An espionage operation demonstrated strategic operational patience against targets in Southeast Asia, deploying custom backdoors.

The post Suspected China-Based Espionage Operation Against Military Targets in Southeast Asia appeared first on Unit 42.

Microsoft releases important security updates on the second Tuesday of every month, known as Patch Tuesday. This month’s update fixes 79 Microsoft CVEs including two zero-day vulnerabilities.

Microsoft defines a zero-day as “a flaw in software for which no official patch or security update is available yet.” So, since the patch is now available, those two are no longer zero-days. There is also no reason to believe they were ever actively exploited.

But let’s have a look at the possible consequences if you don’t install the update.

The vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-21262 (CVSS score 8.8 out of 10) is a bug in Microsoft SQL Server that lets a logged-in user quietly climb the privilege ladder and potentially become a full database administrator (sysadmin). With that level of control, they can read, change, or delete data, create new accounts, and tamper with database configurations or jobs. Where SQL Server is supposed to check what each user is allowed to do, in this case it can be tricked into granting more power than intended.

There is no user interaction required once the attacker has that foothold: exploitation can happen over the network using crafted SQL requests that abuse the flawed permission checks. In a typical real‑world scenario, this bug would be the second act in an attack chain: first get in with low privileges, then use CVE-2026-21262 to quietly promote yourself to database king and start rewriting the script.

CVE-2026-26127 (CVSS score 7.5 out of 10) is a bug in Microsoft’s .NET platform that lets an attacker remotely crash .NET applications, effectively taking them offline for a while. The flaw lives in Microsoft .NET 9.0 and 10.0, across Windows, macOS, and Linux, in the .NET runtime or libraries, not in a specific app. In other words, it’s a bug in the engine that runs .NET code, so any app created with affected .NET versions could be at risk until patched.

The main outcome is denial of service: an attacker can cause targeted .NET processes to crash or become unstable, leading to downtime or degraded performance. For a public‑facing web API, a payment service, or any line‑of‑business app built on .NET, this can mean real‑world outages and angry users while services are repeatedly knocked over.

Vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft Office users are two remote code execution flaws in Microsoft Office (CVE-2026-26110 and CVE-2026-26113) which can both be exploited via the preview pane, and a Microsoft Excel information disclosure flaw (CVE-2026-26144), which could be used to exfiltrate data via Microsoft Copilot. Office vulnerabilities appear regularly in Patch Tuesday releases, and in this case none have been reported as actively exploited.

How to apply fixes and check if you’re protected

These updates fix security problems and keep your Windows PC protected. Here’s how to make sure you’re up to date:

1. Open Settings

• Click the Start button (the Windows logo at the bottom left of your screen).
• Click on Settings (it looks like a little gear).

2. Go to Windows Update

• In the Settings window, select Windows Update (usually at the bottom of the menu on the left).

3. Check for updates

• Click the button that says Check for updates.
• Windows will search for the latest Patch Tuesday updates.
• If you have selected to get the latest updates as soon as they’re available, you may see this under More options.
• In which case you may see a Restart required message. Restart your system and the update will complete.
  

• If not, continue with the steps below.

4. Download and Install

• If updates are found, they’ll start downloading right away. Once complete, you’ll see a button that says Install or Restart now.
• Click Install if needed and follow any prompts. Your computer will usually need a restart to finish the update. If it does, click Restart now.
  
  

5. Double-check you’re up to date

• After restarting, go back to Windows Update and check again. If it says You’re up to date, you’re all set!

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We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

24/7 Managed SOC Built for Tomorrow's Threats

The window for defense has collapsed, and most SOCs weren’t built for the speed of today’s attacks. According to the 2026 Unit 42^® Global Incident Response Report, some end-to-end attacks now unfold in under an hour. Attacks that used to take days or weeks now happen in minutes.

Most traditional SOC models are trapped in a cycle of alert overload, fragmented tools and limited engineering capacity that slow investigations and delay response. Traditional SIEM and MDR models were designed to react to alerts. They were not designed to continuously improve detections, correlations and response with threats that move at machine speed. Over time, that gap between attacker speed and defender capability keeps widening, and it’s exactly why we built Unit 42 Managed XSIAM 2.0 (MSIAM).

