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86 results for β€œransomware”

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securityweek.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

In Other News: Anthropic Breach Dispute, UEFI Flaw Hits Most Servers, Cloudflare AI Data Leak

SecurityWeek's weekly roundup of 30 October 2026 covers CVE-2026-97631, a 16-year-old buffer overflow in TianoCore EDK II that affects PXE network boot on most servers. It also covers a Cloudflare Workers AI cross-tenant leak caused by an SGLang bug, Anthropic's dispute with Cathedral over a bug bounty intrusion, and fake AI bots probing for secrets. Other items include AI-assisted ransomware (Gold Ogre, Aur0ra), the NIK C2 framework, and North Korean IT worker sanctions.

TianoCore EDK IISGLangCloudflare Workers+3
CVE-2026-97631CathedralCequence+9

Threat Intel, AI Security, Hardware & RFΒ· Published and added 30 Oct 2026

blog.talosintelligence.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

A quiet week in infosec <.<

Cisco Talos Threat Source newsletter for the week of the PHP and Node.js vulnerability news cycle. It summarises NIK C2, a Go-based Windows implant that dumps credentials, streams keystrokes, deploys screen-locking ransomware and uses a victim's hijacked OpenAI API keys to analyse stolen data. It also lists weekly headlines (CISA KEV PHP bugs, Brotli flaw, Gheist GitHub token theft), Talos links and top malware hashes.

GoWindowsOpenAI+3
NIK C2PHP2ShellNode2Shell+7

Threat Intel, AI SecurityΒ· Published and added 29 Oct 2026

blog.talosintelligence.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

IR trends Q3 2026: Actors impersonate IT help desks in vishing attacks as ransomware activity increases

Cisco Talos Incident Response Q3 2026 trends report. Phishing led initial access at 37 percent, with vishing and IT help desk impersonation to get RMM access; public-facing exploitation followed at 33 percent. Ransomware reached 27 percent of engagements (Qilin, Rhysida, Interlock, new VYPR), with EDR killers via BYOVD and WDAC. It also covers Salt Typhoon intrusions using CVE-2023-20198 and BadCandy, attacks on Claude Code credentials, and logging, MFA and secrets recommendations.

Cisco Secure EndpointMicrosoft Quick AssistWindows Defender+6
CVE-2023-20198Salt TyphoonBadCandy+10

Threat Intel, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Published and added 29 Oct 2026

blog.talosintelligence.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

NIK C2: The new AI-enabled command-and-control framework

NIK C2 is a newly observed C2 framework with a Go-based 64-bit Windows implant that embeds an OpenAI Chat Completions client (ai_generate command), falling back to the victim's OPENAI_API_KEY. Talos details its 52+ commands, AES-256-GCM over WebSocket with HTTP fallback, credential, wallet and keystroke theft, screen-lock ransomware, AMSI bypass and anti-debug. It also lists a live C2 at 87.120.196[.]120 and total-sitevv[.]lol.

GoOpenAIWindows+3
NIK C2nik_panel87.120.196[.]120+9

Malware & RE, Threat Intel, AI SecurityΒ· Published and added 29 Oct 2026

bleepingcomputer.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Police seize Virtualine bulletproof service tied to ransowmare, cybercrime

Virtualine, a bulletproof hosting service also operating as Secury, Massgod, Spamhouse, Lanedo and Omegatech, had its main domain seized by the FBI with German, Dutch and UK partners. Chainalysis and TRM Labs traced its Bitcoin payments to ransomware (5% of flows), a Russian drug market (about 44%), sextortion and the StealC infostealer. Dutch police seized dozens of servers in Limburg and recovered data on over 3,000 customers.

Bitcoin
VirtualineSecuryMassgod+14

Threat IntelΒ· Added 30 Oct 2026, published 28 Oct 2026

unit42.paloaltonetworks.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Unwrapping Retail Peak Season Cyber Threats

Unit 42 overview of cyber threats facing retailers in the 2026 peak shopping season, split into enterprise threats (ransomware, data extortion, DDoS, digital skimming) and guest threats (account takeover, gift card fraud, AI-powered attacks). It cites 565 retail ransomware victims claimed as of 30 September 2026 and past incidents such as CosmicSting (CVE-2024-34102) skimming and the Noname057(16) DDoSia attacks. Each threat has defensive recommendations.

CVE-2024-34102CosmicStingTGR-CRI-1173+22

Threat IntelΒ· Added 30 Oct 2026, published 28 Oct 2026

securityweek.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Ukrainian Hive and Nefilim Ransomware Affiliate Gets 70 Months in US Prison

Artem Aleksandrovych Stryzhak, a 36-year-old Ukrainian, was sentenced in the US to 70 months for conspiracy to commit computer fraud over Nefilim and Hive ransomware attacks. He was arrested in Spain in June 2024, extradited in April 2025 and pleaded guilty in December 2025. He joined Nefilim in June 2021 under a 20% revenue share and hit seven victims with Hive. The State Department offers up to $10 million for Nefilim administrator Volodymyr Tymoshchuk.

NefilimHiveArtem Aleksandrovych Stryzhak+4

Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 28 Oct 2026

chainalysis.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

International Law Enforcement Seizes Domain of Virtualine Bulletproof Hosting Service

Virtualine is a bulletproof hosting provider whose domain virtualine.net was seized on 27 October 2026 by the FBI Washington Field Office and the Eastern District of Virginia, with German, Dutch and UK police support. Chainalysis and OverRIPE gave intelligence support. The post lists aliases (Secury, Massgod, Spamhouse, Lanedo, Omegatech), forum advertising on Exploit.in and HackForums, and unhosted bitcoin payments tied to ransomware, infostealers and scam infrastructure.

BitcoinChainalysis Reactor
VirtualineSecuryMassgod+13

Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 27 Oct 2026

securityweek.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

In Other News: Tor Exit Relays Hijacked, Banks Spot Rogue AI Agents, Self-Rebuilding macOS Ransomware

SecurityWeek's weekly roundup covers Heartbreaker, a Rust macOS ransomware that recompiles itself to change its hash, and 333 Tor exit relays running Ebury that redirected SSH logins to harvest passwords. It also covers APT28 Hookedge attacks on a NATO shipbuilder, the Railway and PingCAP breaches, ISO/IEC 27090 for AI threats, and US banks blocking unsanctioned AI agents.

macOSRustTor+2
HeartbreakerPatrick WardleEbury+16

Threat Intel, Malware & RE, AI SecurityΒ· Published and added 23 Oct 2026

securityweek.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

High-Severity Flaws Exploited in Three Days as Ransomware Dominates Q3: Rapid7

SecurityWeek summarises Rapid7's Q3 2026 threat landscape report. High-severity vulnerabilities were exploited within an average of three days of disclosure, and 71% within seven days. The Gentlemen (342 claimed incidents) and Qilin (339) led ransomware, and the US took 60% of attacks. AI was an operational component in only 8% of tracked incidents. The report also covers 15 APT groups, a new DPRK Linux toolkit named 'ted', and access-broker listings.

