❌

Normal view

2nd March – Threat Intelligence Report

By: lorenf
2 March 2026 at 17:29

For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 2nd March, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.

TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES

  • Wynn Resorts, a United States-based casino and hotel operator, has confirmed that employee data was accessed following an extortion threat linked to ShinyHunters. The company said operations were not disrupted. Reports indicate the stolen dataset includes HR-related information, including contact details and employment records for current and former staff.
  • UFP Technologies, a United States-based medical device manufacturing giant, has disclosed a cyberattack that compromised parts of its IT environment and resulted in data exfiltration. The company reported disruptions to shipping and labeling workflows. According to the company, some of its data was wiped in the attack.
  • Transport Workers Union of America Local 100, which represents New York City transit workers, was targeted by the Qilin ransomware group and listed on its leak site. According to reports, personal data of the union’s 67,000 members is now at risk of fraud and identity misuse.

Check Point Harmony Endpoint and Threat Emulation provide protection against this threat (Ransomware.Wins.Qilin.ta.* Ransomware.Wins.Qilin.)

  • European home improvement marketplace ManoMano has reported a data breach tied to a third-party customer support portal. The exposed records include customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, and support ticket details. ManoMano said passwords and payment data were not affected, and notifications are being sent to impacted users.

AI THREATS

  • Check Point Research has discovered critical vulnerabilities in Anthropic’s Claude Code that allow attackers to achieve remote code execution and steal API credentials through malicious project configurations. Stolen keys can provide access to shared Workspaces for file access and tampering. Anthropic patched the issues, including CVE-2025-59536.
  • Anthropic warns of coordinated β€œdistillation” activity attributed to China-based AI firms, including DeepSeek, MiniMax, and Moonshot. Anthropic said fraudulent accounts generated millions of Claude exchanges aimed at extracting reasoning, coding, and agent workflows. The activity was described as an effort to train competing models.
  • OpenAI has released a report listing malicious attempts to misuse its models. Among the threats listed in the report is an influence operation attempt linked to Chinese law enforcement, which targeted Japan’s prime minister.

VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES

  • Two Roundcube Webmail flaws have been listed as exploited in the wild, including CVE-2025-49113, a high-severity post-auth remote code execution bug. The second issue, CVE-2025-68461, is an unauthenticated cross-site scripting flaw. The bugs affect widely used Roundcube deployments, including cPanel environments globally.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Roundcube Webmail Remote Code Execution (CVE-2025-49113))

  • Researchers have unveiled a pre-auth remote code execution chain in SolarWinds Web Help Desk. The chain combines authentication bypass flaws CVE-2025-40552 and CVE-2025-40554 with deserialization RCE CVE-2025-40553. A successful attack can allow takeover of exposed help desk servers without credentials. The flaws affect widely deployed on-premises instances.

Check Point IPS provides protection against these threats (SolarWinds Web Help Desk Authentication Bypass (CVE-2025-40536, CVE-2025-40554, CVE-2025-40552), SolarWinds Web Help Desk Insecure Deserialization (CVE-2024-28986, CVE-2024-28988, CVE-2025-40553, CVE-2025-26399))

  • Researchers alerted organizations about CVE-2026-20127, a critical authentication bypass in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller (CVSS 10) exploited in the wild for at least three years. Attackers can log in with high privileges, add rogue peers, and downgrade controllers to exploit CVE-2022-20775 for root access. CISA issued an emergency directive mandating fast patching.

THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

  • Check Point Research summarizes five key Iranian threat actor clusters relevant to the current conflict in the Middle East. It outlines the main TTPs these groups have recently used against targets in the Middle East and the United States and shares six defensive measures IT teams should take to help prevent attacks during the ongoing conflict.
  • Check Point Research has published its Untold Stories of 2025, a compilation covering multiple notable campaigns that occurred during 2025. These include exploitation of Microsoft SharePoint (β€œToolShell”), and adversary-in-the-middle phishing used to bypass MFA, as well as state-linked operations attributed to groups such as Camaro Dragon and COLDRIVER. The report also highlights evolving command-and-control techniques observed across Europe and Central Asia.
  • Lazarus-linked operators were observed using Medusa ransomware in recent intrusions, including activity against a Middle Eastern entity and attempted access at a US healthcare organization. Medusa is described as a ransomware-as-a-service operation with leak-site activity.

Check Point Harmony Endpoint and Threat Emulation provide protection against this threat.

  • Researchers have uncovered GrayCharlie activity targeting WordPress sites by injecting external JavaScript that profiles visitors and delivers malware through fake updates or ClickFix-style prompts. Reporting links infections to NetSupport tooling, followed by Stealc and SectopRAT.

The post 2nd March – Threat Intelligence Report appeared first on Check Point Research.

23rd February – Threat Intelligence Report

By: lorenf
23 February 2026 at 10:01

For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 23rd February, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.

TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES

  • France’s Ministry of Economy has disclosed a data breach resulted from an unauthorized access to the national bank account registry FICOBA, impacting information tied to 1.2 million accounts. Exposed data includes names, addresses, account identifiers and, in some cases, tax-related identifiers. Officials said the intrusion involved compromised government credentials.
  • Japanese tech giant Advantest Corporation was hit by a ransomware attack that resulted in the deployment of ransomware within portions of its network following unauthorized access by a third party on February 15. The incident may have impacted certain internal systems, and the potential compromise of customer or employee data remains unclear.
  • University of Mississippi Medical Center, an academic healthcare system in Mississippi, has suffered a ransomware attack that forced closures across its clinic network and disrupted access to electronic medical records. The organization canceled elective procedures and shifted to manual processes. Systems were taken offline and no ransomware group claimed responsibility.
  • Ukraine’s central bank, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), has faced a supply-chain incident affecting a contractor that runs its collectible coin online store. Exposed information includes customer registration data, such as names, emails, phone numbers, and delivery addresses. The bank indicated that payment information was not affected.

AI THREATS

  • Check Point Research unveiled a technique that repurposes AI assistants like Grok and Microsoft Copilot as covert C2 proxies by abusing web-browsing URL fetch features without authentication. Malware exfiltrates host data via query parameters and retrieves commands from AI-generated summaries through hidden WebView2, bypassing inspection of AI traffic.
  • A Russian-speaking financially motivated threat actor leveraged commercial generative AI tools to conduct mass credential abuse of 600 FortiGate devices in 55 countries from January 11 to February 18, 2026. The attackers targeted Veeam servers, exploiting CVE-2023-27532 and CVE-2024-40711.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Veeam Backup and Replication Insecure Deserialization (CVE-2024-40711))

  • Researchers uncovered a Shai-Hulud-like npm supply chain worm spreading via typosquatted packages, stealing developer and CI secrets, exfiltrating via GitHub API with DNS fallback, and propagating by poisoning workflows and git hooks, with MCP server injection targeting AI coding assistants and harvesting LLM API keys.

VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES

  • Dell RecoverPoint for VMs, impacted by CVE-2026-22769 (CVSS 10.0) in versions before 6.0.3.1, has been exploited as a zero-day since mid-2024 by suspected Chinese group UNC6201. Attackers used hardcoded Tomcat credentials for unauthenticated root access, deploying SLAYSTYLE, BRICKSTORM, and the GRIMBOLT backdoor, and creating Ghost NICs to pivot and persist in VMware environments.

Check Point IPS and Threat Emulation provide protection against this threat (Dell RecoverPoint For Virtual Machines Arbitrary File Upload (CVE-2026-22769); Trojan.Wins.SLAYSTYLE; Trojan.Wins.BRICKSTORM.ta.*; Trojan.Wins.GRIMBOLT)

  • Grandstream GXP1600 series VoIP phones are affected by CVE-2026-2329, a critical unauthenticated stack-based buffer overflow in the web API allowing root RCE. Exploitation enables credential theft, SIP proxy reconfiguration, and covert call interception. Firmware version 1.0.7.81 fixes the issue.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Grandstream GXP1600 Stack Overflow (CVE-2026-2329))

  • A flaw in Microsoft 365 Copilot allows the β€œWork Tab” Chat feature to summarize emails protected by confidentiality sensitivity labels, bypassing configured Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies. The code-level defect enables Copilot to access labeled content in Sent Items and Draft folders, exposing restricted data in AI-generated summaries.
  • Google has patched CVE-2026-2441, a high-severity Chrome zero-day in the CSS component in Google Chrome prior to 145.0.7632.75, confirmed exploited in the wild. The use-after-free flaw can enable remote code execution within the browser sandbox via a crafted page.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Google Chrome Use After Free (CVE-2026-2441))

THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

  • Researchers have discovered Keenadu, an Android firmware backdoor delivered via supply chain compromise. It uses RC4-encrypted payloads, DexClassLoader, and permission bypass frameworks for ad fraud, search hijacking, and monetization, with links to Triada and BADBOX.
  • Researchers analyzed Arkanix Stealer, a MaaS infostealer with Python and C++ implants, dynamic server side configuration, and modules including ChromElevator and HVNC. It uses phishing lures, steals from 22 browsers, Telegram and Discord and targets VPN, gaming and crypto wallets.
  • Researchers have analyzed a spam campaign that abused Atlassian Jira Cloud notifications to bypass email filters by exploiting trusted atlassian.net sender domains with valid SPF and DKIM authentication. The attackers rapidly spun up trial instances and used Jira Automation alongside the Keitaro TDS to distribute localized lures targeting government and corporate sectors.
  • Researchers identified a Booking.com-themed phishing campaign active since January 2026 that targets hotel partners and guests with a three-stage chain. It leveraged look-alike domains and IDN homographs, collected visitor fingerprinting with decoy pages, conducted partner account takeovers, and used WhatsApp lures to fake payment portals behind Cloudflare CAPTCHA.

The post 23rd February – Threat Intelligence Report appeared first on Check Point Research.