Today marks the availability of the next evolution of our managed SOC offering – one that reflects how modern security operations must run in today’s threat landscape. MSIAM 2.0 is built on Cortex XSIAM^®, Palo Alto Networks SOC transformation platform, and operated by Unit 42 analysts, threat hunters, responders and SOC engineers who handle the most complex incidents in the world. With this solution, Unit 42 provides organizations with a 24/7 managed SOC that delivers continuous detection, investigation and full-cycle remediation across the entire attack surface while improving operations over time.

We don’t just manage alerts. Unit 42 continuously engineers detections, correlations and response playbooks within XSIAM, refining them as attacker behavior evolves. This ongoing engineering ensures defenses improve over time, driven by real-world incidents and frontline threat intelligence, not static rules that quickly fall behind.

Why Managed XSIAM 2.0 Is Different

Elite SOC on Day One

We want SOC teams up and running as fast as possible. Experts lead onboarding, data mapping and configuration, and then your managed SOC team takes responsibility for operating and optimizing XSIAM on a day-to-day basis. The result is a SOC that improves over time without adding operational burden.

Every Threat Exposed

Unit 42 goes beyond reactive monitoring with continuous, proactive threat hunting across the entire attack surface. When a new threat is found in the wild, we produce threat impact reports that show how those techniques apply to each customer’s environment. We then translate those insights into custom detections and automated response actions, while also monitoring and investigating the correlation rules your team creates. Both the global threat intelligence and your unique use cases are backed by our 24/7 analysis, closing gaps quickly and strengthening defenses over time.

We also now support both native and third-party EDR telemetry, so organizations can benefit from Unit 42 expertise and Cortex^® AI-driven analytics, regardless of the security technologies they use today. This enables customers to receive the strongest possible managed defense now, while creating a natural, low-friction path toward deeper platform consolidation as their environment evolves.

Machine-Speed Response

When incidents escalate, we don’t just hand you a ticket; we take ownership. Collaborating with your team, we establish pre-authorized workflows to execute immediate responses across your entire environment, from endpoints and firewalls to identity and cloud. We pair the platform’s native speed with expert oversight. By validating threat context and business impact, every response action is precise and safe, giving you the confidence to unleash full-cycle remediation. This allows MSIAM 2.0 to move seamlessly from detection to resolution with both velocity and precision.

And we stand behind our solution with a Breach Response Guarantee. If a complex incident strikes, you have the world’s best responders in your corner with up to 250 hours of Unit 42 Incident Response included. This built-in coverage removes the administrative hurdles of crisis response, enabling our experts to immediately transition from monitoring to deep forensic investigation and complete eradication, so you can focus on recovery. 

Proven in the Real World with the Green Bay Packers

Working with Unit 42 and the Cortex XSIAM platform, the Green Bay Packers modernized their security across a complex hybrid environment, demonstrating what Unit 42's managed services deliver in real-world operations. By consolidating telemetry and accelerating investigation and response, they reduced response times from hours to minutes, investigated 54% more alerts and saved over 120 hours of analyst time without adding headcount.

These outcomes reflect the key benefits of MSIAM: Unit 42 experts working to apply frontline intelligence as new attacker behavior emerges, translating it into reporting and tailored detections that improve response where it matters most. When a machine-speed platform is operated by experts handling real incidents every day, defenses continuously strengthen as threats evolve.

The Future of the SOC

Unit 42 MSIAM 2.0 helps your SOC operate as it should by combining AI-driven analytics and automation with expert-led operations and engineering. This combination provides teams with the confidence that their defenses are always on, always improving and ready when it matters most. That’s the SOC that security leaders need today, and the one we’re building for tomorrow.

MSIAM is now delivered through two service tiers, Pro and Premium. Organizations can start where they are and grow at their own pace. Pro provides AI-driven managed SOC operations with continuous detection, investigation and response. Premium extends into full-lifecycle SOC engineering, with designated experts and customized detections, automation and tailored response playbooks as your security maturity grows.

