The Hacker News

"$285 million Drift Hack traced to six-month DPRK social engineering operation."

Views expressed in this cybersecurity, cyber crime update are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 05 April 2026, 2310 UTC.

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

$285 Million Drift Hack Traced to Six-Month DPRK Social Engineering Operation

Apr 05, 2026Cryptocurrency / Threat Intelligence

Drift has revealed that the April 1, 2026, attack that led to the theft of $285 million was the culmination of a months-long targeted and meticulously planned social engineering operation undertaken by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) that began in the fall of 2025. The Solana-based decentralized exchange described it as "an attack six months in the making," attributing it with medium confidence to a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group dubbed UNC4736 , which is also tracked under the cyptonyms AppleJeus, Citrine Sleet, Golden Chollima, and Gleaming Pisces. The threat actor has a history of targeting the cryptocurrency sector for financial theft since at least 2018. It's best known for the X_TRADER/3CX supply chain breach in 2023 and the $53 million hack of decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Radiant Capital in October 2024. "The basis for this connection is both on-chain (f...

36 Malicious npm Packages Exploited Redis, PostgreSQL to Deploy Persistent Implants

Apr 05, 2026Malware / DevSecOps

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered 36 malicious packages in the npm registry that are disguised as Strapi CMS plugins but come with different payloads to facilitate Redis and PostgreSQL exploitation, deploy reverse shells, harvest credentials, and drop a persistent implant. "Every package contains three files (package.json, index.js, postinstall.js), has no description, repository, or homepage, and uses version 3.6.8 to appear as a mature Strapi v3 community plugin," SafeDep said . All identified npm packages follow the same naming convention, starting with "strapi-plugin-" and then phrases like "cron," "database," or "server" to fool unsuspecting developers into downloading them. It's worth noting that the official Strapi plugins are scoped under "@strapi/." The packages, uploaded by four sock puppet accounts "umarbek1233," "kekylf12," "tikeqemif26," and "umar_bektembiev1...

Fortinet Patches Actively Exploited CVE-2026-35616 in FortiClient EMS

Apr 05, 2026Vulnerability / API Security

Fortinet has released out-of-band patches for a critical security flaw impacting FortiClient EMS that it said has been exploited in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-35616 (CVSS score: 9.1), has been described as a pre-authentication API access bypass leading to privilege escalation. "An improper access control vulnerability [CWE-284] in FortiClient EMS may allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute unauthorized code or commands via crafted requests," Fortinet said in a Saturday advisory. The issue affects FortiClient EMS versions 7.4.5 through 7.4.6. It's expected to be fully patched in the upcoming version 7.4.7, although the company has released a hotfix to address it.  Simo Kohonen from Defused Cyber and Nguyen Duc Anh have been credited with discovering and reporting the flaw. In a post on X, Defused Cyber said it observed zero-day exploitation of CVE-2026-35616 earlier this week. Accor...

2026 Annual Threat Report: A Defender’s Playbook From the Front Lines

SentinelOneEnterprise Security / Cloud Security

Learn how modern attackers bypass MFA, exploit gaps, weaponize automation, run 8-phase intrusions, and more.

China-Linked TA416 Targets European Governments with PlugX and OAuth-Based Phishing

Apr 03, 2026Malware / Cyber Espionage

A China-aligned threat actor has set its sights on European government and diplomatic organizations since mid-2025, following a two-year period of minimal targeting in the region. The campaign has been attributed to TA416 , a cluster of activity that overlaps with DarkPeony, RedDelta, Red Lich, SmugX, UNC6384, and Vertigo Panda. "This TA416 activity included multiple waves of web bug and malware delivery campaigns against diplomatic missions to the European Union and NATO across a range of European countries," Proofpoint researchers Mark Kelly and Georgi Mladenov said . "Throughout this period, TA416 regularly altered its infection chain, including abusing Cloudflare Turnstile challenge pages, abusing OAuth redirects, and using C# project files, as well as frequently updating its custom PlugX payload." TA416 has also been observed orchestrating multiple campaigns aimed at diplomatic and government entities in the Middle East following the outbreak...

Microsoft Details Cookie-Controlled PHP Web Shells Persisting via Cron on Linux Servers

Apr 03, 2026Linux / Server Hardening

Threat actors are increasingly using HTTP cookies as a control channel for PHP-based web shells on Linux servers and to achieve remote code execution, according to findings from the Microsoft Defender Security Research Team. "Instead of exposing command execution through URL parameters or request bodies, these web shells rely on threat actor-supplied cookie values to gate execution, pass instructions, and activate malicious functionality," the tech giant said . The approach offers added stealth as it allows malicious code to stay dormant during normal application execution and activate the web shell logic only when specific cookie values are present. This behavior, Microsoft noted, extends to web requests, scheduled tasks, and trusted background workers. The malicious activity takes advantage of the fact that cookie values are available at runtime through the $_COOKIE superglobal variable, allowing attacker-supplied inputs to be consumed with...

Free Assessment: Identify Hidden Internal Risk.

BitdefenderAttack Surface / Threat Detection

Discover unnecessary user access to risky tools, shadow IT, based on real user behavior.

UNC1069 Social Engineering of Axios Maintainer Led to npm Supply Chain Attack

Apr 03, 2026Threat Intelligence / Malware

The maintainer of the Axios npm package has confirmed that the supply chain compromise was the result of a highly-targeted social engineering campaign orchestrated by North Korean threat actors tracked as UNC1069 . Maintainer Jason Saayman said the attackers tailored their social engineering efforts "specifically to me" by first approaching him under the guise of the founder of a legitimate, well-known company. "They had cloned the company's founders' likeness as well as the company itself," Saayman said in a post-mortem of the incident. "They then invited me to a real Slack workspace. This workspace was branded to the company's CI and named in a plausible manner. The Slack [workspace] was thought out very well; they had channels where they were sharing LinkedIn posts." Subsequently, the threat actors are said to have scheduled a meeting with him on Microsoft Teams. Upon joining the fake call, he was presented with a fake error mes...

