-file tree mrwho shared in September, lists several of the same names. At least four of these appear in both: mistral-inference-private, mistral-inference-internal, mistral-finetune-internal, and mistral-common-internal.

This makes it hard to tell whether the purported 'hack' is just a rehash of an existing dump from Mistral's previous breach or a second successful hacking attempt. There is a straightforward test, however: If the September archives contain commits, files, or credentials dated after May 12, or secrets that were still valid after Mistral's cleanup, the seller's claim of a second breach gains real weight. If everything predates the May incident, this is a resale, which is embarrassing for Mistral but not a new security failure.

Of course, locating the archives or examining them would involve paying the ransom in crypto, as required by what could potentially be a scam in the making- a tremendous leap of faith for an account that was created earlier this month, making this essentially a lottery ticket at best for any security researcher attempting to take a closer look.

• More workers are worried about security issues than they were this time last year
• Three in four say their recovery tools are too difficult for them to use
• This report says having strong data storage could help

While many of us typically see security as an IT or a leadership issue, it's actually impacting us more than we'd initially thought. New Object First data found that 91% of workers feel uncomfortably stressed at work because of IT security risks – a seven percentage point increase over last year.

But unfortunately, it's a double-edged sword because it all boils down to AI. Nine in 10 say AI tools have improved their productivity, but seven in 10 say the growth of AI-powered threats is a key driver behind their stress.

Additionally, fewer than one-quarter (24%) believe their organisation is suitably equipped to deal with those threats.

AI-driven security threats are actually impacting you and I

While the risk of cyberattacks (50%) is a leading cause for stress at work, high workloads and understaffing (50%) land in joint-first place. Gaps in backup and recovery effectiveness (41%) and pressure to maintain uptime (44%) are also big headaches for workers, implying pressure isn't coming from direct attacks alone, but workload and operations.

For example, three in four (74%) say that their recovery tools are difficult to use without security expertise, leaving regular knowledge workers at a loss. One in five (19%) even say they feel hopeless and overwhelmed during and after an incident.

Naturally, this stress is impacting productivity, with four in five (78%) remarking that stress negatively affected their job performance. Two in five (39%) even said they'd thought about quitting.

"As critical as technology is to cyber resilience, those responsible for protecting and recovering an organization’s data are just as essential," company CEO David Bennett concluded.

• Attackers spoofed LastPass Authenticator via SEO‑poisoned GitHub pages, delivering malicious ZIP files
• Malware Rapuncel uses DLL sideloading, kills 145 AV products, and steals passwords, wallets, and tokens
• Campaign ongoing for months; LastPass vaults unaffected, but users urged to download only from trusted sources

Be careful when downloading the LastPass Authenticator app - there are impostors out there that can disable your antivirus and wreak havoc on your computer.

LastPass recently discovered an elaborate scheme to get people infected with malware - a spoofed website, SEO poisoning, DLL sideloading, and a malware loader delivering never-before-seen payload that can kill endpoint protection and antivirus solutions.

According to the password manager, users searching for "LastPass Authenticator download" or similar keywords will get a GitHub page rather high on the search engine results pages. At a glance, the page looks almost identical to the authentic LastPass offering - however, it redirects users to a separate one, hosted on attacker-controlled infrastructure and delivering a large .ZIP file with multiple files.

Among the files are two worth paying attention to: vsdbg.exe, and vsdbg.dll. The .EXE one is renamed to look like a LastPass installer, but it’s in fact a legitimate Microsoft debugging tool. This tool is used to run the malware - the vsdbg.dll file. This is a method called “dll sideloading” where the legitimate program will look for a DLL file in the same folder it’s located, rather than the wider device library. Since the DLL is delivered together with the executable, it is the first one to be run, despite the fact that it’s malicious.

Rapuncel

LastPass shared the malware with security researchers Delphos for analysis, and they’ve named it Rapuncel. No AV engines have been able to spot it, when it was first analyzed.

Once Rapuncel runs, it does a number of things. First, it gains admin-level access to run as SYSTEM, and then installs a kernel driver. The driver, disguised as an NVIDIA graphics component, comes with a hardcoded list of 145 antivirus and endpoint security products, and if any of them are found on the device, they are instantly terminated.

After killing antivirus solutions, the malware gets to work, stealing saved passwords from more than 25 browsers (Chrome, Edge, and other popular ones included), cryptocurrency wallet files from more than 30 wallet apps, Discord login tokens, Steam session tokens, Telegram session data, Windows credential store, all documents with words like “password”, “seed”, “wallet”, or “recovery” in their name, screenshots of every monitor connected to the device, as well as a detailed profile of the system.