16th February – Threat Intelligence Report

By: lorenf
16 February 2026 at 18:57

For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 16th February, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.

TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES

  • Dutch telecom provider Odido was hit by a data breach following unauthorized access to its customer management system. Attackers extracted personal data of 6.2 million customers, including names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, bank account details, dates of birth, and passport or ID numbers.
  • BridgePay Network Solutions, a US payment gateway, has confirmed a ransomware attack that forced it to take core systems offline. The outage disrupted portals for municipalities and merchants nationwide, though initial findings indicate no payment card data exposure and accessed files were encrypted. No ransomware group claimed responsibility for the attack.
  • Flickr, a photo sharing platform, has experienced a security incident at a third-party email service provider on February 5. The exposure may include names, usernames, email addresses, IP addresses, location data, and more. Passwords and payment card numbers were not affected.
  • ApolloMD, a US physician and practice management services firm, has disclosed a breach impacting 626,000 individuals. The incident occurred during May 2025, while the attackers accessed patient information from affiliated practices, exposing data such as names, addresses, and medical details.

AI THREATS

  • Google has released an analysis of adversarial AI misuse, detailing model extraction β€œdistillation” attacks, AI-augmented phishing, and malware experimentation in late 2025. The report identified attempts to coerce disclosure of internal reasoning, AI-assisted reconnaissance by DPRK, PRC, Iranian, and Russian actors, and AI-integrated malware such as HONESTCUE leveraging Gemini’s API for second-stage payload generation.
  • Researchers have investigated a UNC1069 intrusion targeting a cryptocurrency FinTech through AI-enabled social engineering and a fake Zoom ClickFix lure. The attack deployed seven malware families enabling TCC bypass, credential and browser data theft, keystroke logging, and C2 communications over RC4-encrypted configurations.

Check Point Threat Emulation provides protection against this threat (Trojan.Wins.SugarLoader)

  • Researchers have detailed the abuse of AI website builders to clone major brands for phishing and fraud. They analyzed a Malwarebytes lookalike site created using Vercel’s v0 tool, which replicated branding and integrated opaque PayPal payment flows. The domain leveraged SEO poisoning and spam links, with registration data indicating links to India.

VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES

  • Microsoft has released its February 2026 Patch Tuesday updates. The release addresses 58 vulnerabilities, including six zero days under active exploitation, among them CVE-2026-21510, a Windows Shell Security Feature Bypass vulnerability that can be triggered by opening a specially crafted link or shortcut file. Successful exploitation requires convincing a user to open a malicious link or shortcut file.
  • Google has patched 11 vulnerabilities in Chrome 145 for Windows, macOS, and Linux, including CVE-2026-2313, a use-after-free vulnerability in CSS. This high-severity flaw could allow remote code execution. Two additional high severity bugs in Codecs (CVE-2026-2314) and WebGPU (CVE-2026-2315) also enable code execution.
  • BeyondTrust has addressed CVE-2026-1731, a CVSS 9.9 pre-authentication remote code execution flaw in Remote Support and older Privileged Remote Access versions. Shortly after a proof of concept was published, threat actors began exploiting exposed instances, prompting urgent upgrades for self-hosted deployments.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (BeyondTrust Multiple Products Command Injection (CVE-2026-1731))

THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

  • Check Point Research analyzed global cyber-attacks in January averaging 2,090 per organization per week, up 3% from December and 17% year over year. Education remained the most targeted sector with 4,364 attacks per organization, ransomware recorded 678 incidents with 52% in North America, and 1 in 30 GenAI prompts posed high data leak risk.
  • Check Point Research identified a sharp increase in Valentine-themed phishing websites, fraudulent stores, and fake dating platforms designed to steal personal data and payment information. Valentine-related domain registrations rose 44% in January 2026, with 97.5% unclassified, while 710 Tinder-impersonating domains were detected.
  • A Phorpiex-driven phishing campaign has been observed delivering Global Group ransomware via ZIP attachments with double-extension LNK files, using CMD and PowerShell to execute the payload. The ransomware runs offline with locally generated ChaCha20-Poly1305 keys, deletes shadow copies and itself, and terminates analysis and database processes.
  • Researchers have analyzed the latest GuLoader (aka CloudEye) downloader, which delivers Remcos, Vidar, and Raccoon, and now evades detection by leveraging encrypted payloads hosted on Google Drive and OneDrive. The malware uses polymorphic code to generate constants via XOR and ADD/SUB operations, along with anti-analysis techniques such as sandbox checks and exception handlers.

Check Point Harmony Endpoint and Threat Emulation provide protection against this threat (Trojan.Wins.GuLoader; InfoStealer.Win.GuLoader; Dropper.Wins.GuLoader.ta.*; Dropper.Win.CloudEyE; RAT.Wins.Remcos; InfoStealer.Win.Vidar; InfoStealer.Win.Raccoon; InfoStealer.Wins.Raccoon)

The post 16th February – Threat Intelligence Report appeared first on Check Point Research.

