TECHZONE™

DoJ Corrects China Hacking Claim, Says U.S. Agencies Were Targets, Not Victims https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/doj-corrects-china-hacking-claim-says.html The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Friday corrected a previously issued press statement that several of its agencies were victims of attacks carried out by Chinese threat actors, instead now pointing out that they were among those targeted. Last week, the DoJ said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Federal Reserve, Department of Energy, Department of Justice, Department

TerminalFix Uses Fake Cloudflare CAPTCHAs to Deploy Reverse-Tunnel Backdoor https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/terminalfix-uses-fake-cloudflare.html Microsoft has disclosed details of a new ClickFix variant, dubbed TerminalFix, that aims to trick users into running a malicious command in Windows Terminal or PowerShell. "While traditional ClickFix campaigns direct victims to the Windows Run dialog, TerminalFix campaigns apply the same technique but direct users to Windows Terminal or PowerShell instead, increasing the likelihood that complex

Five Critical WordPress Plugin and Theme Flaws Enable Site Takeover or RCE https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/five-critical-wordpress-plugin-and.html Multiple critical security flaws have been disclosed in WordPress plugins and themes, including WPMU DEV Dashboard, Avada, TranslatePress, Pods, and GiveWP, that could lead to authentication bypass, account takeover, and arbitrary code execution. The vulnerabilities, according to Wordfence and Patchstack, are listed below - CVE-2026-76581 (CVSS score: 9.8) - An authentication bypass flaw in

Berlin Refuses to Pay Hackers Who Stole Data From the City's State Network https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/berlin-refuses-to-pay-hackers-who-stole.html Berlin's state government has confirmed that it is the target of an extortion attempt following the August compromise of the city's state administrative network, and said it will not meet the extortionists' demands. The same statement disclosed that forensic work had found further data outflows in the portfolio of the Senate Department for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and Environment

Cosmos EVM Flaw Exploited After Cosmos Labs Knew Every Blockchain Running It Was Vulnerable https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/cosmos-evm-flaw-exploited-after-cosmos.html Cosmos Labs has warned that a critical balance-handling flaw in the shared Cosmos EVM module was exploited to drain funds from six blockchains between August 20 and August 25, 2026. The vulnerability, designated GHSA-7g4w-cg88-2cq2, is rated Critical by Cosmos Labs and was published without a CVE identifier, a weakness classification, or a CVSS score. Affected versions are < 0.6.2 and >=

Attackers Chain Two PaperCut Flaws to Execute Code Without Authentication https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/attackers-chain-two-papercut-flaws-to.html Malicious actors are exploiting a newly patched security flaw in PaperCut NG and MF to execute arbitrary code on susceptible instances, as the company released a fresh emergency fix with additional hardening. "This vulnerability gives an unauthenticated attacker remote control over PaperCut's trusted configuration, which could be used to execute arbitrary Java code inside the application's

Android 17 Adds OS-Wide ECH to Hide Website Visits From Network Providers https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/android-17-adds-os-wide-ech-to-hide.html Google on Thursday announced new network security protections in Android 17 to bolster connection privacy, address cellular vulnerabilities, and safeguard the privacy of users' home networks. Topping the list is support for Encrypted Client Hello (ECH), a privacy standard that prevents networks from eavesdropping on which websites a user is visiting. "This new privacy standard works in tandem

ownCloud Flaw Exploited to Steal Nuclear Records From Philippine Research Body https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/snowflake-github-actions-flaw-lets.html The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday added a critical security flaw impacting ownCloud to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog following reports that a Chinese-speaking threat actor weaponized the vulnerability to target a nuclear research body in the Philippines. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-49105 (CVSS score: 9.8), is a case of

19 Chrome and Edge Extensions Found With Wallet-Stealing and Crypto-Draining Code https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/19-chrome-and-edge-extensions-found.html Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a cluster of 18 Google Chrome and one Microsoft Edge extensions that were published over the last six months and harbored wallet secret stealing and cryptocurrency draining capabilities. The extensions, per Socket security researcher Karlo Zanki, share similarities in code and tradecraft, with evidence indicating that the campaign may have been active

Two Unitree G1 EDU Humanoid Robot Flaws Enable Root RCE, One Starts Over Bluetooth https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/two-unitree-g1-edu-humanoid-robot-flaws.html Security researcher Olivier Laflamme has disclosed two independent root remote code execution (RCE) chains affecting the Unitree G1 EDU, including a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) path that can reach root on the robot's Locomotion PC. The flaws are tracked as CVE-2026-76639 and CVE-2026-76640, with the first involving a network-adjacent path through chat_go and bashrunner and the