Once all of this is harvested, the information is compressed into a .ZIP archive and uploaded to a server under the attackers’ control. To add insult to injury, the kernel driver was given code to intercept all web traffic, allowing the attackers to inject ads, or modify search results, at a whim.

Rapuncel comes with a persistence mechanism, as well, to make sure it continues operating even if the victim spots it. Spotting it should not be too difficult, though - if no antivirus programs are allowed to run on a computer, something is definitely not working properly.

Active for months

Still, the malware installs itself as a Windows service that starts automatically at boot, and then loops continuously, checking for security products and killing them as soon as they’re activated. “The machine may remain fully under the attacker's control until the kernel driver is physically removed,” the researchers explained. “This process requires booting the computer into Safe Mode or using an external recovery tool, because normal Windows tools cannot safely remove software operating at that level while the system is running.”

LastPass and Delphos believe the campaign has been active for months, and that it will continue to operate despite disruption efforts:

“The LastPass lure was a single recent frame in a campaign that has been running for months and shows every sign of continuing after its current infrastructure is burned,” the researchers said. They stressed that this is “opportunistic brand impersonation” and that LastPass systems and customer vaults have not been compromised or involved in any way.

LastPass said it was one of 40 companies spoofed in this campaign and has urged users to only download apps from reputable, vetted sources.

• Researcher Patrick Wardle finds zero‑day in Meta’s new Muse AI assistant,
• Dubbed not‑a‑mused, the exploit requires local compromise, voice dictation, and app integrations; attackers can hijack tokens and exfiltrate data
• Meta has been informed but no patch yet; flaw highlights risks of AI assistants with broad permissions

Meta’s new Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant Muse reportedly carried a zero-day vulnerability that allowed attackers to gain access to people’s apps, such as WhatsApp or email.

However, it’s not as straightforward as your usual zero-day - to exploit it, simply deploying malware will not suffice. Certain features need to be enabled, and certain integrations established before the bug could be leveraged.

Not-a-mused

A little background, for context: Meta recently released Muse, describing it as an assistant that can “book appointments, fill out forms, and handle customer service.” It says the tool, available exclusively for the Mac ecosystem for now, “proactively takes tasks off your plate” and makes purchases, generates images, and creates documents.

To do that, however, it needs to connect to apps such as email, WhatsApp, calendar, or social media accounts - and this connection is the first prerequisite needed to exploit the flaw.

The second prerequisite is voice dictation. The vulnerability was found in the way Muse handles commands received via voice, meaning the attacker must piggyback onto voice commands in order to escalate privileges and access other apps and their content.

Now for the flaw itself. It was discovered by security researcher Patrick Wardle, founder of nonprofit Objective-See. He named it “not-a-mused” and says it hides in an undocumented setting called endo_voyager_dictation_endpoint. When a user narrates a voice command, that instruction is sent and processed in the cloud, where Meta can log it. This setting allows the user to change which endpoint receives the dictation.

Which brings us to the third prerequisite. The threat actor must have local access to be able to change this setting in the first place. In other words, the device must already be compromised in some way, either via remote monitoring and management tools, or via low-level malware (or with physical access).

For the sake of the report, let’s say that a theoretical user checks all the right boxes - they’re running a compromised machine and are talking to Muse that’s already connected to other productivity apps. Instead of reaching Meta’s endpoints, the voice commands are first sent to attacker-controlled infrastructure, where the AI assistant, together with the instructions, also sends authentication tokens for the tool.

If the attacker reacts fast enough, they can grab the token and access their target’s AI tool. If it’s connected to other apps, such as WhatsApp or calendar, they can simply prompt it to extract whatever sensitive information is found inside.

Not-a-mused is therefore a combination of data exfiltration and privilege escalation.

Ironing out the kinks

“We can manipulate the agent and leverage its privileges to do whatever we want,” Wardle told Ars Technica.

“So instead of us having to write a very comprehensive Mac malware stealer, we can just leverage the AI assistant itself.” Wardle said he has developed several proof-of-concept attacks that do things like writing malicious files to disk and snapping pictures, in many cases with no indication to even an alert user.

Meta has been informed, but is yet to comment, or issue a patch.

AI assistants are all the rage nowadays. They’ve turned elaborate answer machines into tools that can complete assignments, even more complex ones. They can book flights and restaurant tables, make purchases, schedule and reschedule calls and meetings, and more. However, to do that, these tools need extensive permissions - something the security community is warning of.

While they’re not openly speaking against it, they are advising caution. There are many stories of AI agents either going rogue, or simply being tricked by malicious actors. For example, a hidden prompt in a phishing email can trick an AI agent tasked with summarizing the message into exfiltrating all .PDF documents from the victim’s inbox.