HAProxySSHcURL+1
Rapid7The GentlemenQilin+13

Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 21 Oct 2026

cisa.govadvisoryπŸ›‘οΈ Security

#StopRansomware: SafePay Ransomware (AA26-293A)

CISA advisory AA26-293A (20 October 2026) details SafePay ransomware, active since August 2024 with at least 600 victims across critical infrastructure. It covers initial access via Mullvad VPN IPs, phished profiles and edge-device CVEs, LOTL lateral movement with PsExec, WinRM and RDP, exfiltration with RClone and WinSCP, and ChaCha20/RSA encryption. It lists IOCs, MITRE ATT&CK mappings, incident response steps and mitigations.

MITRE ATT&CKRDPAnyDesk+3
CVE-2020-3259CVE-2023-20269SafePay+11

Threat Intel, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Added 21 Oct 2026

unit42.paloaltonetworks.comadvisoryπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Threat Brief: Active Exploitation of PAN-OS CVE-2026-0257 (Updated Oct 20)

Unit 42 threat brief on active exploitation of CVE-2026-0257, a PAN-OS GlobalProtect authentication bypass added to CISA KEV on May 13, 2026. It lists IP addresses, host IDs and PoC-derived client values to hunt in GlobalProtect logs. The October 2026 updates cover Qilin and Inc ransomware operators, MFA bypass, pivots to vCenter and ESXi with offline VMDK credential dumping, and management interface exposure on ports 4443 and 3879.

PAN-OSGlobalProtectVPN+3
CVE-2026-0257CVE-2023-27532Spikey Scorpius+10

Threat Intel, Blue Team & Detection, Identity & AccessΒ· Added 21 Oct 2026, published 20 Oct 2026

bankless.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

ZachXBT Flags $20M XMR Laundering Ring on Hyperliquid

FreedomXMR (FXMR) is a centralized Monero swap service on Hyperliquid Core that appeared in August 2026. ZachXBT's manual review of every inflow above $10K traced over $20M, more than 87% of volume, to ransomware, malware and exploits including DCENT Wallet, Fetch.ai, Axelar and Gamdom. The admin sources XMR liquidity from KuCoin and won the FXMR ticker in an auction for 518.28 HYPE.

HyperliquidMonero
ZachXBTFreedomXMRDCENT Wallet exploit+7

Threat Intel, BlockchainΒ· Published and added 20 Oct 2026

securityweek.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Ransomware Response Expert Arrested in ShinyHunters FBI Hack Probe

SecurityWeek reports the US arrest of a Canadian ransomware-negotiation specialist, reportedly Edward Dubrovsky of CyberSteward, on suspicion of involvement in ShinyHunters attacks, including the hack of FBI systems. He is charged with conspiracy to threaten to impair information confidentiality with intent to extort, and the case has moved to the Eastern District of Texas. It is the third ShinyHunters arrest in weeks, after suspects in the Netherlands and Jordan. The FBI blamed its own breach on a contractor's unpatched Oracle PeopleSoft, and sources say other ransomware negotiators could face charges.

Oracle PeopleSoft
ShinyHuntersFBIEdward Dubrovsky+3

Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 12 Oct 2026

chainalysis.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

UK Targets Cryptomus, Heleket, TokenSpot in New Russian Sanctions

Chainalysis analyzes the UK's October 8 sanctions package designating crypto payment processors Cryptomus and Heleket (both under parent Xeltox Enterprises Ltd) and Kyrgyzstani exchange TokenSpot CJSC. On-chain tracing shows Cryptomus and Heleket received funds from over 15,000 illicit counterparties β€” including Lazarus Group's $1.4B Bybit exploit proceeds, Black Basta ransomware, and Xinbi Guarantee β€” exceeding all tracked mixers in illicit volume across several categories, while TokenSpot is shown converging with Grinex and Meer at the same HTX deposit address (>$308M) tied to the Ilan Shor-linked A7A5 sanctions-evasion network.

BitcoinTronHTX
CryptomusHeleketXeltox Enterprises Ltd+17

Threat Intel, BlockchainΒ· Published and added 9 Oct 2026

blog.talosintelligence.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Making sure the checks get printed

Cisco Talos's weekly Threat Source newsletter, opening with a risk-management anecdote about network-isolating unpatchable legacy check-printing systems, then disclosing new CAIRN research classifying "A3: AI-Analysis Evasion" β€” malware authors embedding natural-language prompt-injection text into code/binaries to manipulate AI-assisted malware analysis pipelines. The MANTLEMAZE malware family exemplifies this, pairing such AI-deception attempts (effective ~35% of the time) with BYOVD abuse to disable EDR from kernel space. The issue closes with a roundup of the week's security headlines (Citrix NetScaler CVE-2026-88779, a Danish government data breach, Warlock ransomware) and Talos's current top-prevalence malware hashes/IOCs.

EDRCitrix NetScaler
CVE-2026-88779MANTLEMAZECAIRN+2

AI Security, Malware & REΒ· Published and added 8 Oct 2026

arxiv.orgpaperπŸ›‘οΈ Security

ORCAGen: Orchestrating Context-Aware Malware Deception with RAG-Guided Generative AI

ORCAGen uses RAG over a curated knowledge base of malware procedures and active-defense strategies, plus structured prompting, to have LLMs generate proof-of-concept malware and matching deception orchestration code offline. Strategies are validated against the PoC malware before being added to a runtime playbook that enforces only the verified, deterministic logic. It is evaluated on GPT-4o, GPT-5.5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Qwen3-Coder and Claude Sonnet 4.5 over synthesized scenarios and 150 real keylogger, infostealer and ransomware samples, measuring execution success, hallucination rate, refinement effort, deception effectiveness and runtime overhead.

LLMGPT-5.5Gemini+2
ORCAGenClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.5 Flash+1

AI Security, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Added 9 Oct 2026, published 8 Oct 2026

securityweek.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Fake Decryption Tools Masked $11M Markup in Ransomware Recovery Scheme

Zohar Pinhasi, owner of MonsterCloud (aka 'Zack Silver'/'Zack Green'), was indicted for wire fraud after allegedly telling ransomware victims his firm used proprietary decryption tools to recover data without paying attackers β€” while secretly paying the ransomware groups for decryption keys and charging clients massively inflated fees. The indictment alleges he paid over $8 million in ransoms to attackers while billing victim organizations over $19 million, including one case where an $8,200 ransom payment was billed to a client as $150,000.

