The Hacker News

"FOMO in SOC:  Where AI platforms like Claude actually fit."

Views expressed in this cybersecurity, cyber crime update are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 03 August 2026, 1259 UTC.

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

FOMO in the SOC: Where AI Platforms like Claude Actually Fit

Aug 03, 2026Artificial Intelligence / Enterprise Security

AI is moving incredibly fast, and every security leader is feeling the pressure to keep up. AI platforms like Claude, Codex and Cursor are already helping security teams write detections, investigate alerts, summarize incidents, and automate repetitive work. The conversation has evolved from whether AI belongs in the SOC, to where each type of AI delivers the most value. With so many new AI products entering the market, it's easy to assume one tool can solve every problem. In reality, different types of AI are designed for different jobs. Understanding that difference is what transforms AI FOMO into better security outcomes. Join AI SOC: Where Claude belongs in the SOC AI is changing security operations The way security teams work is changing quickly. Attackers are already using AI to generate phishing campaigns, automate malware development, and move faster than ever before. At the same time, defenders are using AI to triage alerts, create detection rules, automate ...

Chinese Threat Actor Uses Leaked DarkSword Kit to Deploy GHOSTBLADE on iOS

Aug 03, 2026Mobile Security / Vulnerability

An unknown Chinese-threat actor has been observed running a campaign targeting Apple iOS devices by leveraging a publicly leaked version of the DarkSword exploit kit. Attack surface management platform Censys said it identified the threat actor running more than 100 web properties, most of which are fake Amazon Web Services (AWS) sign-in pages on a domain that also hosts the exploit toolkit. "The hosting concentrates in Hong Kong but reaches into Japan, the United States, and Europe," Censys researcher Aidan Holland said in an analysis published on July 31, 2026. DarkSword, discovered and detailed earlier this year by Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), iVerify, and Lookout, refers to a full-chain exploit kit that is believed to have been used by commercial surveillance vendors and suspected state-sponsored actors in disparate campaigns targeting Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Malaysia, and Ukraine since at least November 2025. The kit, which specifically targets iOS ...

PNLD Breach Exposes U.K. Police and Government Contact Details on Dark Web

Aug 03, 2026Data Breach / Dark Web

The Police National Legal Database (PNLD) has confirmed that police, government and customer contact information was compromised and published on the dark web. The data included names, organisations and work email addresses belonging to police officers, police staff, criminal justice professionals, government partners and customers. The incident, identified on July 26, also exposed some names and email addresses belonging to people who had submitted questions through Ask the Police. That exposure could make phishing messages targeting named officers appear more convincing, according to UK government guidance . PNLD said, "There is no evidence to suggest that passwords or other security credentials have been compromised." The service provides legal information, products and services to UK police forces and criminal justice organisations. It is not the Police National Computer or the Police National Database, is not a crime-recording system, and does not hold confidentia...

AI Threat Readiness 101

WizCloud Security / AI Security

Learn the four pillars of AI threat readiness and how security teams can reduce risk faster with detection, validation, and remediation built for today's threat landscape.

Thermo Fisher Patches Flaw That Could Make DNA File Tampering Nearly Undetectable

Aug 03, 2026Data Security / Vulnerability

Thermo Fisher Scientific has patched a flaw in select Applied Biosystems human identification software that could allow data files to be altered before analysis software loads them. The vendor's July 31 security bulletin says nearly undetectable changes to .fsa and .hid outputs could occur if laboratory controls are circumvented. Thermo Fisher tracks the issue as CVE-2026-17583 and rates it High with a CVSS v4.0 score of 8.2. Five supported product lines have received updates that add digital signatures, while three end-of-life data collection products will receive no vendor update. Thermo Fisher credits Nathan Adams, Kevin Dyer and Laura Gaydosh Combs, together with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, with identifying the issue and coordinating disclosure. Thermo Fisher urged customers to install the applicable updates. For customers unable to implement the updates or use another third-party analysis platform, the company recommends controls coverin...

N-able Says Attackers Take Over N-central Servers After Initial Fix Proves Incomplete

Aug 03, 2026Vulnerability / Endpoint Security

N-able said attackers exploited an authentication bypass in N-central to gain remote administrative access and reach the customer systems managed through those servers. Its first fix was incomplete. CVE-2026-18577 affects N-central builds prior to 2026.3.1.7. N-able shipped build 2026.3.1.7 on August 2 as the first unaffected version. N-central is the remote monitoring and management platform managed service providers and IT teams use to administer customer endpoints. After compromising an N-central server, the attackers used Take Control to reach managed endpoints and registered Cloudflare tunnels as services on the devices. The tunnels connect outbound to Cloudflare's edge, so they need no inbound firewall rule or open listening port. Running them as services lets them survive a reboot. N-able said the tunnels preserved access after the route through the N-central server was revoked. Nothing in the disclosure suggests Cloudflare was compromised; the attackers abused it...

