The Hacker News

"Black Basta Ransomware leader added to EU most wanted and INTERPOL Red Notice."

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Accessed on 18 January 2026, 1404 UTC.

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Russ Roberts (https://www.hawaiicybersecurityjournal.net).

Black Basta Ransomware Leader Added to EU Most Wanted and INTERPOL Red Notice

Jan 17, 2026Law Enforcement / Cybercrime

Ukrainian and German law enforcement authorities have identified two Ukrainians suspected of working for the Russia-linked ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group Black Basta. In addition, the group's alleged leader, a 35-year-old Russian national named Oleg Evgenievich Nefedov (Нефедов Олег Евгеньевич), has been added to the European Union's Most Wanted and INTERPOL's Red Notice lists, authorities noted. "According to the investigation, the suspects specialized in technical hacking of protected systems and were involved in preparing cyberattacks using ransomware," the Cyber Police of Ukraine said in a statement.  The agency said the accused individuals functioned as "hash crackers," who specialize in extracting passwords from information systems using specialized software. Once the credential information was obtained, members of the ransomware group broke into corporate networks and ultimately deployed ransomware and extorted money to recover the e...

OpenAI to Show Ads in ChatGPT for Logged-In U.S. Adults on Free and Go Plans

Jan 17, 2026Artificial Intelligence / Data Privacy

OpenAI on Friday said it would start showing ads in ChatGPT to logged-in adult U.S. users in both the free and ChatGPT Go tiers in the coming weeks, as the artificial intelligence (AI) company expanded access to its low-cost subscription globally. "You need to know that your data and conversations are protected and never sold to advertisers," OpenAI said . "And we need to keep a high bar and give you control over your experience, so you see truly relevant, high-quality ads—and can turn off personalization if you want." The company has positioned advertising as a way to ensure that the benefits of artificial general intelligence – a term used to describe a stage in machine learning when an AI system can reach or surpass human-level intelligence – can be made more accessible to the masses. In addition, it can be "transformative" for small businesses and emerging brands trying to compete, it added. It also emphasized that ads do not influence responses...

Compliance-Ready Tabletop Exercises to Elevate Incident Response

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GootLoader Malware Uses 500–1,000 Concatenated ZIP Archives to Evade Detection

Jan 16, 2026Malvertising / Threat Intelligence

The JavaScript (aka JScript) malware loader called GootLoader has been observed using a malformed ZIP archive that's designed to sidestep detection efforts by concatenating anywhere from 500 to 1,000 archives. "The actor creates a malformed archive as an anti-analysis technique," Expel security researcher Aaron Walton said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "That is, many unarchiving tools are not able to consistently extract it, but one critical unarchiving tool seems to work consistently and reliably: the default tool built into Windows systems." This leads to a scenario where the archive cannot be processed by tools like WinRAR or 7-Zip, and, therefore, prevents many automated workflows from analyzing the contents of the file. At the same time, it can be opened by the default Windows unarchiver, thereby ensuring that victims who fall victim to the social engineering scheme can extract and run the JavaScript malware. GootLoader is typically distrib...

Five Malicious Chrome Extensions Impersonate Workday and NetSuite to Hijack Accounts

Jan 16, 2026Browser Security / Enterprise Security

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered five new malicious Google Chrome web browser extensions that masquerade as human resources (HR) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms like Workday, NetSuite, and SuccessFactors to take control of victim accounts. "The extensions work in concert to steal authentication tokens, block incident response capabilities, and enable complete account takeover through session hijacking," Socket security researcher Kush Pandya said in a Thursday report. The names of the extensions are listed below - DataByCloud Access (ID: oldhjammhkghhahhhdcifmmlefibciph, Published by: databycloud1104) - 251 Installs Tool Access 11 (ID: ijapakghdgckgblfgjobhcfglebbkebf, Published by: databycloud1104) - 101 Installs DataByCloud 1 (ID: mbjjeombjeklkbndcjgmfcdhfbjngcam, Published by: databycloud1104) - 1,000 Installs DataByCloud 2 (ID: makdmacamkifdldldlelollkkjnoiedg, Published by: databycloud1104) - 1,000 Installs Software Access (ID: bmodapc...