9th February – Threat Intelligence Report

By: lorenf
9 February 2026 at 13:50

For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 9th February, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.

TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES

  • Romania’s national oil pipeline operator, Conpet, has suffered a cyberattack that disrupted its IT systems and took its website offline. The company said operational technology, including pipeline control and telecommunications systems, remained fully functional and oil transport continued without interruption. The attack was claimed by the Qilin ransomware group.

Check Point Harmony Endpoint and Threat Emulation provide protection against this threat (Ransomware.Wins.Qilin.ta.*; Ransomware.Wins.Qilin)

  • La Sapienza University in Rome, one of Europe’s largest universities, has confirmed a cyberattack that prompted it to take down computer systems for three days, with email and workstations partially limited. The website remains offline as the school restores services.
  • The City of New Britain, a municipal government in Connecticut, was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted internet and phone services for over 48 hours. While emergency services remained operational, it is unclear whether personal data was compromised.
  • Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Instituut (OLV) Pulhof, a secondary school in Berchem, Belgium, has experienced a ransomware attack that escalated into extortion of parents. Attackers reduced demand from €100,000 to €15,000 and threatened to leak student and staff data or charge parents €50 per child, while the school refused payment and is investigating potential exposure.

AI THREATS

  • Threat actors leveraged exposed credentials from public AWS S3 buckets to launch an AI-assisted intrusion, escalating cloud privileges from ReadOnlyAccess to admin within eight to ten minutes via Lambda code injection and IAM role assumptions. The attack further abused Amazon Bedrock models for LLMjacking and provisioned GPU-based EC2 instances using JupyterLab to exploit resources, pivoting rapidly across 19 AWS principals.
  • Ask Gordon, Docker’s AI assistant, was affected by the critical β€œDockerDash” vulnerability, allowing Meta Context Injection via Model Context Protocol that treats malicious Docker image LABEL metadata as executable instructions. This enabled remote code execution and data exfiltration in cloud, CLI, and Docker Desktop environments, with mitigations released in Docker Desktop 4.50.0.
  • Bondu, an AI plush toy maker, exposed a web console that allowed anyone with a Google account to access 50,000 chat transcripts with children – revealing names, birth dates, family details, and intimate conversations. Researchers reported the issue, after which Bondu disabled the console and added authentication.

VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES

  • Ivanti addressed two zero-days in Endpoint Manager Mobile, CVE-2026-1281 and CVE-2026-1340 (CVSS 9.8), exploited for unauthenticated code injection and remote code execution. The flaws affect in-house app distribution and Android file-transfer features, with emergency fixes issued January 29 for on-premises EPMM deployments.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile Command Injection (CVE-2026-1281, CVE-2026-1340))

  • Active exploitation of CVE-2025-11953, an OS command injection flaw, was detected in the React Native Community CLI and the Metro development server used by major mobile app projects. This flaw can enable unauthenticated remote code execution, including full shell access on Windows.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (React Native Community CLI Command Injection (CVE-2025-11953))

  • n8n maintainers have released patches for a critical issue allowing authenticated users to run system commands through crafted workflows, risking full server compromise and credential theft. The flaw extends a prior expression-engine bug and fixes available in versions v1.123.17 and v2.5.2.

THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

  • Check Point Research observed Amaranth-Dragon, a Chinese-aligned group linked to APT41, conducting espionage against government and law enforcement across Southeast Asia. The threat actor weaponized WinRAR flaw CVE-2025-8088 within 10 days after its disclosure, geo-fenced servers to targets, and introduced TGAmaranth, a Telegram-based remote access tool.

Check Point IPS, Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat (RARLAB WinRAR Directory Traversal (CVE-2025-8088); Trojan.Win.Amaranth; Trojan.Wins.Amaranth.ta.*; APT.Win.APT41; APT.Wins.APT41.ta.*; Trojan.Wins.APT41.ta.*)

  • Check Point researchers assessed three most significant financial-sector trends in 2025. DDoS attacks surged 105%, data breaches and leaks rose 73%, and ransomware incidents reached 451 cases with aggressive multi-extortion tactics. Hacktivists drove DDoS attacks, and ransomware groups like Qilin, Akira, and Cl0p scaled operations via shared tooling and third-party access.

Check Point Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat (Ransomware.Wins.Qilin.ta.*; Ransomware.Wins.Qilin; Ransomware.Wins.Akira.ta.*; Ransomware.Wins.Clop; Ransomware.Wins.CLOP.ta.*; Ransomware.Win.Clop)

  • Check Point researchers described a phishing campaign that abused legitimate SaaS notifications from Microsoft, Zoom, Amazon, PayPal, YouTube, and Malwarebytes to drive phone-based scams. The operation sent 133,260 emails to 20,049 organizations, intensifying in recent months as attackers leveraged trusted messages to bypass link-focused defenses and steer targets to attacker-controlled phone numbers.

The post 9th February – Threat Intelligence Report appeared first on Check Point Research.

