The Hacker News

"AI security's greatest hits."

Views expressed in this cybersecurity, cybercrime update are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 20 September 2026, 1443 UTC.

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

Claude Opus 5 Helped Researchers Take Over OpenAI Staff Accounts via Chained Flaws

Sep 19, 2026Vulnerability / Artificial Intelligence

Three researchers at the security firm  Hacktron  used Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 to chain two flaws and take over the ChatGPT and Codex accounts of several OpenAI employees, then reach an internal OpenAI code repository. The chain began with a bug in the software that runs OpenAI's public help forum and moved through a weakness in OpenAI's own login system. This was security research, not a real-world attack: the team reported the flaws to OpenAI, proved the access with a harmless pull request, and then stopped. From the first look, that internal access took under 72 hours. OpenAI confirmed a fix about 14 hours after the report, according to Hacktron, and on September 1 paid the team a $6,500 bounty. OpenAI said the award "recognizes the OpenAI-side finding, not the actions against Discourse," the open-source software that runs the forum. Testing the forum itself was outside its bug bounty program. OpenAI has not publicly described the login flaw, and it ...

AI Security's Greatest Hits

WizAI Security / Cheat Sheet

Get 7 of the most widely used AI security resources in one pack. Each asset provides practical tools for securing AI apps, models, and agents.

Can You Prove a New CVE Is Exploitable Before Attackers Do? Learn How in This Webinar

Sep 19, 2026Security Operations / Artificial Intelligence

A new CVE drops. Your scanner finds it. The severity score looks ugly. But that still does not answer the question that matters: Can it actually be exploited in your environment? Mythos-class AI is compressing the time between disclosure and working exploitation, while many security programs still validate risk on weekly or quarterly cycles. The dangerous gap is no longer just technical. It is measured in time. 📅 Save Your Spot Today: How to Prove You're Ready for Mythos-Class Attacks . Can’t join live? Register anyway. We’ll send the webinar recording after the session, so you can watch it later, whenever it fits your schedule, and still see the full, fresh CVE-to-validation workflow. Stop prioritizing on severity alone A high score tells you a vulnerability could be serious. It does not prove that an attacker can use it against you. Security teams need faster answers: Is the affected asset exposed? What attack techniques does exploitation require? Do ...

Identity Visibility in 2026: The Foundation of Identity Security

Sep 19, 2026Identity Security / Zero Trust

Identity visibility is a starting point for modern identity security, because stolen and misused credentials are among the most frequently reported initial access vectors in breach research, including Verizon's annual Data Breach Investigations Report . This article explains what identity visibility means in IAM, why cloud and multicloud environments complicate it, which capabilities matter in identity visibility tools , and how to build a practical program. What is identity visibility? Identity visibility is the ability to see every identity in an environment, what it can access, and how that access is actually used at runtime. It combines inventory, entitlement mapping, and behavioral telemetry into one continuous picture instead of a periodic snapshot. The important distinction is between intent and execution. Identity and access management (IAM) platforms express policy intent: who should have access, under what conditions, and for how long. Applications and infrastructu...

SolarWinds Patches ARM Hard-Coded Key Flaw Enabling Unauthenticated RCE

Sep 19, 2026Vulnerability / Identity Security

SolarWinds has released security updates to address a high-severity flaw in Access Rights Manager (ARM) that, if successfully exploited, could lead to an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-28326 , is rated 8.8 out of 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. The issue affects all versions of Access Rights Manager 2026.2 and prior. "SolarWinds Access Rights Manager was reported to be affected by an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability," SolarWinds said in an advisory released on September 17, 2026. "The issue stems from a hard-coded static key." The company credited Armadin security researcher Kai Huang with discovering and reporting the flaw, which has been patched in ARM 2026.2.1 . SolarWinds makes no mention of the vulnerability being exploited in the wild. The development comes nearly two months after the company shipped fixes for a critical flaw impacting Web Help Desk (WHD) (CVE-2026-28323...

Critical Pre-Auth RCE in Orkes Conductor Workflow Platform Exploited in the Wild

Sep 19, 2026Vulnerability / Web Security

A critical vulnerability impacting Orkes Conductor is being actively exploited in the wild, according to Fortinet. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-58138 (CVSS v3.1 score: 9.8/CVSS v4 score: 9.3), which relates to a case of unauthenticated remote code execution. "Orkes Conductor 3.21.21 before 3.30.2 contains an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability that allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary OS commands by submitting inline workflow definitions containing malicious JavaScript or Python expressions to the workflow API endpoint prior to authentication," a description of the flaw on the NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD) reads. "Attackers can exploit unsandboxed GraalVM evaluators configured with HostAccess.ALL or allowAllAccess(true) through INLINE, LAMBDA, DO_WHILE, and SWITCH task types to invoke arbitrary system commands via Java reflection or direct subprocess calls." In an outbreak alert issued this week, Fortinet ...

