TECHZONE™

New MODBEACON RAT Uses gRPC Streaming for Encrypted C2 Traffic https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/new-modbeacon-rat-uses-grpc-streaming.html The China-linked cybercrime group known as Silver Fox has been attributed to a new Rust-based remote access trojan (RAR) called MODBEACON. Chinese cybersecurity company QiAnXin said that while the threat cluster may appear like a low-sophistication, high-activity operation that propagates malware via counterfeit installers using SEO poisoning techniques, it belies their true organizational

Attackers Exploit 'Ill Bloom' Vulnerability to Drain $3.1 Million From Cryptocurrency Wallets https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/attackers-exploit-ill-bloom.html Security firm Coinspect has disclosed a crypto wallet flaw it calls Ill Bloom, and attackers are already using it. The flaw is in how some wallet software generated its recovery phrase, the words that control the money. When that phrase is made with weak randomness, an attacker can work it out and take everything it controls. Coinspect has confirmed one coordinated sweep on May

Ransomware Negotiator Gets 70 Months in Prison for Aiding BlackCat Attacks https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/ransomware-negotiator-gets-70-months-in.html A 41-year-old former ransomware negotiator has been sentenced to nearly six years (i.e., 70 months) in prison in the U.S. for their role in conspiring with the now-defunct BlackCat ransomware operators to extort multiple victims and working with two other cybersecurity professionals to target additional victims in 2023. In a sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutors described Martino as a "

Dormant GitHub Accounts Help Attackers Blend In While Mapping Corporate Orgs https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/dormant-github-accounts-help-attackers.html Datadog Security Labs is warning of "several overlapping campaigns" that are systematically enumerating corporate GitHub organizations, repositories, and user accounts through the GitHub API. "Operators rely on automated scraping tooling with custom or legitimate-sounding user agents, leveraging GitHub 'ghost' accounts that are often years old, or compromised OAuth tokens and personal

New GigaWiper Windows Backdoor Bundles Disk Wiping, Fake Ransomware, and Spyware https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/new-gigawiper-windows-backdoor-bundles.html Microsoft has taken apart a destructive Windows backdoor it calls GigaWiper. What stands out is how it is built: not one tool but three older destructive programs bolted into one, offered as commands the operator can choose from. Each is a different way to break a machine: wipe the whole disk, overwrite the Windows drive, or run fake "ransomware" that scrambles files with a key it never saves

npm 12 Disables Install Scripts by Default to Reduce Supply Chain Risk https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/npm-12-disables-install-scripts-by.html GitHub has officially announced the release of npm version 12 with install scripts disabled by default, along with deprecating granular access tokens (GATs) designed to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA). The Microsoft-owned subsidiary noted that the following npm install behaviors that used to run automatically before have been made opt-in - allowScripts defaults to off, meaning

ThreatsDay: Cloud Bucket Hijacking, Windows LPE Chain, Global Fraud Bust + 17 More Stories https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/threatsday-cloud-bucket-hijacking.html Most security mess starts as admin work. A link gets clicked. A tool gets trusted. A bucket name gets reused. A setting stays loose because nobody wants to touch it. This week is full of that kind of damage. Not loud. Not clever. Just small gaps doing big jobs. The worst part is how normal it all looks until the bill arrives. The full ThreatsDay list is below. Global

AI Attacks Move in Minutes. Join This Webinar on Building a Defense That Keeps Up https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/ai-attacks-move-in-minutes-join-this.html AI has changed how fast attacks move. Work that once took an attacker days now takes minutes. Using models like Mythos, attackers write tailored bait, pick targets, test what lands, and jump to the next host before your team clears the first alert. That is the gap, and it is not your fault. The tools and runbooks most teams run on were built for attackers who work at human speed. AI-driven

Summer of Clearinghouses https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/summer-of-clearinghouses.html Everyone seems to have announced a clearinghouse over the past few weeks. We did too. Ours is called Athena, and the main thing that sets it apart is that it was already real and running when we announced it — built quietly months earlier, heads down, taking findings and shipping fixes, because customers kept asking us to. We only announced it now because everyone else started announcing theirs,

GodDamn Ransomware Uses PoisonX Driver to Disable Endpoint Defenses https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/goddamn-ransomware-uses-poisonx-driver.html Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new ransomware family called GodDamn that employs the PoisonX kernel driver to neutralize security software as part of its defense evasion strategy. According to a new report published by the Threat Hunter Team from Symantec, the ransomware was first publicly spotted in the wild on May 21, 2026. It's assessed to be a rebrand of the Beast ransomware,