Your Digital Footprint Can Lead Right to Your Front Door

Jan 16, 2026Privacy / Data Protection

You lock your doors at night. You avoid sketchy phone calls. You're careful about what you post on social media. But what about the information about you that's already out there—without your permission? Your name. Home address. Phone number. Past jobs. Family members. Old usernames. It's all still online, and it's a lot easier to find than you think. The hidden safety threat lurking online Most people don't realize how much of their personal life is sitting on public websites, data broker platforms, and sketchy directories. These sites don't just sell your info to marketers—they make it available to anyone with internet access. And that's when things can get dangerous. Exposed personal information can lead to: Doxxing incidents where personal info is leaked online Harassment that moves from your inbox to your doorstep Stalkers and scammers are building a profile on you using old addresses and phone numbers Strangers showing up where you live or work. It's not just creep...

The Cyber Event of the Year Returns: SANS 2026

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LOTUSLITE Backdoor Targets U.S. Policy Entities Using Venezuela-Themed Spear Phishing

Jan 16, 2026Malware / Cyber Espionage

Security experts have disclosed details of a new campaign that has targeted U.S. government and policy entities using politically themed lures to deliver a backdoor known as LOTUSLITE . The targeted malware campaign leverages decoys related to the recent geopolitical developments between the U.S. and Venezuela to distribute a ZIP archive ("US now deciding what's next for Venezuela.zip") containing a malicious DLL that's launched using DLL side-loading techniques. It's not known if the campaign managed to successfully compromise any of the targets. The activity has been attributed with moderate confidence to a Chinese state-sponsored group known as Mustang Panda (aka Earth Pret, HoneyMyte, and Twill Typhoon), citing tactical and infrastructure patterns. It's worth noting that the threat actor is known for extensively relying on DLL side-loading to launch its backdoors, including TONESHELL. "This campaign reflects a continued trend of targeted spear ...

China-Linked APT Exploited Sitecore Zero-Day in Critical Infrastructure Intrusions

Jan 16, 2026Zero-Day / Cyber Espionage

A threat actor likely aligned with China has been observed targeting critical infrastructure sectors in North America since at least last year. Cisco Talos, which is tracking the activity under the name UAT-8837 , assessed it to be a China-nexus advanced persistent threat (APT) actor with medium confidence based on tactical overlaps with other campaigns mounted by threat actors from the region. The cybersecurity company noted that the threat actor is "primarily tasked with obtaining initial access to high-value organizations," based on the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and post-compromise activity observed. "After obtaining initial access — either by successful exploitation of vulnerable servers or by using compromised credentials — UAT-8837 predominantly deploys open-source tools to harvest sensitive information such as credentials, security configurations, and domain and Active Directory (AD) information to create multiple channels of access to their v...

Cisco Patches Zero-Day RCE Exploited by China-Linked APT in Secure Email Gateways

Jan 16, 2026Vulnerability / Web Security

Cisco on Thursday released security updates for a maximum-severity security flaw impacting Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email Gateway and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager, nearly a month after the company disclosed that it had been exploited as a zero-day by a China-nexus advanced persistent threat (APT) actor codenamed UAT-9686. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-20393 (CVSS score: 10.0), is a remote command execution flaw arising as a result of insufficient validation of HTTP requests by the Spam Quarantine feature. Successful exploitation of the defect could permit an attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system of an affected appliance. However, for the attack to work, three conditions must be met - The appliance is running a vulnerable release of Cisco AsyncOS Software The appliance is configured with the Spam Quarantine feature The Spam Quarantine feature is exposed to and reachable from the internet L...

AWS CodeBuild Misconfiguration Exposed GitHub Repos to Potential Supply Chain Attacks

Jan 15, 2026Cloud Security / Vulnerability

A critical misconfiguration in Amazon Web Services (AWS) CodeBuild could have allowed complete takeover of the cloud service provider's own GitHub repositories, including its AWS JavaScript SDK, putting every AWS environment at risk. The vulnerability has been codenamed CodeBreach by cloud security company Wiz. The issue was fixed by AWS in September 2025 following responsible disclosure on August 25, 2025. "By exploiting CodeBreach, attackers could have injected malicious code to launch a platform-wide compromise, potentially affecting not just the countless applications depending on the SDK, but the Console itself, threatening every AWS account," researchers Yuval Avrahami and Nir Ohfeld said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The flaw, Wiz noted, is the result of a weakness in the continuous integration (CI) pipelines that could have enabled unauthenticated attackers to breach the build environment, leak privileged credentials like GitHub admin tokens, and...