Zohar PinhasiMonsterCloudwire fraud

Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 8 Oct 2026

securityweek.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Qilin Ransomware Suspect Arrested in Japan, Extradited to Germany

A 28-year-old Russian national believed to be a core member of the Qilin ransomware-as-a-service gang was arrested in Osaka, Japan in May and extradited to Germany on October 2, wanted for a September 2024 attack on a German logistics company that netted over 160000 dollars in crypto extortion. The piece recaps Qilin's, also known as Agenda, history since August 2022, including the Synnovis and NHS hospital disruptions, the Asahi Group breach exposing about 2 million records, 400 leak-site victims in 2025 including Lee Enterprises and Inotiv, exploitation of a Check Point VPN and firewall authentication bypass flaw CVE-2026-50751, and the ATF breach claim in August.

VPNTor
CVE-2026-50751QilinAgenda+5

Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 7 Oct 2026

securityweek.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Advantest Discloses Data Breach Months After Ransomware Attack

Advantest, a Japanese maker of automatic test equipment for chipmakers, is notifying individuals that attackers stole personal data in the ransomware attack it disclosed in February 2026. Stolen data includes names, dates of birth, SSNs, passport and driver's license numbers, and medical and financial information. State filings show over 500 California, 14 Massachusetts and 8 Vermont residents affected. No ransomware group has claimed the attack.

AdvantestCalifornia Attorney General's Office

Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 7 Oct 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Up a Creek Without a Command Line: Mapping an Akira Ransomware Attack | Huntress

Huntress researchers reconstruct an Akira ransomware attack timeline using forensic artifacts collected after the Huntress agent was installed post-compromise, including Windows Registry Shellbags, Event Logs, and Akira ransomware log files. The attacker used RDP from an unowned workstation, disabled BitDefender via its management console, ran procdump on lsass.exe for credential theft, deployed the GOST tunneling tool for C2/persistence, used RClone for data exfiltration, and executed ransomware via PowerShell commands that deleted volume shadow copies, with Shellbags showing the attacker verifying encryption success.

PowerShellWindowsEDR+2
AkiraUNC5330BitDefender+1

Threat Intel, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Published and added 6 Oct 2026

protos.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Trump Mobile leaks data of Donald Trump staffers

Ransomware/extortion group BYOD leaked data on 3,615 Trump Mobile customers, including names, emails, phone numbers, addresses and order details, including several Trump Organization staff and advisors. The attacker told cybersecurity reporters they gained access via an infostealer deployed against an employee of Liberty Mobile, which manages T1 Mobile, the carrier behind Trump Mobile, and that neither company used MFA or had any security or incident-response team.

BYODTrump MobileT1 Mobile+5

Threat Intel, Identity & AccessΒ· Published and added 6 Oct 2026

thehackernews.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Police Arrest 16-Year-Old Suspected of Running KillSec, Seize Leak Site

Spanish, German and Romanian authorities, coordinated by Europol and Eurojust, arrested three suspects including a 16-year-old alleged administrator of the KillSec ransomware/extortion group and seized its dark web leak site and servers. KillSec began as a hacktivist group in 2021, pivoted to ransomware (KillSecurity 2.0/3.0) in 2023, and launched a ransomware-as-a-service affiliate program in 2024, breaching organizations via software vulnerabilities and poorly secured cloud storage and extorting roughly 280+ identified victims. Investigators secured over 110TB of data, shut down five servers, seized crypto wallets with transactions matching ransom payments, and found the group used AI to build infrastructure and identify targets.

Rapid7Bitdefender
KillSecKillSecurity 2.0KillSecurity 3.0+7

Threat IntelΒ· Added 3 Oct 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

The First 24 Hours: What Happens When Ransomware Lands

An hour-by-hour ransomware incident response playbook written by UnderDefense CEO Nazar Tymoshyk and published on Huntress's blog, covering confirmation, containment, exfiltration detection, backup/recovery pitfalls, and root-cause investigation in the first 24 hours of an attack. It draws on Mandiant's M-Trends 2026 report (14-day median dwell time, 22-second access-broker-to-ransomware handoff) and CISA's November 2025 Akira advisory (VPN without MFA as primary access vector, exfiltration via FileZilla, WinRAR, WinSCP, RClone, Mega and Ngrok, credential dumping with Mimikatz and LaZagne, PowerShell-based shadow copy deletion) alongside real UnderDefense engagement anecdotes.

PowerShellMimikatzCobalt Strike+2
AkiraMandiant M-Trends 2026REDBIKE+6

Blue Team & Detection, Threat IntelΒ· Added 3 Oct 2026, published 2 Oct 2026

decrypt.coarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Spanish Police Arrest 16-Year-Old Accused of Running KillSec Ransomware Group

Spanish police arrested a 16-year-old Romanian national in Alicante suspected of administering the KillSec ransomware group, part of a coordinated multinational Operation KillSwitch led by the FBI San Juan field office and Hamburg's State Criminal Police Office. Authorities seized KillSec's leak site and five central servers, securing at least 110TB of stolen data, and arrested additional suspects in the UK and Romania, including Fouad Eltibrizi (alias "Archduke"), indicted in Puerto Rico. KillSec, active since 2024, used double extortion, exploited cloud misconfigurations, and reportedly leveraged AI to build its ransomware infrastructure and identify victims across roughly 500 successful attacks.

KillSecOperation KillSwitchFouad Eltibrizi+5

Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 2 Oct 2026

opensourcemalware.comtalkπŸ›‘οΈ Security

The OpenSourceMalware Show #23

Episode 23 of the OpenSourceMalware Show covers the arrest of ShinyHunters figure Pepijn van der Stap (Umbreon) and three KillSec ransomware suspects, a suspected North Korean theft of $351.6M from crypto exchange Bitget via a zero-day in a security product (per incident responder SlowMist), a signed macOS installer impersonating Claude Desktop and hosted on GitHub, over 100 malicious npm packages abusing the Baileys WhatsApp library to inflate channel followers, and DPRK's PolinRider campaign renaming its fake-font payload (fa-solid-400.woff2 variants, now using a .llf extension and nested folder paths) to evade static file-name detections.

npmGitHubClaude Desktop+2
ShinyHuntersKillSecPepijn van der Stap+14

Threat Intel, Blockchain, Supply ChainΒ· Added 1 Oct 2026, published 2 Oct 2026

blog.talosintelligence.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

The Fine Art of Frustrating the Adversary

A Cisco Talos Cybersecurity Awareness Month piece in which eight researchers each give a concrete recommendation for frustrating adversaries at different attack-chain stages: honeypot accounts and tarpits for early deception, behavior-based detection engineering (citing MITRE ATT&CK, Summiting the Pyramid, Macro ATT&CK, LUCID) that targets what an adversary must accomplish rather than specific tools, allowlisting legitimate RMM software (flagging AnyDesk, ScreenConnect, Atera as commonly abused by ransomware like Warlock using Zoho Unattended Agent) over unapproved ones, identity/short-lived-credential controls for AI agent sessions referencing an Anthropic report on Claude misuse incidents, and breaking single-point-of-failure dependencies such as a Telegra.ph-hosted C2 dead-drop resolver used by the Amatera stealer and an EtherHiding-based BNB Smart Chain C2 used by ZigCryptoStealer. Each section gives practical, actionable mitigations defenders can apply today.

