The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) this week announced the seizure of $61 million worth of Tether that were allegedly associated with bogus cryptocurrency schemes known as pig butchering.
The confiscated funds were traced to cryptocurrency addresses used for the laundering of criminally derived proceeds stolen from victims of cryptocurrency investment scams, the department added.
"Criminal
The Shadowserver Foundation has revealed that over 900 Sangoma FreePBX instances still remain infected with web shells as part of attacks that exploited a command injection vulnerability starting in December 2025.
Of these, 401 instances are located in the U.S., followed by 51 in Brazil, 43 in Canada, 40 in Germany, and 36 in France.
The non-profit entity said the compromises are likely
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a malicious Go module that's designed to harvest passwords, create persistent access via SSH, and deliver a Linux backdoor named Rekoobe.
The Go module, github[.]com/xinfeisoft/crypto, impersonates the legitimate "golang.org/x/crypto" codebase, but injects malicious code that's responsible for exfiltrating secrets entered via terminal password
The North Korean threat actor known as ScarCruft has been attributed to a fresh set of tools, including a backdoor that uses Zoho WorkDrive for command-and-control (C2) communications to fetch more payloads and an implant that uses removable media to relay commands and breach air-gapped networks.
The campaign, codenamed Ruby Jumper by Zscaler ThreatLabz, involves the deployment of malware
Threat actors are luring unsuspecting users into running trojanized gaming utilities that are distributed via browsers and chat platforms to distribute a remote access trojan (RAT).
"A malicious downloader staged a portable Java runtime and executed a malicious Java archive (JAR) file named jd-gui.jar," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said in a post on X. "This downloader used PowerShell
Meta on Thursday said it's taking legal action to tackle scams on its platforms by filing lawsuits against what it calls deceptive advertisers based in Brazil, China, and Vietnam.
As part of the effort, the advertisers' methods of payment have been suspended, related accounts have been disabled, and the website domain names used to pull off the scams have been blocked.
Concurrently, the social
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new botnet loader called Aeternum C2 that uses a blockchain-based command-and-control (C2) infrastructure to make it resilient to takedown efforts.
"Instead of relying on traditional servers or domains for command-and-control, Aeternum stores its instructions on the public Polygon blockchain," Qrator Labs said in a report shared with The
A previously undocumented threat activity cluster has been attributed to an ongoing malicious campaign targeting education and healthcare sectors in the U.S. since at least December 2025.
The campaign is being tracked by Cisco Talos under the moniker UAT-10027. The end goal of the attacks is to deliver a never-before-seen backdoor codenamed Dohdoor.
"Dohdoor utilizes the DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH)
Nothing here looks dramatic at first glance. Thatβs the point. Many of this weekβs threats begin with something ordinary, like an ad, a meeting invite, or a software update.
Behind the scenes, the tactics are sharper. Access happens faster. Control is established sooner. Cleanup becomes harder.
Here is a quick look at the signals worth paying attention to.
AI-powered command
Introduction: Steal It Today, Break It in a Decade
Digital evolution is unstoppable, and though the pace may vary, things tend to fall into place sooner rather than later. That, of course, applies to adversaries as well. The rise of ransomware and cyber extortion generated funding for a complex and highly professional criminal ecosystem. The era of the cloud brought general availability of
A "coordinated developer-targeting campaign" is using malicious repositories disguised as legitimate Next.js projects and technical assessments to trick victims into executing them and establish persistent access to compromised machines.
"The activity aligns with a broader cluster of threats that use job-themed lures to blend into routine developer workflows and increase the likelihood of code
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new malicious package discovered on the NuGet Gallery, impersonating a library from financial services firm Stripe in an attempt to target the financial sector.
The package, codenamed StripeApi.Net, attempts to masquerade as Stripe.net, a legitimate library from Stripe that has over 75 million downloads. It was uploaded by a user named
A newly disclosed maximum-severity security flaw in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller (formerly vSmart) and Catalyst SD-WAN Manager (formerly vManage) has come under active exploitation in the wild as part of malicious activity that dates back to 2023.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20127 (CVSS score: 10.0), allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to bypass authentication and obtain
Google on Wednesday disclosed that it worked with industry partners to disrupt the infrastructure of a suspected China-nexus cyber espionage group tracked as UNC2814 that breached at least 53 organizations across 42 countries.
"This prolific, elusive actor has a long history of targeting international governments and global telecommunications organizations across Africa, Asia, and the Americas,"
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed multiple security vulnerabilities in Anthropic's Claude Code, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered coding assistant, that could result in remote code execution and theft of API credentials.
"The vulnerabilities exploit various configuration mechanisms, including Hooks, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and environment variables β executing
The notorious cybercrime collective known as Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters (SLH) has been observed offering financial incentives to recruit women to pull off social engineering attacks.
