The Hacker News

"Microsoft discloses DNS-based ClickFix attack using Nalookup for malware staging."

Views expressed in this cybersecurity, cyber crime update are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 15 February 2026, 1600 UTC.

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

Microsoft Discloses DNS-Based ClickFix Attack Using Nslookup for Malware Staging

Feb 15, 2026Malware / Threat Intelligence

Microsoft has disclosed details of a new version of the ClickFix social engineering tactic in which the attackers trick unsuspecting users into running commands that carry out a Domain Name System (DNS) lookup to retrieve the next-stage payload. Specifically, the attack relies on using the " nslookup " (short for nameserver lookup ) command to execute a custom DNS lookup triggered via the Windows Run dialog. ClickFix is an increasingly popular technique that's traditionally delivered via phishing, malvertising, or drive-by download schemes, often redirecting targets to bogus landing pages that host fake CAPTCHA verification or instructions to address a non-existent problem on their computers by running a command either through the Windows Run dialog or the macOS Terminal app. The attack method has become widespread over the past two years since it hinges on the victims infecting their own machines with malware, thereby allowing the threat actors to bypass security c...

Google Ties Suspected Russian Actor to CANFAIL Malware Attacks on Ukrainian Orgs

Feb 13, 2026Threat Intelligence / Malware

A previously undocumented threat actor has been attributed to attacks targeting Ukrainian organizations with malware known as CANFAIL . Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) described the hacking group as possibly affiliated with Russian intelligence services. The threat actor is assessed to have targeted defense, military, government, and energy organizations within the Ukrainian regional and national governments. However, the group has also exhibited growing interest in aerospace organizations, manufacturing companies with military and drone ties, nuclear and chemical research organizations, and international organizations involved in conflict monitoring and humanitarian aid in Ukraine, GTIG added. "Despite being less sophisticated and resourced than other Russian threat groups, this actor recently began to overcome some technical limitations using LLMs [large language models]," GTIG said . "Through prompting, they conduct reconnaissance, create lures for soci...

Google Links China, Iran, Russia, North Korea to Coordinated Defense Sector Cyber Operations

Feb 13, 2026Malware / Critical Infrastructure

Several state-sponsored actors, hacktivist entities, and criminal groups from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have trained their sights on the defense industrial base (DIB) sector, according to findings from Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG). The tech giant's threat intelligence division said the adversarial targeting of the sector is centered around four key themes: striking defense entities deploying technologies on the battlefield in the Russia-Ukraine War, directly approaching employees and exploitation of the hiring process by North Korean and Iranian actors, use of edge devices and appliances as initial access pathways for China-nexus groups, and supply chain risk stemming from the breach of the manufacturing sector. "Many of the chief state-sponsors of cyber espionage and hacktivist actors have shown an interest in autonomous vehicles and drones, as these platforms play an increasing role in modern warfare," GTIG said . "Further, the 'evasion...

AI Security Board Report Template

WizAI Security / Compliance

This template helps security and technology leaders clearly communicate AI risk, impact, and priorities in language boards understand.

UAT-9921 Deploys VoidLink Malware to Target Technology and Financial Sectors

Feb 13, 2026Cloud Security / Cyber Espionage

A previously unknown threat actor tracked as UAT-9921 has been observed leveraging a new modular framework called VoidLink in its campaigns targeting the technology and financial services sectors, according to findings from Cisco Talos. "This threat actor seems to have been active since 2019, although they have not necessarily used VoidLink over the duration of their activity," researchers Nick Biasini, Aaron Boyd, Asheer Malhotra, and Vitor Ventura said . "UAT-9921 uses compromised hosts to install VoidLink command-and-control (C2), which are then used to launch scanning activities both internal and external to the network." VoidLink was first documented by Check Point last month, describing it as a feature-rich malware framework written in Zig designed for long-term, stealthy access to Linux-based cloud environments. It's assessed to be the work of a single developer with assistance from a large language model (LLM) to flesh out its internals based on a p...

Malicious Chrome Extensions Caught Stealing Business Data, Emails, and Browsing History

Feb 13, 2026Browser Security / Artificial Intelligence

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious Google Chrome extension that's designed to steal data associated with Meta Business Suite and Facebook Business Manager. The extension, named CL Suite by @CLMasters (ID: jkphinfhmfkckkcnifhjiplhfoiefffl), is marketed as a way to scrape Meta Business Suite data, remove verification pop-ups, and generate two-factor authentication (2FA) codes. The extension has 33 users as of writing. It was first uploaded to the Chrome Web Store on March 1, 2025. However, the browser add-on also exfiltrates TOTP codes for Facebook and Meta Business accounts, Business Manager contact lists, and analytics data to infrastructure controlled by the threat actor, Socket said. "The extension requests broad access to meta.com and facebook.com and claims in its privacy policy that 2FA secrets and Business Manager data remain local," security researcher Kirill Boychenko said . "In practice, the code transmits TOTP seeds and current one-t...

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npm’s Update to Harden Their Supply Chain, and Points to Consider

Feb 13, 2026Supply Chain Security / DevSecOps

In December 2025, in response to the Sha1-Hulud incident, npm completed a major authentication overhaul intended to reduce supply-chain attacks. While the overhaul is a solid step forward, the changes don’t make npm projects immune from supply-chain attacks. npm is still susceptible to malware attacks – here’s what you need to know for a safer Node community. Let’s start with the original problem Historically, npm relied on classic tokens: long-lived, broadly scoped credentials that could persist indefinitely. If stolen, attackers could directly publish malicious versions to the author’s packages (no publicly verifiable source code needed). This made npm a prime vector for supply-chain attacks. Over time, numerous real-world incidents demonstrated this point. Shai-Hulud, Sha1-Hulud, and chalk/debug are examples of recent, notable attacks. npm’s solution To address this, npm made the following changes: npm revoked all classic tokens and defaulted to session-based tokens instead...

