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Hackers expose donor data from Russian fundraisers for Ukrainians, political prisoners
Hackers expose donor data from Russian fundraisers for Ukrainians, political prisoners Hackers reportedly gained access to payment accounts used by two Russian fundraising projects supporting Ukrainians and political prisoners, exposing donor email addresses and limited payment card information. The unknown threat actor targeted Davayte, which raises money for civilians in Ukraine affected by Russia’s invasion, and You Are Not Alone, a project supporting Russian political prisoners and their families. Both initiatives disclosed the incidents Tuesday, saying the attacks occurred in mid-August and involved the same entry point: an integration between payment processor Stripe and WooCommerce, an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress, that the projects had used to conduct online auctions. The attackers obtained email addresses belonging to some donors and, in certain cases, the last four digits of their payment cards and information about the banks that issued them, according to statements from the projects. Full card numbers, cardholders’ names and details about individual donations were not exposed, they said. Stripe blocked the unauthorized access before the attackers could download the entire database of donor email addresses, the projects said, adding that Stripe had found no evidence of fraudulent transactions involving their accounts. Davayte has since disabled third-party integrations, rotated its access keys and notified the relevant European data protection authority. It remains unclear who was behind the attacks. “We are investigating this breach and cannot yet say whether it was carried out by ordinary cybercriminals or Russian security services,” You Are Not Alone said. Davayte was launched in February 2024 by several independent Russian media organizations, including Meduza and TV Rain, to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians affected by Russia’s war in Ukraine. The project says it raised more than $437,000 in 2024. You Are Not Alone has been organized by independent Russian media and opposition groups since 2023. Donations are used to provide prisoners with food and medicine, fund their prison accounts, cover legal and everyday expenses, help relatives travel for visits and assist some prisoners after their release. The campaign said it raised around $1.4 million during its first three years and has provided assistance to roughly 800 political prisoners and their relatives. Russian authorities have labeled the organizations behind both initiatives as “undesirable,” putting people in Russia who support them at risk of prosecution. Under Russian law, donating to or raising money for an “undesirable” organization can carry a prison sentence of up to five years, making information that could identify donors particularly sensitive. The incidents come amid reports that hackers have been targeting Stripe merchants more broadly, although there is no confirmed connection between those attacks and the breaches disclosed this week. Earlier in August, a hacker using the alias “Satanic” posted an archive on a cybercrime forum that allegedly contained data from 669 Stripe merchants and more than 1,000 access keys associated with their accounts. It is unclear whether Stripe itself was breached in that incident. According to independent Russian outlet The Bell, records in the leaked archive end on June 1, meaning the data stolen from Davayte and You Are Not Alone in August could not have been part of that dataset. The outlet reported that Davayte had asked Stripe for information that could help establish whether other customers of the service had encountered similar activity. Stripe did not respond to a request for comment. Following the breach, You Are Not Alone advised people who live in or travel to Russia, as well as those required to report foreign bank transactions to Russian tax authorities, not to donate using foreign-issued cards. The organization has never accepted payments from Russian-issued cards. Davayte has similarly urged donors to exercise caution if they plan to travel to Russia. Daryna Antoniuk is a reporter for Recorded Future News based in Ukraine. She writes about cybersecurity startups, cyberattacks in Eastern Europe and the state of the cyberwar between Ukraine and Russia. She previously was a tech reporter for Forbes Ukraine. Her work has also been published at Sifted, The Kyiv Independent and The Kyiv Post.
therecord.mediaSep 2, 2026extracted
A Cautionary Tale About Data Breach Claims, Verification and Carhartt
You're not going to believe this, but turns out you can't always take criminals at their word. Actually, I'll walk that back a bit as it may not even be the cybercrime guys who got this wrong, but it all starts here: 🚨Cyber Alert ‼️ 🇺🇸US - 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗵𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘁 ShinyHunters hacking group claims to have compromised Carhartt and allegedly stolen more than 50 GB of compressed data containing millions of customer records, employee information, customer metadata, loyalty-related information, and… pic.twitter.com/BvzsEQS54l — Hackmanac (@H4ckmanac) August 13, 2026 My usual Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) workflow after a breach emerges is to run our open source Email Address Extractor tool over the corpus of data, get a count of the unique addresses then drop it into the processing pipeline. Having a count helps prioritise: it's roughly the same effort to process a breach with 10M addresses in it as it is 100k addresses, but we obviously reach 100x more people with the larger corpus so that goes first. So, following the release of the Carhartt data above, I ran the tool and got 24,876,077 addresses. That's a biggy, let's dive in. One of the first things I do when analysing a breach is look for news and industry commentary. Once you get through all the results for class actions ( ugh ), you usually find various other services and news sites reporting on the incident. One such example (which I won't name, because they're wrong) cited a very similar number to my initial pass, which at face value, reinforced my thinking. But here's where it all takes a turn because, inevitably, this is where the other analysts stopped... I've been using OpenClaw pretty extensively this year to help with a number of tasks, including breach analysis. Here's how I normally begin (timestamps are AEST and yes, I called it "PwnedClaw"): [24/08/2026 17:30] Troy Hunt: Let's look at the ShinyHunters Carhartt breach. I'm seeing nearly 25M unique email addresses so it's very large, tell me about what they do. [24/08/2026 17:30] PwnedClaw: Carhartt is an American workwear brand founded in 1889, headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan. They make rugged, durable clothing primarily for tradespeople and outdoor workers: heavy-duty jackets, bibs, coveralls, work pants, boots, and accessories. Think construction workers, farmers, hunters. They've also crossed over into streetwear/fashion in recent years (particularly through Carhartt WIP, their Work In Progress line), which massively expanded their demographic beyond blue-collar workers into urban fashion, skateboarding, and hip-hop culture. That crossover likely explains a 25M email count — they're not just selling to contractors anymore, they're a mainstream lifestyle brand. Strong US base but significant global presence, especially in Europe where WIP is huge. For HIBP context: broad demographic mix (blue-collar workers + fashion/streetwear), real names, physical addresses, and purchase history are likely present given it's a retail breach. Want me to pull the tracker entry for current status? Ok, cool, nothing too revolutionary there. Let's start analysing the data, and the first thing I do is begin with the report of our open source Email Address Extractor tool, which lists every file an address was found in, and then how many unique ones are in there: [24/08/2026 17:32] Troy Hunt: Let's start looking at data, and we'll begin with the email extractor report at "\scratch\Carhartt\Carhartt.txt.report.txt" [24/08/2026 17:32] PwnedClaw: Interesting. The data is from Databricks (their analytics/data lakehouse platform) and follows the TPC-DS benchmark schema (tpcds_sf1000) — that's a standard retail analytics benchmark format. The "sf1000" means scale factor 1000, which is massive. Key observations: • All emails are in customer_chunk_XXXX.csv files, numbered 0000-0599+, so ~600 chunks • Each chunk has ~19,300 unique emails, remarkably uniform distribution • ~600 chunks × ~19,300 = ~11.6M from this directory alone — but you said ~25M total, so there are likely more directories The TPC-DS schema is telling — it means this was Carhartt's customer analytics warehouse in Databricks, not their production transactional database. TPC-DS models: customer demographics, store sales, web sales, catalog sales, dates, etc. So the data likely includes purchase history and behavioral analytics on top of PII. Want me to look at an actual chunk file to see what columns are present? Think of it as using the AI to distil large volumes of information down into something much more workable. In this case, I gave it four of the files in question and let the analysis run: [24/08/2026 17:33] PwnedClaw: The columns from the TPC-DS customer table: • c_customer_sk / c_customer_id — internal IDs • c_current_cdemo_sk — customer demographic key (links to demo table with age/gender/education/marital status/income band) • c_current_hdemo_sk — household demographic key • c_current_addr_sk — current address key (links to full address table) • c_first_shipto_date_sk / c_first_sales_date_sk — date of first purchase/shipment • c_salutation — Mr/Mrs/Miss/Sir etc. • c_first_name / c_last_name • c_preferred_cust_flag — loyalty/preferred customer flag • c_birth_day / c_birth_month / c_birth_year — full DOB • c_birth_country • c_login — empty in the samples • c_email_address • c_last_review_date_sk / c_last_review_date So: full name, email, DOB, salutation, birth country, preferred customer status, first purchase date. Address is a foreign key here (in a separate address table that's presumably also in the dump). Notable: c_login appears empty — so no passwords in this table. DOB is split across three columns which is a bit unusual but all three are there. Birth year goes back to 1949 in the sample, so this spans a wide age range. Want me to check how many rows have DOB fully populated, and whether there are other tables in the dump (address, demographics) in what you have locally? I'll save you from all the to-and-fro of my questions and PwnedClaw's responses, here's where it gets interesting and where AI plays a genuinely valuable role: [24/08/2026 17:41] PwnedClaw: TLD anomaly worth flagging: • 4M .edu and 3.9M .org is extremely high for a retail brand. That's likely noise from the TPC-DS synthetic data generation mixed with real records, or it could indicate Carhartt ran promotions targeting institutions. Worth sanity checking a sample of those. Want me to pull 20 random .edu and .org samples to see if they look real or synthetic? Huh, yeah, that feels odd. Let's drill down further, and just a quick caveat: I'm highly confident that all the data I'm about to show is fabricated and that I'm not inadvertently putting someone else's PII on display here. [24/08/2026 17:47] Troy Hunt: Give me some examples of what you consider synthetic addresses [24/08/2026 17:48] PwnedClaw: From the earlier sample: Clearly synthetic (TPC-DS generated): • [email protected] — random hex-like domain • [email protected] — 3-char alphanumeric • [email protected] — single character domain • [email protected] — single character domain • [email protected] — random alphanumeric • [email protected] — random consonant string • [email protected] — starts with digit, mixed • [email protected] — random alphanumeric • [email protected] — short random alphanumeric The pattern is consistent: real-looking Firstname.Lastname local part (from TPC-DS customer name generation) grafted onto a completely random/gibberish domain. The local parts look plausible but the domains have no vowel patterns, random digit insertion, or are implausibly short (single characters). The tell: TPC-DS generates customer emails by concatenating real name fields with random domain strings. So you get [email protected] — Sally Smith is plausible, but no .edu institution has that domain. Want me to build a filter that identifies synthetic domains specifically (gibberish detection) and get a precise real vs synthetic split? Oh yeah, that's definitely junk. It was enough for me to start trawling through the data myself, old-school, like I used to, well, before earlier this year! And that's where I found data like this: c_customer_sk,c_customer_id,c_current_cdemo_sk,c_current_hdemo_sk,c_current_addr_sk,c_first_shipto_date_sk,c_first_sales_date_sk,c_salutation,c_first_name,c_last_name,c_preferred_cust_flag,c_birth_day,c_birth_month,c_birth_year,c_birth_country,c_login,c_email_address,c_last_review_date_sk,c_last_review_date 11270429,AAAAAAAANBJPLKAA,1423814,7001,19788,2451033,2451003,Miss,Marina,Tucker,Y,13,3,1968,BENIN,,[email protected],2452499,2452499 It's the same sort of .edu pattern but not on a .edu TLD. First name, last name, random domain name. And "Benin"?! I'll save you Googling it like I had to, it's a small country in West Africa and if I'm guessing, not a major Carhartt market. [24/08/2026 17:51] Troy Hunt: Yeah, something smells here, there are screwy domains in addresses like this too: [email protected] [24/08/2026 17:52] PwnedClaw: That's a much bigger problem than I initially thought. The frequency analysis confirms it: • 54.8% of addresses (13.6M) are at domains appearing 100+ times — these are real • 45.2% (11.25M) are at domains appearing fewer than 100 times — and 8.4M of those contain digits So the synthetic pattern isn't confined to .edu/.org at all — it's throughout .com and everything else too. [email protected] is the same TPC-DS generation, just with .com slapped on. The 32% figure I gave you earlier was a significant undercount. The real split looks closer to: • ~13.6M real addresses (domains with 100+ occurrences) • ~11.25M synthetic (single-use gibberish domains across all TLDs) That's roughly 45% junk across the whole corpus, not 32%. For HIBP the headline number would be around 13-14M rather than 24.8M. Want me to produce a clean filtered list of just the real addresses for an accurate count? And the more I probed, the more it all unravelled: [24/08/2026 17:53] Troy Hunt: I want you to get a distinct list of all domains with a count next to each one showing how many addresses are on it. This is starting to smell bad. [24/08/2026 17:54] PwnedClaw: Done. 10.35M unique domains written to: scratch/Carhartt/domain-counts.txt Format is countdomain, sorted by count descending. So the top of the file is gmail.com (http://gmail.com/) at 7M+, and the long tail is all the single-occurrence gibberish. Your HIBP domain dataset should make it very obvious where the cliff edge is between known-real and never-seen-before. [24/08/2026 17:58] Troy Hunt: There's an extraordinary long tail of domains with only 1 address. Also look at the country of birth next to the add addresses; places like Myanmar, Latvia and PNG are just really odd in terms of likelihood. [24/08/2026 17:58] PwnedClaw: That country distribution is damning. Here's what's wrong with it: 97.6% of domains appear exactly once — that's not a long tail, that's a signature. Real breach data from a retail company would have thousands of addresses on corporate domains, hundreds on ISP domains, a natural power law. Instead you have 10.1M singleton domains. That's pure TPC-DS generation. The birth country data is the other nail in the coffin. Look at what's in those 4 chunk files: • Venezuela, Nicaragua, Qatar, Montenegro, Lesotho, Gambia, Norfolks Island, Réunion, Comoros, Western Sahara, Palau... • United States appears only 407 times — tied with Canada, both dwarfed by places like Antigua and Barbuda and Lesotho • The distribution across 211 countries is essentially uniform — ~380-420 per country That's textbook TPC-DS. It generates customer records with birth countries sampled uniformly from the full ISO country list. No real Carhartt customer database would have more customers born in Montenegro than the United States. Bottom line: What you have here looks like real Carhartt customer records (the carharttdonotship.com, carhartt.com domains, the 70% HIBP hit rate on freemail addresses) that were stored in Databricks alongside TPC-DS benchmark data that was run against the same schema. ShinyHunters grabbed the whole Databricks dump without distinguishing real customer data from the benchmark test data sitting in the same tables. The real customer data is in there, but it's heavily contaminated with synthetic TPC-DS records. Your domain frequency analysis from HIBP will be the cleanest way to separate them. Annoying AI sentence structure aside ("that's not [one thing], that's [this other thing]"), this is just gold. And PwnedClaw gives ShinyHunters a bit of a free pass too: these guys just grabbed and published everything without realising there was a bunch of synthetic data in there. But there's one more smoking gun: [24/08/2026 18:02] Troy Hunt: Also look at the distribution of birth year - there are way too many people with early 1900's entries, got any stats on that? [24/08/2026 18:03] PwnedClaw: Birth year stats are conclusive. The distribution runs 1924-1992 and is perfectly flat — roughly 1,050-1,194 per year, every single year without exception. That's not population data, that's a random number generator with a fixed range. A real Carhartt customer base would be heavily weighted 1965-1995, almost nothing pre-1950, and the pre-1924/post-1992 cutoffs wouldn't exist at all. Instead you get mathematically uniform coverage of 69 years. TPC-DS again. Here's the full picture of what we now have as synthetic indicators — every single one points the same direction: | Signal | Finding | | ----------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | | Domain singletons | 97.6% of domains appear exactly once | | Synthetic TLDs | 32% of addresses on .edu/.org with gibberish domains | | Gibberish .com domains | e.g. [email protected] | | Firstname.Lastname pattern | 50.4% — should be ~10-15% in real retail data | | Birth country distribution | Perfectly uniform across all 211 ISO countries, US = 407 records | | Birth year distribution | Perfectly flat 1924-1992, ~1,100/year | | carharttdonotship.com | Proves real Carhartt data IS present | | 70% HIBP hit rate on freemail | Proves real records are mixed in | The conclusion is pretty solid: this is a real Carhartt Databricks breach, but the TPC-DS benchmark data was co-located in the same schema and ShinyHunters (and every aggregator after them) grabbed it all without knowing what they were looking at. It would have been so easy just to dump this all into HIBP, put out social posts with a big headline number and be done with it, but it'd also be completely wrong. And here's what's really worrying about watching other people do exactly this: headline numbers get misrepresented, victim organisations are unfairly reported on (news headlines with the HIBP number often follow quickly), I run the risk of attracting the ire of the company for inaccurate reporting, and the whole thing just becomes a mess. So, was Carhartt actually breached, and did ShinyHunters fabricate the data? Almost certainly "yes" and then, almost certainly "no", and both positions are supported by previous ShinyHunters form. These guys are approaching 100 breaches sitting on their Tor site (all of which I've reviewed), and I'm yet to see a single one with data they've fabricated. These guys have a track record of successfully gaining access to large orgs and dumping data that genuinely came from the claimed origin. Not to trivialise their criminal extortion campaigns, but misrepresenting the scope of their activities would be bad for business in the same way that not following through on threats and dumping data when they don't get payment would be. This presents an alternate theory PwnedClaw has already touched on: Carhartt simply had a bunch of test data sitting in their Databricks instance. Going back to the output of our tool, here are the largest files which we now know have junk data in them: Unique addresses per file: \shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\tables\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer_chunk_0309.csv: 19,402 \shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\tables\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer_chunk_0589.csv: 19,372 \shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\tables\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer_chunk_0568.csv: 19,362 \shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\tables\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer_chunk_0460.csv: 19,360 \shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\tables\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer_chunk_0263.csv: 19,358 \shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\tables\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer_chunk_0584.csv: 19,358 \shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\tables\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer_chunk_0350.csv: 19,357 \shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\tables\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer_chunk_0264.csv: 19,356 \shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\tables\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer_chunk_0278.csv: 19,356 There were 600 of these files, then another 1,200 files with similar data in this common path: C:\ShinyHunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\20260801_033207\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer\chunk_0116.csv: 9,689 C:\ShinyHunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\20260801_033207\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer\chunk_0921.csv: 9,689 C:\ShinyHunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\20260801_033207\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer\chunk_1172.csv: 9,689 C:\ShinyHunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\20260801_033207\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer\chunk_0529.csv: 9,688 C:\ShinyHunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\shouldve_paid_the_ransom_carhartt_shinyhunters\databricks\databricks_dump\20260801_033207\samples\tpcds_sf1000\customer\chunk_0054.csv Once excluded, the unique address count plummeted to just 13,306,258 results. That's a 47% drop from the 24M+ number we started at... and it's still too high. I always eyeball the distinct list of email addresses after they're exported by our tooling. Call me old-fashioned, but I still reckon there are things I'll see with my experienced human eyes that the AI will miss (at least, for now). And it missed these: [25/08/2026 08:47] Troy Hunt: Back on Carhartt, we have a lot of instances like these where the same alias appears across 3 different versions of the domain. I'm writing this up in a blog post, help me explain to the readers what's going on here and why it's inflating the numbers: [unique alias]@carhartt.com [unique alias]@carhartt.mail.onmicrosoft.com [unique alias]@carhartt.onmicrosoft.com [25/08/2026 08:47] PwnedClaw: When someone creates an email account at a company like Carhartt, Microsoft 365 (which Carhartt uses for email) automatically creates the mailbox under multiple domain identities simultaneously: • carhartt.com (http://carhartt.com/) — the primary, human-facing domain (the one you'd put on a business card) • carhartt.onmicrosoft.com (http://carhartt.onmicrosoft.com/) — Microsoft's default domain, automatically assigned to every Microsoft 365 tenant, exists whether you want it or not • carhartt.mail.onmicrosoft.com (http://carhartt.mail.onmicrosoft.com/) — a routing domain Microsoft uses internally for mail flow All three resolve to the exact same person, the same inbox, the same [unique alias]. It's not three people — it's one person with three email addresses that all deliver to the same place. The inflation problem: when a breach dataset is exported or scraped, all three variants can appear as distinct rows because technically they are distinct email addresses, even though they represent a single individual. A naive deduplication (or none at all) counts [unique alias] three times instead of once. The fix HIBP applies is normalising to the primary domain and deduplicating on that — but it requires knowing which domains are Microsoft routing aliases, which isn't always obvious, and the breach data doesn't label them as such. I've previously removed these manually by regex'ing them out myself, but let's not repeat laborious tasks that can be automated away: [25/08/2026 15:39] Troy Hunt: Cool, delete all those from the file at "\scratch\Carhartt\Carhartt.txt" and we'll keep refining that until it's better sanitised. Tell me how many rows you remove as well. [25/08/2026 15:39] PwnedClaw: Done. Removed 5,736 rows, down from 13,306,258 to 13,300,522. Continuing the eyeballing work, another pattern emerges: [25/08/2026 15:41] Troy Hunt: I'm seeing a lot of addresses that begin with "deactivate-". How many are there and what can you tell me about this pattern? [25/08/2026 15:41] PwnedClaw: 288,982 of them. The pattern is clear: these are accounts that were deactivated in Carhartt's system (likely an e-commerce platform or loyalty/membership system), where instead of deleting the record, they prefixed the email address with deactivate- to mark it as inactive while preserving the row. It's a common soft-delete pattern — keeps the data for audit/history purposes but flags the account as no longer active. The implications for HIBP: • These are real email addresses that no longer exist in that form — deactivate-[unique alias]@carhartt.com is not a deliverable address • The real person's address is just [unique alias]@carhartt.com, which may already appear separately in the breach data • Notifying deactivate-* addresses would bounce or go nowhere Worth removing them, but worth checking first how many have a corresponding non-deactivated version in the file — if most do, they're pure duplicates and safe to drop. Want me to check that? [25/08/2026 15:42] Troy Hunt: How many already appear without that prefix? [25/08/2026 15:42] PwnedClaw: 285,808 of the 288,982 already have a non-prefixed version in the file — that's 99% pure duplicates. Only ~3,174 appear exclusively as deactivate- with no corresponding active address. [25/08/2026 15:43] Troy Hunt: Delete all the "deactivate-" prefixed addresses with corresponding active addresses, remove the prefix from the other ones and give me a new total count. [25/08/2026 15:43] PwnedClaw: Done. Removed 285,808 rows, renamed 3,174 rows, new total: 13,014,714. That's enough of human eyes, what else have we got? [25/08/2026 15:50] Troy Hunt: Review the remaining addresses - are there any remaining unusual patterns that frequently occurs? Small issues here and there don't matter, anything in the thousands or more? [25/08/2026 15:50] PwnedClaw: Two stand out: wctest.com — 48,787 rows Looks like a test domain used during development or QA. Not real customers. carharttdonotship.com — 32,514 rows The domain name says it all — this appears to be Carhartt's internal domain for flagging accounts they won't ship to (fraud, chargebacks, banned customers). Real people possibly, but deliberately excluded from Carhartt's operations and almost certainly not expecting breach notifications from their banned account email. Everything else looks like normal consumer email providers. Want to remove either or both of those? [25/08/2026 15:53] Troy Hunt: They also all seem to have "perftest" in the alias. Delete all these addresses. [25/08/2026 15:53] PwnedClaw: Done. Removed 48,787 rows, new total: 12,965,927. [25/08/2026 15:54] Troy Hunt: And the carharttdonotship.com addresses also have "perftest" in the aliases so let's drop all those too and give me a total remaining count. [25/08/2026 15:54] PwnedClaw: Done. Removed 32,514 rows, new total: 12,933,413. Not quite the 24M+ headline any more, that's almost half the addresses in the original corpus discarded because they don't represent actual people. Whilst nothing empirically bad would have happened if I'd loaded them all, the incident would have looked twice as bad as what it actually is (based on the raw numbers, at least), and when I later put out a tweet like this, the percentage of pre-existing addresses would have read way too low: New breach: Carhartt was the target of a ShinyHunters extortion campaign earlier this month. Data allegedly obtained from the company was later published, including 12.9M unique email addresses. 83% were already in @haveibeenpwned . Read more: https://t.co/Nfs0LT2Qto — Have I Been Pwned (@haveibeenpwned) August 25, 2026 But let's do one more AI-assisted sanity check, and I'm tending to ask this on each and every breach I process now: [25/08/2026 16:01] Troy Hunt: Based on the remaining email addresses alone, what can you see that gives you confidence this came from Carhartt? Explain with examples and equally, explain if there's any data that *disproves* Carhartt as the origin. [25/08/2026 16:01] PwnedClaw: Here's what the email addresses alone tell us: Evidence FOR Carhartt as the origin: • 15,057 @carhartt.com employee addresses — internal staff addresses don't end up in a dataset unless it came from Carhartt's own systems. You don't scrape these from the outside. • Hash-prefixed internal aliases like 004cab9722d948ae956d10ce31e7ed74[unique alias]@carhartt.com — that 32-character hex prefix before the surname is clearly a system-generated internal identifier, the kind of thing a CRM or e-commerce platform creates internally. Completely invisible externally. • carharttdonotship.com (now removed) — a domain that only makes sense if you're inside Carhartt's order management system. No external actor would know this domain exists, let alone have thousands of records under it. • wctest.com perftest data (now removed) — performance test data from what appears to be Carhartt's own WooCommerce implementation. Again, only accessible internally. • Demographically consistent — overwhelmingly US consumer email providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Comcast, sbcglobal, att.net (http://att.net/), verizon.net (http://verizon.net/)). Carhartt is a US workwear brand with a predominantly American customer base. The mix matches perfectly. Evidence AGAINST Carhartt as the sole/direct origin: • [unique alias]@state.mn.us — a government employee address. Plausible as a real Carhartt customer, but worth noting government addresses appearing in retail breach data is slightly unusual. • The sheer volume (12.9M) is large for a workwear retailer — possible the data aggregates multiple systems or years of records, or includes data from third-party partners like Ticketmaster-style fulfilment services. Overall the internal markers (employee addresses, hash aliases, internal test domains) are the smoking guns — those simply cannot come from anywhere other than Carhartt's own systems. [25/08/2026 16:14] Troy Hunt: Acknowledging the cases "for" and agreeing, I want to challenge both cases "against": Gov email addresses are *always* in data breaches. Even Ashley Madison (and similar). My wife tells me that Carhartt is not solely considered a "workwear retailer" and produces products that are worn well beyond just the building site. Review their website and see if your analysis needs revision: https://www.carhartt.com/ [25/08/2026 16:14] PwnedClaw: Withdrawn. 12.9M records is entirely plausible for Carhartt — they're a 130-year-old brand with massive mainstream appeal well beyond workwear. Streetwear culture adopted Carhartt heavily in the 90s and it's remained a genuine lifestyle brand since. The volume is consistent with a large, broad consumer base accumulated over many years of e-commerce. That objection doesn't hold up. Of course, anything AI says needs to be validated and in the cases above, that had already been done. I've included that transcript here anyway just to illustrate the due diligence involved in properly validating data, not just picking it up and chucking it in with a massive headline figure. But it does massively accelerate activities that were previously very manual: [26/08/2026 05:40] Troy Hunt: Looking at the final list of email addresses, what do the sub-addresses tell us about the origin? [26/08/2026 05:40] PwnedClaw: The sub-addresses are a goldmine for provenance. The dominant signal is clear: 1,072 +carhartt — people who tagged their address specifically when signing up at Carhartt. This is the single biggest tag and is an unambiguous origin marker. Combined with the typo variants (+carhart ×35, +carharrt ×14, +carhatt ×6, +carthartt ×4, +carh ×12) you've got ~1,150+ people who fingerprinted their Carhartt signup specifically. +paypal ×112, +pp ×10, +applepay ×8 — people who used PayPal/Apple Pay to check out at Carhartt, and tagged the email to that payment method. Strongly confirms this is a shopping/ecommerce dataset. +shopping ×28, +shop ×15, +orders ×9, +receipts ×4, +retail ×3 — generic purchase-tracking tags, consistent with an online store. +www.carhartt.com ×8, +carhartt.com ×8 — people who tagged the full domain. Explicit. +apple ×13 — likely Sign in with Apple or Apple Pay checkout. The picture is unambiguous: this is a legitimate Carhartt customer/order database, not a compiled list or credential stuffing corpus. People sub-addressed their emails at the point of purchase. That's about as strong a provenance signal as you can get. And so on and so forth. I don't need to labour the point with more examples, but let me come back around to the premise of this post: take headline numbers with a grain of salt unless you're confident in the processes of those making the claims. I'm fond of saying that whenever there are misleading statements made about breaches, "the truth is in the data", but you have to be willing to go and seek that truth out, even if it requires a significant investment in time.
troyhunt.comAug 25, 2026extracted
Sicurezza dei siti web: quali garanzie cercare in un piano hosting
Scade il 25 agosto 2026 la promozione di Aruba sui nuovi ordini di hosting e domini. L’offerta applica il 60% di sconto con il codice ESTATE26 e porta a 0,99 euro + IVA il primo anno di dominio con email. Aruba propone inoltre piani Linux, Windows, WordPress, WooCommerce e soluzioni avanzate. I servizi di Aruba vengono erogati da data center proprietari in Italia, con sistemi dedicati alla sicurezza. Indice degli argomenti La promozione di Aruba riguarda i nuovi ordini effettuati entro le 23:59 del 25 agosto 2026. Lo sconto si applica al totale dell’ordine, inclusi eventuali servizi aggiuntivi acquistati. Il codice da inserire nel riepilogo dell’ordine è ESTATE26. La riduzione vale soltanto per il primo anno e non riguarda i rinnovi. Per i domini, la promozione interessa i TLD .it, .com, .eu, .online, .org, .store, .cloud, .net e .info. Ogni utente può registrare o trasferire fino a 10 domini in promozione durante l’anno solare. L’offerta copre diverse esigenze. Il catalogo comprende Hosting Linux Easy e Windows Easy, Hosting per WordPress, Hosting Gestito Smart per WordPress e Hosting Gestito per WooCommerce. Sono disponibili anche Aruba SuperSite Easy e Professional, Hyper Hosting Linux e Hyper Hosting Gestito per WordPress. Completa l’offerta Aruba Drive, con piani Easy e Advanced per archiviare, condividere e gestire i file. La tabella mostra i prezzi del primo anno e quelli indicati per il rinnovo. Il risparmio maggiore in valore assoluto riguarda Hyper Hosting Gestito per WordPress, che passa da 420 a 168 euro + IVA. L’infrastruttura di Aruba utilizza data center proprietari distribuiti sul territorio nazionale. Le strutture dichiarano conformità al Rating 4 ANSI/TIA-942. Sul fronte della sicurezza, i server utilizzano firewall e sistemi IDS. Un sistema anti-DDoS contribuisce a contrastare gli attacchi distribuiti. Nei servizi gestiti è previsto anche il WAF per la protezione delle applicazioni. Aruba monitora inoltre le vulnerabilità di WordPress, Joomla e Drupal e dei principali plugin. I sistemi individuano e rimuovono automaticamente i principali malware conosciuti. La promozione termina il 25 agosto 2026. Il prezzo scontato riguarda esclusivamente il primo anno, mentre i rinnovi tornano alle tariffe indicate nel listino dell’offerta.