The idea is to hire them for voice phishing campaigns targeting IT help desks, Dataminr said in a new threat brief. The group is said to be offering anywhere between $500 and $1,000 upfront per call, in addition to
Triage is supposed to make things simpler. In a lot of teams, it does the opposite.
When you canβt reach a confident verdict early, alerts turn into repeat checks, back-and-forth, and βjust escalate itβ calls. That cost doesnβt stay inside the SOC; it shows up as missed SLAs, higher cost per case, and more room for real threats to slip through.
So where does triage go wrong? Here are five triage
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered four malicious NuGet packages that are designed to target ASP.NET web application developers to steal sensitive data.
The campaign, discovered by Socket, exfiltrates ASP.NET Identity data, including user accounts, role assignments, and permission mappings, as well as manipulates authorization rules to create persistent backdoors in victim applications.
Why automating sensitive data transfers is now a mission-critical priority
More than half of national security organizations still rely on manual processes to transfer sensitive data, according to The CYBER360: Defending the Digital Battlespace report. This should alarm every defense and government leader because manual handling of sensitive data is not just inefficient, it is a systemic
A 39-year-old Australian national who was previously employed at U.S. defense contractor L3Harris has been sentenced to a little over seven years in prison for selling eight zero-day exploits to Russian exploit broker Operation Zero in exchange for millions of dollars.
Peter Williams pleaded guilty to two counts of theft of trade secrets in October 2025. In addition to the jail term, Williams
SolarWinds has released updates to address four critical security flaws in its Serv-U file transfer software that, if successfully exploited, could result in remote code execution.
The vulnerabilities, all rated 9.1 on the CVSS scoring system, are listed below -
CVE-2025-40538 - A broken access control vulnerability that allows an attacker to create a system admin user and execute arbitrary
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added a recently disclosed vulnerability in FileZen to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-25108 (CVSS v4 score: 8.7), is a case of operating system (OS) command injection that could allow an authenticated user to execute
A vulnerability in GitHub Codespaces could have been exploited by bad actors to seize control of repositories by injecting malicious Copilot instructions in a GitHub issue.
The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven vulnerability has been codenamed RoguePilot by Orca Security. It has since been patched by Microsoft following responsible disclosure.
"Attackers can craft hidden instructions inside a
A Russia-aligned threat actor has been observed targeting a European financial institution as part of a social engineering attack to likely facilitate intelligence gathering or financial theft, signaling a possible expansion of the threat actor's targeting beyond Ukraine and into entities supporting the war-torn nation.
The activity, which targeted an unnamed entity involved in regional
Most identity programs still prioritize work the way they prioritize IT tickets: by volume, loudness, or βwhat failed a control check.β That approach breaks the moment your environment stops being mostly-human and mostly-onboarded.
In modern enterprises, identity risk is created by a compound of factors: control posture, hygiene, business context, and intent. Any one of these can perhaps be
The North Korea-linked Lazarus Group (aka Diamond Sleet and Pompilus) has been observed using Medusa ransomware in an attack targeting an unnamed entity in the Middle East, according to a new report by the Symantec and Carbon Black Threat Hunter Team.
Broadcom's threat intelligence division said it also identified the same threat actors mounting an unsuccessful attack against a healthcare
The threat activity cluster known as UnsolicitedBooker has been observed targeting telecommunications companies in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, marking a shift from prior attacks aimed at Saudi Arabian entities.
The attacks involve the deployment of two distinct backdoors codenamed LuciDoor and MarsSnake, according to a report published by Positive Technologies last week.
"The group used several
Anthropic on Monday said it identified "industrial-scale campaigns" mounted by three artificial intelligence (AI) companies, DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax, to illegally extract Claude's capabilities to improve their own models.
The distillation attacks generated over 16 million exchanges with its large language model (LLM) through about 24,000 fraudulent accounts in violation of its terms
The Russia-linked state-sponsored threat actor tracked as APT28 has been attributed to a new campaign targeting specific entities in Western and Central Europe.
The activity, per S2 Grupo's LAB52 threat intelligence team, was active between September 2025 and January 2026. It has been codenamed Operation MacroMaze. "The campaign relies on basic tooling and the exploitation of legitimate services
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new cryptojacking campaign that uses pirated software bundles as lures to deploy a bespoke XMRig miner program on compromised hosts.
"Analysis of the recovered dropper, persistence triggers, and mining payload reveals a sophisticated, multi-stage infection prioritizing maximum cryptocurrency mining hashrate, often destabilizing the victim
Security news rarely moves in a straight line. This week, it feels more like a series of sharp turns, some happening quietly in the background, others playing out in public view. The details are different, but the pressure points are familiar.