Researchers Observe In-the-Wild Exploitation of BeyondTrust CVSS 9.9 Vulnerability

Feb 13, 2026Threat Intelligence / Vulnerability

Threat actors have started to exploit a recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting BeyondTrust Remote Support (RS) and Privileged Remote Access (PRA) products, according to watchTowr. "Overnight we observed first in-the-wild exploitation of BeyondTrust across our global sensors," Ryan Dewhurst, head of threat intelligence at watchTowr, said in a post on X. "Attackers are abusing get_portal_info to extract the x-ns-company value before establishing a WebSocket channel." The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-1731 (CVS score: 9.9), which could allow an unauthenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution by sending specially crafted requests. BeyondTrust noted last week that successful exploitation of the shortcoming could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to execute operating system commands in the context of the site user, resulting in unauthorized access, data exfiltration, and service disruption. It has been patched in the following...

Google Reports State-Backed Hackers Using Gemini AI for Recon and Attack Support

Feb 12, 2026Cyber Espionage / Artificial Intelligence

Google on Thursday said it observed the North Korea-linked threat actor known as UNC2970 using its generative artificial intelligence (AI) model Gemini to conduct reconnaissance on its targets, as various hacking groups continue to weaponize the tool for accelerating various phases of the cyber attack life cycle, enabling information operations, and even conducting model extraction attacks. "The group used Gemini to synthesize OSINT and profile high-value targets to support campaign planning and reconnaissance," Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This actor's target profiling included searching for information on major cybersecurity and defense companies and mapping specific technical job roles and salary information." The tech giant's threat intelligence team characterized this activity as a blurring of boundaries between what constitutes routine professional research and malicious reconnaissance, al...

Lazarus Campaign Plants Malicious Packages in npm and PyPI Ecosystems

Feb 12, 2026Vulnerability / Threat Intelligence

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a fresh set of malicious packages across npm and the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository linked to a fake recruitment-themed campaign orchestrated by the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group. The coordinated campaign has been codenamed graphalgo in reference to the first package published in the npm registry. It's assessed to be active since May 2025. "Developers are approached via social platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, or through job offerings on forums like Reddit," ReversingLabs researcher Karlo Zanki said in a report. "The campaign includes a well-orchestrated story around a company involved in blockchain and cryptocurrency exchanges." Notably, one of the identified npm packages, bigmathutils, attracted more than 10,000 downloads after the first, non-malicious version was published, and before the second version containing a malicious payload was released. The names of the packages are listed below - npm...

ThreatsDay Bulletin: AI Prompt RCE, Claude 0-Click, RenEngine Loader, Auto 0-Days & 25+ Stories

Feb 12, 2026Cybersecurity / Hacking News

Threat activity this week shows one consistent signal — attackers are leaning harder on what already works. Instead of flashy new exploits, many operations are built around quiet misuse of trusted tools, familiar workflows, and overlooked exposures that sit in plain sight. Another shift is how access is gained versus how it’s used. Initial entry points are getting simpler, while post-compromise activity is becoming more deliberate, structured, and persistent. The objective is less about disruption and more about staying embedded long enough to extract value. There’s also growing overlap between cybercrime, espionage tradecraft, and opportunistic intrusion. Techniques are bleeding across groups, making attribution harder and defense baselines less reliable. Below is this week’s ThreatsDay Bulletin — a tight scan of the signals that matter, distilled into quick reads. Each item adds context to where threat pressure is building next. Notepad RCE via Markdown L...

The CTEM Divide: Why 84% of Security Programs Are Falling Behind

Feb 12, 2026Enterprise Security / Breach Prevention

A new 2026 market intelligence study of 128 enterprise security decision-makers ( available here ) reveals a stark divide forming between organizations – one that has nothing to do with budget size or industry and everything to do with a single framework decision. Organizations implementing Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) demonstrate 50% better attack surface visibility, 23-point higher solution adoption, and superior threat awareness across every measured dimension. The 16% who've implemented it are pulling away. The 84% who haven't are falling behind. The Demographics of the Divide The research surveyed a senior cohort: 85% of respondents are Manager-level or above, representing organizations where 66% employ 5,000+ people across finance, healthcare, and retail sectors. Download the full research here → What is CTEM? If you aren’t familiar, CTEM involves shifting from "patch everything reactively" to "continuously discover, validate, and pr...

83% of Ivanti EPMM Exploits Linked to Single IP on Bulletproof Hosting Infrastructure

Feb 12, 2026Vulnerability / Network Security

A significant chunk of the exploitation attempts targeting a newly disclosed security flaw in Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) can be traced back to a single IP address on bulletproof hosting infrastructure offered by PROSPERO. Threat intelligence firm GreyNoise said it recorded 417 exploitation sessions from 8 unique source IP addresses between February 1 and 9, 2026. An estimated 346 exploitation sessions have originated from 193.24.123[.]42, accounting for 83% of all attempts. The malicious activity is designed to exploit CVE-2026-1281 (CVSS scores: 9.8), one of the two critical security vulnerabilities in EPMM, along with CVE-2026-1340 that could be exploited by an attacker to achieve unauthenticated remote code execution. Late last month, Ivanti acknowledged it's aware of a "very limited number of customers" who were impacted following the zero-day exploitation of the issues. Since then, multiple European agencies, including the Netherlands' Dutch Da...