TECHZONE™

ESET Threat Report H2 2025 https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/eset-research/eset-threat-report-h2-2025/ A view of the H2 2025 threat landscape as seen by ESET telemetry and from the perspective of ESET threat detection and research experts

Compromised IAM Credentials Power a Large AWS Crypto Mining Campaign https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/compromised-iam-credentials-power-large.html An ongoing campaign has been observed targeting Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers using compromised Identity and Access Management (IAM) credentials to enable cryptocurrency mining. The activity, first detected by Amazon's GuardDuty managed threat detection service and its automated security monitoring systems on November 2, 2025, employs never-before-seen persistence techniques to hamper

Rogue NuGet Package Poses as Tracer.Fody, Steals Cryptocurrency Wallet Data https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/rogue-nuget-package-poses-as-tracerfody.html Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malicious NuGet package that typosquats and impersonates the popular .NET tracing library and its author to sneak in a cryptocurrency wallet stealer. The malicious package, named "Tracer.Fody.NLog," remained on the repository for nearly six years. It was published by a user named "csnemess" on February 26, 2020. It masquerades as "Tracer.Fody,"

Amazon Exposes Years-Long GRU Cyber Campaign Targeting Energy and Cloud Infrastructure https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/amazon-exposes-years-long-gru-cyber.html Amazon's threat intelligence team has disclosed details of a "years-long" Russian state-sponsored campaign that targeted Western critical infrastructure between 2021 and 2025. Targets of the campaign included energy sector organizations across Western nations, critical infrastructure providers in North America and Europe, and entities with cloud-hosted network infrastructure. The activity has

Why Data Security and Privacy Need to Start in Code https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/why-data-security-and-privacy-need-to.html AI-assisted coding and AI app generation platforms have created an unprecedented surge in software development. Companies are now facing rapid growth in both the number of applications and the pace of change within those applications. Security and privacy teams are under significant pressure as the surface area they must cover is expanding quickly while their staffing levels remain largely

Fortinet FortiGate Under Active Attack Through SAML SSO Authentication Bypass https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/fortinet-fortigate-under-active-attack.html Threat actors have begun to exploit two newly disclosed security flaws in Fortinet FortiGate devices, less than a week after public disclosure. Cybersecurity company Arctic Wolf said it observed active intrusions involving malicious single sign-on (SSO) logins on FortiGate appliances on December 12, 2025. The attacks exploit two critical authentication bypasses (CVE-2025-59718 and CVE-2025-59719

React2Shell Vulnerability Actively Exploited to Deploy Linux Backdoors https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/react2shell-vulnerability-actively.html The security vulnerability known as React2Shell is being exploited by threat actors to deliver malware families like KSwapDoor and ZnDoor, according to findings from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 and NTT Security. "KSwapDoor is a professionally engineered remote access tool designed with stealth in mind," Justin Moore, senior manager of threat intel research at Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, said in a

Google to Shut Down Dark Web Monitoring Tool in February 2026 https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/google-to-shut-down-dark-web-monitoring.html Google has announced that it's discontinuing its dark web report tool in February 2026, less than two years after it was launched as a way for users to monitor if their personal information is found on the dark web. To that end, scans for new dark web breaches will be stopped on January 15, 2026, and the feature will cease to exist effective February 16, 2026. "While the report offered general

Featured Chrome Browser Extension Caught Intercepting Millions of Users' AI Chats https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/featured-chrome-browser-extension.html A Google Chrome extension with a "Featured" badge and six million users has been observed silently gathering every prompt entered by users into artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots like OpenAI ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Google Gemini, xAI Grok, Meta AI, and Perplexity. The extension in question is Urban VPN Proxy, which has a 4.7 rating on the Google Chrome

FreePBX Patches Critical SQLi, File-Upload, and AUTHTYPE Bypass Flaws Enabling RCE https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/freepbx-authentication-bypass-exposed.html Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in the open-source private branch exchange (PBX) platform FreePBX, including a critical flaw that could result in an authentication bypass under certain configurations. The shortcomings, discovered by Horizon3.ai and reported to the project maintainers on September 15, 2025, are listed below - CVE-2025-61675 (CVSS score: 8.6) - Numerous