In the early days of agentic AI, there were reports of assistants simply deleting people’s inboxes.

Assistants are likely here to stay, but there are still quite a few kinks to iron before they can hit the mainstream.

• CISA added three Linux kernel flaws (CVE‑2025‑39682, CVE‑2026‑53266, CVE‑2025‑39964) to KEV catalog
• Red Hat confirmed active exploitation; agencies given rare three‑day patch deadline expiring Sept 21, 2026
• Bugs enable DoS, privilege escalation, or data corruption; patches available, limited mitigations for two flaws

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added three Linux flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, signaling abuse in the wild and giving government agencies a deadline to patch or stop using the flawed product entirely.

The three bugs in question are tracked as CVE-2025-39682 (severity score 9.8/10 - critical), CVE-2026-53266 (severity score 8.8/10 - high), and CVE-2025-39964 (severity score 7.8/10 - high). All three have already been patched in the Linux kernel. CVE-2025-39682 was fixed in stable releases 6.1.149, 6.6.103, 6.12.44 and 6.16.4, while CVE-2025-39964 was fixed in 5.10.245, 5.15.194, 6.1.154, 6.6.108, 6.12.49 and 6.16.9. CVE-2026-53266 has been fixed upstream and backported to supported stable/distribution kernel branches, including 5.10.259, 6.1.176 and 6.12.94.

The first issue is an improper check for unusual or exceptional conditions vulnerability in the TLS receive patch which could allow unauthenticated threat actors to launch memory disclosure or denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. The second one (CVE-2026-53266) is an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in the ebtables Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) rewrite patch which allows local attackers to escalate privileges or mount DoS attacks.

The last one (CVE-2025-39964) is a race condition flaw that allows concurrent writes to the same AF_ALG socket, which allows local malicious actors to crash the system or corrupt cryptographic operation results, leading to data integrity issues and possible DoS states.

Attacks in the wild

Red Hat acknowledged that all three are being abused in real-life attacks. “This CVE is high risk and there are known public exploits leveraging this vulnerability. Address this vulnerability with high priority,” it said in all three advisories.

However, there are no details as to who is currently using these exploits, against whom, and to what cause. There are currently no separate reports of cyberattacks referencing any of the abovementioned vulnerabilities.

However, CISA still reacted. All three flaws were added on September 18, 2026, and all three have a small three-day deadline for patching that expires on September 21. Usually, CISA would grant Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies a three-week deadline to patch up, with just exceptionally dangerous flaws getting a shorter window. That being said, these flaws are likely extremely dangerous.

In theory...

In a hypothetical scenario, a threat actor could target a Linux system using kernel TLS (kTLS) by sending a specially-crafted TLS record that triggers CVE-2025-39682 and causing either a crash, or even arbitrary code execution. Attackers that already have a low privilege foothold on the target endpoint could use CVE_2025-39964 to escalate privileges, while on systems using the affected bridge/netfilter configuration, CVE-2026-53266 could be used for privilege escalation, as well.

According to the Red Hat advisory, there is a chance that CVE-2025-39682 is remotely triggerable, but only when the system is using the affected kTLS receive path. The other two flaws are exclusively local vulnerabilities.

Besides fixes, two out of the three flaws also have possible mitigations. For the improper check one, users should prevent module tls from being loaded. For the out-of-bounds write one, users are advised to disable ARP hardware address rewriting in ebtables SNAT rules, or remove ebtables SNAT rules that operate on ARP traffic on bridge interfaces. The final vulnerability, currently does not have a working mitigation, and the only way to stay secure is to apply the provided patches.

Linux kernel vulnerabilities are generally considered serious, but the severity still depends on the flaw and how the affected kernel is deployed. Earlier this year, security researchers disclosed four local privilege escalation flaws, called DirtyAH6 (CVE-2026-80844), TUNderflow (CVE-2026-81000), PPPoEject (CVE-2026-68121), and DiagSpill (CVE-2026-74469).

Via The Hacker News

• HKUST (Guangzhou) and HK PolyU researchers' InjectEave beams a radio carrier at devices so their own circuits leak analog audio
• The leaked audio has already been decrypted by the device itself, making encryption offer no protection against such an approach
• The 30m headline needed a pricey amplifier pushing output to 10 W, while standard ranges of 1 to 6m were measured by detecting a test tone

Researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University have shown that everyday headphones, a desk phone, and a handful of smart-home gadgets can broadcast what they are doing simply by using a radio signal.

The technique, called InjectEave, was presented at USENIX Security 2026 in Baltimore, and multiple outlets have since covered the researcher's claim that the attack "can recover headphone audio from up to 30 meters away, including through walls".

