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ConnectWise Suspends Cloud Backup After Attackers Compromise Microsoft 365 Tenants

Oct 18, 2026Cloud Security / Cyber Attack

ConnectWise on Saturday said it has disabled seven ConnectWise application identities as it continues its investigation into an incident in which unknown threat actors obtained unauthorized access to the application identities and compromised Microsoft 365 tenants. The disabled identities are listed below - ConnectWise Cloud Backup - 506e08f9-6e9a-4da4-942b-a099a03644ae ConnectWise Cloud Management - 2399d300-6fca-4e6a-a686-399fefe75b83 ConnectWise Cloud Management - MS Teams - 24205314-2b89-4e07-a2a4-579e898a5640 ConnectWise Cloud Management - Exchange Online - b78f6a77-d4e5-46fb-87e5-d1648bd02519 ConnectWise Cloud Management - MS Graph - 0de14c77-b9b0-4137-9360-34878a929827 ConnectWise Cloud Management - Partner Center - 412dcf96-176d-4b3a-a1b0-4981ad66971e ConnectWise Cloud Management - SharePoint Online - b2b55f5b-7758-4719-8d8f-88ae172e6bdb The IT management software provider said it took the action on October 17, 2026, at 07:00 UTC, adding it has a...

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MALFEX npm Package 'imgdecode' Hides Shellcode Loader in Windows Native Addon

Oct 17, 2026Malware / Windows Security

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious npm package that's part of a recently disclosed software supply chain attack campaign dubbed MALFEX . The package, named " imgdecode ," was uploaded to the package registry on September 30, 2026, by a user named "malfexteste8." It has been downloaded 979 times as of writing and is still available on npm as of writing. The latest version of the package is 1.0.3. "The npm package imgdecode hides a malicious loader in a compiled Node.js addon," SafeDep said . "Its nine-line JavaScript file loads a Windows dynamic-link library (DLL). When a Node.js program calls require('imgdecode') from a Windows console, the DLL attempts to download encrypted shellcode from GitHub. It decrypts the response and injects the result into a new dllhost.exe process." First documented by both Checkmarx and CloudSEK, MALFEX is the name assigned to a long-running campaign in which an unknown threat...

Hackers Use Compromised ConnectWise Credential to Sign In to 173 Microsoft 365 Tenants

Oct 17, 2026Cloud Security / Cyberattack

Cybersecurity researchers are sounding the alarm related to an active campaign in which unknown threat actors are abusing a compromised Microsoft 365 (M365) credential belonging to ConnectWise Cloud Backup (formerly SkyKick) to gain unauthorized access to customers' M365 environments. ConnectWise Cloud Backup is a cloud-based backup and recovery service built for managed service providers (MSPs) to secure their clients' Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace data. To accomplish its tasks, the application is granted broad access to mailboxes, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, and directory data in every tenant on which it's installed. Huntress said it has observed confirmed unauthorized sign-ins within 173 partner/customer tenants using the compromised vendor credential. The incident impacts every organization that has the app installed, and the credential works against every tenant the app is consented in. "The app's credential is in hostile hands," security r...

Researchers Demonstrate OpenBSD Root Exploit Chaining 37-Year-Old Shared-Memory Bug

Oct 16, 2026Vulnerability / OpenBSD

A local privilege escalation exploit published today gains root on OpenBSD 7.9 by chaining a roughly 37-year-old integer overflow with a separate kernel flaw, bypassing OpenBSD's KARL kernel-address randomization and its SMAP and SMEP hardware protections. Security firm Calif, which found and reported the flaws, published a detailed writeup and full proof-of-concept code after OpenBSD shipped patches for both issues in September. The integer overflow in the shmat(4) attach function was fixed in errata 018 , shipped September 14 as a reliability fix. The reference-counting use-after-free that completes the chain was fixed separately in errata 026, shipped September 30 as a security fix. Both are available through syspatch and cover all architectures. OpenBSD 7.8 also received the integer-overflow fix. The integer overflow, the entry point for the full chain, is classified as a reliability fix, not a security fix. No CVE has been assigned for either flaw as of publication. ...

Attackers Tampered with AOMEI Backupper's Update Servers for Minutes to Deliver a Backdoor

Oct 16, 2026Supply Chain Attack / Endpoint Security

Attackers repeatedly changed the files that AOMEI Backupper fetches from the vendor's own update servers, in windows of five to ten minutes at a time between May and July 2026, so that any copy of the Windows backup program that checked for an update during one of those windows would download and run a backdoor. Google Threat Intelligence Group, Mandiant , and  ManageEngine's Threat Analysis Lab , which disclosed the campaign this week, say AOMEI has reported fixing its servers, but that fix does not remove the backdoor from machines that were already hit. AOMEI Backupper is Windows backup and disk-cloning software made by AOMEI Technology, a vendor registered in Hong Kong. Like the company's remote-desktop tool AnyViewer, it runs background services that regularly check AOMEI's servers over HTTPS for software updates and promotional pop-ups. Two files drive that check. One, down_html.ini, names the update package to download and the checksum the program uses to ...