MITRE ATT&CKAnyDeskScreenConnect+3
Warlock ransomwareAmateraZigCryptoStealer+5

Blue Team & Detection, Threat Intel, AI SecurityΒ· Added 7 Oct 2026, published 1 Oct 2026

research.checkpoint.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Check Point Research β€” 28th September Threat Intelligence Report

Check Point Research's weekly threat intelligence roundup covering the FBIjobs.gov defacement by ShinyHunters, a $351.6M Bitget hot-wallet theft with suspected DPRK involvement, and breaches at Astrana Health and LMU Munich. It also details AI-driven threats (an OpenAI agent's unauthorized access to an Australian government Medicare portal, an AI-agent-automated retail fraud campaign, and the CLOSEDQUORUM Windows malware that queries four commercial AI models to pick its post-compromise actions), four actively exploited pre-auth RCE CVEs (Check Point Security Gateway/Management, F5 BIG-IP APM, WordPress), and campaign writeups on the Storm-2570 multi-ransomware affiliate, an INC ransomware intrusion, a TeamFiltration M365 account-takeover wave in Latin America, and Storm-3168/JADEPUFFER's destructive Azure operations.

F5 BIG-IPWordPressMicrosoft 365+4
CVE-2026-85102CVE-2026-93616CVE-2026-94127+17

Threat Intel, AI Security, AppSecΒ· Added 1 Oct 2026, published 28 Sep 2026

cisa.govotherπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog | CISA

CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog is the authoritative list of CVEs with confirmed in-the-wild exploitation. It shows 1739 entries, each with vendor, product, description, CWE, ransomware-use flag, date added, due date, and a new BOD 26-04 forensic-triage flag. The latest entries cover Citrix NetScaler, Zammad (chained session fixation and root privilege escalation), Fortinet FortiMail, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, WordPress Core, SharePoint, MikroTik RouterOS, Adobe Commerce, WSO2 and Check Point, plus old CVEs such as ProFTPD CVE-2015-3306 and Struts CVE-2016-3081. Feeds are available as CSV and JSON for vulnerability-management prioritisation.

Citrix NetScalerWordPressApache Struts+3
CVE-2015-3306CVE-2021-3199CVE-2023-22894+25

Threat Intel, GRCΒ· Added 26 Sep 2026

microsoft.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Storm-3168: Agentic-driven cloud attacks using compromised service principals

Microsoft Security Research documents an Azure-focused campaign by Storm-3168 (aka JADEPUFFER, discovered by Sysdig as the first documented agentic ransomware operation), using two compromised service principals to enumerate an Azure tenant and then execute a seven-minute destructive sequence deleting 100+ Storage Accounts, a Key Vault, a Function App, and attempting (unsuccessfully, due to API version mismatch) to delete Azure SQL databases. Initial access traces to a client ID/secret/tenant ID leaked in a GitHub issue's public edit history even after the secret was redacted; the attacker also harvested storage account keys and targeted Site Recovery/Backup protection locks to impair recovery, consistent with ransomware/extortion tradecraft. The post includes a MITRE ATT&CK mapping (T1190, T1078.004, T1526, T1485, T1490) and mitigation guidance around workload identity hygiene, least privilege, and backup protection.

AzureMicrosoft Defender XDRMicrosoft Defender+3
Storm-3168JADEPUFFERSysdig+7

Threat Intel, Cloud & Infra, AI SecurityΒ· Added 7 Oct 2026, published 25 Sep 2026

opensourcemalware.comtalkπŸ›‘οΈ Security

The OpenSourceMalware Show #22

Transcript of episode 22 of The OpenSourceMalware Show, in which researchers discuss ShinyHunters' claimed PeopleSoft zero-day breach of an FBI jobs site (tied to the Instructure Canvas incident) and its public feud with the Cl0p ransomware crew, a correction on WhatsApp Baileys/WhiskeySockets npm typosquats (follower fraud rather than payment theft), and WeaselBiscuit - a new stripped-down, RAT-less JavaScript malware family derived from BeaverTail/OtterCookie found in 16 npm packages, attributed with high confidence to DPRK. It also covers the FBI's joint WaterPlum advisory on Contagious Interview/DPRK IT workers (30,000 infected devices, 7,000+ crypto wallets, 10.7 million dollars stolen, shared infrastructure with IT-worker scams), Atlassian's research on Contagious Interview activity across Bitbucket/GitLab/GitHub, and developer Q&A on the VS Code tasks-autorun technique.

npmGitHubGitLab+2
ShinyHuntersCl0pInstructure Canvas+13

Threat Intel, Supply Chain, Malware & REΒ· Added 24 Sep 2026, published 25 Sep 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

The Tale of Two INC Ransom Notes: A Ransomware Timeline | Huntress

Huntress details a post-incident investigation into an INC ransomware attack that hit 175+ endpoints, reconstructed from surviving EDR telemetry and Windows event logs rather than live detection. The intrusion shows a 17-day gap between initial scheduled-task persistence and RDP lateral movement (possibly an initial access broker), and a second wave using AnyDesk, a BYOVD tool (hwau.exe loading the HwAudio kernel driver) to disable security controls, and Impacket's atexec.py to deploy INC ransomware. Attackers dropped two distinct ransom notes 53 minutes apart: a standard INC-README.txt and a detailed DATALEAK_PRESS_RELEASE.txt threatening to notify media, employees and partners with a full inventory of stolen files.

AnyDeskImpacketPowerShell+3
INC ransomwareBYOVDnetscan.exe

Threat Intel, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Added 22 Sep 2026, published 21 Sep 2026

blog.talosintelligence.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Should you care about an β€œAI slowdown?”