Key Reasons Why Identity Fabric Matters in 2026 https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/key-reasons-why-identity-fabric-matters.html An Identity Fabric knits fragmented identity systems into a coherent layer that observes how identities behave across applications, APIs, and infrastructure. As enterprise access spans more cloud services and automated workloads, identity security depends less on static configuration and more on runtime visibility. This article covers the architecture, the risks of unmanaged identities, and

Three CVSS 10.0 ServiceNow Flaws Could Let Unauthenticated Attackers Execute Code and SQL https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/three-cvss-100-servicenow-flaws-could.html ServiceNow has released patches for four security flaws impacting the ServiceNow AI Platform, three of them rated 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system and exploitable, in certain circumstances, by an unauthenticated attacker. The company said it deployed a security update to hosted instances and provided the update to its partners and self-hosted customers, which leaves organizations that run their

China-Made ZBT Routers Ship With Two Implants Giving Unauthenticated Attackers Root Access https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/china-made-zbt-routers-ship-with-two.html VulnCheck has disclosed two previously undocumented factory implants in firmware for routers built by Shenzhen Zhibotong Electronics (ZBT), each of which gives an unauthenticated remote attacker the ability to run commands as root on affected devices. The implants, named SPEAKINGSTONE and DARKLANTERN by the company's zero-day research team, are tracked as CVE-2026-74232 and CVE-2026-74233.

Critical cPanel Flaw Could Let One Hosting Customer Take Root Control of a Whole Server https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/critical-cpanel-flaw-could-let-one.html cPanel has released patches for a security flaw affecting domain parking and addon domain functionality in cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM), which could allow code execution as the root user. The vulnerability, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2026-65643, impacts all supported versions of cPanel & WHM. cPanel described the issue as a critical security vulnerability and said that an

PaperCut Zero-Day Exploited in Attacks, Affecting All NG and MF Versions https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/papercut-zero-day-exploited-in-attacks.html PaperCut has alerted customers that bad actors are actively exploiting a vulnerability impacting all versions of its PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF print management software in zero-day attacks. The company has released an emergency patch for v25 and v26 to address the issue. It said it's "aware of confirmed customer incidents and is treating this matter with the highest priority." An

APT28-Linked HOOKEDGE Backdoor Targets European Government and Diplomatic Organizations https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/apt28-linked-hookedge-backdoor-targets.html Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a fresh set of campaigns targeting government and diplomatic organizations in Romania, Spain, and Türkiye between late September 2025 and early April 2026. These campaigns, per Recorded Future Insikt Group, have led to the deployment of a previously undocumented backdoor dubbed HOOKEDGE, a lightweight Windows batch script that's distributed via

AI-assisted reconnaissance: Why everyone could be a viable target for fraud https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/privacy/ai-powered-osint-why-everyone-viable-target-fraud/ It’s getting cheaper and easier for cybercriminals to research potential victims. Here’s what’s still in your control.

OpenAI Says Reward Hacking Drove AI Agents to Exploit Zero-Days and Breach Hugging Face https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/openai-says-reward-hacking-drove-ai.html OpenAI on Wednesday revealed that reward hacking was a key driver behind the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered hack of Hugging Face last month, adding that it found evidence of misaligned behavior as early as late May. The incident, the company said, took place during cybersecurity evaluations of several OpenAI models, and that it was mainly fueled by what it described as a "highly capable

Next.js Patches Critical AVIF and Windows Flaws Enabling Unauthenticated RCE https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/nextjs-patches-critical-avif-and.html Credit: Hacktron Vercel has released security patches for two critical-severity vulnerabilities in the Next.js web framework, both of which allow unauthenticated remote code execution, one exploitable via specially crafted AVIF image files and the other through a path traversal flaw affecting servers that use a Windows filesystem. The Windows path traversal, tracked as CVE-2026-75604&

ThreatsDay: 296K IoT Botnet, 100+ Water Systems Targeted, SharePoint RCE Chain + 27 New Stories https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/threatsday-296k-iot-botnet-100-water.html A fake login page. A fake security scan. A fake productivity app. Apparently, pretending to be useful is still one of the easier ways into a machine. The rest of the week gets stranger: botnets borrowing AI, command traffic hiding in public infrastructure, malicious tools waiting before showing their real behavior, exposed systems getting scanned, and exploit windows shrinking again. Different