The State of Shadow AI in 2026 (And How Attackers Are Taking Advantage)

Push SecurityShadow AI / Browser Security

AI adoption has exploded, but every new app, integration and extension introduces new threats and risks.

Hugging Face Diffusers Flaws Could Let Model Repositories Execute Arbitrary Code

Aug 03, 2026Vulnerability / AI Security

Three high-severity security flaws have been disclosed in Hugging Face's Diffusers library that could allow crafted model repositories to stealthily execute arbitrary code on machines that load it, opening the artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain to security risk. "These vulnerabilities are bypassing trust_remote_code, the safeguard designed to stop unreviewed code from running in the custom pipelines loading process," Zafran Labs researchers Gal Zaban and Ido Shani said in an analysis published last week. The shortcomings have been collectively named FaceHugger . With Hugging Face becoming the "GitHub of the AI era" and its libraries and repositories prevalent in enterprise environments, vulnerabilities in libraries like Diffusers can grant attackers extensive access owing to how the library is embedded into production pipelines, CI/CD systems, and container images. Diffusers is a Python package that serves as a library of state-of-the-art (SOT...

Coldcard Hardware Wallet Flaw Linked to $70 Million Bitcoin Theft in 41 Minutes

Aug 01, 2026Vulnerability / Threat Intelligence

An attacker drained 1,196 Bitcoin addresses in 41 minutes on July 30, taking 1,082.65 BTC worth about $70.2 million at the time. Galaxy Research mapped the sweep and tied it to a firmware flaw in Coldcard , the Bitcoin-only hardware wallet made by Canadian firm Coinkite . A March 2021 firmware integration error routed seed generation to a deterministic software pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) instead of the STM32 hardware random number generator (RNG). Block says an attacker who can determine or sufficiently constrain the device UID, timer state, and prior RNG-call history can reproduce candidate output streams offline without accessing the device. Candidate seeds can then be checked by deriving their addresses and comparing them with public blockchain data. Coinkite shipped emergency firmware for every affected model and release track on July 31, but installing it does not repair an existing seed. Coinkite tells owners with exposed seeds to generate a new one on patched f...

Hackers Poison Adform Script to Swap Crypto Wallet Addresses Across Customer Sites

Aug 01, 2026Web Security / Supply Chain Attack

Attackers modified a JavaScript file served by advertising technology company Adform , turning it into a browser-side tool that rewrites cryptocurrency wallet addresses. Adform detected the incident on July 27, 2026, removed the malicious code, notified affected clients, and reported it to authorities. Anyone who visited a site carrying the affected script on July 27 and copied a Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Tron address may have pasted a different address inserted by the malicious code instead. Adform is telling people to clear their browser cache because the altered file may remain cached after the fix, and to check any wallet address before sending funds. Adform says the code was not designed to install software or establish persistence and operated only while an affected page remained open. The captured sample also rewrites addresses entered directly into form fields, so clipboard copying was not the only path to replacement. The public timeline is unresolved. Adform's noti...

Adobe Campaign Classic CVSS 10.0 Flaw Could Run Code Without User Interaction

Aug 01, 2026Vulnerability / Enterprise Security

Adobe has released security updates to address a maximum-severity security flaw in Campaign Classic (ACC), its enterprise-focused marketing automation platform, that could result in arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-48449 , carries a severity score of 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. It has been described as a case of incorrect authorization that could result in arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user without requiring any user interaction. The update also resolves another high-severity flaw ( CVE-2026-48448 , CVSS score: 8.6) stemming from SQL injection that could pave the way for arbitrary file reads. "This update addresses critical vulnerabilities that could result in arbitrary code execution and arbitrary file system read," Adobe said in an advisory. The company noted that it's not aware of any of the flaws being exploited in the wild. Both shortcomings have been addressed in ACC v7: 7.4.3 build 9398 for W...

