The Leek Likho group (also known as SkyCloak or Vortex Werewolf) was first described by researchers in 2025, when a series of targeted attacks on public sector organizations in Russia and Belarus became known. This campaign was called Operation SkyCloak. We observed the continuation of its activity during February-April 2026, and also discovered a new technique that attackers use to filter files.
Beginning in late September 2025, multiple affected hosts were observed making requests to domains impersonating content delivery networks (CDNs), including infrastructure masquerading as Yahoo- and Apple-affiliated services. Across these cases, Darktrace identified a consistent behavioral execution pattern: the retrieval of legitimate binaries alongside malicious Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs), enabling sideloading and execution of a modular .NET-based Remote Access Trojan (RAT) framework.
In early May 2026, attackers compromised the official JDownloader website by manipulating specific installer download links through the content management system. Between May 6-7, 2026 (UTC), users who downloaded Windows installers via "Download Alternative Installer" links or the Linux shell installer were redirected to malicious third-party files instead of genuine installers. The attackers gained CMS-level access only, not server or filesystem control. The incident was detected on May 7 via Reddit alerts, and the server was immediately taken offline. Malicious links were removed, legitimate links restored, and security hardened before the site resumed normal operations on May 8-9. In-app updates and other download paths remained unaffected. Users who executed downloaded installers during the risk window are advised to perform clean OS reinstalls and change passwords from trusted devices.
A supply chain compromise involving Daemon Tools installers distributed via the official vendor website has been identified. The attackers used valid code-signing certificates to make the trojanized installers appear legitimate and bypass security controls. These malicious packages deploy a backdoor that performs system reconnaissance, environment verification, and communicates with attacker-controlled command-and-control infrastructure. The compromise leverages trusted software delivery mechanisms to evade detection, establish persistent access, and enable remote command execution. Organizations should block related malicious infrastructure, hunt for suspicious Daemon Tools installations and network activity, verify software integrity, and implement application allowlisting. Monitoring for unusual certificate usage in software deployment is also advised. No patch or official fix information is available, and no known exploits in the wild have been reported.
A sophisticated multi-stage intrusion campaign was identified leveraging a weaponized PowerShell payload disguised as a JPEG image file (sysupdate.jpeg) to deploy a trojanized ConnectWise ScreenConnect instance for covert remote access. The attack likely originates through social engineering techniques including phishing emails or malicious attachments. Upon execution, the malware establishes a staging environment, retrieves additional payloads from attacker-controlled infrastructure, and dynamically compiles a custom launcher using Microsoft's legitimate .NET compiler (csc.exe) to evade detection. The intrusion abuses ComputerDefaults.exe and a malicious ms-settings registry hijack to perform a fileless UAC bypass and obtain elevated privileges. Once elevated, the malware deploys a persistent service masquerading as OneDriveServers and launches a modified ScreenConnect framework capable of credential interception, remote command execution, surveillance operations, SYSTEM-level execution, encrypted command...
In early May 2026, Instructure confirmed a breach affecting its Canvas learning platform after detecting unauthorized activity on May 1. ShinyHunters exploited the Free-For-Teacher account program, compromising the Canvas platform directly and exposing names, email addresses, student IDs, and private messages. The exposure window ran from April 30 to May 7, 2026. ShinyHunters claims 3.6 TB of data covering approximately 275 million users across 9,000 schools globally, including institutions in the US, Australia, and EU. This represents ShinyHunters' second attack against Instructure in eight months. Instructure shut down the Free-For-Teacher program permanently, rotated API keys and privileged credentials, and engaged forensic investigators. The stolen data enables personalized phishing campaigns targeting students and faculty, with attackers potentially having write access sufficient to deface login pages at multiple institutions.
An investigation has revealed a structural evolution in phishing operations where threat actors conduct entire campaigns through legitimate, enterprise-trusted cloud infrastructure rather than attacker-controlled systems. Adversaries weaponize platforms employees use daily, including cloud storage, productivity suites, and OAuth authentication endpoints. Attacks originate from legitimate Google or Microsoft systems, passing all authentication checks while linking to whitelisted cloud services. Multi-factor authentication is bypassed without touching passwords, and victim organizations show no anomalous SIEM events at compromise time. Campaigns employ five stages: delivery via provider-owned infrastructure, payload hosting on legitimate cloud storage, execution within browser memory using native APIs, credential theft through legitimate authentication flows, and persistent presence through licensed services. Detection requires behavioral analysis rather than traditional indicators, as attackers operate enti...