To learn more about Managed XSIAM 2.0, join us at Symphony 2026, a Palo Alto Networks premier virtual SOC event, where Unit 42 and Cortex^® experts will share frontline threat intelligence from the new 2026 Unit 42 Incident Response Report alongside real-world SOC transformation insights from organizations operating at machine speed.

The post Introducing Unit 42 Managed XSIAM 2.0 appeared first on Palo Alto Networks Blog.

AI-Accelerated Attacks, Identity-Enabled Breaches and Expanding Software Supply Chain Exposure Define the 2026 Cyberthreat Landscape

Each year, thousands of organizations experience a cyber incident. An incident can begin with a SOC alert, zero-day vulnerability, ransom demand or widespread business disruption. When the call comes, our global incident responders quickly mobilize to investigate, contain and eradicate the threat.

This year’s Unit 42^® 2026 Global Incident Response Report analyzed over 750 major cyber incidents across every major industry in over 50 countries to reveal emerging patterns and lessons for defenders.

The data shows a clear shift in how attacks unfold. Threat actors are moving faster, increasingly leveraging identity and trusted connections, and expanding attacks across multiple attack surfaces. The accelerating speed, scale and complexity of these intrusions mean the window between initial access and business impact is shrinking. Most breaches, however, still succeed due to preventable gaps in visibility and security controls.

Key Findings Show Attacks Are Faster, Broader and Harder to Contain

As adversaries adapt their playbooks, the report highlights several defining trends shaping the 2026 threat landscape:

• AI Is Compressing the Attack Timeline: In the fastest cases we investigated, attackers needed just 72 minutes to move from initial access to data exfiltration, 4X faster than last year. We’re seeing AI used in reconnaissance, phishing, scripting and operational execution, which enables machine-like speed at scale.
• Identity Is Now a Primary Attack Vehicle: Identity weaknesses played a material role in nearly 90% of our investigations. More often than not, attackers aren’t breaking in; they’re logging in with stolen credentials and tokens, and then exploiting fragmented identity estates to escalate privileges and move laterally without triggering traditional defenses.
• Supply Chain Risk Now Drives Operational Disruption: In 23% of incidents, attackers leveraged third-party SaaS applications. By abusing trusted integrations, vendor tools and application dependencies, they bypassed traditional perimeters and expanded the impact well beyond a single system.
• Attack Complexity Is Growing: We found that 87% of intrusions involved activity across multiple attack surfaces. Rarely does an attack stay in one environment. Instead, we see coordinated activity across endpoints, networks, cloud, SaaS and identity, forcing defenders to monitor across all of them at once.
• The Browser Is a Primary Battleground: Nearly 48% of incidents included browser-based activity. This reflects how often modern attacks intersect with routine workflows, like email, web access and day-to-day SaaS use, turning normal user behavior into an attack vector.
• Extortion Is Moving Beyond Encryption: Encryption-based extortion declined 15% from the year before, as more attackers skip encryption and move straight to data theft and disruption. From the attacker’s perspective, it’s faster, quieter and creates immediate pressure without the signals that defenders once relied on to detect ransomware attacks.

Attacks Succeed Because Exposure Still Beats Sophistication

Despite the speed and automation we’re seeing, most of the incidents we respond to don’t start with something radically new. They start with gaps that show up again and again. In many cases, attackers didn’t rely on a sophisticated exploit, but on an overlooked exposure.

• Environmental Complexity Undermining Defenses: In over 90% of the incidents we investigated, misconfigurations or gaps in security coverage materially enabled the attack. A big driver of that is tool sprawl. Many organizations are running 50 or more security products, making it extremely difficult to deploy controls consistently or clearly understand what their data is telling them.
• Visibility Gaps Delay Detection: In many engagements, the signals were there. When we look back forensically, the evidence is in the logs. But during the attack, teams had to stitch together data from multiple disconnected sources, slowing detection during the most critical early minutes.
• Excessive Trust Expands Impact: Once attackers gain a foothold, overly permissive access and unmanaged tokens frequently let them move farther than they should. We repeatedly see identity trust relationships turn a single compromised account into broad lateral movement and privilege escalation.

