Between May and July 2026, attackers tracked by Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) as UNC7017 altered files on AOMEI's own update servers for windows of 5 to 10 minutes. Any copy of AOMEI Backupper that checked for updates during a window downloaded and ran a backdoor. GTIG, Mandiant and ManageEngine's Threat Analysis Lab disclosed t…
BRONZE SANDCASTLE (written Bronze Sandcastle by thehackernews.com) is a previously undocumented intrusion set disclosed by SophosLabs on 2026-10-21. It is assessed as China-based or China-aligned and has been active since mid-2025 (thehackernews.com). Between August 2025 and August 2026 it compromised victims in the Philippines, Taiwan, A…
Unknown threat actors breached the TeamUpdraft website on 17-18 October 2026 and likely accessed its customer database, which holds connection keys for UpdraftCentral, UpdraftVault and UpdraftClone. Patchstack observed an attacker holding valid UpdraftCentral dashboard keys issuing signed commands to install backdoor plugins on connected …
Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 reports that a suspected advanced actor tracked as CL-STA-0954 (aka UNC5820) deployed a previously unreported memory-resident ARM64 implant, PEERSTITCH, on Fortinet FortiGate firewalls. The group exploited the FortiOS path traversal flaw CVE-2025-61624 for the final stage. The intrusion hit a telecommunications …
Russian firm Solar (a Rostelecom subsidiary) reported a nearly two-year intrusion at an unnamed Russian healthcare organization, attributed to the Belarus-aligned hacktivist cluster Partisan Zmiy (Cyber Partisans). Solar found the compromise in December 2025, but the earliest signs date to early 2024. Unlike the group's usual destructive …
An active supply chain attack is abusing a compromised credential for the ConnectWise Cloud Backup (formerly SkyKick) Microsoft 365 OAuth application, giving unknown actors access to customer tenants. Huntress confirmed unauthorized sign-ins in 173 partner/customer tenants, and Microsoft reports broad successful service principal authenti…
Elastic Security Labs is tracking REF8801, a campaign in which a fake Web3 venture capital accelerator, Apex Accelerator (Apex Foundation), targets cryptocurrency startups and founders with malicious npm packages. The packages, @apexacc/cli and @apexacc/audit, pose as an AI advisor and an MCP-based security scanner, with offers of free Cl…
Attackers took over more than 300 Tor exit relays in early October 2026 and changed their exit policies so SSH (TCP port 22) traffic was redirected to 12 attacker-controlled interception servers that harvested passwords and attempted to install the Ebury 1.8.3 backdoor. Researcher kaba found 333 redirecting exits (roughly 10% of about 3,0…
Attackers began exploiting Plex2Shell, a chain of four Plex Media Server vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-96652, CVE-2026-96654, CVE-2026-96655, CVE-2026-96656), on October 17, 2026. That was about a day after researcher Zach Main published a write-up and PoC on October 16. The chain gives unauthenticated remote code execution with the privilege…
Qilin and Settra ransomware groups are actively exploiting CVE-2026-0257, an authentication bypass in PAN-OS GlobalProtect and Prisma Access disclosed in May 2026, according to ReliaQuest. Because access arrives through the victim's own VPN, it can resemble legitimate remote work and go unnoticed until credential theft, lateral movement, …