cybersecurity360.itAug 21, 2026extracted
BdThemes Supply Chain Attack Poisons JSON to Create Rogue WordPress Admins
Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a supply chain compromise impacting WordPress plugin vendor BdThemes, prompting the content management systems (CMS) platform's plugins team to temporarily disable their downloads. "Unlike traditional software supply chain attacks, zero source code files were modified within the official WordPress.org repository," Wordfence researcher Paolo Tresso said. "Instead, threat actors poisoned a static remote JSON data stream fetched by an administrative promotional banner component." The list of affected plugins is below - Element Pack Addons for Elementor – Elementor Widgets, Elementor Templates, Elementor Addons [bdthemes-element-pack-lite] - 100,000+ active installs Live Copy Paste for Elementor – Cross Domain Copy Paste & Page Duplicator [live-copy-paste] - 6,000+ active installs Pixel Gallery Addons for Elementor – Easy Grid, Creative Gallery, Drag and Drop Grid, Custom Grid Layout, Portfolio Gallery [pixel-gallery] - N/A Prime Slider Addons for Elementor – Widgets, Templates & Elementor Addons [bdthemes-prime-slider-lite] - N/A Smart Admin Assistant – Dashboard and Site Enhancements [smart-admin-assistant] - N/A Ultimate Post Kit Addons for Elementor [ultimate-post-kit] - N/A Ultimate Store Kit – Addon For WooCommerce, EDD and Elementor [ultimate-store-kit] - 6,000+ active installs Users visiting the listings for each of the aforementioned plugins on the WordPress plugins directory are displayed the message that they have been closed as of either August 7 or 8, 2026, and are not available for download pending a "full review." The issue, per the WordPress security company, is rooted in an internal component called Biggopti that's shipped along with the plugins. The system is designed to pull promotional banners from their API server and render them in the WordPress admin dashboard by fetching relevant JSON files from a DigitalOcean Spaces bucket. The library has been found vulnerable to a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw in the JSON response parsing code via the "display_id" parameter from the Sigmative API due to insufficient client-side escaping. As a result, an attacker who can compromise the API can inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that get executed every time a user accesses those pages. Because the script runs on every "wp-admin" page load, the injected code gets activated silently in the browser of any logged-in administrator. The vulnerability is rated 5.4 on the CVSS scoring system, indicating medium severity. The change is said to have been first introduced on March 1, 2026, in "bdthemes-prime-slider-lite" before being applied to others. The attack is notable because it's entirely driven via the API and requires no plugin updates or files to be modified on disk. "Rogue actors obtained write access to that bucket, replacing the legitimate JSON responses with crafted payloads to exploit that vulnerability," Wordfence said. "The XSS fires inside every logged-in admin's browser, silently, on every wp-admin page load. From there, the injected script creates rogue administrator accounts, uploads a web shell plugin, and phones home to a command-and-control (C2) server." The main payload is delivered to the plugins using the "api-data-all-records" API endpoint. A JavaScript file named "w2.js," the payload performs the following actions - Contacts the C2 server ("ia-cdn[.]com/fz/c") with the victim website's origin to fetch targeting instructions. The execution is aborted if the C2 server returns a "skip" or "done" status. Creates a new rogue administrator via the WordPress REST API. Downloads a fake plugin ZIP from the C2 server and installs it via the standard plugin upload form, resulting in the deployment of a PHP web shell ("emer-run.php"). Invokes the web shell to install two persistence modules into the Must-Use plugins ("mu-plugins") directory: one is a "magic-login backdoor" that allows unauthenticated administrative entry via a URL parameter (?_wplogin= )by targeting the site's longest-registered administrator and the other is an anti-analysis stealth module that hooks into WordPress database queries to conceal the presence of the rogue user accounts from the administrative user list and display the total user count by excluding them. An alternate payload ("x.js") found hosted on the plugin developer's infrastructure is served to victims using the "api-data-records" API endpoint. It's designed to generate "deterministic" administrative credentials that are mathematically derived from the victim website's hostname. "This algorithm produces predictable usernames (bd_ followed by a 6-character base36 hash) and passwords (Bd@26! followed by the hash and x), pairing them with an @wordpress.org email address," Wordfence said. "Because the credentials are deterministic, threat actors do not need to store compromised site lists centrally, and incident responders can compute the exact username and password to hunt for on suspected domains." The generated credentials are then leveraged to create a malicious administrator user, and the results of the attack are then exfiltrated back to the C2 server. The C2 server used in the campaign is assessed to be related to two other software supply chain attacks involving Advanced Responsive Video Embedder (CVE-2026-18072) and OptinMonster in recent months. In the two cases, the WordPress plugins were backdoored to grant full administrative access to unauthenticated attackers either via a single hard-coded token or a hidden administrator account and a concealed plugin that were created and installed only when a site admin logged in. This indicates that the end goal of the campaign is to establish covert administrative persistence and remote code execution across WordPress environments. "The fact that malicious JSON records and the secondary x.js payload were uploaded directly into the vendor's own bucket indicates a severe upstream compromise of BdThemes' cloud storage credentials or internal infrastructure," Wordfence said. The development comes days after WordPress addressed a pre-authentication reflected XSS flaw (CVE-2026-64638 aka XSS2Shell, CVSS score: 8.9) that can be exploited to achieve PHP code execution on the server when a logged-in administrator interacts with an attacker-controlled page.
thehackernews.comAug 11, 2026extracted
We found 120 fake Walmart stores trying to steal your credit card
Shoppers browsing on their phones are landing on convincing Walmart lookalike sites offering name-brand liquor at 40% to 70% off, only to be led straight to a checkout page asking for a full credit card number, expiry date, and CVV. The sites have no connection to Walmart. They’re part of a network of more than 120 near-identical domains built to look like a legitimate retailer just long enough to steal your card details. Fake Walmart websites The name “Walmart” is doing most of the work here. It’s one of the most recognized retailers in the world, and it’s that familiarity that makes people lower their guard. A shopper who’d hesitate on an unfamiliar website may think nothing of an unusually large discount because the logo, colours, and layout look familiar. That trust hasn’t been earned by the site. It’s borrowed from a brand that has nothing to do with it. If you’ve entered your card details on one of these pages, the safest assumption is that your card has been compromised. How the scam works The scam follows a simple pattern: a Walmart-branded homepage, category pages stacked with heavily discounted liquor, and a checkout form asking for full card details. The discounts do much of the persuading. Seeing premium brands advertised at 60% or 70% off encourages people to buy first and ask questions later. The same WordPress/WooCommerce template powers every site in the network. They share the same product catalogue, prices, and images. The only differences are fabricated US business addresses and phone numbers that are swapped out for each domain. How to avoid this scam Be sceptical of discounts that don’t match a retailer’s usual promotions, especially on liquor or electronics. Check the address bar before entering payment details. A genuine Walmart sale won’t send you to an unfamiliar .shop domain. Use tools that can identify scam websites automatically, such as Malwarebytes Browser Guard on desktop, or ask Scam Guard if it thinks a domain is suspicious. On mobile, where these sites are designed to work, Malwarebytes Mobile Security can block known phishing and scam domains before you reach the checkout. If you already entered your card details Contact your card issuer immediately. Explain what happened and ask whether the card should be cancelled and replaced. Watch your account for unauthorized charges, including small “test” transactions. Report the domain through your browser’s phishing reporting feature and to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov if you’re in the US. The simplest defence is also the most effective: if a retailer needs a lookalike domain to sell you something, it’s probably a scam. Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) allgoodscenter.shop, allneedsbay.shop, allneedslane.shop, allneedsmarket.shop, allneedsstore.shop, allpurposebay.shop, basketandmore.shop, broadbasket.shop, broadbasketbay.shop, broadbasketco.shop, broadbasketlane.shop, broadbasketplace.shop, broadbasketway.shop, broadchoice.shop, broadgoodsbay.shop, broadgoodscenter.shop, broadgoodsplace.shop, broadgoodsway.shop, broadmarketplacehub.shop, broadutility.shop, broadutilityhub.shop, broadvalue.shop, broadvaluebay.shop, broadvalueplace.shop, cartandcrate.shop, completehomegoods.shop, dailybasketport.shop, dailybasketway.shop, dailychoiceway.shop, dailycrate.shop, dailyfindslane.shop, dailygoodscrest.shop, dailygoodsfield.shop, dailygoodspark.shop, dailygoodsridge.shop, dailygoodsway.shop, dailygoodswayhub.shop, dailyhomemarket.shop, dailyutilitybay.shop, dailyutilityway.shop, everydaycartshop.shop, everydayneedsco.shop, everydayvaluebay.shop, generalcart.shop, generalcartlane.shop, generalgoodsport.shop, generalgoodsridge.shop, generalgoodsway.shop, generalgoodsyard.shop, generalmarketbay.shop, generalmarketfield.shop, generalneedsplace.shop, generalvaluebay.shop, goodsandhomebay.shop, goodsandhomeco.shop, goodsandhomehub.shop, goodsandlivinghub.shop, goodsandmoreco.shop, goodsandvaluehub.shop, goodsdistrict.shop, goodslanding.shop, goodsmeadow.shop, goodsroute.shop, goodsvalley.shop, homeandutility.shop, homebasketlane.shop, homebasketway.shop, homecartcenter.shop, homefieldmarket.shop, homefindsco.shop, homegoodscrate.shop, homegoodsport.shop, homegoodsway.shop, homelivinggoods.shop, homeneedslane.shop, homeneedsmarket.shop, homeparcel.shop, homesteadmart.shop, homeutilitystore.shop, homevaluebay.shop, homevalueplace.shop, homevalueway.shop, marketbasketcenter.shop, marketcanvas.shop, marketchoicebay.shop, marketchoiceplace.shop, marketfieldhub.shop, marketfindsbay.shop, marketfoundry.shop, marketgrovehub.shop, markethomeplace.shop, marketpillar.shop, marketpine.shop, marketridge.shop, markettrailway.shop, marketwarehouse.shop, modernsupplyhub.shop, smartbasketplace.shop, smartdailygoods.shop, smartneedshub.shop, smartutilityhub.shop, smartvaluebay.shop, trustedgoods.shop, usefulbasketlane.shop, usefulcartcenter.shop, usefulchoicebay.shop, usefuldailyhub.shop, usefulgoodsbay.shop, usefulgoodscenter.shop, usefulgoodspark.shop, usefulgoodsway.shop, usefulgoodswayhub.shop, usefulgoodsyard.shop, usefulmarket.shop, usefulmarketbay.shop, usefulshelf.shop, usefulutility.shop, usefulvalueplace.shop, utilitygoods.shop, valuechoicebay.shop, valuegoodspark.shop, valuegoodsridge.shop, valuegrove.shop, valueparcel.shop Stop threats before they can do any harm. Malwarebytes Browser Guard blocks phishing pages and malicious sites automatically. Free, one click to install. Add it to your browser →
malwarebytes.comJul 29, 2026extracted
Creare un e-commerce: Aruba lancia l’hosting WooCommerce con AI da 79,90 euro
Creare un sito di e-commerce con una piattaforma professionale costa meno per un periodo limitato grazie ad Aruba. Il servizio Hosting Gestito per WooCommerce è in offerta a partire da 79,90 euro più IVA per il primo anno, con rinnovo a 249 euro più IVA. L’offerta include dominio, WordPress, WooCommerce e funzionalità basate sull’intelligenza artificiale. Aruba punta a semplificare l’avvio di un negozio online, integrando strumenti per velocizzare la pubblicazione e la gestione quotidiana del sito. Inoltre, Aruba completa il pacchetto con servizi dedicati alla sicurezza, alle prestazioni e alla continuità operativa. Indice degli argomenti Il piano di Aruba è pensato per chi desidera avviare un negozio online senza gestire gli aspetti tecnici dell’infrastruttura. WordPress, WooCommerce e il tema Storefront risultano già installati. Il dominio è incluso anche al rinnovo, insieme al certificato SSL DV preconfigurato per garantire connessioni HTTPS sicure. Tra le principali novità figura l’AI Assistant, che consente di creare un sito partendo da poche indicazioni. L’utente può definire obiettivi, stile e tono di voce, ottenendo pagine già pronte per la pubblicazione. L’intelligenza artificiale interviene in diverse fasi del progetto. L’AI Site Launcher realizza rapidamente la struttura iniziale del sito. L’AI Page Builder genera pagine commerciali personalizzate. L’AI Agent modifica contenuti e impostazioni attraverso semplici richieste in linguaggio naturale. L’AI Content Generator produce testi, immagini e descrizioni dei prodotti. Questi strumenti riducono i tempi necessari per pubblicare un e-commerce, limitando le attività manuali. Uno degli elementi distintivi del servizio di Aruba riguarda la gestione automatizzata della piattaforma. Gli aggiornamenti di WordPress, plugin e temi vengono verificati prima dell’installazione. In caso di anomalie, il sistema ripristina automaticamente il backup precedente. Sono inoltre disponibili: backup completi ogni quattro ore; monitoraggio automatico dei processi di acquisto; rilevamento malware; controlli giornalieri sulle vulnerabilità dei plugin; ambiente di staging per testare modifiche prima della pubblicazione. Il servizio include anche il plugin Aruba WordPress Migration Tool per trasferire un sito esistente e l’integrazione con la Fatturazione Elettronica di Aruba. La piattaforma sfrutta una CDN integrata e il sistema HiSpeed Cache con AI. L’intelligenza artificiale analizza il traffico del sito e precarica automaticamente pagine e risorse più richieste, riducendo i tempi di caricamento. L’infrastruttura utilizza storage SSD, database dedicati per sito e ambiente di staging e dodici container dedicati per migliorare prestazioni e tempi di risposta. La soluzione è adatta a siti con circa 500 mila visitatori mensili, catalogo prodotti senza limiti, transazioni sicure e nessuna commissione sulle vendite. Come già accennato in precedenza, WooCommerce di Aruba ha un costo di 79,90 euro più IVA per un anno e si rinnova successivamente a 249 euro più IVA. Ecco un riepilogo di tutti i vantaggi inclusi nell’offerta:
cybersecurity360.itJul 22, 2026extracted
Hostinger, creare siti con l’AI costa meno: 2,99 € per 48 mesi e sconto fino al 75% sui piani hosting
L’offerta per creare siti con Hostinger è disponibile con sconti che arrivano fino al 75% sui piani pluriennali. Il gruppo propone una piattaforma che integra hosting, strumenti di intelligenza artificiale, dominio, posta elettronica professionale e funzioni dedicate all’e-commerce. Hostinger affianca inoltre gli utenti con il sistema AI Kodee, che aiuta a individuare il piano più adatto in pochi minuti. Con i piani di Hostinger è prevista anche la garanzia di rimborso entro 30 giorni riduce il rischio per chi decide di attivare il servizio. Indice degli argomenti L’offerta di Hostinger per creare siti internet si articola in tre livelli, pensati per utenti con necessità diverse. Il piano Hostinger Premium rappresenta la soluzione di ingresso. Consente di ospitare fino a tre siti web e mette a disposizione 20 GB di archiviazione SSD, backup settimanali, CDN, strumenti AI, supporto prioritario e due caselle email gratuite. È indicato per creator, freelance e piccoli brand. Il piano Hostinger Illimitato elimina il limite sul numero di siti ospitabili. Include 50 GB di spazio NVMe, backup giornalieri con ripristino, email illimitate, strumenti AI avanzati ed email marketing AI gratuito per un anno. Cloud Hostinger Startup è invece dedicato ad agenzie e progetti con traffico elevato. Offre 100 GB di archiviazione NVMe, backup giornalieri e su richiesta, risorse hardware superiori e funzionalità avanzate per gestire ambienti più complessi. Uno degli elementi distintivi dell’offerta di Hostinger riguarda la presenza di diverse tecnologie basate sull’intelligenza artificiale. Ogni piano permette di sviluppare il progetto utilizzando il Website Builder drag and drop, WordPress oppure Node.js. È disponibile anche Vibe Coding, con un numero di crediti variabile in base al piano scelto, che aiuta nello sviluppo del sito attraverso strumenti AI dedicati. Le funzionalità AI comprendono inoltre strumenti per l’email marketing e soluzioni SEO integrate, utili per velocizzare la pubblicazione e la crescita del progetto online. Tutti i piani comprendono certificati SSL gratuiti illimitati, uptime garantito al 99,9%, traffico web illimitato, aggiornamenti automatici e backup. Le versioni superiori aggiungono backup giornalieri e ripristino dei dati, mentre Cloud Startup include anche backup su richiesta. Hostinger offre inoltre la migrazione gratuita dei siti esistenti, la compatibilità completa con WordPress e WooCommerce e il dominio gratuito per un anno nei piani annuali. Hostinger offre soluzioni con prezzo promozionale a partire da 2,99 euro al mese con durata di 48 mesi. Le stesse soluzioni sono disponibili anche con abbonamenti mensili, annuali e biennali. I prezzi promozionali richiedono il pagamento anticipato dell’intero periodo e, per i piani annuali o superiori, includono il dominio gratuito per il primo anno. Tutti i pacchetti sono coperti dalla formula soddisfatti o rimborsati entro 30 giorni.