Critical WordPress Modular DS Plugin Flaw Actively Exploited to Gain Admin Access

Jan 15, 2026Web Security /Vulnerability

A maximum-severity security flaw in a WordPress plugin called Modular DS has come under active exploitation in the wild, according to Patchstack. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-23550 (CVSS score: 10.0), has been described as a case of unauthenticated privilege escalation impacting all versions of the plugin prior to and including 2.5.1. It has been patched in version 2.5.2 . The plugin has more than 40,000 active installs. "In versions 2.5.1 and below, the plugin is vulnerable to privilege escalation, due to a combination of factors including direct route selection, bypassing of authentication mechanisms, and auto-login as admin," Patchstack said . The problem is rooted in its routing mechanism, which is designed to put certain sensitive routes behind an authentication barrier. The plugin exposes its routes under the "/api/modular-connector/" prefix. However, it has been found that this security layer can be bypassed every time the "direct reques...

Researchers Reveal Reprompt Attack Allowing Single-Click Data Exfiltration From Microsoft Copilot

Jan 15, 2026Prompt Injection / Enterprise Security

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new attack method dubbed Reprompt that could allow bad actors to exfiltrate sensitive data from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like Microsoft Copilot in a single click, while bypassing enterprise security controls entirely. "Only a single click on a legitimate Microsoft link is required to compromise victims," Varonis security researcher Dolev Taler said in a report published Wednesday. "No plugins, no user interaction with Copilot." "The attacker maintains control even when the Copilot chat is closed, allowing the victim's session to be silently exfiltrated with no interaction beyond that first click." Following responsible disclosure, Microsoft has addressed the security issue. The attack does not affect enterprise customers using Microsoft 365 Copilot. At a high level, Reprompt employs three techniques to achieve a data‑exfiltration chain - Using the "q" URL parameter in...

ThreatsDay Bulletin: AI Voice Cloning Exploit, Wi-Fi Kill Switch, PLC Vulns, and 14 More Stories

Jan 15, 2026Cybersecurity / Hacking News

The internet never stays quiet. Every week, new hacks, scams, and security problems show up somewhere. This week's stories show how fast attackers change their tricks, how small mistakes turn into big risks, and how the same old tools keep finding new ways to break in. Read on to catch up before the next wave hits. Unauthenticated RCE risk Security Flaw in Redis A high-severity security flaw has been disclosed in Redis (CVE-2025-62507, CVSS score: 8.8) that could potentially lead to remote code execution by means of a stack buffer overflow. It was fixed in version 8.3.2. JFrog's analysis of the flaw has revealed that the vulnerability is triggered when using the new Redis 8.2 XACKDEL command, which was introduced to simplify and optimize stream cleanup. Specifically, it resides in the implementation of xackdelCommand(), a function responsible for parsing and processing the list of stream IDs supplied by the user. "The core ...

Model Security Is the Wrong Frame – The Real Risk Is Workflow Security

Jan 15, 2026Data Security / Artificial Intelligence

As AI copilots and assistants become embedded in daily work, security teams are still focused on protecting the models themselves. But recent incidents suggest the bigger risk lies elsewhere: in the workflows that surround those models. Two Chrome extensions posing as AI helpers were recently caught stealing ChatGPT and DeepSeek chat data from over 900,000 users. Separately, researchers demonstrated how prompt injections hidden in code repositories could trick IBM's AI coding assistant into executing malware on a developer's machine. Neither attack broke the AI algorithms themselves.  They exploited the context in which the AI operates. That's the pattern worth paying attention to. When AI systems are embedded in real business processes, summarizing documents, drafting emails, and pulling data from internal tools, securing the model alone isn't enough. The workflow itself becomes the target. AI Models Are Becoming Workflow Engines To understand why this matters,...