The claim may be accurate, but it has limitations, including the need for specialized equipment that is often very noticeable in most settings.

An impressive technical show with plenty of limitations in tow

Conventional electromagnetic eavesdropping waits for a device to leak. That works poorly for audio, because speech sits below 20 kHz while a device's wiring radiates efficiently only at megahertz or gigahertz frequencies.

InjectEave chooses to close the gap by transmitting a carrier signal at the target. According to the paper, nonlinear components such as amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters, switching MOSFETs, and power converters mix the secret signal onto that carrier, and the device's own traces and cables radiate the result back to a receiver.

Because the leak happens in the analog path, after audio has been decoded, the project page states that "InjectEave is immune to digital defenses such as encryption, masking, and randomization." Encryption in any form on a wireless headset is irrelevant, since the attack directly targets the signal driving the speaker, not the radio link.

The team demonstrating this used a USRP B210 software-defined radio, two antennas, a Siglent spectrum analyzer, and a laptop to set up their proof of concept, which could, as they noted, "eavesdrop on the majority of these devices from over 2m away and through walls, with a maximum distance of 30m for recovering intelligible headphone audio".

This isn't the first time the technique has been used, even as the researchers have built on it considerably; the idea originates from "The Thing," a Soviet bug given as a gift to the US ambassador in Moscow in 1945, which was passively powered remotely as a listening device.

InjectEve, however, does not involve planting anything; instead, it leverages existing work on interference-induced leakage and impedance-based backscatter, and distinguishes itself by recovering coarse digital data rather than continuous analog waveforms, allowing users to 'listen in' without added steps.

The same approach applies to wired headphones, which are also prone to leaking microphone audio; researchers concluded that their sound cards were the primary source of the leaks, which were being sent back over very short distances.

The threat is somewhat tempered by the fact that it can capture what users hear but, with wireless headphones, cannot hear what the user is saying. The attacker also has to transmit continuously and use a high-powered (10W) transmitter to reach the full 30-meter range, even though capturing and rendering speech is harder than the tones the test used to prove the approach worked.

The attacker also needs to know the target model and profile a matching unit first, although they managed to get a profile to transfer cleanly across three identical UGreen headsets, suggesting this might be easier than one would assume.

The researchers say they reported the findings to the affected manufacturers but, "as we have not yet received a response," withheld the table's frequencies and stripped injection control logic from their released code. One shouldn't be too hopeful, however, as no software update can fix an analog leak, and it is relatively limited in practical abuse cases.

• Hackers are using blockchains to keep malware instructions available after servers disappear
• AI is making blockchain-based malware infrastructure easier for less experienced hackers
• Blockchain traffic is difficult to block without disrupting legitimate cryptocurrency services worldwide

Hackers are increasingly hiding malware instructions inside public blockchains, creating communication channels that can survive the removal of conventional infrastructure.

New figures from Chainalysis claim malicious blockchain activity increased 440%, with daily entries rising from 2.06 to 11.1 after newer AI systems emerged.

The technique gives attackers another way to maintain communication with compromised computers without relying entirely on conventional servers controlled by hosting providers.

Blockchain networks become malware dead drops

Blockchain dead drops use transaction data or smart contracts as lookup points, allowing infected computers to retrieve commands, addresses, or configuration information.

Because blockchain records are distributed across networks, removing a conventional server does not erase information already stored on the ledger.

A North Korean-linked operation associated with UNC5342 uses TRON and Aptos as alternate routes before retrieving encrypted instructions through the BNB Chain.

Its malware can check one network, switch to another when necessary, and retrieve updated addresses without receiving another malware package.

Iranian actors suspected of links to the country's intelligence ministry have embedded encoded routing information inside Bitcoin transactions used for malware retrieval.

Russian-speaking cybercriminals have also commercialized the technique, using Polygon contracts to provide blockchain-backed infrastructure for malware campaigns operated by different customers.

One related operator controls more than 50 BNB Chain resolver contracts while also conducting activity involving fraudulent tokens and clipboard-monitoring malware.

These operations show how blockchain records can function as persistent lookup infrastructure rather than merely serving their conventional financial and transactional purposes.

AI lowers the technical barrier

Chainalysis said the sharp increase in this malicious activity followed the arrival of high-capacity Chinese open models, which placed fewer restrictions on malware development requests.

Before those systems appeared, building reliable blockchain-based malware infrastructure required expertise across malicious software, cryptocurrency networks, and distributed communication systems.

AI tools can reduce that knowledge barrier by helping less experienced operators understand unfamiliar technologies and produce components needed for blockchain communication.

In the second quarter of 2026, state-linked groups accounted for roughly two-thirds of newly observed activity.