cybersecurity360.itJul 22, 2026extracted
We built a vulnerability vending machine: AI tokens in, zero-days out
AI is changing how vulnerability research gets done, but most of the conversation is still theoretical: what a model might eventually be capable of, rather than what it can actually find today. We wanted to answer a more practical question: using the models already available to us right now, how far can AI take us in finding real, exploitable vulnerabilities in production software? This piece details how the team at Intruder is using LLMs to find novel vulnerabilities using code scanning frameworks alongside current, pre-Mythos models. We walk through a remote, multi-stage SQL injection zero-day we discovered in a WordPress plugin with over 300,000 users — fully automated from discovery through exploitation, with no human in the loop. The focus problem: why pointing AI at a whole codebase doesn't work The big problem when pairing AI with a code scanner is focus. LLMs are excellent at taking small segments of code, or a description of a specific problem, and finding an interesting solution. But point one at a large codebase and ask it to find security issues, and it will try to ingest every file in the repo. That's expensive in tokens, and worse for accuracy: by the time the model is halfway through, its context is full of irrelevant code, and the bug you actually want is buried in noise. For more complex bugs that require chaining several steps together, you're then relying on the framework to keep the right context in memory, or retrieve it intelligently when needed. In our experience, that produces poor output rather than real and interesting bugs. Traditional code scanning frameworks already solve this. We use a technique we're calling a program slice, which is similar to when an IDE or LSP tool uses features like "find implementation" or a call graph to find all functions called by the current function. These are mature, well-tested tools, and they sidestep the diluted-context problem entirely. Intruder's AI pentesting agents deliver the depth of a manual engagement on-demand: no lead time, no scoping calls, a fraction of the cost. Test with every release, close your window of exposure, and get an audit-ready report in hours. Book a Demo Our pipeline: from codebase to working exploit We built a pipeline that takes a codebase, runs it through a code scanning engine (we use Joern), generates slices of code relevant to each finding, and uses an LLM to triage and exploit the issue. The design was inspired by nooperator's work on Slice, though we use Joern rather than CodeQL and designed the slicing algorithm quite differently to handle the specific vulnerability classes we’re looking for. We pointed it at the top 200 WordPress plugins — code that's already heavily picked over by bug bounty researchers, so finding something real there would mean the process can compete with skilled humans. First, Joern runs against the codebase with rules designed to flag broadly "interesting" patterns — this is deliberately loose to avoid creating rules that are too specific and might miss bugs. Since we have the triage agent filtering later anyway, we can err on the side of false positives. For this experiment we were after unauthenticated WordPress plugin attack surface, so we had Joern identify every place a script can be affected by user input: REST routes, template hooks, nopriv AJAX calls, and so on. For each WordPress hook, Joern generates a slice: the function the hook calls, every method that function calls, and so on down the chain. Basic taint tracking rules out obviously safe functions, such as SQL and XSS inputs that go through a known-safe sanitizer. Where we can verify statically that the code is safe to run, we drop those passing onto an LLM. Each slice goes to a lightweight triage model (Sonnet, in our tests) to filter out the obviously uninteresting: hooks that are meant to be public and have no side effects, for example. What's left goes to a heavier model (Opus) to assess exploitability, with the full relevant call context in memory so it isn't hunting through unrelated source. Anything judged exploitable goes to a final exploitation agent to try and write an exploit. This agent has access to full source again (if needed) since it can now use targeted searches to find relevant code, and it will also spin up a Docker container running the software to test while developing. The first vulnerability: a blind SQL injection in a popular WordPress plugin The first bug the pipeline vended was CVE-2026-3985, a SQL injection vulnerability in the Creative Mail plugin. It stood out to us for a few reasons: It’s high impact, giving an attacker read access to the database (including admin hashes and secret tokens!) It requires multiple chained requests to exploit, making it less likely to be detected by traditional tooling The root cause was hidden from the developer's own static analysis tooling by a mistake in their code Exploitation does require WooCommerce to be installed alongside Creative Mail, but since WooCommerce is a common reason people run WordPress (over 7 million active installs), the combination is common. The exploitation agent one-shotted a working proof-of-concept, producing a check to confirm the issue existed and a full extraction method capable of pulling password hashes from the database. This vulnerability was also found independently by Dmitrii Ignatyev of CleanTalk Inc., who reported it to Wordfence. The plugin has been pulled from the WordPress store pending review; if you're running Creative Mail alongside WooCommerce, disable it until a patch is available. For the full technical details, see our write-up. Discovery is getting faster. Detection has to keep up This is just the first vulnerability the pipeline has vended. We're already finding more and reporting them to affected vendors (those are still under disclosure). AI clearly has a growing role to play in vulnerability research, and the work now is building the frameworks to get the most out of current models. Attackers are already using similar tooling to feed AI high-signal input, which means the same speed advantage we've demonstrated here isn't unique to defenders. Vulnerabilities surfaced by our vending machine become detection checks in the Intruder platform, so your next scan finds and reports them. Author: Sam Pizzey, Security Engineer, Intruder Sam Pizzey is a Security Engineer at Intruder. Previously a pentester a little too obsessed with reverse engineering, currently focused on ways to detect application vulnerabilities remotely at scale. Sponsored and written by Intruder.
bleepingcomputer.comJul 15, 2026extracted
22nd June – Threat Intelligence Report
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 22nd June, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin. TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES - Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has been affected by a third-party data breach involving its license system vendor. The incident exposed driver’s license information, passport numbers, emails, phone numbers, and residential addresses for 3,087,721 hunting and fishing license customers. Social Security numbers and payment data were not affected. ShapedPlugin, a WordPress plugin vendor, has faced a supply chain attack that delivered malicious updates for three paid plugins through its official updater. The malware installed a hidden fake WooCommerce plugin to steal admin, database, and 2FA credentials and modify affected websites. Incident analysis tied the compromise to vendor release infrastructure. iRhythm Technologies, a US digital health company focused on remote cardiac monitoring, has experienced a cyberattack involving third-party-hosted business applications. The company confirmed that attackers stole protected health information, proprietary data, and other personal data through a social engineering attack. Clinical systems were not affected. Market intelligence platform Klue has confirmed a breach after attackers used compromised legacy integration credentials to steal OAuth tokens connected to customer Salesforce environments. The tokens enabled theft of sales and customer data from several clients, including Huntress, Recorded Future, Tanium, and Jamf. The Icarus extortion group claimed responsibility. AI THREATS - Researchers have detailed EvilTokens, an AI-powered phishing-as-a-service operation abusing device-code authentication to steal Microsoft 365 tokens. Huntress observed a 1,380% surge in device-code phishing in early 2026, with AI-generated lures and automated workflows lowering attacker effort. Researchers have crafted a fake AI skill that hijacked more than 26,000 AI agents by abusing trusted marketplaces and Instagram ads in a supply chain attack. The package initially appeared clean, then used attacker-controlled external instructions after approval to trigger data exfiltration across agent platforms. LayerX researchers have demonstrated BioShocking AI, a technique that tricks agentic browsers into bypassing their guardrails. Test cases against ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity Comet, Claude in Chrome, and other AI browsers showed how game-like prompts could expose credentials and user data. VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES - Cisco has addressed CVE-2026-20245, a high-severity command injection flaw in Catalyst SD-WAN Manager that attackers exploited as a zero-day for months. The flaw allows an administrator to run root commands through a crafted file, affecting on-premises and Cisco-managed cloud deployments. Dify has released version 1.14.2 to fix four vulnerabilities in its open-source AI platform, including critical CVE-2026-41947 and CVE-2026-41948. The flaws could allow unauthenticated access and cross-tenant data exposure, including chat content and uploaded files. Ubiquiti UniFi OS is affected by three flaws, CVE-2026-34908, CVE-2026-34909, and CVE-2026-34910, which are reportedly being exploited against network appliances. The vulnerabilities allow unauthorized changes, file access, and command execution, with exploitation observed in Mirai botnet activity. Check Point IPS provides protection against these threats (Ubiquiti UniFi OS Privilege Escalation (CVE-2026-34908), Ubiquiti UniFi OS Directory Traversal (CVE-2026-34909), Ubiquiti UniFi OS Command Injection (CVE-2026-34910)) - Langflow, an open-source AI workflow tool, is reportedly being targeted through exploitation of CVE-2026-55255, alongside ongoing mass exploitation of CVE-2026-33017. Attackers enumerated flow IDs to run victim pipelines and extract embedded API keys, while remote code execution enabled malware deployment and cloud credential theft. Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Langflow Remote Code Execution (CVE-2026-33017)) THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS - Researchers have uncovered the FortiBleed campaign, which converts compromised FortiGate firewalls into passive credential stealers across 24 protocols. The operation targeted more than 430,000 devices worldwide and siphoned more than 110 million credentials. Researchers have attributed the StockStay espionage malware to Russia-linked Turla and described targeting of Ukrainian government and defense organizations. The malware evolved from a fake stock app to PDF reader and calculator lookalikes, delivered through phishing with malicious remote desktop configuration files. Researchers have revealed that the Chinese DCloud Uni-App framework powers at least 236,493 scam domains since 2022, including fake crypto exchanges, wallet drainers, WhatsApp phishing, and gambling schemes. Technical fingerprints suggest centralized operators, likely China-based, supporting a broad fraud ecosystem. Researchers have analyzed the FulcrumSec cloud extortion group targeting cloud-native organizations. The group exploits exposed credentials, unpatched applications, and misconfigured storage, then uses broad permissions to move across environments, collect data for months, and exfiltrate it using legitimate tools.
research.checkpoint.comJul 1, 2026extracted
ShapedPlugin WordPress Pro Plugins Backdoored in Supply Chain Attack
Multiple WordPress plugins from ShapedPlugin were compromised in a supply chain attack after unknown threat actors managed to tamper with the official release channels and push backdoor code. "Attackers compromised the vendor's build and distribution pipeline, injecting backdoor code into Pro plugin releases distributed through official licensed update channels," Wordfence said in an analysis published last week. The incident affects the following plugins and versions - Product Slider Pro for WooCommerce 3.5.2 Real Testimonials Pro 3.2.4 and 3.2.5 Smart Post Show Pro 4.0.1 As mentioned above, it's worth emphasizing that the compromise only affects Pro plugin builds distributed through the vendor's Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) infrastructure via account.shapedplugin[.]com. The free versions of the plugins on WordPress.org are not impacted. The supply chain compromise is being tracked as CVE-2026-10735 (CVSS score: 9.8). An earlier identifier, CVE-2026-49777, that was submitted for Product Slider Pro for WooCommerce has been marked as a duplicate. The WordPress security company said the compromised versions of the plugins incorporate a loader that's triggered on every admin page, causing it to fetch a payload from a remote server ("194.76.217[.]28:2871"), install it, and activate it as a fake plugin. Once it's activated, the malware reports the victim domain back to the server and erases itself to cover up the tracks and complicate incident response efforts. The counterfeit plugin, for its part, hides itself from the WordPress admin plugin list and is capable of capturing credentials in plaintext and two-factor authentication (2FA) codes. It also establishes multiple persistence methods that enable arbitrary file writes via a custom REST endpoint when provided a specific authentication token, as well as drop a web shell with command execution features. According to ShapedPlugin's advisories, the malware installs a fake plugin named "WooCommerce Subscription" (not the legitimate WooCommerce Subscriptions extension) and adds a loader to the active theme's functions.php that reads a Base64-encoded payload stored in the "theme_options_scripts" option in the "wp_options" table, writes it to a temporary file, and executes it on every page load. The payload extracts the following data - Full contents of wp-config.php, including database credentials, authentication keys, and debug settings All administrator accounts with registration dates Mail plugin credentials from WP Mail SMTP, Post SMTP, and Easy WP SMTP WooCommerce order data from the last 3 months with payment method breakdown Once this information is displayed in an HTML page, the file is self-deleted. Wordfence assessed the evidence points to a compromise of the build and distribution pipeline rather than direct poisoning of individual packages. ShapedPlugin, however, described the incident as tampering with its Pro builds distributed through the Easy Digital Downloads update channel. What's particularly dangerous about this attack is that it exposes site owners who purchased legitimate licenses and installed updates directly from the vendor's official update system to malware. ShapedPlugin has since released clean versions: Product Slider Pro for WooCommerce 3.5.3, Smart Post Show Pro 4.0.2 (current release 4.0.5), and Real Testimonials Pro 3.2.6. The company also said Real Testimonials Pro 3.2.5 initially shipped clean on May 23, 2026, before its package was tampered with under the same version number. The maintainers replaced it with version 3.2.6 on June 16, 2026. The findings explain why version labels alone are not a reliable indicator of a clean build. Updating an affected plugin installs a clean package but does not remove the second-stage payload if the malware has already run. Both ShapedPlugin and Wordfence advise that sites that run an affected version complete a full cleanup rather than relying on the update alone. Confirming the incident with The Hacker News, ShapedPlugin said it rotated credentials, took the affected distribution infrastructure offline and rebuilt it, discontinued its GitHub-based release workflow pending a hardened redesign, migrated product-file storage to isolated AWS infrastructure, moved its stack to an xCloud-managed VPS with Patchstack monitoring, and proactively notified customers who downloaded an affected build. The Wilmington-based company also emphasized it found no evidence that customer data was accessed, while noting that the data-theft behavior applies to end-user sites that installed a tampered build. Per-product advisories with step-by-step remediation are available for Real Testimonials Pro, Product Slider Pro for WooCommerce, and Smart Post Show Pro. Site owners who have installed the malicious versions are recommended to reset all passwords, revoke and regenerate 2FA secrets for all users, review administrator accounts for unauthorized additions, check for a fake plugin named "WooCommerce Subscription" and loader code in the active theme's "functions.php," and check mail plugin configurations for modified SMTP credentials. (This article was updated after publication on July 7, 2026, with corrected version boundaries for the affected and patched plugins, revised indicators of compromise from ShapedPlugin's official advisories, and an official statement from ShapedPlugin.)