Attackers are evolving their tools and tactics, but they still win most often from exploited complexity, limited visibility and excessive trust inside modern enterprise environments.

Recommendations for Security Leaders and Defenders

Across more than 750 frontline investigations, three priorities come up again and again in conversations with CISOs and security teams.

• Reduce Exposure: Many of the attacks we see begin in places teams didn’t realize were exposed – third-party integrations, unmanaged SaaS connections or everyday browser activity. Reducing exposure means securing the full application ecosystem and treating trusted connections with the same scrutiny as core infrastructure.
• Reduce Area of Impact: Once attackers get in, the difference between a contained incident and a major disruption often comes down to identity. Tightening identity and access management while removing unnecessary trust limits how far an attacker can move and how much damage they can cause.
• Increase Response Speed: What happens in the first minutes after initial access can determine whether an incident becomes a breach. Security teams need the visibility to see what’s happening across environments and the ability to use AI to detect, identify and prioritize what matters, so the SOC can contain threats at machine speed, faster than the adversary can move.

Conclusion

Every investigation tells a story. How the attacker got in. How quickly they moved. What made the impact worse. Across hundreds of these cases, patterns emerge. Unit 42 operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on the frontlines of these incidents, and each year we distill what we learn into practical guidance. The goal of this report is to turn those frontline lessons into decisions that help you close the gaps that attackers still rely on and stop incidents before they become breaches.

Stay informed. Read the 2026 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report and download the Executive Resource Kit.

The post 2026 Unit 42 Global Incident Response Report — Attacks Now 4x Faster appeared first on Palo Alto Networks Blog.

Unit 42 celebrates 9 years of the Cyber Threat Alliance, tracing its journey from a bold idea to a global leader in collaborative cyber defense.

The post Happy 9th Anniversary, CTA: A Celebration of Collaboration in Cyber Defense appeared first on Unit 42.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 and AWS Announce Expanded Collaboration, Launching No-Cost Retainer for AWS Security Incident Response available in AWS Marketplace

Speed is everything in today’s security landscape. From Unit 42^®’s frontline experience responding to more than 500 incidents last year, we've seen that in nearly one in five incidents, attackers go from initial compromise to data exfiltration in less than an hour. It leaves almost no time to react.

The challenge is compounded by the distributed nature of the modern IT environment; cyberattacks are rarely confined to one location. In fact, 70 percent of incidents now span three or more attack surfaces, from endpoints and networks to multiple cloud environments. This complexity increases vulnerabilities, which is a key reason why 86 percent of major incidents disrupt business operations.

When a breach moves at this speed and crosses complex silos, an enterprise has two immediate, critical needs:

1. Rapid, integrated expertise to contain the threat at its source within the cloud.
2. Holistic, end-to-end investigation to determine the full scope of the attack, tracing the attacker's path wherever it leads, across all systems and environments.

The No-Cost Unit 42 IR Retainer Available on AWS Marketplace

Recognizing customers need a faster, more comprehensive incident response strategy in the cloud, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 is expanding our partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Security Incident Response service. The collaboration introduces a no-cost Unit 42 Incident Response Retainer, which is now available to qualified customers in AWS Marketplace. Our value-added offer provides qualified customers with rapid access to Unit 42’s world-class investigative expertise and dramatically minimizes the critical time between an alert and full containment.

For qualified customers, here's what the no-cost Unit 42 Incident Response Retainer offers:

• 250 hours of initial Unit 42 Incident Response services at no cost.
• A 2-hour response time agreement for incident response.
• 24/7/365 access to the Unit 42 Incident Response team.

As an AWS Security Incident Response Service Ready partner, this collaboration is designed to deliver seamless, end-to-end incident response and proactive security services. By combining Unit 42’s deep experience in managing complex, legally privileged investigations with the rapid engagement of AWS Security Incident Response, organizations can resolve critical incidents faster and more comprehensively.

Unit 42 also offers preferred pricing to AWS Security Incident Response customers for proactive services through paid retainer offerings, also available in AWS Marketplace.