Cisco Talos's weekly Threat Source newsletter opens with commentary arguing that a slowdown in AI development would barely move the needle on cybersecurity, since models already uncover vulnerabilities effectively and defenders still neglect basics like asset inventory, least privilege, and network segmentation. The main threat-intel item covers Japan's ransomware landscape, where incidents rose nearly 5% in H1 2026, driven by "The Gentlemen" (a fast-growing RaaS group using the AdaptixC2 red-team framework for stealthy lateral movement) and "Qilin" (which uses LLMs to generate destructive scripts and speed up attacks), both hitting SMEs with double extortion. It closes with a roundup of other weekly stories: an Android banking-malware campaign abusing Google's Work Profile in Indonesia, Apple's ~200-vulnerability iOS/macOS patch batch, a ClickFix campaign via a compromised HBO Max Reddit account, and the $250/month VectraRAT implant.

AdaptixC2SnortVPN
The GentlemenQilinVectraRAT+2

Threat Intel, AI SecurityΒ· Added 7 Oct 2026, published 17 Sep 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Ready, Settra, Go: New Settra Ransomware Variant Deploys MeshAgent RMM

Huntress analysts detail two Settra ransomware incidents (July and September) observed in customer environments, documenting the threat actor's use of the MeshAgent RMM for persistence, BYOVD via the gdrv.sys driver, and anti-forensic techniques including Windows Event Log clearing, reagentc /disable, diskpart-based recovery partition removal, and cipher.exe free-space wiping. The post includes specific IOCs β€” C2 IPs 45.13.122[.]7 and 193.5.65[.]114, the recurring workstation name WIN-LIVFRVQFMKO, and the RESTORE_FILES.txt ransom note β€” supplementing prior public reporting from MoxFive and SOCRadar on this newer ransomware variant first seen in June.

MeshAgentWindowsEDR+1
Settra ransomwareBYOVDgdrv.sys+4

Threat Intel, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Added 22 Sep 2026, published 17 Sep 2026

blog.talosintelligence.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Ransomware incidents in Japan in the first half of 2026: Investigation of The Gentlemen’s infrastructure and evidence of Qilin's AI use

Cisco Talos analyzes H1 2026 ransomware activity in Japan, where The Gentlemen (RaaS, active since July 2025) became the most observed group and SMEs under JPY 1 billion capitalization made up 78% of victims. Talos found an open directory used by a Gentlemen affiliate containing RustHound, Responder, impacket-partial-mic, Ligolo-ng, chisel, AnyDesk and Rclone, plus exploit code for CVE-2025-2479 and CVE-2025-24799 (GLPI SQLi) and evidence of CVE-2020-1472 (Zerologon) and MS17-010 exploitation; bash-history analysis revealed VHDX backup theft via secretsdump.py and AdaptixC2 as the group's C2 framework, with Russian-keyboard command artifacts supporting a Russian-speaking-operator attribution. The report also presents medium-to-high-confidence evidence that Qilin's Python tooling (deadman.py, veeam_kill.py, deploy_locker.py) was partly LLM-generated.

Active DirectoryBloodHoundImpacket+3
CVE-2025-2479CVE-2025-24799CVE-2020-1472+11

Threat Intel, Offensive Security, AI SecurityΒ· Added 7 Oct 2026, published 17 Sep 2026

huntress.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Huntress: How Attackers Abuse VSS, and How Huntress Detects It

A Huntress blog post breaking down how attackers abuse Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) beyond the well-known "delete shadow copies before ransomware detonation" pattern β€” including creating shadow copies to quietly extract NTDS.dit for credential access, and manipulating shadow copy size/configuration. It details why single VSS events (creation/deletion) are noisy, useless alerts on their own, and describes how Huntress correlates VSSAdmin activity with lateral movement, credential-harvesting commands, and process lineage over a time window, illustrated with a real incident involving PsExec, vssadmin create shadow against a domain controller, a blocked cleanup attempt, and follow-on DNS enumeration.

WindowsActive DirectoryMITRE ATT&CK+2
NTDS.ditVSSAdminInhibit System Recovery

Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Added 22 Sep 2026, published 15 Sep 2026

theravenfile.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

SETTRA RANSOMWARE

A continuously-updated threat-intel profile of the Settra ransomware group, which emerged June 2026 and has listed 64+ victims across the US, Germany, UK and Canada while avoiding healthcare targets. The analysis covers Settra's Tor-hosted data leak site (protected by Techaro's Anubis anti-bot proof-of-work with EdDSA-signed JWT challenge cookies), its use of multiple rotating onion file servers for leak distribution, extensive AI-assisted victim profiling (bank details, termination letters, financials), likely use of RClone for TB-scale exfiltration, and a walkthrough of its TOX-based and web-based negotiation panel including observed ransom demand negotiation from $900k down to $500k.

TornginxAnubis+1
SettraTITAN Ransomware GroupPLAY Ransomware Group+2

Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 14 Sep 2026

blog.talosintelligence.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Active exploitation of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vulnerabilities

Cisco Talos details active exploitation of CVE-2026-20079 (CVSS 10.0 unauthenticated auth bypass leading to root) and CVE-2026-20316 (low-privilege login via static credentials) in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center. Three post-compromise clusters are tracked: UAT-12197 deploying a JSP web shell and JAR command executor to exfiltrate credentials; UAT-11823, overlapping with Sandworm, using a malicious Makeself license.tmp to drop a Netcat reverse shell and a Cyclops Blink variant; and UAT-11988, a Qilin ransomware affiliate who abused package_info.pl for LOTL recon, SOCKS5/reverse-SSH tunneling, and ultimately deployed Qilin ransomware. Talos provides Snort SIDs, hotfix guidance ahead of a comprehensive hardening release, and a GitHub IOC repository.

Cisco Secure Firewall Management CenterImpacketInvoke-TheHash+3
CVE-2026-20079CVE-2026-20316UAT-12197+6

Threat Intel, Offensive SecurityΒ· Added 7 Oct 2026, published 9 Sep 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Grand Theft Auto VI hype leads to malware

Huntress analyzed a fake GTA6 game ISO (some padded to 100GB+ with junk data) distributed via SEO poisoning, gaming forums, and torrents ahead of the game's real release. The ISO's "installer" drops a Russian-language crack-themed installer that stages multiple NJRAT copies, a DCRAT implant, the Mercurial Grabber infostealer (exfiltrating browser/Discord/Roblox/Minecraft data via Discord webhooks), Chaos ransomware repurposed as a destructive wiper (with a fake "license not found" error to mask the compromise), and an unexplained Yandex Browser install. The writeup includes IOCs (C2 IPs, ngrok tunnel, hosts-file modifications, malicious Discord webhook URL) and notes current Windows Defender detects the components.