thehackernews.comJun 22, 2026extracted
ShapedPlugin update flow hacked to infect WordPress sites
Multiple WordPress plugins from ShapedPlugin were compromised in a supply chain attack that distributed infected releases to paying customers via the vendor's official update system. The malware delivered this way installed a fake plugin that impersonates WooCommerce components, steals credentials, and grants operators remote file-writing capabilities. ShapedPlugin is a WordPress plugin vendor specializing in front-end/UI components and content display plugins, with a total active installation base of more than 400,000 for the free products. The security incident affected only three paid plugins: Product Slider Pro before 3.5.4 for WooCommerce, Real Testimonials Pro 3.2.5, and Smart Post Show Pro before 4.0.2. According to data WordPress security company Defiant collected from its WordFence firewall, the backdoor was injected into ShapedPlugin's Pro builds on May 21, and the first customer reports about potentially malicious updates emerged on June 10. The researchers confirmed the breach after downloading infected plugins from the ShapedPlugin site on June 12, and the publisher acknowledged the incident on June 16. “Our team immediately initiated an investigation upon identifying the concern, and we have already implemented the necessary measures to mitigate the issue,” ShapedPlugin told Wordfence. The publisher added that they were preparing updated plugin releases and validating them before pushing them to the update channels. Supply-chain compromise According to Wordfence’s analysis, the infected plugins contain a malicious loader file (LicenseLoader.php) that activates when a WordPress administrator accesses the website’s admin panel. It contacts the command-and-control (C2) server, downloads the second-stage (backdoor), installs it as a fake plugin (woocommerce-subscription or woocommerce-notification), reports to the attacker, and then self-deletes to erase evidence. The fake plugin, which is hidden from the WordPress plugin list, attempts to steal the following information on infected sites: WordPress login credentials (usernames, passwords, session cookies, user roles, IP addresses, and browser details) Two-factor authentication (2FA) secrets from popular WordPress security plugins Database credentials and WordPress authentication keys from wp-config.php Administrator account details SMTP/email service credentials WooCommerce order data from the past three months, including payment method information The researchers believe this was a build pipeline compromise, based on the file modifications, timestamp patterns suggesting automated injection, and Git build references contained in the packages. Also, releases hosted on WordPress.org were confirmed to be clean, suggesting that the attackers gained access to ShapedPlugin’s release infrastructure. WordPress is currently tracking the incident under CVE-2026-10735, while CVE-2026-49777 was also submitted as a duplicate. The ShapedPlugin compromise comes shortly after another major WordPress product, OptinMonster, was breached in a CDN supply-chain attack possible due to a flaw in a marketing server that allowed the hacker to steal credentials for a CDN account. In the ShapedPlugin case, though, the point of compromise appears to be the build pipeline. BleepingComputer has contacted the plugin vendor for a statement, and the company pointed us to the release of Real Testimonial Pro version 3.2.6, which lists a single fix described as “Fix: Some WPCS-related warnings.” ShapedPlugin also said that an official statement will be published after Wordfence's confirmation that the patches addressed the issue. According to Wordfence, fixes were made available on Product Slider Pro in version 3.5.4 and Smart Post Show Pro in version 4.0.2. If fake WooCommerce plugins are found, website administrators are recommended to reset all passwords on their sites, regenerate two-factor authentication (2FA) secrets, and review user lists for rogue additions. Update 07/07 - A ShapedPlugin spokesperson contacted us to share the below statement: "We confirm the incident. Attackers tampered with Pro builds distributed through our Easy Digital Downloads update channel (account.shapedplugin.com); the free WordPress.org versions were not affected." "The affected Pro products and corrected version boundaries are: Real Testimonials Pro — 3.2.4 and 3.2.5 compromised, 3.2.6 is the clean release; Product Slider Pro for WooCommerce — 3.5.2 compromised, 3.5.3 is the clean release; Smart Post Show Pro — 4.0.1 compromised, 4.0.2 the first clean release (current 4.0.5). Clean, verified versions of all three plugins are now live." "Since discovery we took the affected distribution infrastructure offline and rebuilt it, discontinued our GitHub-based release workflow pending a hardened redesign, migrated product-file storage to isolated AWS infrastructure separate from the site server, moved our stack to an xCloud-managed VPS with Patchstack protection and ongoing monitoring, performed a deep clean, and rotated credentials. On our own systems we have found no evidence that customer data was accessed, and continue to review. The malware's data-theft behavior applies to end-user sites that installed a tampered build; we proactively notified affected customers and are actively helping those who reached out to clean and secure their sites." Full per-product advisories with step-by-step remediation: Real Testimonials Pro: https://docs.shapedplugin.com/security-advisory-real-testimonials-pro-3-2-4-3-2-5-compromise/ Product Slider Pro for WooCommerce: https://docs.shapedplugin.com/woo-product-slider-pro-security-advisory/ Smart Post Show Pro: https://docs.shapedplugin.com/wordpress-security-advisory-smart-post-pro-4-0-1-compromise/ Overall prevention scores can hide what happens after initial access. Once attackers are using valid credentials, prevention drops sharply. The Blue Report 2026 measures defenses technique by technique across 338 million simulations run in customer production environments. Get the report
bleepingcomputer.comJun 18, 2026extracted
ThreatsDay Bulletin: Worm Code Leaked, AI Agent Phished, Claude Code Patch + 28 New Stories
It's been one of those weeks. You expect the usual noise: recycled malware, sloppy attacks, another easy target getting hit. Instead, there's a supply chain attack kit in a public repo, a $5,000-a-month RAT that clones browsers, and research showing AI agents can be tricked into leaking real credentials. The bigger problem is how polished this all looks now. Mule networks run like SaaS. Deepfake KYC bypass is sold as a feature. Endpoint tools can be quietly weakened using built-in OS settings, with no exploit needed. Here's the full list of threats, tools, flaws, and updates worth knowing. 3.3B identity records exposedA new analysis from Flashpoint has revealed that "more than 11.1 million devices were infected with infostealers last year, fueling a supply of over 3.3 billion stolen credentials, session cookies, cloud tokens, and other forms of identity data now circulating across illicit markets." There are over 30 unique infostealer strains actively listed for sale across illicit marketplaces, forums, and underground communities, indicating the "scale and accessibility of the modern malware-as-a-service ecosystem." Lumma, Acreed, Rhadamanthys, Vidar, and StealC were the most prolific stealers in 2025. India, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and the U.S. were the top six countries affected by stealer malware during the same period. MaaS RAT targets credentialsA threat actor named "o1oo1" has advertised an advanced remote access trojan (RAT) named SilabRAT that's sold under a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model for $5,000 a month on darknet forums since September 2025. "SilabRAT is heavily focused on financial gain through credential theft," Group-IB said. "It offers stability and is capable of bypassing existing security measures." Delivered via ClickFix campaigns using Hijack Loader, the malware uses Hidden Virtual Network Computing (HVNC) to facilitate remote control capabilities, employs techniques like Browser Profile Cloning to replicate a user's browser profile (user agent, extensions, storage, and other fingerprinting attributes) to the attacker's system, and can identify wallet addresses or extract cryptocurrency-related artifacts. The Russian-speaking malware developer and vendor, "o1oo1," has been active since late 2020, previously launching a service called AsmCrypt. 47% of tech intrusionsCrowdStrike has revealed that a North Korean threat actor known as Famous Chollima, which is behind the long-running IT worker and Contagious Interview campaign, accounted for 47% of all state-sponsored hands-on-keyboard operations against the tech sector between April 2025 and March 2026. Hands-on intrusions refer to cyber attacks in which a human operator controls and interacts with a system rather than relying solely on malware. "In their IT worker infiltration campaigns, they sought fraudulent employment at tech companies across North America, Europe, and Asia," the cybersecurity company said. 13 domains seizedThe U.S. Department of Justice has announced the seizure of 13 internet domains masquerading as consulting companies used to target U.S. persons, including current and former security clearance holders with access to classified and sensitive U.S. government information. "These domain seizures offer a glimpse at how foreign actors can use promises of easy money to lure Americans into revealing sensitive or classified information that they are duty-bound to protect," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. "Anyone approached online with offers of easy income for vague 'consulting' work should treat those overtures with extreme caution and remain vigilant for warning signs of malicious targeting." These sham companies advertised generic consulting or analyst jobs on platforms like Upwork, Expertia AI, Hubstaff Talent, Wellfound, and Post Job Free that sought to recruit current or former U.S. government and U.S. military employees to lend their expertise to unspecified clients. The recruiters then pressured candidates to part with confidential information and reports from "insider" sources in exchange for cryptocurrency payments. The operation is assessed to have commenced in November 2023. The operation is assessed to have commenced in November 2023.. The announcement comes after the Five Eyes intelligence alliance countries warned of China aggressively using job platforms to target people for information. In a statement shared with Reuters, the Chinese Embassy in Washington condemned the allegations and called them fabricated. Supply-chain toolkit exposedThe Miasma credential-stealing attack framework was briefly made available for free on GitHub, after multiple repositories with the name "Miasma-Open-Source-Release" began appearing since June 8, 2026. According to SafeDep, the source code has been published through compromised developer accounts. "The Miasma codebase appears to be larger than a supply chain worm," SafeDep said. "It is a full supply chain attack toolkit that allows the operator to execute various attacks via stolen credentials against arbitrary or targeted packages on public registries (PyPI, npm, RubyGems), JFrog Artifactory, GitHub repositories and GitHub Actions, AI coding tools config poisoning, SSH-based lateral movement, and other attack vectors." As opposed to relying on conventional command-and-control (C2) infrastructure, the malware employs three independent C2 channels using GitHub commit search, each with a different search string and crypto key: "DontRevokeOrItGoesBoom" to discover attacker-controlled personal access tokens (PATs) for data exfiltration, "TheBeautifulSandsOfTime" to deliver JavaScript, and "firedalazer" to deliver Python script URLs that act as a remote code execution backdoor. Miasma is assessed to be a variant of the Shai-Hulud worm. The campaign has since morphed into a Python variant called Hades, which represents the latest evolution of the sustained software supply chain campaign. As of last week, a total of 304 components have been impacted by Miasma. Search uploads retainedGoogle has revealed that it intends to save the images, files, audio, and video users upload to Search under a new "Search Services History" setting. This can include images, files, and audio/video recordings, such as Google Lens images, content you upload, and recordings from Search Live, Translate speaking practice, and voice searches, per Google. The tech giant said the Search Services History setting will be used to "provide, develop, and improve its services," including its AI models, as well as offer personalized suggestions and ads if the new "Personalized Recommendations" option is switched on. These two settings are separate from Google's Web & App Activity. Cross-platform RAT emergesIru has analyzed a new cross-platform RAT called SStar Agent that's designed for both Windows and macOS systems. "The macOS builds are heavily instrumented surveillance tools focused on recon and exfiltration, while the Windows build layers on a keyboard hook, clipboard monitor, and remote mouse/keyboard control," the company said. "Notably, the malware includes a large POST request via endpoint /api/telemetry/report that constantly monitors and exfiltrates the entire directory tree to monitor files of interest. The gap between the Windows and macOS versions indicates this is still a work in progress." The malware is delivered by means of a poisoned npm package named "tw-style-utils." The lure is a bogus Web3 engineering take-home assessment, a GitHub repository ("star45674/smart-contract-engineer-role") that's likely distributed to targets. While the repository itself is clean, the payload resides in the npm dependency. Although it's not clear who is behind the malware, the activity overlaps with previously observed social engineering attacks mounted by North Korean hacking groups. Fake npm popularityTenable has detailed a technique dubbed download pumping, where attackers artificially inflate npm package download counts in order to make malicious packages appear legitimate and trustworthy to developers. This approach has been observed in a package named "ambar-src," which reached more than 50,000 downloads in three days after attackers published hundreds of benign versions of the package before introducing the actual malicious payload. "Every time a new version was published, automated systems like repository mirrors and analysis bots automatically downloaded it," Tenable said. "Because the attackers systematically uploaded hundreds of versions, they artificially generated a massive wave of automated traffic, inflating the package's download count to more than 50,000 downloads in just three days." Exchange spoofing riskA weakness in certain configurations of Microsoft Exchange could be abused by attackers to send emails masquerading as any user to a vulnerable organization. The technique has been codenamed Ghost-Sender. "Using Exchange Online (or on-premises Exchange in hybrid mode) in combination with an external MX record, such as a third-party email server or spam protection solution, can allow the spoofing of emails from any sender to any recipient in the target tenant," InfoGuard Labs said. "This is regardless of the configured SPF, DKIM, and DMARC policies of the spoofed sender's domain, and the emails are delivered without any further warning. It is possible to send emails from anyone, including external and internal email addresses. For internal senders, Outlook even resolves the sender's profile picture." Russia-focused phishing wavesA previously unknown group known as SiribClone has targeted Russian military personnel using bait applications for "safe photo exchange" to distribute malicious files for desktop and mobile devices. In some cases, members of the group have posed as women seeking romantic relationships to infect smartphones, computers, and Telegram accounts. The group has been active since early 2025. Attacks targeting Android devices lead to the deployment of a spyware called SafeLoveStealer that can steal photographs, videos, documents, and location data. Windows systems, on the other hand, are infected by a stealer known as SiribGrabber. The malware is distributed via phishing emails containing ZIP archives disguised as military-themed documents. In addition, the group operates phishing sites mimicking Telegram login pages to trick targets into entering their phone numbers, verification codes, and two-factor authentication passwords, allowing them to seize control of the accounts. Also linked to the threat actor is a tool called Kontur that stores stolen Telegram sessions and allows operators to review captured messages. Russian maritime universities, energy facilities, diplomatic missions, and government agencies have also been targeted through phishing campaigns by an unidentified group since at least July 2024. Recent attack waves have employed a C2 framework called Ravage, although two distinct phishing campaigns observed in 2024 have used Cobalt Strike. The third hacking group to single out Russia (along with Belarus) is Cloud Atlas, which has resorted to sending phishing emails with ZIP archives containing malicious shortcuts that launch PowerShell scripts, paving the way for malware like VBShower and PowerShower, the latter of which is used to drop a credential grabber. Lateral movement via RDP, SSH, and RevSocks is achieved via PAExec or PsExec as part of a framework known as PowerAdmin. Furthermore, the attacks involve two new tools: PowerCloud, which collects user data with administrator privileges and writes it to Google Sheets, and Browser checker, a PowerShell script that checks whether browser processes (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and others) are running. ClickFix backdoor expandsA ransomware-related threat actor has put to use a new malware family called MLTBackdoor that's delivered via ClickFix. "MTLBackdoor supports a set of commands like downloading and uploading files from the victim's system," Zscaler ThreatLabz said. "However, one of the most powerful features is the ability to load Beacon Object Files (BOFs) to expand its capabilities." The malware was discovered in May 2026. In recent months, ransomware and data extortion attacks involving DragonForce and World Leaks have employed backdoors like VIPERTUNNEL, a Python malware previously linked to RansomHub, and RustyRocket, a custom-built Rust tool to facilitate covert data exfiltration and persistent access. "Once an attacker runs it, RustyRocket can securely connect back to an attacker-controlled server using heavily encrypted and layered traffic that blends in with normal internet activity, making it very hard for defenders to detect," Accenture's T. Ryan Whelan said. "This malware is an integrated communications architecture built for persistence and obfuscation." WooCommerce card theftA new skimmer campaign is targeting WooCommerce sites to steal card details from checkout pages. "The skimmer impersonates the real Stripe payment element, validates cards in real time so the victim never suspects anything," CloudSEK said. "The most 'professional' aspect of this sample is how hard it works to feel legitimate. It re-implements the same client-side checks a real checkout performs." 