Free Assessment: Identify Hidden Internal Risk

BitdefenderAttack Surface / Threat Detection

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

Google Gemini Broke Into Real Company Systems After Security Test Domain Mix-Up

Sep 19, 2026Artificial Intelligence / Web Security

Google's Gemini model has become the latest artificial intelligence (AI) system to access the internet and break into other companies during a cybersecurity evaluation. The development was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The incidents occurred in May 2026 as part of a test run conducted by Israeli company Irregular. The evaluation partner was also involved in similar hacks disclosed by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. According to the Journal, the model gained access to a protected system after repeatedly guessing its password. Two other cases related to the model finding credentials in a public repository, allowing it to obtain unauthorized access to protected systems. However, unlike other incidents observed in the case of Anthropic and OpenAI, the Gemini model ended the intrusion after finding that it had breached a real company's system. Irregular is said to have notified Google of the incidents in July 2026. In a report published last month, Irregular pinn...

CrowdSec Says TanStack npm Attack Led to Copy of 170 Private GitHub Repositories

Sep 19, 2026Data Breach / Supply Chain Attack

An attacker copied about 170 of CrowdSec's private GitHub repositories on May 22 using the account of an employee who had just left, CrowdSec said on September 18. The French security company had kept his GitHub access open. CrowdSec says his laptop was compromised in May's  supply chain attack on TanStack , in which malicious versions of TanStack's npm packages stole credentials from developers' machines. The code appeared on an online forum on September 16. Along with the source code, it contained the email addresses of 83 CrowdSec users and the names, email addresses, and investment context of 51 potential investors from 2020, the company said. CrowdSec says the account was used only to copy code, that its infrastructure and databases were not accessed, and that no code was changed. How the Code Was Taken On May 11, 84 malicious versions of 42 TanStack npm packages were published. The compromise is tracked as CVE-2026-45321 . Installing one of those versi...

CISA Flags Three Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities Exploited in the Wild

Sep 19, 2026Vulnerability / Linux

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added three security flaws impacting the Linux kernel to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2025-39682 (CVSS score: 9.8) - An improper check for unusual or exceptional conditions vulnerability in the TLS receive path that could allow local authenticated users to trigger memory disclosure or denial-of-service (DoS). CVE-2026-53266 (CVSS score: 8.8) - An out-of-bounds write vulnerability in the ebtables Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) rewrite path that could allow a local attacker to trigger unintended system behavior, DoS, or local privilege escalation. CVE-2025-39964 (CVSS score: 7.8) - A race condition vulnerability that could allow concurrent writes to the same AF_ALG socket, allowing a local attacker to crash the system or corrupt cryptographic ope...

Public Exploits Released for Four Linux Kernel Flaws That Enable Local Root

Sep 18, 2026Vulnerability / Linux

A security researcher has released working exploit code for four Linux kernel flaws that each let a local user gain root, the highest level of access on a machine. Kernel maintainers have fixed all four over the past few weeks, so a system running an up-to-date kernel is not affected. But the exploit code is now public, and any machine still running an older kernel should be updated. The flaws are called DirtyAH6 , TUNderflow , PPPoEject , and DiagSpill . Researcher Asim Manizada found them and reported them to the Linux kernel security team in mid-July. He published a technical  write-up  with working exploits on September 18, after a coordinated hold with Linux distributions so the fixes could be released first. So far, there are no reports of the four being used in real-world attacks. The exploits are Manizada's own, are tuned to specific kernel builds, and can crash a machine, so they are meant for isolated test systems. Still, public exploit code raises the ris...

New WordPress Click2Shell Flaw Forces Theme Installs, Can Chain to Code Execution

Sep 18, 2026Vulnerability / Web Security

WordPress today released patches to fix a new set of vulnerabilities in its core software, one of which could allow a crafted web link, opened by a logged-in administrator, to install a theme from the official WordPress.org directory without anyone clicking Install. The security firm pwn.ai , whose researchers reported the flaw, calls the attack chain Click2Shell . On its own the flaw only installs a real theme that the attacker picks, but the security research team showed it could be combined with a separate weakness in a theme to run the attacker's own code on the server.  The fix shipped on September 17 in WordPress 7.1.1 . Because this is a security release, WordPress advises updating right away. There is no sign the flaw has been used in real attacks. The installed theme stays switched off, so the site's own appearance does not change and nothing looks wrong. Reaching code execution needed a second, separate flaw in the theme that was installed. As pwn.ai wrote of t...

Transparent Tribe Deploys New Rust Backdoor Using Private GitHub Repositories for C2

Sep 18, 2026Malware / Cyber Espionage

The Pakistan-aligned threat group tracked as Transparent Tribe (aka APT36 and Earth Karkaddan) has been attributed to a fresh set of cyber attacks targeting government and defense entities in India and Afghanistan. The attacks, per Zscaler ThreatLabz, involve the use of previously undocumented tools called RUSTYSHADE, RUSTYMOVE, PSNATCH, and BASHNATCH. The activity has been codenamed Operation RapidRust . "APT36 has maintained a high operational tempo and updated their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in continued attacks targeting government and defense organizations in India and Afghanistan," Sudeep Singh , senior manager of APT Research at Zscaler ThreatLabz, said in a technical report published this week. The discovery comes a little over a month after  Acronis Threat Research Unit (TRU) tied the long-running persistent threat group to another campaign aimed at Afghan telecom providers and South Asian critical infrastructure organizations using a backdo...