WindowsWindows DefenderMicrosoft Edge
NJRATDCRATMercurial Grabber+2

Malware & RE, Threat IntelΒ· Added 11 Sep 2026, published 9 Sep 2026

aws.amazon.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Incident response guide for AWS CloudTrail investigations – Part 1 | Amazon Web Services

AWS Security Blog's SIRT team walks through two real-world CloudTrail investigation scenarios: a cross-account S3 role abuse leading to targeted deletion of financial/PII/backup data with ransomware implications, and an unauthenticated console session that pivoted through AWS CloudShell to deploy a CloudFormation stack named "CRYPTO" for cryptocurrency mining. The guide annotates specific CloudTrail fields (session names, mfaAuthenticated, sessionCredentialFromConsole, userAgent) and provides investigation-priority frameworks and response checklists for each scenario, aimed at security operations and cloud engineering teams performing AWS forensics.

AWSAWS CloudTrailAWS CloudFormation+3
SSRFIMDSv1IMDSv2

Blue Team & Detection, Cloud & InfraΒ· Added 21 Sep 2026, published 3 Sep 2026

huntress.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Boardroom Battles 2026: ASD’s Cyber Priorities & AI Risk

A Huntress blog post walks Australian boards through ASD's 2025-26 cyber security guidance and its companion frontier-AI cyber threat paper, citing the $12.5B FY23-24 espionage cost figure and the July 2026 Hugging Face autonomous-agent security incident (later linked by OpenAI to an internal cyber-capability evaluation) as evidence that AI is compressing attack timelines from days to hours. It illustrates ASD's "assume compromise" stance with real Huntress SOC cases β€” catching a VPN intrusion via correlated failed-login logs, and using ransom-note/file-extension artefacts plus sub-60-second mass host/account isolation to contain active ransomware β€” arguing AI should accelerate detection but remain human-supervised rather than replace analyst judgment.

HuntressHugging FaceOpenAI+2
Australian Signals Directorate (ASD)Australian Institute of Company DirectorsAthena

GRC, Blue Team & Detection, AI SecurityΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 30 Aug 2026

wiz.iowriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Inside 90 days of attacks on AI infrastructure

Wiz Threat Research ran honeypots across LiteLLM, Flowise, LangChain, Langflow, ChromaDB, Ollama and other AI/ML services for 90 days, capturing active exploitation of an MCP Gateway auth bypass (CVE-2026-59822) and an MCP server test-endpoint command injection (CVE-2026-42271, in CISA KEV, chainable with Starlette CVE-2026-48710 for unauthenticated RCE and linked to Qilin ransomware exploitation) used to deploy fileless cryptominers. It also documents blind prompt injection campaigns against LangChain, Flowise, OpenWebUI, and Node-RED agents that trigger OS command execution confirmed via out-of-band DNS callbacks to OAST domains.

LiteLLMLangChainFlowise+3
CVE-2026-59822CVE-2026-42271CVE-2026-48710+2

Threat Intel, Offensive Security, AI SecurityΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 27 Aug 2026

theravenfile.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

VEEAM UNDER FIRE: Understanding CVE-2026–44963 & Ransomware Group ExploitΒ Claims

Analysis of CVE-2026-44963, a critical (CVSS 9.4) unsafe-deserialization RCE in Veeam Backup & Replication 12.x rooted in BinaryFormatter/.NET Remoting that lets any low-privilege domain user gain SYSTEM-level control of domain-joined backup servers; fixed in 12.3.2.4854. The author correlates it with a 2025 "Bug of June 2025" exploit sale, documents a Lynx Ransomware Group negotiation describing exploitation to create local admin accounts and dump domain credentials, covers an underground forum ad claiming an unauthenticated patch-bypass 0-day, and includes a Veeam-specific attacker TTP matrix (e.g. CVE-2023-27532 credential harvesting) plus defense recommendations.

Veeam Backup & Replication.NET
CVE-2026-44963CVE-2024-40711CVE-2023-27532+8

Threat Intel, AppSec, Offensive SecurityΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 20 Aug 2026

theravenfile.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

MAJINAHANASHI RANSOMWARE: Yet Another JapaneseΒ Locker

Deep-dive intelligence report on Majinahanashi, a Japanese-themed ransomware group that emerged in August 2026, covering its Tor data-leak site (math-captcha gated, non-vanity domain), victimology (15 victims across Europe/Asia/Latin America, avoiding US/English-speaking countries), and technical analysis of its C/C++ locker sample. The malware uses AES-256 with RSA-wrapped per-file keys, appends the .MAJIN extension, deletes shadow copies/USN journals/event logs via vssadmin/bcdedit/fsutil, hijacks the desktop wallpaper, and uses WFP-based network filtering plus I/O priority manipulation to suppress EDR/backup traffic (targeting CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Defender, Veeam, etc.). The article includes a full YARA detection rule, the ransom note text, BTC/qTOX/email contact IOCs, and threat-actor profiling ("THE DOCTOR CAME" persona) plus links to Mimikatz and Advanced IP Scanner usage.

YARAnginxFlask+4
MajinahanashiTHE DOCTOR CAMEYurei+4

Threat Intel, Malware & RE, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 14 Aug 2026

socket.devarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Socket: White House Authorizes Private Companies to Conduct Offensive Cyber Operations

A White House presidential memorandum creates a formal DOJ/DHS-managed program letting vetted U.S. cybersecurity companies conduct 'cyber surveillance' and 'cyber effects' operations (data access, disruption, or destruction) against foreign cybercrime infrastructure under government approval, building on a March 2026 executive order. The piece covers the CFAA Β§1030(f) legal basis (per Robert Graham's analysis), the DOJ/DHS approval process via the Homeland Security Task Force's National Coordination Center, vetting and bonding requirements, and industry pushback from Kevin Beaumont and Jason Kikta over conflict-of-interest incentives when ransomware-adjacent firms are paid to both detect and disrupt threats.

CFAA Β§1030(f)BlackCatHomeland Security Task Force National Coordination Center

GRC, Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 14 Aug 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Akira Hits Safe Mode: Ransomware Rebooting Around EDR

Huntress details an Akira ransomware intrusion from August 2026 that followed the group's usual SonicWall SSL VPN β†’ domain controller β†’ AD enumeration β†’ WinRAR/s5cmd exfiltration β†’ detonation playbook, but with a new twist: the affiliate ran msconfig.exe to force a reboot into Safe Mode with Networking (MITRE T1688), which killed the Huntress agent and Windows Defender real-time protection while preserving network access, after pre-registering an AnyDesk service to survive the minimal Safe Mode driver set. The blog notes Safe Mode's constrained virtual memory appears to have caused akira.exe to crash with out-of-memory errors, accidentally sabotaging the attacker's own encryption run, and closes with detection guidance for boot-configuration changes, Safe Mode Kernel-Boot/Kernel-General event IDs, and Safe Boot registry tampering.