2nd February – Threat Intelligence Report

By: lorenf
2 February 2026 at 14:35

For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 2nd February, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.

TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES

  • MicroWorld Technologies, maker of eScan antivirus, has suffered a supply-chain compromise. Malicious updates were pushed via the legitimate eScan updater, delivering multi-stage malware that establishes persistence, enables remote access, and blocks automatic updates. In response, eScan shut down its global update service for more than eight hours.
  • Crunchbase, a private company intelligence platform, has confirmed a data breach of over 2 million records claimed by ShinyHunters threat group after a ransom demand was refused. The published files were stolen from its corporate network and include customer names, contact details, partner contracts and other internal documents. Crunchbase said that their operations were not disrupted.
  • Qilin ransomware group has leaked an alleged database belonging to Tulsa International Airport in Oklahoma. The database include financial records, internal emails, and employee identification data. The airport authority has not yet confirmed compromise, and operations reportedly continue.

Check Point Threat Emulation provides protection against this threat (Ransomware.Wins.Qilin.ta.*; Ransomware.Wins.Qilin)

  • WorldLeaks extortion group has claimed responsibility for a data breach on the sportswear giant Nike. The threat group allegedly exposed samples totaling 1.4 terabytes of internal data including documents and archives related to the company’s supply chain and manufacturing operations.

AI THREATS

  • Clawdbot, an open source AI agent gateway, has more than 900 publicly exposed and often unauthenticated instances due to localhost auto approval behind reverse proxies. It enables credential theft, access to chat histories, and remote code execution.
  • Researchers uncovered RedKitten, a 2026 campaign with LLM-assisted development indicators targeting Iranian activists and NGOs. The campaign uses password-protected Excel lures to deliver SloppyMIO, a C# implant that uses Telegram for C2 and GitHub/Google Drive for payloads, with steganographic configuration, AppDomain Manager injection, and scheduled task persistence.
  • Researchers identified 16 malicious Chrome extensions for ChatGPT that exfiltrate authorization details and session tokens. The extensions inject scripts into the ChatGPT web application to monitor outbound requests, allowing attackers to hijack sessions and access chat histories.
  • Researchers analyzed publicly accessible open-source LLM deployments via Ollama and revealed many with disabled guardrails and exposed system prompts, enabling spam, phishing, disinformation, and other abuse.

VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES

  • A critical path traversal vulnerability (CVE-2025-8088) in WinRAR is actively exploited by government backed threat actors linked to Russia and China as well as financially motivated threat actors. Weaponized phishing forces WinRAR to write malware into the Windows Startup folder, enabling automatic execution for ransomware and credential theft. A patch is available on WinRAR 7.13.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (RARLAB WinRAR Directory Traversal (CVE-2025-8088))

  • SmarterTools addressed two critical SmarterMail flaws, including CVE-2026-24423 enabling remote code execution and CVE-2026-23760 allowing unauthenticated admin account takeover. The second flaw is actively exploited, and over 6,000 exposed SmarterMail servers are reportedly vulnerable.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (SmarterTools SmarterMail Remote Code Execution (CVE-2026-24423); SmarterTools SmarterMail Authentication Bypass (CVE-2026-23760))

  • Fortinet has fixed CVE-2026-24858, an authentication bypass in FortiCloud single sign on which allowed unauthorized access and admin creation on downstream devices. The flaw carries CVSS 9.4 and is actively exploited via FortiCloud SSO.

THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

  • Check Point Research has published the 2026 Cyber Security Report, highlighting AI as a force multiplier across attacks, fragmentation in ransomware with data only extortion, and multi-channel social engineering attacks. It maps threat activity to geopolitics and identity driven paths, quantifies risky AI usage, and provides sector and regional breakouts.
  • Polish CERT detailed coordinated destructive attacks on Polish energy and manufacturing sectors, attributed to Static Tundra, using FortiGate SSL VPN access. The attackers conducted reconnaissance, firmware damage, lateral movement, and deployed DynoWiper and LazyWiper that corrupt files.
  • Researchers have uncovered renewed Matanbuchus downloader campaigns using Microsoft Installer files disguised as legitimate installers, with frequent component changes to evade antivirus and machine learning detection. In many cases, the loader is used for further ransomware deployment.

Check Point Harmony Endpoint and Threat Emulation provide protection against this threat (Trojan-Downloader.Wins.Matanbuchus.ta.*; Trojan-Downloader.Wins.Matanbuchus; Trojan-Downloader.Win.Matanbuchus)

  • Researchers have identified PyRAT, a Python based cross platform RAT for Windows and Linux, using unencrypted HTTP POST C2, fingerprinting victims, and file and screenshot exfiltration. Persistence uses a deceptive autostart on Linux and a user Run key on Windows, with semi persistent identifiers.
  • Researchers have found an Android campaign distributing a RAT via fake security alerts installing TrustBastion, which retrieves a second-stage payload from Hugging Face. The malware abuses Accessibility Services, deploys credential-stealing overlays, and uses server-side polymorphism to regenerate payloads every 15 minutes.