Hijacked Hotel Wi-Fi Pushes Fake Updates to Deliver Surveillance Malware

Aug 01, 2026Malware / Cyber Espionage

A fake browser update served over hijacked hotel Wi-Fi has been used to deliver CornFlake , a remote access trojan (RAT) that can capture webcam images, microphone audio, and keystrokes, Microsoft said in its latest report. Researchers track the operation as CaptiveCrunch and attribute it to Storm-2945 . It assesses Storm-2945 to be an operational sub-cluster of Midnight Blizzard , also known as APT29 and Cozy Bear. The U.S. and U.K. governments attribute the broader actor to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). On the compromised networks ReliaQuest investigated, the captive portal gateway also served as the DNS resolver assigned to connected devices. Administrative control of that gateway let the attackers forge Domain Name System (DNS) answers and redirect the resulting traffic. They could then redirect a laptop's automatic connectivity check to a fake browser or operating system update. Some pages use ClickFix instructions that tell victims to open a termina...

Suspected Chinese-Speaking Hackers Target Central Asian Governments With OctLurk and SilkLurk

Jul 31, 2026Malware / Threat Intelligence

A Chinese-speaking threat actor is suspected to be behind a fresh wave of cyber attacks targeting government organizations mainly located in Central Asia, including Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and the Syrian Arab Republic, since January 2025. These targeted organizations operate across several sectors, such as healthcare, research, government offices, ministries of foreign affairs, logistics, law-enforcement agencies, urban planning and facilities management, and public educational establishments, per Kaspersky. The activity has not been linked to any known adversary or group. The attacks are characterized by the use of two new obfuscated backdoors the Russian cybersecurity company is tracking as OctLurk and SilkLurk , as well as a specialized utility codenamed LurkProxy to proxy network traffic. "OctLurk and SilkLurk can download and inject additional plugins to perform further malicious actions, including launching command shells, perf...

HollowFrame Loader Deploys Matryoshka Backdoor in Spear-Phishing Attack on Law Firm

Jul 31, 2026Endpoint Security / Malware

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a previously undocumented Go-based loader framework called HollowFrame and a Rust-based malware family tracked as Matryoshka . According to Blackpoint Cyber, the intrusion sequence begins with a spear-phishing message containing a link to an encrypted archive, which holds a Windows Shortcut (LNK). Executing the file triggers a multi-stage chain that involves privilege escalation, weakening Microsoft Defender protections, and downloading additional payloads. While HollowFrame is launched via a DLL side-loading pair comprising the legitimate Python binary ("python.exe") and a rogue DLL ("python311.dll"), Matryoshka comes in two variants, one which supports HTTP-based communication and command execution, and another that uses GitHub for command-and-control (C2), including beaconing, tasking, reconnaissance, file transfer, and secondary payload delivery. "Together, HollowFrame and Matryoshka gave the actor a pers...

Cheap Android TV Boxes Pose as Phones and Turn Owners’ Broadband Into Proxies

Jul 31, 2026IoT Security / Botnet

Bitsight says some cheap Android TV boxes have shipped with apps that rewrite their hardware identity to mimic Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, or Vivo phones, then click ads on websites run by the same operators. Researchers named the operation Fuyao and attributed it to Zhejiang Fengwo IoT Technology Co., Ltd., a mainland China company founded in 2019. The same apps have a second job. When a box detects an HDMI signal, it usually switches to relaying other people's traffic through the owner's broadband line as a SOCKS5 exit node. With HDMI off, it goes back to waiting for ad-fraud tasks. Bitsight found the operation by registering an expired domain used as a factory backdoor and telemetry collector. Most identifiable devices reported the model name H96_MAX_V11, though Bitsight said its sinkhole view was skewed toward older models from one brand and did not establish a complete affected-model list. In one day, after filtering for devices carrying the Fuyao apps, the sinkhol...

Three Recent Chrome Releases Fix 1,442 Flaws, More Than Prior 23 Updates Combined

Jul 31, 2026Vulnerability / Browser Security

Google on Thursday announced that it fixed a whopping 1,072 security bugs in Chrome versions 149 and 150, surpassing the total number of flaws the company fixed across the prior 23 milestones combined. Both versions were released last month. In its latest patch for Chrome 151, released Wednesday, the tech giant resolved 370 flaws , out of which 349 were reported by Google itself. Seven of the vulnerabilities have been marked critical in severity. The development comes amid an exponential surge in vulnerability discovery, mainly fueled by the advent of large language models (LLMs) that have accelerated the process, leading to an unprecedented spike in new bug reports, so much so that issues are being flagged at a faster rate than companies can fix them. According to statistics shared by the U.S. National Vulnerabilities Database (NVD), 46,872 flaws have been recorded so far in 2026, nearing the 49,920 vulnerabilities reported for the entirety of 2025.