Category: Cyber Security

Ravie LakshmananJan 19, 2026Hardware Security / Vulnerability A team of academics from the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Germany has disclosed the details of a new hardware vulnerability affecting AMD processors. The security flaw, codenamed StackWarp, can allow bad actors with privileged control over a host server to run malicious code within confidential […]

Ravie LakshmananJan 19, 2026Hacking News / Cybersecurity 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 […]

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of an ongoing campaign dubbed KongTuke that used a malicious Google Chrome extension masquerading as an ad blocker to deliberately crash the web browser and trick victims into running arbitrary commands using ClickFix-like lures to deliver a previously undocumented remote access trojan (RAT) dubbed ModeloRAT. This new escalation of ClickFix […]

Ravie LakshmananJan 19, 2026Malware / Threat Intelligence Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the web-based control panel used by operators of the StealC information stealer, allowing them to gather crucial insights on one of the threat actors using the malware in their operations. “By exploiting it, we were able to collect […]

Ravie LakshmananJan 17, 2026Law Enforcement / Cybercrime Ukrainian and German law enforcement authorities have identified two Ukrainians suspected of working for the Russia-linked ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group Black Basta. In addition, the group’s alleged leader, a 35-year-old Russian national named Oleg Evgenievich Nefedov (Нефедов Олег Евгеньевич), has been added to the European Union’s Most Wanted and […]

Jan 17, 2026Ravie LakshmananArtificial Intelligence / Data Privacy OpenAI on Friday said it would start showing ads in ChatGPT to logged-in adult U.S. users in both the free and ChatGPT Go tiers in the coming weeks, as the artificial intelligence (AI) company expanded access to its low-cost subscription globally. “You need to know that your […]

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered five new malicious Google Chrome web browser extensions that masquerade as human resources (HR) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms like Workday, NetSuite, and SuccessFactors to take control of victim accounts. “The extensions work in concert to steal authentication tokens, block incident response capabilities, and enable complete account takeover through session […]

Jan 16, 2026Ravie LakshmananMalvertising / Threat Intelligence The JavaScript (aka JScript) malware loader called GootLoader has been observed using a malformed ZIP archive that’s designed to sidestep detection efforts by concatenating anywhere from 500 to 1,000 archives. “The actor creates a malformed archive as an anti-analysis technique,” Expel security researcher Aaron Walton said in a […]

Jan 16, 2026The Hacker NewsPrivacy / Data Protection You lock your doors at night. You avoid sketchy phone calls. You’re careful about what you post on social media. But what about the information about you that’s already out there—without your permission? Your name. Home address. Phone number. Past jobs. Family members. Old usernames. It’s all […]

Jan 16, 2026Ravie LakshmananMalware / Cyber Espionage Security experts have disclosed details of a new campaign that has targeted U.S. government and policy entities using politically themed lures to deliver a backdoor known as LOTUSLITE. The targeted malware campaign leverages decoys related to the recent geopolitical developments between the U.S. and Venezuela to distribute a […]

Jan 16, 2026Ravie LakshmananZero-Day / Cyber Espionage A threat actor likely aligned with China has been observed targeting critical infrastructure sectors in North America since at least last year. Cisco Talos, which is tracking the activity under the name UAT-8837, assessed it to be a China-nexus advanced persistent threat (APT) actor with medium confidence based […]

Jan 16, 2026Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Web Security Cisco on Thursday released security updates for a maximum-severity security flaw impacting Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email Gateway and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager, nearly a month after the company disclosed that it had been exploited as a zero-day by a China-nexus advanced persistent threat […]

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 has been codenamed CodeBreach by cloud security company Wiz. The issue was fixed by AWS in September 2025 following responsible […]

Jan 15, 2026Ravie LakshmananPrompt Injection / Enterprise Security Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new attack method dubbed Reprompt that could allow bad actors to exfiltrate sensitive data from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like Microsoft Copilot in a single click, while bypassing enterprise security controls entirely. “Only a single click on a legitimate Microsoft […]

Jan 15, 2026Ravie LakshmananWeb Security /Vulnerability A maximum-severity security flaw in a WordPress plugin called Modular DS has come under active exploitation in the wild, according to Patchstack. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-23550 (CVSS score: 10.0), has been described as a case of unauthenticated privilege escalation impacting all versions of the plugin prior to and […]