⚡ Weekly Recap: Apple 0-Days, WinRAR Exploit, LastPass Fines, .NET RCE, OAuth Scams & More https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/weekly-recap-apple-0-days-winrar.html If you use a smartphone, browse the web, or unzip files on your computer, you are in the crosshairs this week. Hackers are currently exploiting critical flaws in the daily software we all rely on—and in some cases, they started attacking before a fix was even ready. Below, we list the urgent updates you need to install right now to stop these active threats. ⚡ Threat of the Week Apple and

A Browser Extension Risk Guide After the ShadyPanda Campaign https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/a-browser-extension-risk-guide-after.html In early December 2025, security researchers exposed a cybercrime campaign that had quietly hijacked popular Chrome and Edge browser extensions on a massive scale. A threat group dubbed ShadyPanda spent seven years playing the long game, publishing or acquiring harmless extensions, letting them run clean for years to build trust and gain millions of installs, then suddenly flipping them into

Phantom Stealer Spread by ISO Phishing Emails Hitting Russian Finance Sector https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/phantom-stealer-spread-by-iso-phishing.html Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of an active phishing campaign that's targeting a wide range of sectors in Russia with phishing emails that deliver Phantom Stealer via malicious ISO optical disc images. The activity, codenamed Operation MoneyMount-ISO by Seqrite Labs, has primarily singled out finance and accounting entities, with those in the procurement, legal, payroll

VolkLocker Ransomware Exposed by Hard-Coded Master Key Allowing Free Decryption https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/volklocker-ransomware-exposed-by-hard.html The pro-Russian hacktivist group known as CyberVolk (aka GLORIAMIST) has resurfaced with a new ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) offering called VolkLocker that suffers from implementation lapses in test artifacts, allowing users to decrypt files without paying an extortion fee. According to SentinelOne, VolkLocker (aka CyberVolk 2.x) emerged in August 2025 and is capable of targeting both Windows

CISA Adds Actively Exploited Sierra Wireless Router Flaw Enabling RCE Attacks https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/cisa-adds-actively-exploited-sierra.html The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added a high-severity flaw impacting Sierra Wireless AirLink ALEOS routers to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, following reports of active exploitation in the wild. CVE-2018-4063 (CVSS score: 8.8/9.9) refers to an unrestricted file upload vulnerability that could be exploited to achieve remote code

Black Hat Europe 2025: Was that device designed to be on the internet at all? https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/internet-of-things/black-hat-europe-2025-device-designed-internet/ Behind the polished exterior of many modern buildings sit outdated systems with vulnerabilities waiting to be found

Apple Issues Security Updates After Two WebKit Flaws Found Exploited in the Wild https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/apple-issues-security-updates-after-two.html Apple on Friday released security updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, visionOS, and its Safari web browser to address two security flaws that it said have been exploited in the wild, one of which is the same flaw that was patched by Google in Chrome earlier this week. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2025-43529 (CVSS score: N/A) - A use-after-free vulnerability in WebKit

Fake OSINT and GPT Utility GitHub Repos Spread PyStoreRAT Malware Payloads https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/fake-osint-and-gpt-utility-github-repos.html Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a new campaign that's leveraging GitHub-hosted Python repositories to distribute a previously undocumented JavaScript-based Remote Access Trojan (RAT) dubbed PyStoreRAT. "These repositories, often themed as development utilities or OSINT tools, contain only a few lines of code responsible for silently downloading a remote HTA file and executing

New Advanced Phishing Kits Use AI and MFA Bypass Tactics to Steal Credentials at Scale https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/new-advanced-phishing-kits-use-ai-and.html Cybersecurity researchers have documented four new phishing kits named BlackForce, GhostFrame, InboxPrime AI, and Spiderman that are capable of facilitating credential theft at scale. BlackForce, first detected in August 2025, is designed to steal credentials and perform Man-in-the-Browser (MitB) attacks to capture one-time passwords (OTPs) and bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA). The kit

Securing GenAI in the Browser: Policy, Isolation, and Data Controls That Actually Work https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/securing-genai-in-browser-policy.html The browser has become the main interface to GenAI for most enterprises: from web-based LLMs and copilots, to GenAI‑powered extensions and agentic browsers like ChatGPT Atlas. Employees are leveraging the power of GenAI to draft emails, summarize documents, work on code, and analyze data, often by copying/pasting sensitive information directly into prompts or uploading files.  Traditional