Microsoft Patches CVSS 10.0 Azure AI Foundry Flaw Enabling Unauthorized Privilege Escalation

Sep 18, 2026Vulnerability / Cloud Security

Microsoft has released fixes for a maximum-severity security flaw in Azure AI Foundry that could be exploited to achieve privilege escalation. No customer action is required. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-85889 , carries a CVSS score of 10.0. "Missing authentication for critical function in Azure AI Foundry allows an unauthorized attacker to elevate privileges over a network," Microsoft said in a Thursday advisory. Azure AI Foundry, also called Microsoft Foundry, is an enterprise platform designed to build, deploy, and manage generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications and agents. The Windows maker credited security researcher Rémy Marot (@R_Marot) for discovering and reporting the flaw. There is no evidence that the issue has been exploited in the wild. Also patched by Microsoft in recent days are a number of other critical flaws -

An Abandoned CDN Domain Was Re-Registered. Thousands of Sites Still Call It.

Sep 18, 2026Web Security / Compliance

In July 2025, someone registered a domain that used to belong to a content delivery network.  The CDN had been wound down years earlier, and the domain it served assets from was allowed to expire. What it had not lost were its callers. Thousands of websites, code repositories, and documentation pages still carry hard-coded references to hostnames beneath it.  The new owner holds wildcard DNS across the entire domain, and any hostname under it now resolves to infrastructure that person controls. Today the apex serves an ad-heavy media downloader page, which is unremarkable. The remarkable part is that the decision about what those thousands of pages load next belongs to a stranger, and nobody involved has been notified, because from the outside nothing broke.  This pattern is not hypothetical, and it's not unheard of either. In June 2024, the polyfill.io domain (a JavaScript shim embedded in more than 110,000 sites) changed ownership and began serving conditional redi...

Plugin4Shell Lets Repository Owners Swap Pinned Plugin Code Across Four AI Coding Agents

Sep 18, 2026Vulnerability / Artificial Intelligence

A flaw in four widely used AI coding agents lets someone who controls a plugin's code repository swap the plugin an agent installs for a malicious one, even when the agent locked that plugin to a specific reviewed version, security firm  Air Security said on Thursday . The firm said Anthropic has patched the flaw in Claude Code 2.1.179 and OpenAI in Codex 0.146.0, that GitHub Copilot has no fix, and that Google will not patch the Gemini CLI, which it is retiring. The agents install add-ons called plugins from online marketplaces. To stay safe, a marketplace locks each plugin to a single reviewed version by its commit hash, a long string that identifies an exact snapshot of the code. Air found that the agents fetch that snapshot but never check that the code they end up with actually matches it. A branch is a named line of code in a repository. On a code host that lets someone create a branch whose name is made to look like the commit hash, the owner of a plugin's reposit...

WeaselBiscuit Stealer Spreads via 13 npm Packages to Harvest Chrome Extension Storage

Sep 18, 2026Malware / Web Security

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a cluster of 13 npm packages that have been found to deliver a previously undocumented JavaScript stealer codenamed WeaselBiscuit . The new malware family, per OpenSourceMalware , exhibits functional overlaps with two malware strains associated with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) Contagious Interview campaign: BeaverTail and OtterCookie . "It's smaller, lighter, and stripped down, with many of the heavier functions removed entirely," security researcher Paul McCarty (aka 6mile) said. The names of the packages are below - @biz44/id10-client @biz44/id12-client @biz44/id44-client @biz44/id79-client @biz44/id95-client @biz44/id99-client @biz44/process-runtime-utils @biz44/runtime-utils engin1 id79-client process-lhpm process-mite process-tailwind "It's a stripped down stealer that borrows several functions from DPRK's BeaverTail and OtterCookie,...

Claimed Bug Bounty Hunter Likely Used LLM to Build PhantomRaven npm Stealer

Sep 18, 2026Malware / Cybercrime

A financially motivated threat actor has been linked to the development and distribution of a JavaScript (JS)-based information stealer known as PhantomRaven via the npm package registry. "The developer likely wrote the malware using a large language model (LLM), an assessment made with high confidence based on verbose comments, placeholder code, and statistical token-analysis patterns," CrowdStrike's Counter Adversary Operations said in an analysis published this week. PhantomRaven was first flagged by Koi Security and DCODX in late October 2025, calling attention to a slopsquatting and typosquatted campaign in which more than 100 malicious packages were uploaded to npm to steal authentication tokens, CI/CD secrets, and GitHub credentials from developers' machines. The software supply chain attack used these packages as a cover to retrieve a remote dynamic dependency (RDD) from an external server so that the libraries themselves are not flagged by security ...