The cybersecurity firm has not explicitly accused China of being behind the attack, but the evidence suggests it was. The post Palo Alto Zero-Day Exploited in Campaign Bearing Hallmarks of Chinese State Hacking appeared first on SecurityWeek .
A sophisticated spear phishing campaign targets professionals in the Eurasian unmanned aviation sector, timed to coincide with the XIII Eurasian International Forum 'Unmanned Aviation 2026' in Moscow. The attack delivers malicious archives containing Rust-based executables disguised as legitimate documents from the Russian Aeronautical Information Center. The malware displays aviation-themed decoy documents in Russian while collecting system information including hostnames, volume serial numbers, network adapter details, and environment variables. Collected data is encrypted via XOR and exfiltrated to a C2 server over HTTPS. The malware subsequently downloads and executes a second-stage payload using AES-256 decryption. The campaign demonstrates targeted social engineering with realistic aviation order documents, translation certificates, and product summaries to compromise victims in Russia, Tajikistan, Central Asia, Middle East and Europe.
An attacker registered the unscoped 'tanstack' name on npm and published four malicious versions (2.0.4-2.0.7) within 27 minutes on April 29, 2026. These packages contained postinstall hooks that automatically exfiltrated environment files containing sensitive credentials when developers ran npm install. The attacker exploited name confusion with the legitimate @tanstack organization, which publishes widely-used JavaScript libraries. The malicious code targeted .env files, stealing AWS keys, API tokens, database credentials, and OAuth secrets by sending them to an attacker-controlled Svix webhook endpoint. Version 2.0.6 was particularly dangerous, sweeping all .env variants in the working directory. The version history reveals live debugging by the attacker, who iteratively refined the payload targeting and stealth capabilities while the package remained publicly available with approximately 19,830 monthly downloads.
UAT-8302 is a sophisticated advanced persistent threat (APT) group with a China nexus, disclosed by Cisco Talos. This group has targeted government entities in South America since late 2024 and expanded operations to government agencies in southeastern Europe in 2025. The threat involves a box full of malware used in these targeted attacks. There is no indication of known exploits in the wild or specific affected software versions. The severity is assessed as medium based on the nature of the threat and targeted sectors.
Multiple npm packages in the SAP JavaScript and cloud application development ecosystem were compromised in a suspected supply chain attack. Affected packages include mbt@1.2.48, @cap-js/db-service@2.10.1, @cap-js/postgres@2.2.2, and @cap-js/sqlite@2.2.2. The compromised versions introduced malicious preinstall scripts that download and execute Bun binaries from GitHub, then run heavily obfuscated payloads designed to harvest credentials from developer machines and CI/CD environments. The payloads steal SSH keys, cloud credentials, npm tokens, GitHub access, cryptocurrency wallets, and CI/CD secrets directly from runner memory. Stolen data is encrypted and exfiltrated via GitHub repositories created under victim accounts. The malware also attempts self-propagation by injecting itself into additional packages using stolen npm tokens and establishes persistence through VSCode and Claude IDE configurations.
Since January 2025, researchers identified over 2,500 phishing domains targeting more than 70 organizations across financial services, telecommunications, and logistics sectors globally. Two dominant smishing campaigns were discovered: Reward Points phishing impersonating banks and telecom providers, and Failed Parcel Delivery phishing mimicking logistics companies. Despite different themes, both campaigns share infrastructure and utilize the Phoenix System administrative panel, a successor to the Mouse System. This Phishing-as-a-Service platform offers real-time victim monitoring, geofencing, IP-based filtering, and live-phishing interventions to bypass multi-factor authentication. The platform is distributed via Telegram channels for approximately $2,000 annually, providing threat actors with pre-built templates, traffic filtering mechanisms, and real-time victim management dashboards. Attackers potentially leverage fake Base Transceiver Stations to bypass carrier-level filtering and deliver messages app...
APT-C-13 (Sandworm), also known as FROZENBARENTS, is a state-sponsored advanced persistent threat group conducting global cyber espionage operations. The organization recently deployed malicious campaigns using nested SSH and TOR tunnel infrastructure to establish covert remote access channels. Attackers distribute ZIP archives containing weaponized LNK files via spearphishing emails, which extract and execute payloads that create scheduled tasks disguised as legitimate software. The attack establishes dual-encrypted anonymous tunnels using obfs4 protocol to bypass deep packet inspection, while mapping sensitive ports (SMB/445, RDP/3389) to Onion domains for persistent backdoor access. The campaign leverages sophisticated anti-analysis techniques including sandbox detection, file disguise, and process masquerading to evade detection and maintain long-term unauthorized control over compromised systems for intelligence collection.