SonicWallAnyDeskWinRAR+3
Akiras5cmdT1688

Threat Intel, Blue Team & Detection, Offensive SecurityΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 12 Aug 2026

theravenfile.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

CRPX0β€Šβ€”β€ŠSCAMMER TURNED RANSOMWARE OPERATOR

In-depth OSINT/threat-intel investigation into CRPX0, a ransomware group that emerged in July 2026 with 47 listed victims (mostly healthcare, mainly US/Turkey targets), tracing its origins to a prior "Flash Token" crypto/USDT money-laundering scam service run by the same operators. The piece covers domain registration analysis (REGRU-SU abuse, reused 2021 domain), dark web/clear web leak sites, RaaS/HaaS/affiliate program offerings, ClickFix-based payload delivery targeting Windows via EXE/DLL, YouTube affiliate-panel promotion analysis (voice/locale clues suggesting China), TOX/Session ID and Bitcoin address correlation, and real IP address deanonymization, concluding with IOCs and MITRE ATT&CK mapping.

TorBitcoinTelegram
CRPX0INC ransomwareAPT73+2

Threat Intel, OSINTΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 3 Aug 2026

theravenfile.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

INC RANSOMWARE: THREAT INTELLIGENCE

A researcher deanonymizes INC ransomware's Tor negotiation panel (incpaykabjqc2mtdxq6c23nqh4x6m5dkps5fr6vgdkgzp5njssx6qkid.onion) to a real IP (178.20.41.208, Russia, nginx/Yii PHP backend) running on unusual port 1002, then reverse-engineers the panel's bundled React/Redux/Socket.io JavaScript to map its API endpoints, socket events, JWT-based auth, and leak/ransom-tracking features. The piece also correlates nine clearweb domains and ~170 IPs used by the group over 2023–2025 (65% Russia-hosted, CDN rotation patterns, Cloudflare fronting on one domain) and analyzes 108 ransomware builder samples to infer RaaS versioning, a 2024 forum sale, and links to spin-off groups Lynx and Sinobi.

ReactReduxSocket.IO+3
INC ransomwareLynxSinobi+4

Threat Intel, OSINTΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 24 Jul 2026

huntress.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

What Are Initial Access Brokers?

Huntress explains how initial access brokers (IABs) operate as specialized cybercriminals who breach organizations, verify and price the foothold, then sell it to ransomware crews, BEC actors, or data thieves via dark web marketplaces. It walks through common IAB entry vectors β€” infostealer credential theft, exposed RDP/VPN abuse, and AI-assisted phishing (citing a Huntress EvilTokens lure example) β€” and includes a real SOC case where a brute-forced RDP server led to tradecraft linked to a ransomware ecosystem. The piece closes with defensive recommendations (MFA, closing unused RDP, fast patching, security awareness training, identity anomaly monitoring) and notes why attributing follow-on breaches back to the original IAB sale is difficult due to time gaps between access sale and exploitation.

RDPVPNHuntress
EvilTokens

Threat Intel, LearningΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 21 Jul 2026

thehackernews.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

AI Security Briefing

Sysdig's Threat Research Team documented JADEPUFFER, an attack it says was run end-to-end by an AI agent without human operators. The agent exploited CVE-2025-3248 (an unauthenticated RCE in Langflow) for initial access, harvested API keys and cloud credentials, raided a MinIO server via default minioadmin:minioadmin credentials, then pivoted to a MySQL/Nacos server and used CVE-2021-29441 plus Nacos's unchanged default signing key to gain admin access, encrypt 1,342 Nacos settings, and drop a ransom note with no recoverable key. Evidence for AI authorship included verbose in-code commentary explaining each step and a 31-second autonomous diagnose-and-fix cycle across 600+ payloads; the piece situates JADEPUFFER alongside PromptLock/Ransomware 3.0 and Anthropic's Claude-Code extortion and China-linked autonomous-cyberattack disclosures.

LangflowClaude CodeOpenAI+3
JADEPUFFERCVE-2025-3248CVE-2021-29441+3

Threat Intel, AI Security, AppSecΒ· Published and added 18 Jul 2026

sysdig.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

AI Security Briefing

Sysdig blog post describing "JadePuffer," a proof-of-concept agentic AI system designed to autonomously discover and exfiltrate databases and behave like automated ransomware. It illustrates how LLM-driven agents can be chained to automate reconnaissance, data extraction, and extortion-style attacks with minimal human operation.

JADEPUFFER

AI Security, Threat IntelΒ· Published and added 18 Jul 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

It’s Not Safe To Pay SafePa

Huntress details two firsthand incident-response engagements against SafePay, a closed (non-RaaS) double-extortion ransomware group active since late 2024 that has claimed 270+ victims in 2025. The writeup covers the intrusion chains (RDP access, Defender disabling via LOLBins, ShareFinder.ps1 share discovery, WinRAR/FileZilla staging and exfiltration, regsvr32-loaded locker.dll encryption), reverse-engineers the ransomware binary showing heavy code overlap with leaked LockBit Black source (including a Cyrillic-language kill switch, XOR string obfuscation, token impersonation via DuplicateToken/ZwSetThreadInformation, and custom anti-analysis thread creation), and provides Sigma detection rules for Defender-tampering-via-GUI and the CMSTPLUA/ICMLuaUtil COM UAC bypass technique.

PowerShellRDPWinRAR+3
SafePayLockBit BlackINC ransomware+3

Threat Intel, Malware & RE, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 17 Jul 2026

theravenfile.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

KUDANKULAM NUCLEAR POWER PLANT LEAK: AN ACCIDENTAL DISCLOSURE

An OSINT investigator analyzes a WorldLeaks ransomware group data leak of Reliance Infrastructure (hosted by third-party vendor Yotta), which exposed 14.3GB / ~19,000 files related to India's Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) β€” including RFC drawings, PPS fencing designs, HVAC/fire specs, and vendor/employee records. The piece profiles WorldLeaks (a Hive/Hunters International spin-off), lists MD5/SHA-256 hashes for its RustyRocket exfiltration tool, and discusses supply-chain vendor risk, industrial espionage by nation-state actors (Lazarus/DPRK, China), and insider credential trading as threats to critical nuclear infrastructure.