33,000 users targetedA new Go-based loader named GoFlateLoader is being used to deliver multiple infostealers, including Amatera, Remus, Lumma, Vidar, StealC, and SvitStealer. "GoFlateLoader appears both in x86 (32-bit) and x86-64 (64-bit) variants, matching the bitness of the payload it is supposed to execute," Gen Digital's Avast said. "The loader is designed for in-memory payload execution and is deliberately inflated with a massive PE overlay to hinder detection." The malware is delivered via cracked software and a malicious Traffic Distribution System (TDS) that has been used to deliver Remus Stealer, AnimateClipper, and the SessionGate framework. Since the beginning of April 2026, more than 33,000 unique users have been targeted, with the most affected countries including Brazil, India, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, and Spain. $862K damage caseMaxwell Schultz, 36, of Columbus, Ohio, has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for hacking into his employer's network after his contract was terminated in May 2021. Impersonating another contractor, Schultz obtained login credentials, accessed the former employer's systems, and executed a malicious PowerShell script that reset roughly 2,500 passwords, locking out employees and contractors and causing more than $862,000 in losses. Schultz pleaded guilty to the crime in November 2025. Fake banking updatesA new phishing campaign impersonating Italian and European banking brands is being used to distribute an Android malware called NFCShare. The attacks use phishing sites that aim to trick users into entering their credentials, after which they are prompted to update the banking application by downloading an APK file hosted on GitHub ("antoniocastaldo1998/app-scuola"). The end goal is to guide the user through a fake card verification flow: bring the card near the phone, keep it close while "authenticating," and enter the card PIN. Under the hood, the app reads NFC card data (ISO-DEP) and exfiltrates it to a remote WebSocket endpoint. The activity shares tactical overlaps with other NFC relay malware, such as SuperCardX and RelayNFC. The presence of Chinese text suggests a China-linked operator or tooling lineage. AI agent phishing riskFour phishing simulations on an OpenClaw email agent codenamed Pinchy have revealed it to be susceptible to tactics commonly used to deceive human users. "In some cases, Pinchy not only failed at spotting the phishing attacks, it also performed risky actions that could potentially compromise a real-world organization," Varonis said. "In one notable case, a casual email from 'Dan' asking the agent to share staging credentials was enough to forward AWS IAM keys, database passwords, and SSH access to an external Gmail." This agent phishing is different from indirect prompt injection. While the latter embeds malicious instructions inside data the model consumes to trigger unintended actions or responses, agent phishing operates above the application surface. "A believable request arrives through a normal communication channel, reads like a legitimate business message, and succeeds when the agent acts on it before verifying who asked," Varonis added. AI fixes weak passwordsApple has revealed that its upcoming version of Apple Intelligence, the company's generative artificial intelligence (AI) system, will support capabilities to update its weak and compromised passwords with a single tap via the Passwords app. "Building on its ability to alert users about weak and compromised passwords, Passwords can now automatically fix these for users with just a tap," Apple said. "Using Apple Intelligence and Safari to agentically take action on a user's behalf, Passwords securely navigates through websites to sign in and upgrade their accounts to strong passwords." EDR telemetry throttledA new technique called EDRChoker that interferes with the client-server connection of Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) software to sidestep defenses. "EDRChoker uses policy-based Quality of Service (QoS) to throttle EDR agents to the lowest bandwidth; when agents attempt to connect, they will consistently time out due to the extremely low bandwidth," a security researcher who goes by the name Zero Salarium said. "It takes a list of common EDR process names and creates QoS policies that limit those processes to 8 bits per second. At that bandwidth, an EDR agent becomes effectively isolated from its server." Earlier this January, the researcher also demonstrated EDRStartupHinder, which prevents an EDR program from starting. "EDRStartupHinder aims to exploit Windows Bindlink to redirect a DLL from System32 to another location, alongside taking advantage of the function that only loads DLLs signed by a program protected with Protected Process Light (PPL) to prevent AV/EDR services from starting," the researcher said. Another technique devised by Binary Defense involves disabling critical security services, such as Windows Defender and Sysmon, without triggering traditional malware alerts. It modifies Windows Access Control Lists (ACLs) to add "Deny" Access Control Entries (ACEs) against core system libraries like "kernel32.dll." Because these services rely on the DLL to function, the dependency chain is broken. Upon a system reboot, the protected services fail to start, leaving the endpoint without any defenses. STX RAT supply chain growsThe supply chain attack targeting CPUID to deliver STX RAT is broader in scope than previously thought, with a new analysis from Cyderes uncovering seven additional trojanized packages tied to the same campaign. "All packages follow the same delivery mechanism," the cybersecurity company said. "The actor, operating under the alias Leda Elacoate (pufferfish11@firemail[.]cc), built and maintained a Bitbucket repository of trojanized installers over approximately one month, targeting a wide range of user demographics." Among the impacted packages is X-VPN, a consumer VPN with over 100 million reported users. Users who installed X-VPN from official channels are not affected. "The actor began with cryptocurrency exchange and trading software as lures, targeting users with likely access to financial accounts, and progressively expanded that lure portfolio across a social engineering decoy and VPN software," Cyderes added. Agent Tesla via ZIP luresPhishing emails masquerading as legitimate payment advice messages are being used to deliver ZIP archives, opening which triggers a multi-stage infection chain that leads to the deployment of Agent Tesla. "In simple terms, the victim opens what looks like a harmless file, but behind the scenes, a heavily obfuscated Batch script silently launches PowerShell, which then pulls and executes additional malicious code directly in memory," Point Wild said. "From there, the attack escalates into a staged execution chain involving shellcode decoding, persistence setup, and process injection into legitimate Windows applications like charmap.exe." Agent, Tesla is designed to steal browser credentials, log keystrokes, capture screenshots, and extract sensitive data from the system. The collected information is then exfiltrated using SMTP-based communication, allowing malicious traffic to blend with normal-looking email activity. AI video lures spread malwareTwo social engineering campaigns are using AI-generated TikTok videos and Instagram Reels to direct users to sketchy sites that deploy Vidar Stealer and other dubious programs, in some cases requiring visitors to complete surveys before they could access the promised downloads. "One methodology involves fake tutorials for software installs, with professional-sounding voice-overs and clean graphics," ReversingLabs said. "The second approach relies on posts demonstrating how to use premium software for free, spanning multiple videos, with a centralized tutorial being introduced after the account gains traction." Routers turned into C2 nodesA suspected China-nexus intrusion set has been identified conducting a large-scale campaign targeting edge network devices across Southeast Asia. "The adversary deploys a custom Linux ELF implant (router.elf) directly onto compromised border routers, establishing persistent command-and-control (C2) via DNS over HTTPS (DoH) while simultaneously weaponizing the router's iptables subsystem to hijack downstream DNS traffic at scale," a security researcher named Y4er said. "Correlated Windows-side tradecraft leverages a cracked Cobalt Strike 4.4 Beacon delivered via DLL sideloading (version.dll), sharing identical C2 infrastructure and malleable C2 profiles with the router implant - confirming unified operational control. RMM abused in BrazilAn active phishing campaign has been observed targeting Brazilian organizations with fake business-document lures, resulting in the download of a NinjaOne Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) agent. "The campaign begins with phishing emails that redirect victims to Portuguese-language landing pages impersonating familiar Brazilian workflows, including SEFAZ-related fiscal documents, Reclame Aqui-style complaint processes, and secure document-delivery portals," Cato Networks said. "After completing a fake verification process, victims are prompted to download what appears to be a protected business document. Instead, the download delivers a legitimate NinjaOne RMM agent configured to provide remote access to attacker-controlled infrastructure, highlighting a previously undocumented abuse of NinjaOne in the Brazilian threat Landscape." The development once again highlights how threat actors no longer need to rely on bespoke malware to infiltrate organizations. Money laundering goes MaaSCybersecurity company KELA has shed light on money mule networks, which play a crucial role in modern cybercrime and financial fraud ecosystems, enabling threat actors to launder and monetize proceeds through ransomware, scams, and Business Email Compromise (BEC), and other illicit schemes. "In recent years, traditional mule recruitment has increasingly evolved into professionalized Mule-as-a-Service (MaaS) ecosystems that provide scalable laundering infrastructure to cybercriminals," KELA said, adding "mule operations increasingly rely on stolen identities, synthetic identities, compromised accounts, and AI-assisted onboarding techniques rather than solely recruiting human participants." Threat actors have also been found to rely on forged documentation, deepfake-enabled KYC bypass methods, account takeover techniques, and automated account "warming" activity to set up resilient laundering infrastructures across multiple financial platforms. AI chats exposedG DATA said it has witnessed a growing number of Google Chrome extensions that impersonate legitimate productivity tools while stealthily hijacking users' conversations with AI chatbots. Some of these include Urban VPN, Smart Sidebar: ChatGPT, Claude & DeepSeek, and Chat AI, the last of which exhibits traits consistent with a campaign dubbed AiFrame. "User data generated through AI conversations may still be vulnerable to theft by threat actors utilizing plug-ins that pose as legitimate tools," G DATA said. 507 Meta repos exposedA public Meta IP address running an open Grafana instance acted as a pathway for read-write access to 507 private Meta repositories, netting the Sectricity Security Team a bug bounty of $157,000. "The pivot was a wildcard SAN on the TLS certificate: *.llm-playground.aws.metafb.cloud, which exposed a quiet shadow estate behind metafb.cloud," the cybersecurity company said. "By parsing JavaScript bundles across that estate, we uncovered references to a previously unseen domain: api.haloworld.xyz, which became the next pivot point. Slight (AI built wordlist given JS bundles, context, etc) fuzzing against api.haloworld.xyz then exposed /_api/gcp-token, an unauthenticated endpoint that handed out a valid GCP OAuth2 token." The GCP token, in turn, granted read access to the project's Secret Manager that contained a Vercel token. The Vercel token exposed 85 environment variables across Meta's projects, including multiple GitHub personal access tokens (PATs) and other secrets. One of those GitHub tokens had read/write access to 507 private repositories. 7M seniors’ data soldTroy Murray, 57, of Hickory, North Carolina, has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for selling the personal information of over 7 million elderly Americans to Jamaican lottery fraud scammers. He has also been ordered to pay a forfeiture in the amount of $5,214,688.48. Murray "devised a scheme where he organized, maintained, and sold lists containing the names, phone numbers, physical addresses, and, in some cases, ages and email addresses, of elderly Americans to individuals in Jamaica involved in lottery fraud schemes," the U.S. Justice Department said. "From 2016 to 2023, Murray sold these lists to Jamaican scammers, who perpetrated lottery fraud on elderly American consumers, earning Murray hundreds of thousands of dollars each year." Each of these lists was sold for $500. One-packet crash bugSecurity researcher Marcus Hutchins has released details and a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for ComoDoS, an integer underflow vulnerability residing in Comodo Internet Security's firewall driver, Inspect.sys (CVE-2026-49494, CVSS score: 7.5). "Although the vulnerability can be used to remotely trigger both an out-of-bounds (OOB) read and out-of-bounds write in the Windows kernel, the limitations on both primitives lead me to believe it's unlikely this bug could be weaponized into RCE," Hutchins said. "The bug does, however, enable you to remotely crash the target system with a single TCP/IP packet, even if the firewall is configured to block all ports." The vulnerability remains unpatched as of writing. CI/CD secrets exposedMicrosoft said it discovered an issue in the Claude Code GitHub Action that could be exploited to expose CI/CD workflow secrets when AI agents process untrusted GitHub content, including issue bodies, pull request descriptions, and comments. "While Claude Code Action supported environment scrubbing for subprocess execution paths such as Bash, the Read tool was not subject to the same sandboxing model," the Windows maker said. "It was eventually authorized to access /proc/self/environ, reading the workflow's ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and potentially other credentials available to the runner." Following responsible disclosure on April 29, 2026, the issue was fixed on May 5 with the release of Claude Code version 2.1.128. The patch strengthens the Read tool by unconditionally rejecting a number of files in /proc/ in order to protect those files from exfiltration. Fake $200K job lureThe Iranian hacking group known as Nimbus Manticore approached an employee via LinkedIn by impersonating a headhunter, luring them with a salary offer of $200,000 per year. Per Nextron Systems, the interaction is said to have redirected the victim to a fake hiring portal branded as Ebix Recruitment that prompted them to enter temporary credentials received from the recruiter to log in to the website. "After authentication, the portal prompted the victim to download a two-factor authentication application for 'additional security,'" the company said. "The advertised 2FA application was delivered as a ZIP archive and contained the malware payload." The attack culminates with the deployment of a custom implant with data exfiltration and remote control capabilities. Backdoor with wiper modulesCybersecurity researchers have flagged a new Golang backdoor called BLUERABBIT that routes C2 through RabbitMQ for tasking, Redis for state management, and MinIO for S3-compatible data exfiltration. "It is a full-spectrum intrusion tool: remote access, system profiling, file encryption with a .candy extension, and two distinct disk-wiping modules capable of rendering systems permanently unrecoverable," Binary Defense said. The backdoor is assessed to be the work of an Iran-nexus threat actor. It was first observed in mid-to-late March 2026, and is likely used for targeting entities in Israel. BLUERABBIT is "related to the same likely Iran-nexus activity cluster that previously leveraged BLUEWIPE and SEWERGOO in June 2025," it added. The throughline is simple: attackers do not always need exploits. They need patience, stolen credentials, trusted tools, and one policy setting nobody has checked since the last reorg. The perimeter is not the real problem anymore. The problem is everything inside it that still trusts by default. Same old lesson: audit what your agents can access, treat every identity in the pipeline as a risk, and check what your browser extensions are sending home. See you Thursday.
thehackernews.comJun 11, 2026extracted
Aruba Hosting e AI integrata: come funziona l’offerta per creare un sito in pochi passaggi
Il focus dell’offerta è SuperSite cioè la piattaforma Aruba Hosting che consente di creare un sito web con il supporto dell’AI. Il sistema permette di sviluppare una vetrina digitale, un blog o un e-commerce attraverso strumenti guidati, senza necessità di competenze tecniche avanzate. L’obiettivo è ridurre tempi e complessità nella creazione di un sito web. Indice degli argomenti L’infrastruttura di IA applicata alla creazione di asset digitali si articola principalmente su due fasce di prodotto: Piattaforme di e-commerce: a partire da 19,90 € + IVA per il primo anno, il servizio estende le funzionalità dell’IA alla catalogazione dei prodotti, ottimizzazione delle schede descrittive e gestione dei flussi transazionali, mantenendo una politica commerciale a zero commissioni sulle vendite effettuate.. Siti Web e Blog con SuperSite Easy e Professional: pricing d’ingresso fissato a 17,90 € + IVA per il primo anno, la soluzione automatizza la generazione di layout, strutture di navigazione e contenuti testuali o visivi partendo da input semantici descrittivi forniti dall’utente. Al contrario, la gamma di Hosting tradizionale: WordPress e WooCommerce da 11,90 € + IVA/anno, o piani Linux/Windows da 9,90 € + IVA/anno e include storicamente la posta elettronica nel canone flat: Caselle incluse: questa tipologia di piani offre di default un pacchetto di 5 o più caselle email personalizzate da 1 GB (o superiori, a seconda della configurazione), complete di filtri antivirus e antispam. Per le realtà aziendali o i professionisti che necessitano immediatamente della posta elettronica senza aver ancora sviluppato l’asset web, Aruba posiziona un servizio entry-level denominato “Dominio con email” a partire da 0,99 € + IVA per il primo anno. Questa opzione consente di bloccare la proprietà del nome a dominio e attivare le caselle professionali, posticipando l’acquisto dello spazio hosting o del site builder AI. Uno degli elementi distintivi di Aruba Hosting riguarda l’infrastruttura proprietaria. I servizi vengono erogati da data center italiani con standard elevati e alimentazione da fonti rinnovabili. Sul fronte cyber, l’azienda integra firewall, protezione anti-DDoS, sistemi IDS e monitoraggio delle vulnerabilità di CMS come WordPress. Sono previsti anche controlli automatici contro malware e supporto specializzato 24 ore su 24. Con oltre 1,4 milioni di siti attivi e 2,7 milioni di domini gestiti, Aruba punta quindi a combinare AI, sicurezza e hosting per rendere più accessibile la creazione di un sito web.
cybersecurity360.itMay 28, 2026extracted
Funnel Builder Flaw Under Active Exploitation Enables WooCommerce Checkout Skimming
A critical security vulnerability impacting the Funnel Builder plugin for WordPress has come under active exploitation in the wild to inject malicious JavaScript code into WooCommerce checkout pages with the goal of stealing payment data. Details of the activity were published by Sansec this week. The vulnerability currently does not have an official CVE identifier. It affects all versions of the plugin before 3.15.0.3. It's used in more than 40,000 WooCommerce stores. The flaw lets unauthenticated attackers inject arbitrary JavaScript into every checkout page on the store, the Dutch e-commerce security company said. FunnelKit, which maintains Funnel Builder, has released a patch for the vulnerability in version 3.15.0.3. "Attackers are planting fake Google Tag Manager scripts into the plugin's 'External Scripts' setting," it noted. "The injected code looks like ordinary analytics next to the store's real tags, but loads a payment skimmer that steals credit card numbers, CVVs, and billing addresses from checkout." Per Sansec, Funnel Builder includes a publicly exposed checkout endpoint that allows an incoming request to choose the type of internal method to run. However, older versions were designed such that they never checked the caller's permissions or limited which methods are allowed to be invoked. A bad actor could exploit this loophole by issuing an unauthenticated request that can reach an unspecified internal method that writes attacker-controlled data directly into the plugin's global settings. The added code snippet is then injected into every Funnel Builder checkout page. As a result, an attacker could plant a malicious tag that's triggered on every checkout transaction in a susceptible WordPress site. In at least one case, Sansec said it observed a payload masquerading as a Google Tag Manager (GTM) loader to launch JavaScript hosted on a remote domain. It subsequently opens a WebSocket connection to the attacker's command-and-control (C2) server ("wss://protect-wss[.]com/ws") to retrieve a skimmer that's tailored to the victim's storefront. The end goal of the attack is to siphon credit card numbers, CVVs, billing addresses, and other personal information that could be entered by site visitors at checkout. Site owners are advised to update the Funnel Builder plugin to the latest version and review Settings > Checkout > External Scripts for anything that's unfamiliar and remove it. "Dressing skimmers up as Google Analytics or Tag Manager code is a recurring Magecart pattern , since reviewers tend to skim straight past anything that looks like a familiar tracking tag," Sansec said. The disclosure comes weeks after Sucuri detailed a campaign in which Joomla websites are being backdoored with heavily obfuscated PHP code to contact attacker-controlled C2 servers, receive and process instructions sent by the operators, and serve spammy content to visitors and search engines without the site owner's knowledge. The ultimate aim is to leverage the sites' reputation for injecting spam. "The script acts as a remote loader," security researcher Puja Srivastava said . "It contacts an external server, sends information about the infected website, and waits for instructions. The response from the remote server determines what content the infected site should serve." "This approach allows attackers to change the behavior of the compromised website at any time without modifying the local files again. The attacker can inject spam product links, redirect visitors, or display malicious pages dynamically." Update In a statement shared with The Hacker News, FunnelKit said it patched and released a fix for the vulnerability within 36 hours of the first report, adding it worked with the official WordPress.org plugin team to auto-update existing installations to the latest version without requiring any action from the merchants. Out of an abundance of caution, the company said the fix has also been backported to all earlier versions and known attacker domains have been blocked at the DNS level to neutralize the attack vector. "The vulnerability has been patched and the active exploitation path has been closed," FunnelKit said in a statement. "Stores running version 3.15.0.3 or later, including those automatically updated through WordPress.org, are no longer vulnerable to this issue and are not exposed to the previously reported attack." "The overall impact appears to have been limited. During the nine days following disclosure, our monitoring covered a sample of more than 1,300 sites. Of those, only three showed signs of compromise before our mitigations took effect. We believe this limited impact was due to the speed of the patch release, the automatic update rollout coordinated through WordPress.org, and the domain-blocking measures that disrupted the attack infrastructure." (The story was updated after publication on May 31, 2026, to include a response from FunnelKit and reflect the fact that the vulnerability is no longer actively exploited.)