A sophisticated multi-stage malware execution chain was discovered during proactive threat hunting activities using endpoint telemetry and dynamic analysis. The attack sequence demonstrates advanced techniques including script masquerading, defense evasion mechanisms, staged payload extraction, and establishment of command-and-control communications. The malware exhibits capabilities for downloading additional payloads, presenting risks of data exfiltration and lateral movement within compromised networks. Immediate network isolation of affected systems is critical, with full system reimaging strongly recommended to ensure complete removal of all malicious components. The investigation identified multiple malicious file hashes, a command-and-control IP address, and an associated domain used for maintaining persistent access to compromised environments.
A sophisticated CHM-based malware campaign has been identified targeting Vietnamese victims through a trojanized CV document. The infection chain utilizes a compiled HTML file that deploys a multi-stage payload delivery mechanism involving Python interpreters, C++ DLLs, and layered XOR encryption. The malware establishes persistence through Shell hijacking and scheduled tasks, ultimately delivering a weaponized version of Rebex.Common.dll functioning as a Telegram-based remote access trojan. The RAT communicates via Telegram bot API, supporting commands for file download, token swapping, and arbitrary command execution. The infection demonstrates characteristics typical of targeted state-sponsored activity rather than opportunistic cybercrime, employing techniques historically associated with advanced threat actors operating in the Southeast Asian region.
A consumer-targeted credential theft operation uses DHL brand impersonation combined with a fake OTP verification mechanism to harvest passwords from victims. The attack employs an 11-step chain beginning with spoofed shipment notification emails, leading victims through a client-side generated OTP page that creates false trust, then directing them to a DHL-branded credential harvesting portal. The kit captures passwords alongside victim telemetry including IP address, device details, browser fingerprinting, and geolocation data. Exfiltration occurs through EmailJS, a legitimate client-side email service, sending stolen credentials to an attacker-controlled Tutamail address. The campaign concludes by redirecting victims to the legitimate DHL website to avoid suspicion, demonstrating how familiar workflows and brand trust can be weaponized without technical sophistication.
APT-C-13 (Sandworm), also known as FROZENBARENTS, is a state-sponsored advanced persistent threat group conducting global cyber espionage targeting government agencies, diplomatic departments, energy enterprises, and research organizations. Recently detected samples reveal the group's use of nested SSH and TOR tunnel architecture to establish covert communication channels. The attack begins with spear-phishing emails delivering malicious LNK files disguised as PDF documents. Upon execution, the payload deploys TOR hidden services mapping internal ports (SMB/445, RDP/3389) to onion domains, while SSH services with public key authentication provide encrypted remote access. The malware employs obfs4 protocol to obfuscate TOR traffic, evading deep packet inspection. Persistence is achieved through scheduled tasks masquerading as legitimate applications like Opera GX and Dropbox, establishing an anonymous shadow management infrastructure for sustained intelligence collection.
This analysis documents a third Vultr Seoul VPS (158.247.210.58) associated with Kimsuky operations, featuring over 60 domains across an 18-month period of systematic credential harvesting infrastructure. The actor demonstrates deliberate rotation through seven DDNS providers to evade blocklisting while maintaining the same backend VPS since at least September 2020. The domains systematically impersonate Naver, Korean National Tax Service (HomeTax), and government portals using prefixes like nid-user, n-store, nts-auth, and htax-login. Currently, 31 domains actively resolve while web ports remain closed, indicating a parked and ready operational posture. The infrastructure sits in AS20473 alongside two previously documented Vultr Seoul boxes, demonstrating the actor's clear preference for this provider and geographic proximity to South Korean targets.
The GlassWorm campaign targeting Open VSX has escalated with 73 newly identified impersonation extensions. These sleeper extensions were initially published without malicious payloads by newly created GitHub accounts, appearing benign to build trust and credibility. At least six extensions have been activated to deliver malware through normal update mechanisms. The extensions clone popular legitimate listings with similar branding, icons, and descriptions, making detection difficult. The threat actor has shifted delivery methods away from embedded loaders toward transitive delivery via extension dependencies, external payload retrieval from GitHub-hosted VSIX files, and native binary execution. Some variants use obfuscated JavaScript to decode and retrieve payloads at runtime. The malicious code targets multiple IDEs including VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and VSCodium, installing downloaded extensions through command-line interfaces.