Across devices, cloud services, research labs, and even everyday apps, the line between normal behavior and hidden risk keeps getting thinner. Tools
As more organizations run their own Large Language Models (LLMs), they are also deploying more internal services and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to support those models. Modern security risks are being introduced less from the models themselves and more from the infrastructure that serves, connects and automates the model. Each new LLM endpoint expands the attack surface, often in
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed what they say is an active "Shai-Hulud-like" supply chain worm campaign that has leveraged a cluster of at least 19 malicious npm packages to enable credential harvesting and cryptocurrency key theft.
The campaign has been codenamed SANDWORM_MODE by supply chain security company Socket. As with prior Shai-Hulud attack waves, the malicious code embedded
The Iranian hacking group known as MuddyWater (aka Earth Vetala, Mango Sandstorm, and MUDDYCOAST) has targeted several organizations and individuals mainly located across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as part of a new campaign codenamed Operation Olalampo.
The activity, first observed on January 26, 2026, has resulted in the deployment of new malware families that share
A Russian-speaking, financially motivated threat actor has been observed taking advantage of commercial generative artificial intelligence (AI) services to compromise over 600 FortiGate devices located in 55 countries.
That's according to new findings from Amazon Threat Intelligence, which said it observed the activity between January 11 and February 18, 2026.
"No exploitation of FortiGate
Artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic has begun to roll out a new security feature for Claude Code that can scan a user's software codebase for vulnerabilities and suggest patches.
The capability, called Claude Code Security, is currently available in a limited research preview to Enterprise and Team customers.
"It scans codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggests targeted
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added two security flaws impacting Roundcube webmail software to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation.
The vulnerabilities in question are listed below -
CVE-2025-49113 (CVSS score: 9.9) - A deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability that allows remote code
With $5.5 trillion in global AI risk exposure and 700,000 U.S. workers needing reskilling, four new AI certifications and Certified CISO v4 help close the gap between AI adoption and workforce readiness.
EC-Council, creator of the world-renowned Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) credential and a global leader in applied cybersecurity education, today launched its Enterprise AI Credential Suite,
Threat actors have been observed exploiting a recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting BeyondTrust Remote Support (RS) and Privileged Remote Access (PRA) products to conduct a wide range of malicious actions, including deploying VShell andΒ
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-1731 (CVSS score: 9.9), allows attackers to execute operating system commands in the context of the
In yet another software supply chain attack, the open-source, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered coding assistant Cline CLI was updated to stealthily install OpenClaw, a self-hosted autonomous AI agent that has become exceedingly popular in the past few months.
"On February 17, 2026, at 3:26 AM PT, an unauthorized party used a compromised npm publish token to publish an update to Cline CLI
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new ClickFix campaign that abuses compromised legitimate sites to deliver a previously undocumented remote access trojan (RAT) called MIMICRAT (aka AstarionRAT).
"The campaign demonstrates a high level of operational sophistication: compromised sites spanning multiple industries and geographies serve as delivery infrastructure, a multi-stage
With one in three cyber-attacks now involving compromised employee accounts, insurers and regulators are placing far greater emphasis on identity posture when assessing cyber risk.Β
For many organizations, however, these assessments remain largely opaque. Elements such as password hygiene, privileged access management, and the extent of multi-factor authentication (MFA) coverage are
A 29-year-old Ukrainian national has been sentenced to five years in prison in the U.S. for his role in facilitating North Korea's fraudulent information technology (IT) worker scheme.
In November 2025, Oleksandr "Alexander" Didenko pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft for stealing the identities of U.S. citizens and selling them to IT workers to help them land
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned of an increase in ATM jackpotting incidents across the country, leading to losses of more than $20 million in 2025.
The agency said 1,900 ATM jackpotting incidents have been reported since 2020, out of which 700 took place last year. In December 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said about $40.73 million has been collectively
Two former Google engineers and one of their husbands have been indicted in the U.S. for allegedly committing trade secret theft from the search giant and other tech firms and transferring the information to unauthorized locations, including Iran.
Samaneh Ghandali, 41, and her husband Mohammadjavad Khosravi (aka Mohammad Khosravi), 40, along with her sister Soroor Ghandali, 32, have been accused
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered what they say is the first Android malware that abuses Gemini, Google's generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, as part of its execution flow and achieves persistence.
The malware has been codenamed PromptSpy by ESET. The malware is equipped to capture lockscreen data, block uninstallation efforts, gather device information, take screenshots,
An international cybercrime operation against online scams has led to 651 arrests and recovered more than $4.3 million as part of an effort led by law enforcement agencies from 16 African countries.
The initiative, codenamed Operation Red Card 2.0, took place between December 8, 2025 and January 30, 2026, according to INTERPOL. It targeted infrastructure and actors behind high-yield investment
Microsoft has disclosed a now-patched security flaw in Windows Admin Center that could allow an attacker to escalate their privileges.