The post 2nd February – Threat Intelligence Report appeared first on Check Point Research.

26th January – Threat Intelligence Report

By: lorenf
26 January 2026 at 14:35

For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 26th January, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.

TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES

  • RansomHub ransomware group has claimed responsibility for a cyber-attack on Luxshare, an electronics manufacturer of Apple, Nvidia, LG, Tesla, and others. The threat actors claimed access to 3D CAD models, circuit board designs, and engineering documentation. The company has not yet confirmed the breach.

Check Point Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat (Ransomware.Wins.Ransomhub.ta.*; Ransomware.Win.RansomHub)

  • Dark-web threat actor has leaked an alleged database belonging to Under Armour, a US sportswear company, affecting 72 million customer records following a November ransomware attack. The claimed exposed data includes names, email addresses, genders, dates of birth, and addresses.
  • Raaga, an India-based music streaming platform, has experienced a data breach involving 10.2 million user records, reportedly exfiltrated in December and later advertised on criminal forums. Exposed details include names, emails, demographics, locations, and passwords stored with unsalted MD5 hashes, raising credential stuffing and phishing risks.
  • ​Germany’s Dresden State Art Collections (SKD), one of Europe’s oldest museum networks, has confirmed a cyberattack that resulted in widespread disruption to its digital infrastructure and communications. The incident disabled online ticket sales, visitor services, and the museum shop, forced on-site payments to cash-only, and limited digital and phone services, with no indication of data theft or exposure reported.

AI THREATS

  • Researchers discovered an indirect prompt-injection flaw in Gemini’s Google Calendar assistant that bypassed Calendar privacy controls via a malicious invite description. Gemini used Calendar.create to place summaries of the victim’s meetings into a new event readable by the attacker.
  • Researchers uncovered a web attack technique where hidden prompts in benign pages call LLM API to generate polymorphic malicious JavaScript at runtime. This enables phishing and credential theft while evading signature-based detection and network filtering by leveraging AI service domains.
  • Advanced language models such as GPT-5.2 and Opus 4.5 were observed generating working exploits for a previously unknown zero-day vulnerability in QuickJS, a JavaScript interpreter, including in hardened environments where automated systems can produce functional attack code with little to no human intervention. Across six different configurations, the systems produced over 40 distinct exploits.

VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES

  • Three high severity vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-68143, CVE-2025-68144, CVE-2025-68145) were disclosed in mcp-server-git, Anthropic’s Git MCP server, enabling path traversal and argument injection exploitable via prompt injection to read or delete files and achieve remote code execution. Fixes available in versions 2025.9.25 and 2025.12.18.
  • Zoom has fixed CVE-2026-22844, a critical command injection flaw in Zoom Node Multimedia Routers, used in Meeting Connector and Meetings Hybrid deployments. It enables participant remote code execution in versions before 5.2.1716.0, with no confirmed in-the-wild exploitation.
  • Fortinet has confirmed active exploitation of a FortiCloud SSO auth bypass on fully patched FortiGate firewalls, tied to CVE-2025-59718 and CVE-2025-59719. Attackers are logging in via crafted SAML messages, creating persistent accounts, enabling VPN access, and extracting firewall configurations.

THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

  • Check Point Research revealed that VoidLink, a recently exposed cloud-native Linux malware framework, is authored almost entirely by AI, likely under the direction of a single individual. The malware was produced predominantly through AI-driven development, reaching the first functional implant in under a week. From a methodology perspective, the actor used the model beyond coding, adopting an approach called Spec Driven Development (SDD).
  • Check Point Research identified an ongoing phishing campaign associated with KONNI, a North Korean–linked threat actor active since at least 2014. The campaign targets software developers and engineering teams across the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, Australia, and India, using blockchain-themed lures to prompt interaction and deliver malicious content. In observed activity, the threat actor deploys AI-generated PowerShell backdoors that establish persistence, steal credentials, and enable infiltration of development environments
  • Check Point researchers describe a Microsoft Teams phishing campaign abusing guest invitations and finance-themed team names to mimic billing notices. More than 12K emails were observed hitting 6,135 users via invite emails with obfuscated text. The campaign targeted US-based organizations across manufacturing, technology, and education.
  • Researchers revealed a new ransomware family, Osiris, that blends legitimate Windows tools with custom malware to infiltrate networks and deploy encryption. The operators use a custom malicious driver, Poortry, masquerading as Malwarebytes to disable security software, and exfiltrated data with Rclone to Wasabi buckets before encryption.
  • Researchers identified a North Korean spear-phishing campaign targeting South Korea that abuses Microsoft Visual Studio Code tunnels for remote access. JSE files masquerading as Hangul documents start the infection chain and grant attackers terminal and file access using living-off-the-land techniques.

The post 26th January – Threat Intelligence Report appeared first on Check Point Research.

12th January – Threat Intelligence Report

By: lorenf
12 January 2026 at 11:07

For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 12th January, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.

TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES

  • Manage My Health, New Zealand’s largest patient portal, has acknowledged a cyberattack occurred on December 2025, that potentially exposed data of nearly 110K users. An alleged attacker, dubbed Kazu, claimed responsibility and demanded a $60,000 ransom.
  • France’s Office for Immigration and Integration has confirmed data theft via a third-party operator after a hacker posted samples online. The exposed records include names, contact details, entry dates, and reasons for stay for foreign residents.
  • Ledger, a global crypto hardware wallet maker, has disclosed a breach at e-commerce partner Global-e exposing customer contact and order details. Attackers launched phishing lures impersonating both firms to harvest wallet data. Ledger said wallets and seed phrases were unaffected, but targeted scams increased.
  • Giant US fiber broadband provider, Brightspeed, was claimed as breached by the Crimson Collective extortion gang. The intrusion allegedly exposed sensitive information belonging to over 1 million customers; however the company has not yet confirmed the incident.
  • American Dartmouth College, has disclosed that an August attack exploiting Oracle E-Business Suite exposed personal information of over 40,000 people. Leaked data includes Social Security numbers and bank account information. Reports attribute the intrusion to Clop ransomware group.

Check Point IPS, Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat (Oracle Multiple Products Remote Code Execution (CVE-2025-61882, CVE-2025-61884); Ransomware.Win.Clop; Ransomware.Wins.Clop; Ransomware.Wins.Clop.ta.*)

  • JBS Mental Health Authority, a regional US nonprofit, has experienced a ransomware attack in late December. The organization was listed by the Medusa ransomware group, which claims it stole 168.6GB of data, including sensitive client records and internal operational information.

Check Point Threat Emulation provides protection against this threat (Ransomware.Wins.Medusa)

  • Prosura, an Australia and New Zealand car rental insurance provider, has reported a data breach that resulted from an unauthorized access to parts of its systems. The attacker allegedly exposed driver licenses and policy documents. Prosura paused online self-service and said payment card data is not stored in its systems.
  • Free Speech Union, a UK membership organization, has experienced a data breach after activist group Bash Back compromised its website and posted transaction details online. Records for thousands of donations were leaked, including amounts and comments. The organization took its site offline as a precaution.

VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES

  • SmarterTools fixed CVE-2025-52691, a critical pre-auth remote code execution flaw with a CVSS score of 10.0. Successful exploitation allows an attacker to upload files and write to web-accessible paths, potentially resulting in full server compromise.

Check Point IPS provides protection against this threat (SmarterMail Arbitrary File Upload (CVE-2025-52691))

  • A patch was released for CVE-2025-64496 vulnerability in Open WebUI, a self-hosted interface for AI models, enabling code injection via the Direct Connection feature and potential remote code execution. Versions through 0.6.34 are affected.
  • Cisco has addressed CVE-2026-20029, a medium-severity flaw in Identity Services Engine and ISE-PIC, which allows administrators to access sensitive files via improper XML parsing. Exploitation of the flaw requires valid admin credentials.

THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

  • Check Point Research observed GoBruteforcer, a modular Go botnet brute-forcing Linux servers running phpMyAdmin, MySQL, PostgreSQL and FTP. Campaigns exploit AI-generated server deployments that propagate common usernames and weak defaults. The botnet converts hosts into scanners and credential harvesters, with crypto-focused runs stealing funds and expanding access through backdoors and IRC-based control.

Check Point Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat

  • Check Point researchers identified the OPCOPRO β€œTruman Show” investment scam, which industrializes social engineering via WhatsApp and Telegram. Apps from official stores serve as interfaces to attacker servers, fabricating balances and trades, harvesting KYC documents, and driving identity theft and deposits.

Check Point Harmony Endpoint provides protection against this threat

  • Researchers analyzed LockBit 5.0 ransomware, detailing ChaCha20-Poly1305 file encryption, X25519 with BLAKE2b key exchange, termination of VSS and backup services, and Temp directory cleanup. LockBit 5.0 uses custom random extensions per execution, excludes system files, supports Stealbit exfiltration, and drops a ransom note threatening data leakage.

Check Point Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat (Ransomware.Wins.Lockbit; Ransomware.Wins.Lockbit.ta.*; Ransomware.Win.LockBit; Gen.Win.Crypter.Lockbit)

  • Researchers uncovered PHALT#BLYX, an ongoing campaign that targets European hospitality via Booking.com-themed phishing and ClickFix-style fake BSOD/captcha lures that prompt PowerShell execution. The chain aims for credential theft and privilege elevation.

Check Point Threat Emulation and Harmony Endpoint provide protection against this threat (RAT.Wins.Dcrat; RAT.Win.DCRat; InfoStealer.Wins.DcRat)

The post 12th January – Threat Intelligence Report appeared first on Check Point Research.

29th December – Threat Intelligence Report

By: lorenf
29 December 2025 at 12:33

For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 29th December, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin.

TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES

  • Romanian Waters, the country’s national water management authority, was hit by a ransomware attack that resulted in nearly 1,000 computer systems across national and regional offices being encrypted. The attack affected geographic information systems, databases, email, web servers, and Windows workstations. Operational technology controlling water infrastructure was not impacted, and no data leakage has been reported, but key IT services were disrupted across the organization.
  • France’s postal service La Poste has suffered a cyber-attack that disrupted key digital systems, impacting online parcel tracking, mail distribution, and banking services for customers of both the postal service and La Banque Postale. Some services were temporarily unavailable, with no evidence of data compromise. The attack was claimed by the pro-Russian hacktivist group NoName057(16).
  • Insurance giant Aflac has confirmed a data breach they experienced in June that resulted in the theft of sensitive files containing insurance claims, health data and Social Security numbers. The breach affected personal details of approximately 22.7 million individuals in its US business. The attack has been attributed to Scattered Spider threat group.

Check Point Harmony Endpoint provides protection against this threat.

  • Japan’s leading carmaker Nissan Motor Corporation has acknowledged a data breach that resulted in the exposure of personal information for approximately 21,000 customers from Nissan Fukuoka Sales Corporation including names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and sales operation data. The incident occurred after unauthorized access to Red Hat data servers led to the leak, but financial data was not affected. The Crimson Collective threat actor claimed responsibility for the initial breach, with ShinyHunters later hosting samples of the stolen data.
  • Trust Wallet, a popular non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet, has disclosed a cyber-attack involving a compromised Chrome extension update. The attack exfiltrated sensitive wallet data, including seed phrases, to a malicious domain, resulting in at least $7 million in losses. The incident primarily affected users of Chrome extension version 2.68.0, allowing attackers to drain wallets.
  • Ubisoft’s live service game Rainbow Six Siege (R6) has confirmed a cyber-attack in which threat actors abused internal systems to manipulate bans, unlock all cosmetics and developer-only skins, and distribute around $13.33 million worth of in-game currency worldwide.
  • Baker University has encountered a data breach that resulted in attackers accessing its network and stealing sensitive information belongs to 53,624 students, alumni, staff, and affiliates of the university, such as names, Social Security numbers, financial account details, and medical records.

VULNERABILITIES AND PATCHES

  • A high-severity memory-read vulnerability, CVE-2025-14847, dubbed β€œMongoBleed” has been identified in multiple MongoDB Server versions, allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to exploit a zlib implementation flaw and potentially access uninitialized heap memory. The issue, caused by improper handling of length parameter inconsistency (CWE-130), may permit arbitrary code execution and system compromise. Affected versions include MongoDB 4.0 through 8.2.3.
  • Details on a critical serialization injection vulnerability in LangChain Core were disclosed. CVE-2025-68664 (CVSS 9.3) affects langchain-core, where unescaped user-controlled dictionaries with lc keys are treated as trusted objects during deserialization, enabling secret extraction, prompt injection, and potentially arbitrary code execution.
  • A critical buffer overflow vulnerability, CVE-2025-68615, in Net-SNMP’s snmptrapd daemon can be triggered remotely via a specially crafted packet. The issue has a CVSS score of 9.8 and may allow unauthenticated attackers to achieve remote code execution or cause service crashes. Patches are available, and the vulnerability is addressed in Net-SNMP versions 5.9.5 and 5.10.pre2.

THREAT INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

  • Check Point researchers describe a phishing campaign in which attackers abused Google Cloud Application Integration’s β€œSend Email” workflow to send over 9,000 spoofed Google notification emails from a Google address. The messages targeted manufacturing, technology, and finance sectors and used multi-step redirection through Google domains to lead victims to a Microsoft-themed credential harvesting site. Most victims located in the US, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.
  • Researchers uncovered a two-year Evasive Panda campaign using adversary-in-the-middle DNS poisoning to deliver MgBot via fake updaters and stealthy loaders. The chain used multi-stage shellcode, hybrid encryption, and DLL sideloading to run MgBot in memory, with victim-specific payloads tied to machines via DPAPI and RC5. Attackers poisoned legitimate domains, injected into signed system processes for persistence, and updated configs with hardcoded C2s.

Check Point Harmony Endpoint provides protection against this threat (Infostealer.Win.MgBot)

  • A Webrat campaign leveraged fake GitHub repositories masquerading as exploit and proof-of-concept code for high-severity CVEs, targeting gamers, students, and inexperienced security researchers. The attack uses droppers to elevate privileges, disable Windows Defender, and deploy the Webrat backdoor, enabling remote control, credential theft, keylogging, and device surveillance.
  • Researchers found lotusbail, a malicious npm package masquerading as a WhatsApp Web API library that intercepts messages and steals session/auth data, contacts, and media via WebSocket tampering and device-pairing hijack. Separately, 14 malicious NuGet packages were found redirecting crypto funds and stealing Google Ads OAuth tokens.

The post 29th December – Threat Intelligence Report appeared first on Check Point Research.

❌