Why Third-Party Risk Is the Biggest Gap in Your Clients' Security Posture

Apr 03, 2026Compliance / Cyber Insurance

The next major breach hitting your clients probably won't come from inside their walls. It'll come through a vendor they trust, a SaaS tool their finance team signed up for, or a subcontractor nobody in IT knows about. That's the new attack surface, and most organizations are underprepared for it. Cynomi's new guide, Securing the Modern Perimeter: The Rise of Third-Party Risk Management , makes the case that TPRM is no longer a compliance formality. It's a frontline security challenge and a defining growth opportunity for MSPs and MSSPs who get ahead of it. The Modern Perimeter Has Expanded For decades, cybersecurity strategy revolved around a defined perimeter. Firewalls, endpoint controls, and identity management systems were deployed to protect assets within a known boundary. That boundary has dissolved. Today, client data lives in third-party SaaS applications, flows through vendor APIs, and is processed by subcontractors ...

New SparkCat Variant in iOS, Android Apps Steals Crypto Wallet Recovery Phrase Images

Apr 03, 2026Mobile Security / Threat Intelligence

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new version of the SparkCat malware on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, more than a year after the trojan was discovered targeting both the mobile operating systems. The malware has been found to conceal itself within seemingly benign apps, such as enterprise messengers and food delivery services, while silently scanning victims' photo galleries for cryptocurrency wallet recovery phrases. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it found two infected apps on the App Store and one on the Google Play Store that primarily target cryptocurrency users in Asia. "The iOS variant, however, takes a different approach as it scans for cryptocurrency wallet mnemonic phrases, which are in English," the company said. "This makes the iOS variant potentially broader in reach, as it can affect users regardless of their region." The improved version of SparkCat for...

Drift Loses $285 Million in Durable Nonce Social Engineering Attack Linked to DPRK

Apr 03, 2026Durable Nonce Social Engineering

Solana-based decentralized exchange Drift has confirmed that attackers drained about $285 million from the platform during a security incident that took place on April 1, 2026. "Earlier today, a malicious actor gained unauthorized access to Drift Protocol through a novel attack involving durable nonces, resulting in a rapid takeover of Drift’s Security Council administrative powers," the company said in a series of posts on X. "This was a highly sophisticated operation that appears to have involved multi-week preparation and staged execution, including the use of durable nonce accounts to pre-sign transactions that delayed execution." Drift noted that the attack did not exploit a vulnerability in its programs or smart contracts, and that there is no evidence of compromised seed phrases. Rather, the breach is said to have "involved unauthorized or misrepresented transaction approvals obtained prior to execution, likely facilitated through durable n...

Hackers Exploit CVE-2025-55182 to Breach 766 Next.js Hosts, Steal Credentials

Apr 02, 2026Vulnerability / Threat Intelligence

A large-scale credential harvesting operation has been observed exploiting the React2Shell vulnerability as an initial infection vector to steal database credentials, SSH private keys, Amazon Web Services (AWS) secrets, shell command history, Stripe API keys, and GitHub tokens at scale. Cisco Talos has attributed the operation to a threat cluster it tracks as UAT-10608 . At least 766 hosts spanning multiple geographic regions and cloud providers have been compromised as part of the activity. "Post-compromise, UAT-10608 leverages automated scripts for extracting and exfiltrating credentials from a variety of applications, that are then posted to its command-and-control (C2)," security researchers  Asheer Malhotra and Brandon White said in a report shared with The Hacker News ahead of publication. "The C2 hosts a web-based graphical user interface (GUI) titled 'NEXUS Listener' that can be used to view s...

Cisco Patches 9.8 CVSS IMC and SSM Flaws Allowing Remote System Compromise

Apr 02, 2026Network Security / Vulnerability

Cisco has released updates to address a critical security flaw in the Integrated Management Controller (IMC) that, if successfully exploited, could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and gain access to the system with elevated privileges. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20093, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.0. "This vulnerability is due to incorrect handling of password change requests," Cisco said in an advisory released Wednesday. "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request to an affected device." "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to bypass authentication, alter the passwords of any user on the system, including an Admin user, and gain access to the system as that user." Security researcher "jyh" has been credited with discovering and reporting the vulnerability. The shortcoming affects the following products regardless of the dev...

ThreatsDay Bulletin: Pre-Auth Chains, Android Rootkits, CloudTrail Evasion & 10 More Stories

Apr 02, 2026Cybersecurity / Hacking News

The latest ThreatsDay Bulletin is basically a cheat sheet for everything breaking on the internet right now. No corporate fluff or boring lectures here, just a quick and honest look at the messy reality of keeping systems safe this week. Things are moving fast. The list includes researchers chaining small bugs together to create massive backdoors, old software flaws coming back to haunt us, and some very clever new tricks that let attackers bypass security logs entirely without leaving a trace. We are also seeing sketchier traffic on the underground and the usual supply chain mess, where one bad piece of code threatens thousands of apps. It is definitely worth a quick scan before you log off for the day, if only to make sure none of this is sitting in your own network. Let's get into it. Pre-auth RCE chain exposed Security Flaws in Progress ShareFile watchTower Labs has disclosed two securi...