Hart Rossman, Vice President of Global Services Security, AWS:

When cyberattacks move at cloud speed, customers need immediate access to comprehensive expertise. By integrating Unit 42's end-to-end investigative capabilities with AWS Security Incident Response, we're delivering a unified response that helps customers contain threats faster and minimize business disruption. The no-cost retainer ensures they can activate the full scope of resources they need within minutes, not hours.

Effective response to a cloud breach demands deep technical skill and the ability to manage complexity under pressure. Unit 42 excels at managing high-stakes incidents. By coupling our expertise with AWS Security Incident Response’s capabilities to prepare, respond and recover from security incidents, Unit 42 offers customers a unified defense. Streamlining the entire process, from initial alert to final resolution, allows organizations to get back to business faster and limit operational disruption.

A Unified Front Against Complex Cloud Incidents

The collaboration is designed to solve a critical customer problem: Reduce the time and complexity of responding to incidents that span both AWS resources and the broader enterprise.

The combined offering delivers three key benefits, providing customers with a holistic and agile defense strategy:

• Comprehensive Investigation: Unit 42’s expertise enables an investigation across multiple environments, including endpoints, networks and other enterprise data sources, complementing AWS’s incident response technologies and expertise.
• Rapid, 24/7 Access to Experts: AWS Security Incident Response provides direct, 24/7 access to the AWS Customer Incident Response Team (CIRT), capable of engaging within minutes. Unit 42 is skilled at serving in the incident command role, coordinating efforts among internal stakeholders, other forensic and recovery vendors, as well as legal counsel.
• Response Readiness with No-Cost Retainer: The offering removes the typical administrative and procurement overhead of incident response engagements. The added value ensures qualified customers can activate the full resources of Unit 42 instantly, often at the direction of counsel.

Availability

The Unit 42 Incident Response and proactive service offerings are available in AWS Marketplace today. More information on the partnership will be shared during AWS re:Invent 2025 (December 1-5, 2025).

To learn more, visit the Unit 42 listing available in AWS Marketplace.

The post Unit 42 Incident Response Retainer for AWS Security Incident Response appeared first on Palo Alto Networks Blog.

If you were still questioning whether iOS 26+ is for you, now is the time to make that call.

Why?

On December 12, 2025, Apple patched two WebKit zero‑day vulnerabilities linked to mercenary spyware and is now effectively pushing iPhone 11 and newer users toward iOS 26+, because that’s where the fixes and new memory protections live. These vulnerabilities were primarily used in highly targeted attacks, but such campaigns are likely to expand over time.

WebKit powers the Safari browser and many other iOS applications, so it’s a big attack surface to leave exposed and isn’t limited to “risky” behavior. These vulnerabilities allowed an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a device after exploitation via malicious web content.

Apple has confirmed that attackers are already exploiting these vulnerabilities in the wild, making installation of the update a high‑priority security task for every user. Campaigns that start with diplomats, journalists, or executives often lead to tooling and exploits leaking or being repurposed, so “I’m not a target” is not a viable safety strategy.​

Due to public resistance to new features like Liquid Glass, many iPhone users have not yet upgraded to iOS 26.2. Reports suggest adoption of iOS 26 has been unusually slow. As of January 2026, only about 4.6% of active iPhones are on iOS 26.2, and roughly 16% are on any version of iOS 26, leaving the vast majority on older releases such as iOS 18.

However, Apple only ships these fixes and newer protections, such as Memory Integrity Enforcement, on iOS 26+ for supported devices. Users on older, unsupported devices won’t be able to access these protections at all.

Another important factor in the upgrade cycle is restarting the device. What many people don’t realize is that when you restart your device, any memory-resident malware is flushed—unless it has somehow gained persistence, in which case it will return. High-end spyware tools tend to avoid leaving traces needed for persistence and often rely on users not restarting their devices.

Upgrading requires a restart, which makes this a win-win: you get the latest protections, and any memory-resident malware is flushed at the same time.

For iOS and iPadOS users, you can check if you’re using the latest software version, go to Settings > General > Software Update. It’s also worth turning on Automatic Updates if you haven’t already. You can do that on the same screen.