Those groups also represent about half of overall observed activity, indicating that blockchain-based malware infrastructure extends beyond conventional cybercriminal operations.

Defenders face difficulties because blocking blockchain traffic could also disrupt legitimate wallets, decentralized applications, exchanges, and decentralized finance services used worldwide.

Attackers can further complicate disruption by operating their own blockchain nodes, reducing dependence on external providers that defenders might otherwise pressure or disable.

Some operators have hidden server addresses inside wallet identifiers without usable private keys, then used zero-value transfers to trigger malware retrieval.

Those transactions leave public records that investigators can examine, potentially providing useful clues even when attackers attempt to conceal their infrastructure.

"While the exploitation of blockchain by state-linked organizations such as North Korea is becoming more sophisticated, on-chain records left by attackers can actually serve as important clues to track them," said Kwon Jun-hyeok, General Manager of Chainalysis Korea.

"Tracking these traces and identifying attackers and related infrastructure through blockchain intelligence will become increasingly important in responding to new cyber threats."

• So-called signal sharing between Microsoft and Google uncovered the RedVDS marketplace was behind large-scale cyber fraud
• RedVDS sold access to virtual machines running unlicensed software from which cybercriminals launched scams and directed attacks
• Threat data was shared securely via the Global Signal Exchange (GSE), a non-profit organization

A major cybercrime marketplace has been taken out of action thanks to cooperation between Microsoft and Google via a secure threat data sharing platform.

Known as the Global Signal Exchange, the collaboration led to the take-down of the RedVDS, an online cybercrime mall supplying virtual machines for launching phishing, business email compromise attacks, and more.

The marketplace – which provided quickly-deleted and therefore virtually untraceable VMs – was meticulously monitored by Microsoft’s security team, Digital Crimes Unit, with both Microsoft and Google suspending the operation and action taken to seize domains and servers.

A secondary case featuring the GSE identified a Microsoft-impersonating tech support scam, resulting, highlighting the importance of secure thread data collaboration platforms.

Digital Crimes Unit

Finding massive scams is not easy. Even with its own Digital Crimes Unit, Microsoft has to rely on information sharing with third party organizations. In this case, the RedVDS marketplace was identified ahead of disruptive action taken by Microsoft in January 2026, which applied to courts in the UK and US to have the RedVDS web domains seized.

Data shared via the GSE enabled Google to follow suit, identifying related accounts on its networks and suspending them. Meanwhile, servers were impounded in Germany, and Europol took action against Europe-based RedVDS servers.

It’s an impressive account of cooperative, decisive action against cybercrime, a collaborative response to what has been described as a “$66 million fraud marketplace.”

An incredible 130,000 organizations were targeted by RedVDS-provided virtual machines between September and December 2025, with 191,000 Microsoft email accounts compromised during this period. All of this access to cybercrime was available from just $24 a month for a basic scam-ready virtual machine.

The importance of collaboration

The Global Signal Exchange is a UK-based non-profit, co-founded with Google in 2025 with the aim of providing real-time monitoring of the cybercrime supply chain.

"Fraud does not respect company boundaries, and no single organization ever sees the whole picture," noted Emily Taylor, CEO at Oxford Information Labs and Co-Founder of the Global Signal Exchange.

"That is exactly why we built GSE: to give trusted partners a secure way to share what they know, quickly. These two cases are a good example of GSE doing exactly what it was designed to do."

The Global Signal Exchange’s role in the sharing of information between Google and Microsoft has highlighted the importance in such collaborations. Both organizations have stated they plan to continue sharing information through the GSE, whose other partners include Meta, Amazon, Google, among many others.

• ShinyHunters hacked rival gang Cl0p, stealing source code, logs, and onion service keys
• The gang defaced Cl0p’s site via Grav CMS flaw, posting their logo and taunts about past threats
• Feud recalls Conti’s collapse in 2022, raising risk of escalating “cyber war” between criminal groups

Infamous cybercriminal gang Cl0p has seemingly been hacked by an even more infamous data leak collective, ShinyHunters.

The attack is still being pieced together, but it would seem we have true hacker beef on our hands - which just might escalate into a full-blown cyber war.

ShinyHunters has added Cl0p to their data leak site, giving the hacking group 72 hours to pay a ransom or see all their files leaked into the cybercriminal underbelly. The files allegedly stolen in the attack include source code, Grav CMS plugins, system logs, and other information, Cybernews reports. We don’t know how much money ShinyHunters are asking to keep Cl0p’s files private.

Still downloading

"The data we stole includes source codes, gravCMS plugins, and other things. We are still downloading and reviewing them," ShinyHunters allegedly told BleepingComputer.