Microsoft Patches RoguePlanet Defender Flaw That Can Grant SYSTEM Privileges https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/microsoft-patches-rogueplanet-defender.html Microsoft has released security updates for a Defender vulnerability known as RoguePlanet, nearly a month after details of the flaw became public. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-50656 (CVSS score: 7.8), is a privilege escalation issue in the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine ("mpengine.dll"), which provides scanning, detection, and cleaning capabilities for its antivirus and

Meta's New AI Image Tool Lets Others Use Your Public Instagram Photos in AI Images https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/metas-new-ai-image-tool-lets-others-use.html Meta has announced that its new artificial intelligence (AI) model Muse Image lets people use public Instagram posts and reels to generate AI content, and it's enabled by default. "You can also @-mention Instagram accounts in the Meta AI app to bring specific Instagram profiles right into your images," the social media giant said in a post. "Whether you want to design a custom event invitation

Top AI Agents Built to Catch Malicious Code Can Be Tricked Into Running It https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/friendly-fire-ai-agents-built-to-catch.html Ask an AI coding agent to scan open-source code for security holes, and it might run the attacker's code on your own machine instead. That is the finding in a proof-of-concept published Wednesday by the AI Now Institute, an attack it calls "Friendly Fire." It works against Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex when either is running in an autonomous mode that approves its own

GhostApproval Symlink Flaws Could Let Malicious Repos Run Code in AI Coding Agents https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/ghostapproval-symlink-flaws-could-let.html Researchers at Wiz found that a flaw in six popular AI coding assistants lets a booby-trapped code project quietly take control of a developer's computer. The assistant asks permission to edit one harmless-looking file, but the write lands on a sensitive one instead. The affected tools are Amazon Q Developer, Anthropic's Claude Code, Augment, Cursor, Google Antigravity, and Windsurf.

Fake 7-Zip Installers Turn Devices Into Residential Proxy Nodes https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/fake-7-zip-installers-turn-devices-into.html Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new threat actor dubbed Lurking Lizard that has been operating an end-to-end malicious residential proxy business using an infrastructure comprising more than 230 lookalike domains. The activity dates back to at least August 2022, according to DNS threat intelligence firm Infoblox. Once such campaign, observed earlier this year, involved the

ESET Threat Report H1 2026 https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/eset-research/eset-threat-report-h1-2026/ A view of the H1 2026 threat landscape as seen by ESET telemetry and from the perspective of ESET threat detection and research experts.

GitHub 'Verified' Commits Can Be Rewritten Into New Hashes Without Breaking Signatures https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/github-verified-commits-can-be.html New research shows that a signed Git commit's hash is not the one-of-a-kind name that much of the software world assumes it to be. Given any signed commit, someone without the signing key can mint a second commit with the same files, author, and date, and a valid signature, GitHub still stamps "Verified." Everything a reviewer would check matches. The commit's hash does not. That matters

The Verification Step Is the New ATO Battleground in 2026 https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/the-verification-step-is-new-ato.html For years, account takeover (ATO) followed a predictable script. Attackers bought stolen credentials in bulk, ran them through automated tools, and waited for matches. Credential stuffing was cheap, scalable, and for defenders, relatively well understood. That era is ending. Not because attackers gave up, but because the front door finally got harder to kick in. Passkeys are now mainstream.

GitHub Copilot Refuses Harmful Requests in Chat, Then Writes Them in Code https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/github-copilot-refuses-harmful-requests.html An AI coding assistant that refuses to answer a dangerous request in its chat box can answer it anyway if the same request is broken into small, ordinary-looking steps inside a code editor. That is the finding of a new study of GitHub Copilot by researchers Abhishek Kumar and Carsten Maple. The models they tested through Copilot, Claude from Anthropic, and Gemini from Google, refused

China-Linked UAT-7810 Expands ORB Network With New LONGLEASH Malware https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/china-linked-uat-7810-expands-orb.html A Chinese threat actor tracked as UAT-7810 is actively refining its bespoke malware to expand its Operational Relay Box (ORB) network by breaking into internet-facing networking devices. According to findings from Cisco Talos, UAT-7810 is an advanced persistent threat (APT) actor that's responsible for maintaining and proliferating LapDogs, an ORB network that first came to light in June 2025.