How to stay safe

The most important fix—however painful you may find it—is to upgrade to iOS 26.2. Not doing means missing an accumulating list of security fixes, leaving your device vulnerable to more and more newly found vulnerabilities.

 But here are some other useful tips:

• Make it a habit to restart your device on a regular basis. The NSA recommends doing this weekly.
• Do not open unsolicited links and attachments without verifying with the trusted sender.
• Remember, Apple threat notifications will never ask users to click links, open files, install apps or ask for account passwords or verification code.
• For Apple Mail users specifically, these vulnerabilities create risk when viewing HTML-formatted emails containing malicious web content.
• Malwarebytes for iOS can help keep your device secure, with Trusted Advisor alerting you when important updates are available.
• If you are a high-value target, or you want the extra level of security, consider using Apple’s Lockdown Mode.

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We don’t just report on phone security—we provide it

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your mobile devices by downloading Malwarebytes for iOS, and Malwarebytes for Android today.

Cybersecurity thrives on diverse skills, not just coding and engineering. From writers to designers, there’s a place for you in this field.

The post Who Does Cybersecurity Need? You! appeared first on Unit 42.

We discuss the CVSS 10.0-rated RCE vulnerability in the Flight protocol used by React Server Components. This is tracked as CVE-2025-55182.

The post Exploitation of Critical Vulnerability in React Server Components (Updated December 12) appeared first on Unit 42.

This article was written to provide readers with an overview of a selection of our pentest results from the last 15 months. This data was gathered toward the end of September 2025. Shockingly, the data does not differ much from our prior analyses conducted at the end of 2022 or 2023.

The post Why You Got Hacked – 2025 Super Edition appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Unit 42 outlines a Howling Scorpius attack delivering Akira ransomware that originated from a fake CAPTCHA and led to a 42-day compromise.

The post Anatomy of an Akira Ransomware Attack: When a Fake CAPTCHA Led to 42 Days of Compromise appeared first on Unit 42.

While DLL hijacking attacks can take on many different forms, this blog post will explore a specific type of attack called DLL proxying, providing insights into how it works, the potential risks it poses, and briefly the methodology for discovering these vulnerable DLLs, which led to the discovery of several zero-day vulnerable DLLs that Microsoft has acknowledged but opted to not fix at this time.

The post Proxying Your Way to Code Execution – A Different Take on DLL Hijacking  appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Patterson Cake // In PART 1 of “Wrangling the M365 UAL,” we talked about the value of the Unified Audit Log (UAL), some of the challenges associated with acquisition, parsing, […]

The post Wrangling the M365 UAL with SOF-ELK on EC2 (Part 2 of 3) appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Derek Banks // Living Off the Land Binaries, Scripts, and Libraries, known as LOLBins or LOLBAS, are legitimate components of an operating system that threat actors can use to achieve […]

The post Ssh… Don’t Tell Them I Am Not HTTPS: How Attackers Use SSH.exe as a Backdoor Into Your Network appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Ean Meyer // This post is for attendees of Wild West Hackin’ Fest: Deadwood 2022 POGs? Yes, POGs! If you aren’t familiar with POGs, this game started decades ago, reaching […]

The post POGS at Wild West Hackin’ Fest!  appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Mike Felch // The Hunt for Initial Access With the default disablement of VBA macros originating from the internet, Microsoft may be pitching a curveball to threat actors and red […]

The post Rogue RDP – Revisiting Initial Access Methods appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Jordan Drysdale // tl;dr BHIS made some interesting discoveries while working with a customer to audit their Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. At the time of the discovery, we found […]

The post Securing the Cloud: A Story of Research, Discovery, and Disclosure appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Brian Fehrman // Many of you have likely heard of Domain Fronting. Domain Fronting is a technique that can allow your C2 traffic to blend in with a target’s traffic […]

The post Using CloudFront to Relay Cobalt Strike Traffic appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Timecode links take you to YouTube: 4:11 – Infrastructure & Background8:28 – Overview & Breakdown of Attack Methodology and Plans11:35 – Start of Attack (Gaining Access), Password Spraying Toolkit15:24 – […]

The post Webcast: Attack Tactics 5 – Zero to Hero Attack appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..