The group also said they stole everything in the server’s /var/log directory, including system activity records, authentication logs, and IP addresses associated with connections to the server. We doubt this could lead to the identification of any Cl0p members, and even if it could, it would mean very little since the members are likely Russian and thus mostly free to conduct their operations.

Doxxing might help defenders disrupt the group’s infrastructure, though.

Whether or not that will be needed, given ShinyHunters’ activity, remains to be seen. The attackers also said they stole the private keys for Cl0p’s Tor onion service:

"We have their onion keys. So if they kick us out it wouldn't matter at all because we control the private keys to host the same exact onion URL," the group said.

On top of it all, ShinyHunters defaced Cl0p’s website. Allegedly, the group found an unauthenticated file upload flaw in the Grav CMS Cl0p was using, gaining access to their target’s servers, website, and more. Cybernews confirmed the website had been defaced and now holds an ASCII image of ShinyHunters’ logo, and a link to their Tor site. It also displays a large message:

"THIS SITE HAS BEEN PWN3D BY SHINYHUNTERES #Skids10p - Maybe don't try to threaten us next time.” Furthermore, it says “rooting your systems since '19 ;)".

The “maybe don’t try to threaten us next time” message seems to refer to a threat that a Cl0p member made earlier. Apparently, this person threatened violence against ShinyHunters, as well as to expose their identities to the public. The remarks were made during Cl0p’s 2025 Oracle E-Business Suite attacks.

"During the Oracle EBS campaign they ran and stole from me last year, someone from cl0p personally messaged me and said, and I quote (translated from Russian): I have more money than you and all of your people combined, I'll kill you soon," ShinyHunters told BleepingComputer.

Dog eat dog

Cybercriminals often work together. They share resources, rent each other’s services, and often complement their campaigns. However, that doesn’t make them “friends” or “colleagues”, in any way. It is usually just a marriage of convenience that falls apart at the slightest sound of trouble. The last big “feud” we’ve seen was back in 2022, at the very start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Back then, a group called Conti publicly declared its “full support” for the Russian government and threatened to use its resources against anyone conducting cyberattacks on Russian infrastructure.

The announcement was a fiasco - many of Conti’s affiliates stopped working with the group, and others were openly attacking it. Soon after, a Ukrainian researcher and an alleged affiliate leaked more than 60,000 messages, exposing the group’s operations and internal organization.

All of this eventually led to Conti’s collapse later that year. However, its members did not disappear - they splintered into multiple groups such as Black Basta, Royal, and Quantum. Some of the crooks engaged in Conti are allegedly still active today.

• Joint report from Japan, US, Germany, and Australia says Contagious Interview stole $10 million in crypto
• NK operatives used fake personas, companies, and “laptop farms” to infiltrate 30,000+ devices in 100 countries
• Agencies urge vigilance: verify applicants’ details, check IPs, validate certifications, and watch for crypto‑based payments

North Korean threat actors behind the infamous “Contagious Interview” campaign have so far compromised more than 30,000 devices across 100 countries, and have robbed around 7,000 people of their hard-earned cryptocurrencies.

The theft has brought more than $10 million to the North Korean government, a new report jointly released by law enforcement agencies in Japan, the United States, Germany, and Australia has found.

Fake everything

Contagious Interview is a hacking campaign running for almost four years now. Sometimes it’s also called Operation DreamJob.

The cybersecurity community in general attributes it to the government of North Korea, although more precise attribution is rather difficult.

Some researchers believe it is being done by the Lazarus Group, one of the largest and most influential state-sponsored actors around.

Others believe different groups are involved, labeled DeceptiveDevelopment, Gwisin Gang, Tenacious Pungsan, DEV#POPPER, PurpleBravo, or TAG-121.

Contagious Interview leverages the lack of skilled workers in the West to infiltrate organizations, steal sensitive data and ultimately, money. North Korean operatives would create entire fake personas on social media such as LinkedIn, and would apply to hundreds, if not thousands, of job ads across IT, healthcare, and other industries.

The personas are carefully crafted, using a mix of legitimate information stolen in data breaches (names, SSNs, addresses), and AI-generated images, video, and audio. If hired, the operatives would use their access to infect organizations with malware, steal login credentials and different access, and exfiltrate sensitive files and cryptos.

The operation works the other way around, as well. Crooks would create fake companies and fake job positions, and would then reach out to their targets to offer lucrative positions on exciting projects. As part of the hiring process, the candidates would be asked to download and work on code which, unknown to them, was malicious. The North Koreans would then pivot to their targets’ current employers, resulting in the same outcome.