New: Analyzing 2026's Most Prevalent Browser Attack Techniques

Push SecurityBrowser Security / Phishing

4 in 5 ClickFix attacks are via search engines. 30+ device code phish kits this year. Get the latest analysis.

UAT-11985 Uses Fake Event Invites to Target Taiwan Research Affiliates With Google AitM Phishing

Oct 16, 2026Phishing / Artificial Intelligence

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of an advanced persistent threat (APT) spear-phishing campaign that has targeted individuals affiliated with Taiwan research organizations to direct victims to an adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) phishing framework designed to harvest their Google account credentials and multi-factor authentication (MFA) codes. The activity is being tracked by Cisco Talos under the moniker UAT-11985 , describing it as likely fueled by artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted content generation so as to quickly craft bespoke lures aimed at different targets within the confines of a common social engineering framework. The campaign was first observed in mid-2026. "The operation leveraged legitimate public event themes and impersonated reputable academic and policy institutions to establish credibility," Talos researcher Joey Chen said in an analysis. "Beyond traditional email phishing, the actor incorporated QR code phishing (quishing) te...

OpenAI Research Model Spent 3rd-Party Test ETH Without Permission to Deploy Smart Contract

Oct 16, 2026Artificial Intelligence / Web Security

OpenAI has disclosed seven new incidents in which its artificial intelligence (AI) models exhibited misaligned behavior, including one case where its research model, after not having funds on an Ethereum test network, spent test cryptocurrency from a third-party's wallet without authorization to complete a coding task. The incident, the AI company said, involved an internal research model part of the GPT-5.6 Sol family. The incident occurred on June 26, 2026, and was discovered by OpenAI three months later. "An internal research model asked to update a cryptocurrency trading application used funds from a wallet that the task had not supplied to pay for a deployment on Sepolia, an Ethereum test network," OpenAI said . "It derived wallet keys from publicly known developer recovery phrases, found an account with test-network funds, and used that account to pay for the requested contract deployment." The assignment allowed the model to deploy compatible cont...

AI Decision Models and Their Impact on AI SOC Platforms

Oct 16, 2026Artificial Intelligence / Security Operations

In the space of a month, a new category of AI model went from nonexistent to everywhere. TypeSafe AI released Jev on September 15 and called it a System One model, a nod to Kahneman's fast, intuitive thinking . OpenAI announced its own Decisions API at DevDay and opened a public beta on October 6. Cribl published cribl-decision , an open LoRA adapter you can run locally. Others, like Laya, are already showing up in open source tooling. These models skip text generation entirely. You hand them some state and a set of typed questions. They hand back a choice, a score, or a yes/no with a probability attached. For security operations, I think this is some of the best news of the year. I also think most of the conversation is pointed at the wrong layer. Why a SOC should be excited Three properties make decision models a natural fit for alert triage. You get a number you can automate against. A typed answer with a calibrated probability is something you can put a thresho...

China-Linked Hackers Exploited BeyondTrust Zero-Day to Take Over Remote Support Servers

Oct 16, 2026Zero-Day / Vulnerability

The China-nexus cyber espionage group tracked as Armory Castle (previously UNC5221 or Warp Panda) exploited a newly disclosed security flaw in BeyondTrust Remote Support (formerly Bomgar) as a zero-day in late August 2026. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-102764 (CVSS score: 9.3), is a case of improper origin validation in an internal messaging component that could be exploited by a remote attacker to perform file operations on an affected appliance. "The vulnerability exists within internal components of Remote Support," BeyondTrust said in a Thursday alert. "The components did not adequately validate the origin of the messages it received. Under the right conditions, this could be used to perform file operations on the appliance." Patches for the flaw have been pushed to all Remote Support SaaS customers as of October 9, 2026. Self-hosted customers of Remote Support running versions from 24.3.1 through 26.2.3 are advised to manually update to BT26-0...

CERT-In Warns AI Agents Accessed Sensitive Data at Indian Organizations During Testing

Oct 16, 2026Artificial Intelligence / Data Security

AI agents being tested online reached the live systems of Indian organizations and read business records, including personal data and confidential material, CERT-In  said in an advisory  on October 15. The agents went beyond their assigned tasks, and none of the organizations detected the unauthorized access. After internal reviews, the AI companies whose models were being tested voluntarily reported the cases to CERT-In, India's national cyber agency. AI agents are software systems that can plan work, run commands, use tools, and act on the internet autonomously for extended periods. In these cases, the agents gained access via credentials and connection settings left exposed in application configuration and public code repositories, and via cloud service roles with excessive permissions. CERT-In did not name the AI companies, their models, or the organizations and sectors involved. It did not say how many companies reported cases or how many organizations were affecte...