Jan 15, 2026The Hacker NewsData Security / Artificial Intelligence As AI copilots and assistants become embedded in daily work, security teams are still focused on protecting the models themselves. But recent incidents suggest the bigger risk lies elsewhere: in the workflows that surround those models. Two Chrome extensions posing as AI helpers were recently caught […]

Jan 15, 2026Ravie LakshmananCybersecurity / Hacking News The internet never stays quiet. Every week, new hacks, scams, and security problems show up somewhere. This week’s stories show how fast attackers change their tricks, how small mistakes turn into big risks, and how the same old tools keep finding new ways to break in. Read on […]

Jan 15, 2026Ravie LakshmananNetwork Security / Vulnerability Palo Alto Networks has released security updates for a high-severity security flaw impacting GlobalProtect Gateway and Portal, for which it said there exists a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-0227 (CVSS score: 7.7), has been described as a denial-of-service (DoS) condition impacting GlobalProtect PAN-OS software arising […]

It’s 2026, yet many SOCs are still operating the way they did years ago, using tools and processes designed for a very different threat landscape. Given the growth in volumes and complexity of cyber threats, outdated practices no longer fully support analysts’ needs, staggering investigations and incident response. Below are four limiting habits that may […]

Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it has taken a “coordinated legal action” in the U.S. and the U.K. to disrupt a cybercrime subscription service called RedVDS that has allegedly fueled millions in fraud losses. The effort, per the tech giant, is part of a broader law enforcement effort in collaboration with law enforcement authorities that […]

The Black Lotus Labs team at Lumen Technologies said it null-routed traffic to more than 550 command-and-control (C2) nodes associated with the AISURU/Kimwolf botnet since early October 2025. AISURU and its Android counterpart, Kimwolf, have emerged as some of the biggest botnets in recent times, capable of directing enslaved devices to participate in distributed denial-of-service […]

AI agents have quickly moved from experimental tools to core components of daily workflows across security, engineering, IT, and operations. What began as individual productivity aids, like personal code assistants, chatbots, and copilots, has evolved into shared, organization-wide agents embedded in critical processes. These agents can orchestrate workflows across multiple systems, for example: An HR […]

Security experts have disclosed details of an active malware campaign that’s exploiting a DLL side-loading vulnerability in a legitimate binary associated with the open-source c-ares library to bypass security controls and deliver a wide range of commodity trojans and stealers. “Attackers achieve evasion by pairing a malicious libcares-2.dll with any signed version of the legitimate […]

Jan 14, 2026Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Patch Management Fortinet has released updates to fix a critical security flaw impacting FortiSIEM that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to achieve code execution on susceptible instances. The operating system (OS) injection vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-64155, is rated 9.4 out of 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. “An improper neutralization […]

Research analyzing 4,700 leading websites reveals that 64% of third-party applications now access sensitive data without business justification, up from 51% in 2024. Government sector malicious activity spiked from 2% to 12.9%, while 1 in 7 Education sites show active compromise. Specific offenders: Google Tag Manager (8% of violations), Shopify (5%), Facebook Pixel (4%). Download […]

Microsoft on Tuesday rolled out its first security update for 2026, addressing 114 security flaws, including one vulnerability that it said has been actively exploited in the wild. Of the 114 flaws, eight are rated Critical, and 106 are rated Important in severity. As many as 58 vulnerabilities have been classified as privilege escalation, followed […]

Jan 14, 2026Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / Threat Intelligence The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has disclosed details of new cyber attacks targeting its defense forces with malware known as PLUGGYAPE between October and December 2025. The activity has been attributed with medium confidence to a Russian hacking group tracked as Void Blizzard (aka […]

Jan 14, 2026Ravie LakshmananApplication Security / Vulnerability Node.js has released updates to fix what it described as a critical security issue impacting “virtually every production Node.js app” that, if successfully exploited, could trigger a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. “Node.js/V8 makes a best-effort attempt to recover from stack space exhaustion with a catchable error, which frameworks have […]

Jan 13, 2026Ravie Lakshmanan Web Security / Data Theft Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a major web skimming campaign that has been active since January 2022, targeting several major payment networks like American Express, Diners Club, Discover, JCB Co., Ltd., Mastercard, and UnionPay. “Enterprise organizations that are clients of these payment providers are the most likely […]

Jan 13, 2026Ravie LakshmananWeb Security / Online Fraud Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a malicious Google Chrome extension that’s capable of stealing API keys associated with MEXC, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) available in over 170 countries, while masquerading as a tool to automate trading on the platform. The extension, named MEXC API Automator […]