Laptop farms

One of the ways organizations in the West are trying to combat this issue is by being mindful of the IP address and the location from which their employees are logging on. To work around this challenge, the attackers have set up “laptop farms” - facilities located abroad (usually in countries that don’t have that strict limitations, but are still NK-friendly, such as China), hosting hundreds of laptops. They would then access their targets’ networks through these laptops, to make sure their actual location is never revealed.

The primary targets are individual web designers, engineers, and specialists working in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web3 technologies, it was said. Businesses should be wary when they receive numerous applications in a short time, for a position where there are usually very few applicants.

“If possible, verify that IP addresses generally match the applicant’s claimed residence,” the report states. “Carefully check all contact information. Calling an applicant’s phone number may reveal the number is out of service.”

The agencies also warned that trying to get hired is often a group effort: “Even if a single individual appears to be applying, multiple people may be collaborating behind the scenes, inflating the perceived skill set.” Therefore, businesses should verify certifications by checking registration numbers and, in case of any inconsistencies, should ask for detailed explanations.

Asking personal details about the applicant’s hometown, weather, or hobbies, is often a good way to spot a scammer. Finally, it was said that North Korean IT workers tend to favor payment in cryptocurrency, and they may request that remuneration be sent to an account in another person’s name.

Contagious Interview has been ongoing for roughly four years now, and during that time it evolved significantly. Security agencies warn that changes to the standard practice could happen at any time, and that the variations to the theme should be expected.

• Zimperium zLabs discovered RedHat, a Chinese‑origin Android banking trojan with AI assistant
• AI interprets screen layouts in real‑time, enabling credential theft and bypassing app redesigns
• Distributed via third‑party stores, social media, malvertising, and SMS; persistence blocks uninstall attempts

There is an Android malware out there that comes with an AI assistant that tells it what to do. The assistant seems to be independent of the malware’s operator, allowing the tool to work without requiring the operators to be present in real-time.

The malware in question is called RedHat. It was discovered by security researchers Zimperium zLabs, who believe it is of Chinese origin. It is currently being distributed via third-party app stores, social media, malvertising, and SMS spam, and requires Android’s Accessibility permissions to work.

The malware itself is a typical banking trojan - it creates an invisible overlay every time the victim brings up a banking app, capturing login credentials and one-time passwords, and thus giving attackers direct control over people’s banking accounts.

AI-powered eyes

But what makes RedHat stand out from a sea of Android banking trojans is its AI-powered component. The model serves as a kind of remote “eyes and hands” for controlling the victim’s phone.

Usually, when criminals develop banking trojans, they need to code exact coordinates of the layout for it to work. They need to code where the password is entered, or where the login button is. If the banking app gets redesigned and changes its layout, the malware breaks.

With AI, that is no longer a problem. RedHat gets a picture of what’s on the screen, sends it to the AI assistant, which then instructs the malware on how to proceed.

"RatHat uses AI to intelligently navigate and control the device interface in real-time, making its operations more adaptable and harder for security software to detect than traditional, scripted automation," Zimperium explained.

The tool also has a few advanced persistence mechanisms, being capable of reinstalling deleted components, and intercepting the uninstall process to cancel it while displaying a fake error message to the victim.

So far, there is no word on who the targets are, or how many people might have been compromised.

Via BleepingComputer

• ESET reports Salt Typhoon shifted focus to Latin America, hitting Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, and others
• Group deployed new SparroWocky backdoor with 30+ commands for profiling, exfiltration, and surveillance
• Researchers link pivot to Trump’s renewed US push in the region, threatening China’s long‑term investments

Salt Typhoon has been reassigned to Latin America, and it’s apparently all due to Donald Trump’s renewed “interest” in the continent.

Cybersecurity researchers ESET have been tracking Salt Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor for years. This is the same group that was seen hacking telecommunication giants and government agencies across the western world since at least 2019.

According to the researchers, from mid-2025 and well into 2026, the group has been targeting a number of Latin American countries: Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. They were seen deploying brand new malware, a backdoor called SparroWocky, that features around 30 commands such as system profiling, file exfiltration, screenshot grabbing, and more. ESET says that around 90% of all Salt Typhoon’s recent activity was devoted to this specific region.

A rare occurrence

The discovery of China-built malware in these countries comes as somewhat of a surprise. Latin America cannot be considered an open ally to the Chinese, but they are quite influential in the region, both economically, and diplomatically. ESET sees the development as a “rare occurrence”, and stresses that this is most likely a response to Trump’s initiatives in the region.

“Donald Trump’s second presidential term has brought about an aggressive reaffirmation of US interests in Latin America, which threatens various long-term investments that China has cultivated throughout the continent in the last decade, in domains such as energy, mining, and telecommunications,” ESET says. “We suspect that FamousSparrow’s (their name for Salt Typhoon) activities are intended to help China better monitor and anticipate the reaction of local governments to current US pressures.”