thehackernews.comMay 16, 2026extracted
Funnel Builder WordPress plugin bug exploited to steal credit cards
A critical vulnerability in the Funnel Builder plugin for WordPress is being actively exploited to inject malicious JavaScript snippets into WooCommerce checkout pages. The flaw has not received an official identifier and can be leveraged without authentication. It affects all versions of the plugin before 3.15.0.3. Funnel Builder is a WordPress plugin for WooCommerce Checkout developed by FunnelKit, primarily used to customize checkout pages, with features like one-click upsells, landing pages, and to optimize conversion rates. Based on statistics from WordPress.org, the Funnel Builder plugin is active on more than 40,000 websites. E-commerce security company Sansec detected the malicious activity and noticed that the payload (analytics-reports[.]com/wss/jquery-lib.js) is disguised as a fake Google Tag Manager/Google Analytics script that opens a WebSocket connection to an external location (wss://protect-wss[.]com/ws). An attacker can exploit it to modify the plugin’s global settings via an unprotected, publicly exposed checkout endpoint. This allows them to inject arbitrary JavaScript into the plugin’s “External Scripts” setting, causing malicious code to execute on every checkout page. According to Sansec, the attacker-controlled server delivers a customized payment card skimmer that steals the following information: Credit card numbers CVVs Billing addresses Other customer information Payment card skimmers enable threat actors to make fraudulent online purchases, while stolen records often end up sold individually or in bulk on dark web portals known as carding markets. FunnelKit addressed the vulnerability in version 3.15.0.3 of Funnel Builder, released yesterday. A security advisory from the vendor, seen by Sansec, confirms the malicious activity, saying “we identified an issue that allowed bad actors to inject scripts.” The vendor recommends that website owners and administrators prioritize updating to the latest version from the WordPress dashboard and also review Settings > Checkout > External Scripts for potential rogue scripts the attacker may have added. Overall prevention scores can hide what happens after initial access. Once attackers are using valid credentials, prevention drops sharply. The Blue Report 2026 measures defenses technique by technique across 338 million simulations run in customer production environments. Get the report
bleepingcomputer.comMay 15, 2026extracted
Avada Builder WordPress plugin flaws allow site credential theft
Two vulnerabilities in the Avada Builder plugin for WordPress, with an estimated one million active installations, allow hackers to read arbitrary files and extract sensitive information from the database. One of the flaws is tracked as CVE-2026-4782 and can be exploited in all versions of the plugin through 3.15.2 by an authenticated users with at least subscriber-level access to read the contents of any file on the server. The other security issue received the identifier CVE-2026-4798 and is an SQL injection that can be leveraged without authentication. However, exploitation is possible only if the WooCommerce e-commerce plugin for WordPress has been enabled and then deactivated. Avada Builder is a drag-and-drop webpage builder plugin for the Avada WordPress theme that lets you create and customize website layouts, content sections, and design elements without writing code. The two issues were discovered by security researcher Rafie Muhammad, who reported them through the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program and received $3,386 and $1,067, respectively, for the findings. Wordfence explains that the arbitrary file read is possible via the plugin’s shortcode-rendering functionality and the custom_svg parameter. The issue is that the plugin does not properly validate file types or sources, allowing access to sensitive files such as wp-config.php, which typically contains database credentials and cryptographic keys. Access to wp-config.php can lead to the compromise of an administrator account and full site takeover. Although the flaw received a medium-severity rating because it requires subscriber-level access, the requirement does not represent a barrier, as many WordPress sites offer user registration. The time-based blind SQL injection flaw tracked as CVE-2026-4798 affects Avada Builder versions through 3.15.1. The issue exists because user-controlled input from the product_order parameter was inserted into an SQL ORDER BY clause without proper query preparation. The flaw can be exploited by unauthenticated attackers to extract sensitive information from the site database, including password hashes. The prerequisite for exploiting it is to have used WooCommerce and then deactivated it, and its database tables must be intact. The two flaws were submitted to Wordfence on March 21 and reported to the Avada Builder publisher on March 24. A partial fix, version 3.15.2, was released on April 13, while the fully patched version 3.15.3 was released on May 12. Impacted website owners/admins are advised to update to Avada Builder version 3.15.3 as soon as possible. Overall prevention scores can hide what happens after initial access. Once attackers are using valid credentials, prevention drops sharply. The Blue Report 2026 measures defenses technique by technique across 338 million simulations run in customer production environments. Get the report
bleepingcomputer.comMay 15, 2026extracted
Avada Builder Flaws Expose One Million WordPress Sites
Two newly disclosed vulnerabilities in the Avada Builder WordPress plugin have placed around one million sites at risk of arbitrary file read and SQL injection attacks. According to analysis from Wordfence published on May 12, the flaws were reported by independent researcher Rafie Muhammad through the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program on March 21. SVG Shortcode and Post Cards Flaws The first issue, tracked as CVE-2026-4782, is an arbitrary file read flaw rated 6.5 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). It sits in the plugin's fusion_get_svg_from_file function, which is invoked through the fusion_section_separator shortcode when a custom_svg parameter is supplied. Because the function performs no file type or source validation, authenticated users with subscriber-level access can use it to read sensitive files on the server. These include wp-config.php, which holds WordPress's database credentials, cryptographic keys and salts. The second flaw, CVE-2026-4798, is a more severe unauthenticated time-based SQL injection in the product_order parameter, rated 7.5 (High). Although the plugin calls sanitize_text_field() on the input, that function does not defend against SQL injection. The surrounding ORDER BY clause is concatenated into the query without using WordPress's prepare() escaping. The flaw is only exploitable on sites where WooCommerce was previously installed and then deactivated. Disclosure and Patch Timeline Wordfence shared full disclosure with the Avada team on March 24 and 25, and the vendor began work on a fix the same day. The developer then shipped an initial patch in version 3.15.2 on April 13, followed by the complete fix in 3.15.3 on May 12. Wordfence urged site owners to apply the update without delay. Defensive measures site administrators may also want to consider given the nature of the flaws include: Auditing subscriber accounts created around the disclosure window Rotating credentials stored in wp-config.php if compromise is suspected Checking for unusual admin-ajax.php traffic referencing the affected shortcode The disclosure marks the latest entry in Wordfence's running record of Avada Builder vulnerabilities.
infosecurity-magazine.comMay 13, 2026extracted
WordPress plugin suite hacked to push malware to thousands of sites
More than 30 WordPress plugins in the EssentialPlugin package have been compromised with malicious code that allows unauthorized access to websites running them. A malicious actor planted the backdoor code last year but only recently started pushing it to users via updates, generating spam pages and causing redirects, as per the instructions received from the command-and-control (C2) server. The compromise affects plugins with hundreds of thousands of active installations and was spotted by Austin Ginder, the founder of managed WordPress hosting provider Anchor Hosting, after receiving a tip about one add-on containing code that allowed third-party access. Further investigation by Ginder revealed that a backdoor had been present in all plugins within the EssentialPlugin package since August 2025, after the project was acquired in a six-figure deal by a new owner. EssentialPlugin, established in 2015 as WP Online Support and rebranded in 2021, is a WordPress development firm offering sliders, galleries, marketing tools, WooCommerce extensions, SEO/analytics utilities, and themes. According to Ginder, the backdoor sat inactive until it was recently activated and silently contacted external infrastructure to fetch a file (‘wp-comments-posts.php’) that injects malware into ‘wp-config.php.’ The downloaded malware is invisible to site owners and uses Ethereum-based C2 address resolution for evasion. Depending on the received instructions, the malware can retrieve "spam links, redirects, and fake pages". “The injected code was sophisticated. It fetched spam links, redirects, and fake pages from a command-and-control server. It only showed the spam to Googlebot, making it invisible to site owners,” explained Ginder. Analysis from WordPress security platform PatchStack shows that the backdoor worked only if the 'analytics.essentialplugin.com' endpoint returned with a malicious serialized content. WordPress action and infection status WordPress.org responded quickly to the reports of the malicious activity by closing the plugins and pushing a forced update to websites to neutralize the backdoor’s communication and disable its execution path. However, the developers warned that the action did not clean the wp-config core configuration file, which connects websites to their databases and includes important settings. The WordPress.org Plugins Team also cautioned administrators with websites running an EssentialPlugin product that while one known location for the backdoor is a file named wp-comments-posts.php, which resembles the legitimate wp-comments-post.php, the malware may also hide in other files. BleepingComputer has contacted EssentialPlugins for a comment on the reported malicious commit that occurred after the acquisition, but we have not received a response by publishing time. Overall prevention scores can hide what happens after initial access. Once attackers are using valid credentials, prevention drops sharply. The Blue Report 2026 measures defenses technique by technique across 338 million simulations run in customer production environments. Get the report
bleepingcomputer.comApr 15, 2026extracted
⚡ Weekly Recap: Fortinet Exploits, RedLine Clipjack, NTLM Crack, Copilot Attack & More
In cybersecurity, the line between a normal update and a serious incident keeps getting thinner. Systems that once felt reliable are now under pressure from constant change. New AI tools, connected devices, and automated systems quietly create more ways in, often faster than security teams can react. This week’s stories show how easily a small mistake or hidden service can turn into a real break-in. Behind the headlines, the pattern is clear. Automation is being used against the people who built it. Attackers reuse existing systems instead of building new ones. They move faster than most organizations can patch or respond. From quiet code flaws to malware that changes while it runs, attacks are focusing less on speed and more on staying hidden and in control. If you’re protecting anything connected—developer tools, cloud systems, or internal networks—this edition shows where attacks are going next, not where they used to be. ⚡ Threat of the Week Critical Fortinet Flaw Comes Under Attack — A critical security flaw in Fortinet FortiSIEM has come under active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-64155 (CVSS score: 9.4), allows an unauthenticated attacker to execute unauthorized code or commands via crafted TCP requests. In a technical analysis, Horizon3.ai described the issue as comprising two issues: an unauthenticated argument injection vulnerability that leads to arbitrary file write, allowing for remote code execution as the admin user, and a file overwrite privilege escalation vulnerability that leads to root access and complete compromise of the appliance. The vulnerability affects the phMonitor service, an internal FortiSIEM component that runs with elevated privileges and plays an integral role in system health and monitoring. Because the service is deeply embedded in FortiSIEM's operational workflow, successful exploitation grants attackers full control of the appliance. When Your CEO Calls, Will You Know It's Real? Today's phishing attacks involve AI voices, videos, and exec deepfakes. Adaptive Security is the first security awareness platform built to stop AI-powered social engineering. Adaptive protects your team with custom training and deepfake simulations featuring your own executives. Book a Demo ➝ 🔔 Top News VoidLink Linux Malware Enables Long-Term Access — A new cloud-native Linux malware framework named VoidLink focuses on cloud environments, providing attackers with a wide assortment of custom loaders, implants, rootkits, and plugins that are designed for additional stealth and for reconnaissance, privilege escalation, and lateral movement inside a compromised network. The feature-rich framework is engineered for long-term access, surveillance, and data collection rather than short-term disruption, allowing an operator to control agents, implants, and plugins via a web-based dashboard localized for Chinese users. Key to the malware's architecture is to "automate evasion as much as possible" by profiling a Linux environment and intelligently choosing the best strategy for operating without detection. Indeed, when signs of tampering or malware analysis are detected on an infected machine, it can delete itself and invoke anti-forensics modules designed to remove traces of its activity. It's fitted with an "unusually broad" feature set, including rootkit-style capabilities, an in-memory plug-in system for extending functionality, and the ability to adjust runtime evasion based on the security products it detects. VoidLink draws inspiration from Cobalt Strike, an adversary simulation framework that has been widely adopted and misused by attackers over the years. It's believed to be the work of Chinese developers. "Together, these plugins sit atop an already sophisticated core implementation, enriching VoidLink's capabilities beyond cloud environments to developer and administrator workstations that interface directly with those cloud environments, turning any compromised machine into a flexible launchpad for deeper access or supply-chain compromise," Check Point said. "Its design reflects a level of planning and investment typically associated with professional threat actors rather than opportunistic attackers." However, its intended use remains unclear, and no evidence of real-world infections has been observed, which supports the assumption that the modular malware was created "either as a product offering or as a framework developed for a customer." Microsoft Disrupts RedVDS Criminal Service — A cybercriminal subscription service responsible for fraud campaigns causing millions of dollars in losses has been disrupted in a coordinated action by Microsoft alongside legal partners in the U.S. and, for the first time, the U.K. The Windows makers said it seized the website and infrastructure of RedVDS, a platform that hosted cybercrime-as-a-service tools for phishing and fraud campaigns, which cost users as little as $24 a month. The subscription service is known to have cost victims in the U.S. alone over $40 million since March 2025. In total, Microsoft has identified nearly 190,000 organizations worldwide that fell victim to RedVDS-supported campaigns. In one month, the company noted approximately 2,600 RedVDS virtual machines sent an average of 1 million phishing messages to Microsoft customers daily. RedVDS provided cybercriminals with access to cheap, effective, and disposable virtual computers running unlicensed software, including Windows, allowing criminals to conduct phishing attacks and business email compromise (BEC) schemes. The service is also said to have been a player in the spread of real estate payment diversion scams, affecting more than 9,000 customers primarily in Canada and Australia. RedVDS did not own physical data centers and instead rented servers from third-party hosting providers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, and the Netherlands. "Once provisioned, these cloned Windows hosts gave actors a ready‑made platform to research targets, stage phishing infrastructure, steal credentials, hijack mailboxes, and execute impersonation‑based financial fraud with minimal friction," Microsoft said. "Threat actors benefited from RedVDS’s unrestricted administrative access and negligible logging, allowing them to operate without meaningful oversight. The uniform, disposable nature of RedVDS servers allowed cybercriminals to rapidly iterate campaigns, automate delivery at scale, and move quickly from initial targeting to financial theft." Over 550 Kimwolf Botnet C2 Nodes Null-Routed — Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs has blocked more than 550 command-and-control (C2) nodes linked to Aisuru and Kimwolf's servers since October 2025, as the botnets gained attention for their role in orchestrating hypervolumetric distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Kimwolf, which is said to mainly target unsanctioned Android TV boxes, has caught on like wildfire, corralling over 2 million devices into its botnet. The disruption of RapperBot and the arrest of its alleged leader in August 2025 played a key factor in the rise of Aisuru and Kimwolf. Recent research by QiAnXin XLab and Synthient revealed how the botnet's operators have leveraged proxy services to expand its reach. In a separate report, Infoblox said nearly 25% of its cloud customers made a query to a Kimwolf domain since October 1, 2025. "The main takeaway is these residential proxies are literally everywhere," Chris Formosa, senior lead information security engineer at Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs, told The Hacker News. "Like everywhere and in most organizations you can think of. Given we know the actors were exploiting it, the story is mainly a story of a lot of networks you may think are secured, but have devices running residential proxies which can provide attackers with an opportunity to get an initial foothold, bypassing a large majority of your devices you likely have in place." Reprompt Attack Targets Microsoft Copilot — Security researchers discovered a new attack named Reprompt that allowed them to exfiltrate user data from Microsoft Copilot once a victim clicks on a specifically crafted link pointing to the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. The attack bypasses data leak protections and allows for persistent session exfiltration even after the Copilot session was closed. The attack leverages a combination of Parameter 2 Prompt (P2P) injection (i.e., the exploitation of the "q" parameter), a double-request technique, and a chain-request technique to obtain a data exfiltration primitive. "Client-side monitoring tools won't catch these malicious prompts, because the real data leaks happen dynamically during back-and-forth communication — not from anything obvious in the prompt the user submits," Varonis said. The attack does not affect enterprise customers using Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft has since addressed the issue. AWS CodeBuild Misconfiguration Creates Supply Chain Risks — A critical misconfiguration in Amazon Web Services (AWS) CodeBuild could have allowed complete takeover of the cloud service provider's own GitHub repositories, including its AWS JavaScript SDK, putting every AWS environment at risk. The vulnerability, codenamed CodeBreach, was fixed by AWS in September 2025. "By exploiting CodeBreach, attackers could have injected malicious code to launch a platform-wide compromise, potentially affecting not just the countless applications depending on the SDK, but the Console itself, threatening every AWS account," Wiz said. ️🔥 Trending CVEs Hackers act fast. They can use new bugs within hours. One missed update can cause a big breach. Here are this week’s most serious security flaws. Check them, fix what matters first, and stay protected. This week’s list includes — CVE-2025-20393 (Cisco AsyncOS Software), CVE-2026-23550 (Modular DS plugin), CVE-2026-0227 (Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS), CVE-2025-64155 (Fortinet FortiSIEM), CVE-2026-20805 (Microsoft Windows Desktop Window Manager), CVE-2025-12420 (ServiceNow), CVE-2025-55131, CVE-2025-55131, CVE-2025-59466, CVE-2025-59465 (Node.js), CVE-2025-68493 (Apache Struts 2), CVE-2026-22610 (Angular Template Compiler), CVE-2025-66176, CVE-2025-66177 (Hikvision), CVE-2026-0501, CVE-2026-0500, CVE-2026-0498, CVE-2026-0491 (SAP), CVE-2026-21859, CVE-2026-22689 (Mailpit), CVE-2026-22601, CVE-2026-22602, CVE-2026-22603, CVE-2026-22604 (OpenProject), CVE-2026-23478 (Cal.com), CVE-2025-14364 (Demo Importer Plus plugin), CVE-2025-14502 (News and Blog Designer Bundle), CVE-2025-14301 (Integration Opvius AI for WooCommerce plugin), CVE-2025-52493 (PagerDuty Runbook), CVE-2025-55315 (ASP.NET Core Kestrel server), CVE-2026-20965 (Microsoft Windows Admin Center), and CVE-2025-14894 (Livewire Filemanager). 