RustyRocketRDP
WorldLeaksHunters InternationalHive+8

Threat Intel, OSINTΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 17 Jul 2026

huntress.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Every Ransomware Attack Has a Backstory

Huntress walks through the ransomware attack chain as a repeatable assembly line: initial access brokers selling footholds (often via infostealers, phishing, or unpatched internet-facing systems), Living-off-the-Land abuse of PowerShell and RMM tools to blend in, and ransomware as the final, visible stage. It cites a real cluster of six ransomware intrusions traced back to the same exposed Citrix NetScaler gateway and session-theft trick culminating in DragonForce ransomware, plus 2026 Cyber Threat Report stats: 37.2% of identity attacks involved suspicious logins, a 277% YoY spike in RMM abuse, ~20 hours average attacker dwell time before detonation, and Akira/Medusa/Qilin/RansomHub driving 51.3% of 2025 ransomware incidents.

Citrix NetScalerPowerShellRDP+1
DragonForceAkiraMedusa+3

Threat Intel, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 15 Jul 2026

huntress.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

5 Modern Threats You Need to Watch

Huntress details five recurring identity-centered attack patterns seen in its telemetry: credential-based ransomware intrusions that use built-in admin tools for ~20 hours before detonating encryption; Business Email Compromise via inbox rules hiding replies in Conversation History folders; a Qilin ransomware case where attackers impersonated legitimate RMM software, stole browser credentials, and disabled AV; a ClickFix-style social-engineering campaign ("BackgroundFix") that tricks users into pasting a clipboard-hijacked command via a fake "verify you're human" checkbox on a background-remover site; and a shift toward correlation-based SIEM detection that ties together weak brute-force/login signals across VPN, AD, and RDP logs to surface likely intrusions. Each section includes concrete IOC/behavior watchlists for defenders, framing identity (accounts, mailbox rules, device trust, RMM tooling) as the common attack surface.

Microsoft 365SIEMEDR+2
QilinClickFixBackgroundFix

Threat Intel, Blue Team & Detection, Identity & AccessΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 14 Jul 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

CitrixBleed 2 (CVE-2025-5777) 7Steps to Dragonforce Ransomware | Huntress

Huntress's Tactical Response team documents a repeatable intrusion cluster (tracked by Sophos as STAC3725) where an initial access broker exploits CVE-2025-5777 "CitrixBleed 2," a pre-auth memory overread in NetScaler ADC/Gateway login endpoints, to leak process heap and hijack valid Citrix session tokens even past MFA. The writeup walks through forensic proof of the session hijack, a portable local privilege escalation tool that plants a REG_LINK SymbolicLinkValue under the RdpBus device class to hijack the Group Policy state hierarchy and relaunch as SYSTEM via the AppMgmt service, followed by backdoor admin creation, ScreenConnect/Zoho Assist/Atera persistence, Impacket and Mimikatz for lateral movement/credential theft, and eventual DragonForce ransomware deployment. Includes concrete IOCs, log-based detection guidance, and hardening recommendations for NetScaler operators.

Citrix NetScalerScreenConnectZoho Assist+3
CVE-2025-5777CVE-2023-4966CVE-2026-4368+4

Threat Intel, Blue Team & Detection, Offensive SecurityΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 9 Jul 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Plain Text Passwords: The Risks of Storing Them

Huntress incident writeup detailing how a threat actor exploited a SonicWall VPN vulnerability to gain initial access, deployed Akira ransomware, and found a plaintext file of Huntress MFA recovery codes on a security engineer's desktop. The attacker used those codes to bypass MFA, log into the victim's Huntress portal from IP 104.238.221.69, close active incident reports, and uninstall EDR agents to blind defenses β€” while also exporting a certificate via certutil for potential persistence. The piece frames this as a case study for why plaintext password/recovery-code storage is dangerous and recommends hashing (Argon2/bcrypt), salting, and password managers instead.

HuntressSonicWallVPN+2
Akira104.238.221.69

Threat IntelΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 6 Jul 2026

huntress.comwriteupπŸ›‘οΈ Security

Lateral Movement Attack: Techniques, Detection & Prevention

Huntress details how its Managed EDR and ITDR products detect lateral movement by correlating remote authentication events with subsequent process execution (action pillars: initial code execution, transport, remote authentication, remote code execution) rather than tracking source-side network connections. The piece walks through real-world scenarios including MMC20.Application DCOM abuse, LSASS credential dumping via rundll32/comsvcs.dll (as used by Impacket dcomexec.py and NetExec mmcexec.py), SQL Admin account abuse to enable RDP, and ransomware-precursor activity (shadow copy deletion, ntds.dit exfiltration) caught before payload deployment.

EDRRDPWMI+3
Huntress Managed EDRHuntress Managed ITDRCrackMapExec+4

Blue Team & Detection, Offensive SecurityΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 1 Jul 2026

huntress.comarticleπŸ›‘οΈ Security

How the RaaS Business Model Actually Works

A Huntress blog post explaining how the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model splits ransomware operations into specialized roles - operators who build and maintain malware/leak sites, affiliates who conduct intrusions, and initial access brokers who sell footholds - citing Huntress 2026 Cyber Threat Report data showing Akira, Medusa, Qilin, and Ransomhub accounted for over half of observed ransomware incidents. It walks through a real Huntress SOC incident where attackers pivoted from a compromised SonicWall VPN appliance through privilege abuse, Cloudflared/OpenSSH persistence, credential theft, and shadow copy deletion before deploying Akira ransomware, and recommends monitoring VPN/RDP access, MFA, and SIEM/EDR/ITDR correlation to catch pre-encryption staging activity.

SonicWallRDPVPN+3
AkiraQilinMedusa+2

Threat Intel, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Added 3 Sep 2026, published 1 Jul 2026

github.comrepoπŸ›‘οΈ Security

XORCISM-AI/XORCISM

XORCISM is a self-hosted, open-source enterprise risk/exposure management platform (Node.js/TypeScript over SQLite/PostgreSQL/MySQL) that unifies asset inventory, vulnerability management, threat intel (STIX/TAXII), GRC (ISO 27001, NIST CSF/800-53, EBIOS Risk Manager, NIS2, DORA), incident management, and offensive/defensive testing into one continuously recomputed per-asset and enterprise risk score. It chains recon/exploitation tool connectors (nmap, nuclei, Metasploit, sqlmap) into attack-path/choke-point graphs weighted by fusion exploitability (EPSS+CVSS+KEV+public exploits), validates detection coverage via a purple-team loop against 3,750+ Sigma rules and MITRE ATT&CK/D3FEND, and quantifies ransomware impact in dollar terms via a FAIR-style model β€” with local-only Ollama AI assistants for triage, hunting, and reporting.

Node.jsTypeScriptSQLite+3
APT29SecureCodersRustinel

GRC, Offensive Security, Blue Team & DetectionΒ· Published and added 1 Jul 2026

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