ESET says the backdoor is being delivered via a trident loader scheme that consists of a legitimate executable, a malicious DLL, and a file containing the encrypted malware. By side-loading the DLL, the crooks can deploy the malware without being spotted.

Via The Register

• FBI and US Coast Guard boarded tanker VL Prosperity after foreign cyber compromise indications
• Iranian media claimed attackers sabotaged engine systems and communications; Kohaku vessel also affected
• No group claimed responsibility; US agencies investigating “malicious cyber activity” on targeted ships

Last month, two tankers heading for the United States were hit by a cyberattack, forcing the FBI and Coast Guard to board at least one of the vessels and investigate.

The first vessel is called VL Prosperity, which was allegedly transporting 2.3 million barrels of oil. It is a Liberian crude oil tanker, travelling from Egypt’s Sidi Kerir Oil Terminal towards Galveston, Texas, where it was supposed to dock on August 24. On its route, lasting roughly 25 days, it passed through the Strait of Gibraltar.

Some three days before arriving, it requested assistance from law enforcement, prompting a “highly specialized team” of FBI and Coast Guard cyber experts to board. The ship is currently sitting in the Gulf of Mexico.

Iranians (indirectly) claiming responsibility

“On August 21, a highly specialized team – comprised of USCG Law Enforcement personnel, USCG Cyber Protection Team members, a vessel inspector, and FBI Cyber Action Team operators – embarked the vessel to conduct a comprehensive cyber security boarding and investigation,” a US Coast Guard spokesperson told Cybernews.

The spokesperson also said the team’s activity is “designed to ensure the integrity of the vessel’s operational and information technology systems." The Coast Guard apparently saw “indications that the vessel’s network were compromised by foreign cyber actors.” It later described the incident as “malicious cyber activity.”

The second vessel in question is called Kohaku, flying under the flag of the Marshall Islands. It was travelling towards Texas to load liquefied petroleum gas, as per Wall Street Journal, and has been sitting near Malta for the past couple of days. At press time (Friday morning), it was travelling through the East Mediterranean Sea.

So far, no threat actors have publicly claimed responsibility for these attacks. However, the Iranian Mehr News Agency allegedly hinted the attack was a “message from Iran’s “Resistance Front” to Washington and the broader Middle East.”

The same publication - also the first one to report on the incident and name VL Prosperity as one of the victims - said the attackers infiltrated engine-room systems, reduced the engine’s cooling flow, increased the engine speed, and disabled the ship’s fuel and engine-oil tank, all citing an unnamed crew member. Apparently, the ship’s communications were knocked offline for a day and a half, as well.

Via Cybernews

• CISA urged organizations to deploy honeypots, lures, and honeytokens as cyber decoys
• Decoys complement Zero Trust by detecting LOTL activity and producing high‑fidelity alerts
• Guidance outlines tripwires, breadcrumbs, MITRE ATT&CK/Engage steps for scalable implementation

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is urging organizations to deploy honeypots and various lures to better detect cyber-intrusions and keep hackers busy with spoofed materials. To that end, it recently published a new guidance to help businesses of different sizes and cybersecurity maturity implement these “cyber decoy strategies”.

“Many organizations struggle to detect adversaries who use legitimate credentials, native tools, and living off the land (LOTL) techniques to conduct discovery, move laterally, and access data,.” CISA said in a new security advisory.

“Cyber decoys are assets that appear to be legitimate systems, accounts, or data, but are designed to distract adversaries, detect their presence, or facilitate collection of cyber threat intelligence (CTI). As organizations adopt Zero Trust models, they should assume that a malicious threat actor may gain some level of access to their environment and plan accordingly.”

Tripwires, breadcrumbs, and honeytokens

CISA’s advisory hints that Zero Trust is the preferred way to go about securing corporate infrastructure. Zero Trust treats no user, device, or network segment as inherently trustworthy and requires organizations to operate on the assumption that compromise is inevitable, it says. If you want to learn more, read our in-depth guide on what ZTNA is.

However, it adds that cyber decoys are consistent with this paradigm and complement ZTNA by supporting continuous monitoring and verification, creating high-fidelity alerts for suspicious activity, reducing alert fatigue, and helping defenders detect post-compromise activity such as adversary LOTL techniques. They are also incremental, cost-effective, and scalable, and can be introduced into the cybersecurity tech stack without major architectural changes.

The guidance can be found on this link (PDF). It introduces different decoy concepts such as tripwires, breadcrumbs, and honeytokens, and uses the MITRE Engage and MITRE ATT&CK frameworks to provide the steps needed to plan, implement, and refine these operations.