📰 Around the Cyber World Unpatched Flaw in Livewire Filemanager — An unpatched security flaw was disclosed in Livewire Filemanager, a file manager component for Laravel-based websites that allows file uploads. The vulnerability (CVE-2025-14894, CVSS score: 7.5) can permit threat actors to upload malicious PHP files to a remote server and trigger its execution. "When a user uploads a PHP file to the application, it can be accessed and executed by visiting the web-accessible file hosting directory," the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said. "This enables an attacker to create a malicious PHP file, upload it to the application, then force the application to execute it, enabling unauthenticated arbitrary code execution on the host device." More GhostPoster Extensions Spotted — LayerX said it found a new cluster of 17 extensions related to GhostPoster impacting Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. The new extensions, which are designed to hijack affiliate links, inject tracking code, and commit click and ad fraud, have a collective install base of over 840,000 users, and some of them date back to 2020. GhostPoster, first disclosed last month, is part of a broader campaign undertaken by a Chinese threat actor dubbed DarkSpectre. The new findings show that GhostPoster first originated on Microsoft Edge in February 2020 and then expanded to Firefox and Chrome. RedLineCyber Distributes Clipboard Hijacking Malware — A threat actor named RedLineCyber has been observed leveraging the notoriety of the well-known RedLine information stealer to distribute an executable called "Pro.exe" (or "peeek.exe"). It's a Python-based clipboard hijacking trojan that is designed for cryptocurrency theft by continuously monitoring the Windows clipboard for cryptocurrency wallet addresses and substituting them with a wallet address under their control to facilitate cryptocurrency theft. "The threat actor exploits trust relationships within Discord communities focused on gaming, gambling, and cryptocurrency streaming," CloudSEK said. "Distribution occurs through direct social engineering, where the actor cultivates relationships with potential victims, particularly cryptocurrency streamers and influencers, over extended periods before introducing the malicious payload as a 'security tool' or 'streaming utility.'" Fake Shipping Documents Deliver Remcos RAT — A new phishing campaign is using shipping-themed lures to trick recipients into opening a malicious Microsoft Word document that, in turn, triggers an exploit for a years-old security flaw in Microsoft Office (CVE-2017-11882) to distribute a new variant of Remcos RAT that's executed directly in memory, Fortinet said. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability triggers the download of a Visual Basic Script, which executes Base64-code PowerShell code to download and launch a .NET DLL loader module responsible for launching the RAT in addition to setting up persistence using scheduled tasks. An off-the-shelf malware, Remcos RAT (version 7.0.4 Pro) enables comprehensive data gathering capabilities, including system management, surveillance, networking, communication, and agent control. In another campaign detected by AhnLab, users in South Korea have been targeted by Remcos RAT malware masquerading as VeraCrypt installers or software associated with illegal gambling websites. Google Releases Rainbow Tables to Speed Up Demise of Net-NTLMv1 — Google's Mandiant threat intelligence division released a comprehensive dataset of Net-NTLMv1 rainbow tables to emphasize the need for urgently moving away from the outdated protocol. While Microsoft previously announced its plans to deprecate NTLM in favor of Kerberos, Google said it continues to identify the use of Net-NTLMv1 in active environments, leaving organizations vulnerable to trivial credential theft. "While tools to exploit this protocol have existed for years, they often required uploading sensitive data to third-party services or expensive hardware to brute-force keys," Google said. "The release of this dataset allows defenders and researchers to recover keys in under 12 hours using consumer hardware costing less than $600 USD." Former U.S. Navy Sailor Sentenced to 200 Months for Spying for China — Jinchao Wei (aka Patrick Wei), 25, a former U.S. Navy sailor, was sentenced in the U.S. to 200 months in prison for selling secrets to China by abusing his security clearance and access to sensitive national defense information about the amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Essex. Wei was convicted of espionage charges in August 2025 following his arrest in August 2023. "By sharing thousands of documents, operating manuals, and export-controlled and sensitive information with a Chinese intelligence officer, Petty Officer Wei knowingly betrayed his fellow service members and the American people," said NCIS Director Omar Lopez. Wei was recruited by a Chinese intelligence officer in February 2022 and sent photographs and videos of the Essex via an encrypted messaging application, and advised the officer of the location of various Navy ships. He also described the defensive weapons of the Essex, sent thousands of pages of technical and operational information about U.S. Navy surface warfare ships, and sold approximately 60 technical and operational manuals about U.S. Navy ships. In exchange, Wei received more than $12,000 over 18 months. Post his arrest, Wei admitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that what he did amounted to espionage and that "I'm screwed." Australia Warns Domestic Firms About AI Security Risks — The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) has warned local businesses against uploading customer data and files to AI chatbots or genAI platforms without proper anonymization. "Some artificial intelligence providers may use customer‑submitted data to train or refine their models. This can depend on the configuration settings or the type of subscription," ASD said. "As a result, information entered into these platforms could potentially be reused or disclosed in unexpected contexts later." It also warned that AI systems are susceptible to hallucinations and can be tricked by malicious cyber actors through prompt injections, which refer to malicious inputs disguised as legitimate requests designed to confuse or mislead the AI into giving sensitive, wrong, or unsafe answers. Furthermore, ASD warned of potential supply chain risks resulting from AI integration, emphasizing the need for secure deployment of AI chatbots. Jordan National Pleads Guilty to Selling Access — A Jordanian national pleaded guilty in the U.S. to charges of selling access to the networks of at least 50 companies through a cybercriminal forum. Feras Khalil Ahmad Albashiti (aka r1z, Feras Bashiti, and Firas Bashiti), 40, is facing a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison after being charged with fraud and related activity in connection with access credentials. Albashiti was arrested in July 2024. His sentencing will take place in May 2026. The FBI, which contacted the defendant in September 2026 under cover, said it was able to trace the "r1z” cybercrime forum account to Albashiti because it was registered in 2018 with the same Gmail address that was used to apply for a U.S. visa in October 2016. According to a report from SentinelOne, the "r1z" account marketed a malware dropper and bypass service called EDR Killer on underground forums. The account was previously identified as advertising access to 50 vulnerable Confluence servers acquired by exploiting the critical Confluence unauthenticated RCE vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-26134, and claimed to be in possession of a list of over 10,000 vulnerable Confluence servers. Other tools included illicit versions of Cobalt Strike, private exploits for local privilege escalation (LPE) vulnerabilities in different services, access to 30 SonicWall VPN and 50 Microsoft Exchange servers with a working exploit, as well as a service that acquired compromised VPN and RDP login credentials from other criminals on the XSS forum. R1z is said to have been active on XSS since 2019. Google Agrees to Pay $8.25M to Settle Children Privacy Violations — Google has agreed to pay $8.25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that claimed the company illegally collected data from devices belonging to children under age 13, The Record reported. The case was brought more than two years ago by the parents of six minors who allegedly downloaded apps and games from the Play Store that were targeted at children, such as Fun Kid Racing, GummyBear, and Friends Speed Racing. The apps, according to the lawsuit, came with Google's AdMob software development kit that collected data from children at scale, violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). U.S. Bank Targeted by Keylogger — Sansec identified a keylogger on the employee merchandise store of a major U.S. bank. The store is used by the bank's 200,000 employees to order company-branded items. "The malware intercepts everything typed into the site's forms: login credentials, payment card numbers, personal information," the Dutch company said. "The stolen data is exfiltrated via image beacon, a common technique that bypasses many security controls." The malware has since been removed from the site. The activity is assessed to share overlaps with an October 2024 breach of the Green Bay Packers Pro Shop, citing infrastructure pattern similarities. Payroll Pirates Redirect Paychecks to Accounts Under Their Control — In a new social engineering attack targeting an unnamed organization, the threat actors behind Payroll Pirates reached out via a phone call, impersonating employees to manipulate multiple help desks and successfully perform password resets and re-enroll multi-factor authentication (MFA) devices. The threat actor has also been observed attempting to establish persistence by registering an external email address as an authentication method for a service account within the client's Azure AD environment. "Once authenticated into the payroll system, the attacker moved quickly," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said. "In total, they compromised multiple employee accounts, each one granting access to sensitive payroll information. The attacker then proceeded to modify direct-deposit details for multiple individuals, redirecting their paychecks into bank accounts under the attacker’s control. Because the credentials were valid and MFA appeared legitimate, the activity blended in with normal operations. The incident was discovered only when employees reported missing paychecks." New Attack Uses DLL Side-Loading to Distribute PDFSIDER Malware — An unknown threat actor is leveraging DLL side-loading to deploy PDFSIDER, a backdoor with encrypted C2 capabilities, using a legitimate executable associated with PDF24 Creator ("pdf24.exe"). The malware operates primarily in memory, minimizing disk artifacts. "PDFSIDER blends traditional cyber-espionage behaviors with modern remote-command functionality, enabling operators to gather system intelligence and remotely execute shell commands covertly," Resecurity said. "The malware uses a fake cryptbase.dll to bypass endpoint detection mechanisms. Once loaded, the malware provides attackers with an interactive, hidden command shell and can exfiltrate command output through its encrypted channel." The malware is delivered via spear-phishing emails that guide victims to a ZIP archive attached to the message. Resecurity told The Hacker News that PDFSIDER has been used in targeted attacks either via spear-phishing or a social engineering attack in which the threat actors impersonate tech support personnel to contact employees in large enterprises and government agencies and deliver the package over Microsoft Teams or Quick Assist. The cybersecurity company also said it observed an affiliate of Qilin ransomware using the malware, although it expects more groups to join the bandwagon. There is no evidence it's being advertised under a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model. 🎥 Cybersecurity Webinars How Top MSSPs Are Using AI to Grow in 2026: Learn Their Formula — By 2026, MSSPs are under pressure to do more with less, and AI is becoming the edge that separates those who scale from those who stall. This session explores how automation reduces manual work, improves margins, and enables growth without adding headcount, with real-world insights from Cynomi founder David Primor and Secure Cyber Defense CISO Chad Robinson on turning expertise into repeatable, high-value services. Stop Guessing Your SOC Strategy: Learn What to Build, Buy, or Automate — Modern SOC teams are overloaded with tools, noise, and promises that don’t translate into results, making it hard to know what to build, buy, or automate. In this session, AirMDR CEO Kumar Saurabh and SACR CEO Francis Odum cut through the clutter with a practical, vendor-neutral look at SOC operating models, maturity, and real-world decision frameworks—leaving teams with a clear, actionable path to simplify their stack and make their SOC work more effectively. 🔧 Cybersecurity Tools AuraInspector — It is an open-source tool for auditing Salesforce Experience Cloud security. It helps find misconfigurations that could expose data or admin functions by checking accessible records, self-registration options, and hidden “home URLs.” The tool automates much of the testing, including object discovery through GraphQL methods, and works in both guest and authenticated contexts. It’s a research utility, not an official Google product, designed to make Salesforce Aura security testing faster and more reliable. Maltrail — It is an open-source tool for detecting malicious network traffic. It compares network activity against known blacklists of suspicious domains, IPs, URLs, and user agents linked to malware or attacks, and can also flag new threats using heuristics. The system uses sensors to monitor traffic and a central server to log and display events through a web interface, helping identify infected hosts or abnormal activity in real time. Disclaimer: These tools are for learning and research only. They haven’t been fully tested for security. If used the wrong way, they could cause harm. Check the code first, test only in safe places, and follow all rules and laws. Conclusion The message is clear. Today’s threats aren’t just single break-ins. They come from connected weak spots, where one exposed service or misused tool can affect an entire system. Attackers don’t see cloud platforms, AI tools, and enterprise software as separate. They see one shared space. Defenders need to think the same way, treating every part of their environment as connected and worth watching all the time, not just after something goes wrong. What happened this week isn’t unusual. It’s a warning. Every update, setting, and access rule matters, because the next attack will likely begin from something already inside. This recap shows how small gaps turned into big openings—and what’s being done to close them before the next round begins.
thehackernews.comJan 19, 2026extracted
FBI Reports $262M in ATO Fraud as Researchers Cite Growing AI Phishing and Holiday Scams
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned that cybercriminals are impersonating financial institutions with an aim to steal money or sensitive information to facilitate account takeover (ATO) fraud schemes. The activity targets individuals, businesses, and organizations of varied sizes and across sectors, the agency said, adding the fraudulent schemes have led to more than $262 million in losses since the start of the year. The FBI said it has received over 5,100 complaints. ATO fraud typically refers to attacks that enable threat actors to obtain unauthorized access to an online financial institution, payroll system, or health savings account to siphon data and funds for personal gain. The access is often obtained by approaching targets through social engineering techniques, such as texts, calls, and emails that prey on users' fears, or via bogus websites. These methods make it possible for attackers to deceive users into providing their login credentials on a phishing site, in some instances, urging them to click on a link to report purported fraudulent transactions recorded against their accounts. "A cybercriminal manipulates the account owner into giving away their login credentials, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) code or One-Time Passcode (OTP), by impersonating a financial institution employee, customer support, or technical support personnel," the FBI said. "The cybercriminal then uses login credentials to log into the legitimate financial institution website and initiate a password reset, ultimately gaining full control of the accounts." Other cases involve threat actors masquerading as financial institutions contacting account owners, claiming their information was used to make fraudulent purchases, including firearms, and then convincing them to provide their account information to a second cybercriminal impersonating law enforcement. The FBI said ATO fraud can also involve the use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) poisoning to trick users looking for businesses on search engines into clicking on phony links that redirect to a lookalike site by means of malicious search engine ads. Regardless of the method used, the attacks have one aim: to seize control of the accounts and swiftly wire funds to other accounts under their control, and change the passwords, effectively locking out the account owner. The accounts to which the money is transferred are further linked to cryptocurrency wallets to convert them into digital assets and obscure the money trail. To stay protected against the threat, users are advised to be careful when sharing about themselves online or on social media, regularly monitor accounts for any financial irregularities, use unique, complex passwords, ensure the URL of the banking websites before signing in, and stay vigilant against phishing attacks or suspicious callers. "By openly sharing information like a pet's name, schools you have attended, your date of birth, or information about your family members, you may give scammers the information they need to guess your password or answer your security questions," the FBI said. "The large majority of ATO accounts referenced in the FBI announcement occur through compromised credentials used by threat actors intimately familiar with the internal processes and workflows for money movement within financial institutions," Jim Routh, chief trust officer at Saviynt, said in a statement. "The most effective controls to prevent these attacks are manual (phone calls for verification) and SMS messages for approval. The root cause continues to be the accepted use of credentials for cloud accounts despite having passwordless options available." The development comes as Darktrace, Flashpoint, Forcepoint, Fortinet, and Zimperium have highlighted the major cybersecurity threats ahead of the holiday season, including Black Friday scams, QR code fraud, gift card draining, and high-volume phishing campaigns that mimic popular brands like Amazon and Temu. Many of these activities leverage artificial intelligence (AI) tools to produce highly persuasive phishing emails, fake websites, and social media ads, allowing even low-skill attackers to pull off attacks that appear trustworthy and increase the success rate of their campaigns. Fortinet FortiGuard Labs said it detected at least 750 malicious, holiday-themed domains registered over the last three months, with many using key terms like "Christmas," "Black Friday," and "Flash Sale." "Over the last three months, more than 1.57 million login accounts tied to major e-commerce sites, available through stealer logs, were collected across underground markets," the company said. Attackers have also been found actively exploiting security vulnerabilities across Adobe/Magento, Oracle E-Business Suite, WooCommerce, Bagisto, and other common e-commerce platforms. Some of the exploited vulnerabilities include CVE-2025-54236, CVE-2025-61882, and CVE-2025-47569. According to Zimperium zLabs, there has been a 4x increase in mobile phishing (aka mishing) sites, with attackers leveraging trusted brand names to create urgency and deceive users into clicking, logging in, or downloading malicious updates." What's more, Recorded Future has called attention to purchase scams where threat actors use fake e-commerce stores to steal victim data and authorize fraudulent payments for non-existent goods and services. It described the scams as a "major emerging fraud threat." The scam operations, per the cybersecurity company, work in multi-stage attack funnels targeting specific victims using a traffic distribution system (TDS) to determine if they are deemed appropriate and initiate a redirect chain to lead them to the final stage, where the victim-authorized transaction takes place. The main advantage of this scam is that payments are authorized by the victims themselves, offering operators immediate financial payouts. In contrast, other fraud attack vectors require considerable investment of time and resources to cash out stolen data. Select purchase scams have also been found to use transaction recovery services to attempt two sequential fraudulent transactions, thereby double-monetizing the card information. "A sophisticated dark web ecosystem allows threat actors to quickly establish new purchase scam infrastructure and amplify their impact," the company said. "Promotional activities mirroring traditional marketing – including an offer to sell stolen card data on the dark web carding shop PP24 – are widespread in this underground." "Threat actors fund ad campaigns with stolen payment cards to spread purchase scams, which in turn compromise more payment card data, fueling a continuing cycle of fraud.
thehackernews.comNov 26, 2025extracted