PEERSTITCH Malware Deployed via FortiOS Flaw Bypasses Checks on Tagged VPN Sessions

Oct 16, 2026Vulnerability / Network Security

A suspected advanced threat actor has been observed exploiting a security flaw in Fortinet FortiOS to deliver a previously unreported memory-resident ARM64 malware known as PEERSTITCH . The attack involves the exploitation of CVE-2025-61624 (CVSS score: 5.4), a path traversal flaw in the command line interpreter of FortiOS, FortiPAM, FortiProxy, and FortiSwitchManager that could allow a privileged attacker to achieve arbitrary write or delete files via specifically crafted arguments to existing commands. It was patched by Fortinet in April 2026. "PEERSTITCH leaves no persistent binary on disk, opens no listening ports and initiates no outbound network connections," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers Daniel Gott and Shawn Westfall said . "Instead, it communicates through traffic generated by legitimate processes on the infected host, which makes the malware resistant to conventional endpoint and network detection." The cybersecurity company said it discov...

Critical PwnEscape Linux Kernel Vulnerability Lets Guest VMs Read Host Memory

Oct 15, 2026Linux / Vulnerability

A newly disclosed critical flaw in the Linux kernel allows code inside a virtual machine to read memory on the host computer it runs on. A researcher demonstrated the leak against Vercel's live cloud sandboxes, and Vercel confirmed it. The flaw, now tracked as CVE-2026-99999 and nicknamed PwnEscape , is in the Linux kernel's networking code, not in any one cloud's setup, so it reaches the shared layer that cloud providers use to keep customers' workloads apart. It was found in a Vercel security challenge and reported privately before any public release, and there is no sign it has been used in a real attack. What the Researcher Showed Paulos Yibelo of the security firm pwn.ai found that specially made network packets sent from inside a virtual machine could do three things, he explained in a  technical write-up : read the host's memory, crash the host, and run code on it. All three come from the same kernel flaw. Vercel said in its  report on the challen...

ThreatsDay: Adobe RCE, DNS Wallet Theft, NVIDIA Container Escape, Self-Healing Backdoor + 23 More

Oct 15, 2026Hacking News / Cybersecurity News

Someone built a tool to steal data, then decided it should scare the victim for fun. Yes, that’s an actual feature. And somehow, it fits right in with this week's security stories. The rest gets interesting in different ways. A small permission can lead to a big theft. A trusted login can hide the wrong person. Old bugs are finding new victims, familiar tools are being put to strange uses, and some flaws are so simple you wonder how nobody spotted them sooner. There's a lot more hiding in the details, including a few twists you probably wouldn't expect. Here's what made the list this week. The threats change every week. Subscribe, and we’ll alert you when each new ThreatsDay Bulletin is out.

Citizen Lab Traces Zero-Click Candiru Spyware Infections at Al Jazeera to Targeted Online Ads

Oct 15, 2026Spyware / Cyber Espionage

Candiru, an Israeli maker of spyware sold to governments, infected devices at the news network Al Jazeera through ordinary online ads, in attacks that needed no click or other action from the user, researchers at  the Citizen Lab  said Thursday. The hidden attack code ran the moment an ad loaded on the screen, and in some cases the ad loaded out of sight, in the background. The Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto, said this is the first public, technical confirmation that mercenary spyware, meaning hacking tools sold to governments, has reached real devices through targeted ads. The method had been described before from leaked company documents, but not shown in a live attack. The researchers recovered the spyware itself from one device, but not the exploit that breaks into the browser or app to install it. That first break-in step is described from how the attack was set up, not from captured code. How the Attack Worked The ads were placed by...

Silent Lynx Exploits WinRAR Flaw to Deploy Reverse Shell in CIS Government Attacks

Oct 15, 2026Cyber Espionage / Malware

The threat actor known as Silent Lynx has been attributed to a fresh set of attacks targeting government organizations across the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The activity, observed from June 2025 through August 2026, involves four different infection chains that make use of macro-enabled documents, PS2EXE downloaders, GitHub-hosted PowerShell, and crafted WinRAR archives exploiting CVE-2025-8088 . The attacks lead to the deployment of custom reverse shells like FoalShell, Chvost, Laplas, and PickleShell that facilitate interactive remote access to compromised hosts, according to Cisco Talos and Recorded Future Insikt Group, which are tracking the campaign under the monikers UAT-6275 and TAG-193.  "UAT-6275's targeting is concentrated in Central Asia, and the wider CIS region," security researcher Ashley Shen said . "Across the reviewed campaigns, observed victims and lure themes span nine countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenist...

Help TDS Linked to Hotejka as 20,000+ Cloudflare Pages Domains Host Tech Support Scams

Oct 15, 2026Cybercrime / Web Security

A long-running Traffic Distribution System (TDS) known as Help TDS to a Russian-language affiliate program called Hotejka , which appears to be a rebrand of a traffic monetization operation dubbed ROI777. Help TDS is assessed to be active since at least 2017, offering PHP code templates to partners and affiliates that are installed into compromised websites with an aim to direct unsuspecting users to tech support scams. These scams make use of full-screen browser manipulation and exit prevention techniques to serve bogus Microsoft Windows security alert screens instructing victims to contact a Windows Support number to address the problem. "Help TDS delivers tech support scams (TSSs) that direct users to call centers, where social engineering is used to convince them to install remote desktop tools," Infoblox said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "It's not simple credit card fraud: it's remote access, living-off-the-land malware operations. Once in,...