Windows Admin Center is a locally deployed, browser-based management tool set that lets users manage their Windows Clients, Servers, and Clusters without the need for connecting to the cloud.
The high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-26119, carries a
The cyber threat space doesnβt pause, and this week makes that clear. New risks, new tactics, and new security gaps are showing up across platforms, tools, and industries β often all at the same time.
Some developments are headline-level. Others sit in the background but carry long-term impact. Together, they shape how defenders need to think about exposure, response, and preparedness right now
Weβve all seen this before: a developer deploys a new cloud workload and grants overly broad permissions just to keep the sprint moving. An engineer generates a "temporary" API key for testing and forgets to revoke it. In the past, these were minor operational risks, debts youβd eventually pay down during a slower cycle.
In 2026, βEventuallyβ is Now
But today, within minutes, AI-powered
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new Android trojan called Massiv that's designed to facilitate device takeover (DTO) attacks for financial theft.
The malware, according to ThreatFabric, masquerades as seemingly harmless IPTV apps to deceive victims, indicating that the activity is primarily singling out users looking for the online TV applications.
"This new threat, while
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new campaign dubbed CRESCENTHARVEST, likely targeting supporters of Iran's ongoing protests to conduct information theft and long-term espionage.
The Acronis Threat Research Unit (TRU) said it observed the activity after January 9, with the attacks designed to deliver a malicious payload that serves as a remote access trojan (RAT) and
New research from the Citizen Lab has found signs that Kenyan authorities used a commercial forensic extraction tool manufactured by Israeli company Cellebrite to break into a prominent dissident's phone, making it the latest case of abuse of the technology targeting civil society.
The interdisciplinary research unit at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a critical security flaw in the Grandstream GXP1600 series of VoIP phones that could allow an attacker to seize control of susceptible devices.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-2329, carries a CVSS score of 9.3 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as a case of unauthenticated stack-based buffer overflow that could result in remote code
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed multiple security vulnerabilities in four popular Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extensions that, if successfully exploited, could allow threat actors to steal local files and execute code remotely.
The extensions, which have been collectively installed more than 125 million times, are Live Server, Code Runner, Markdown Preview Enhanced, and
In 2025, navigating the digital seas still felt like a matter of direction. Organizations charted routes, watched the horizon, and adjusted course to reach safe harbors of resilience, trust, and compliance.
In 2026, the seas are no longer calm between storms. Cybersecurity now unfolds in a state ofΒ continuous atmospheric instability: AI-driven threats that adapt in real time, expanding
A maximum severity security vulnerability in Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines has been exploited as a zero-day by a suspected China-nexus threat cluster dubbed UNC6201 since mid-2024, according to a new report from Google Mandiant and Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG).
The activity involves the exploitation of CVE-2026-22769 (CVSS score: 10.0), a case of hard-coded credentials
Security, IT, and engineering teams today are under relentless pressure to accelerate outcomes, cut operational drag, and unlock the full potential of AI and automation. But simply investing in tools isnβt enough. 88% of AI proofs-of-concept never make it to production, even though 70% of workers cite freeing time for high-value work as the primary AI automation motivation. Real impact comes
Notepad++ has released a security fix to plug gaps that were exploited by an advanced threat actor from China to hijack the software update mechanism to selectively deliver malware to targets of interest.
The version 8.9.2 update incorporates what maintainer Don Ho calls a "double lock" design that aims to make the update process "robust and effectively unexploitable." This includes verification
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added four security flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild.
The list of vulnerabilities is as follows -
CVE-2026-2441 (CVSS score: 8.8) - A use-after-free vulnerability in Google Chrome that could allow a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed that artificial intelligence (AI) assistants that support web browsing or URL fetching capabilities can be turned into stealthy command-and-control (C2) relays, a technique that could allow attackers to blend into legitimate enterprise communications and evade detection.
The attack method, which has been demonstrated against Microsoft Copilot and xAI Grok
A new Android backdoor that's embedded deep into the device firmware can silently harvest data and remotely control its behavior, according to new findings from Kaspersky.
The Russian cybersecurity vendor said it discovered the backdoor, dubbed Keenadu, in the firmware of devices associated with various brands, including Alldocube, with the compromise occurring during the firmware build phase.
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new SmartLoader campaign that involves distributing a trojanized version of a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server associated with Oura Health to deliver an information stealer known as StealC.
"The threat actors cloned a legitimate Oura MCP Server β a tool that connects AI assistants to Oura Ring health data β and built a deceptive
Cloud attacks move fast β faster than most incident response teams.
In data centers, investigations had time. Teams could collect disk images, review logs, and build timelines over days. In the cloud, infrastructure is short-lived. A compromised instance can disappear in minutes. Identities rotate. Logs expire. Evidence can vanish before analysis even begins.
Cloud forensics is fundamentally