Threat Intelligence Database

Acronis Threat Research Unit identified two espionage campaigns targeting Cambodian government entities in defense and public works sectors, attributed to a cluster tracked as Khmer Shadow. Both campaigns delivered a custom C++ loader named NIGHTFORGE through government-themed lures in self-extracting archives. NIGHTFORGE employs sophisticated evasion techniques including NTDLL unhooking and Hell's Gate syscall resolution to decrypt and execute a Havoc Demon payload in memory. The loader utilizes DLL sideloading through a legitimate VMware-signed binary (VMwareNamespaceCmd.exe) and establishes persistence via COM-based scheduled tasks. Despite advanced technical capabilities, the actor demonstrated poor operational security by reusing identical payloads and infrastructure across targets. The campaigns targeted Cambodia's Information Collection Bureau and Ministry of Public Works and Transport using meeting-themed social engineering lures.

MediumMalwareCambodia#kaynldr#nightforge#khmer shadow

Ghidra versions prior to 12.1 contain a command injection vulnerability in the handling of URL annotations on Windows. This flaw occurs because cmd.exe metacharacters are not properly escaped, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the Ghidra user if a malicious URL is embedded in program comments and clicked.

Claude HUD through 0.0.12, patched in commit 234d9aa, contains a command injection vulnerability that allows local attackers to execute arbitrary commands by manipulating the COMSPEC environment variable. Attackers can set COMSPEC to an arbitrary binary path before claude-hud performs its version check, causing execFile() to execute the attacker-supplied executable with cmd.exe arguments, resulting in arbitrary code execution on Windows systems.

FastMCP is the standard framework for building MCP applications. Prior to version 3.2.0, server names containing shell metacharacters (e.g., &) can cause command injection on Windows when passed to fastmcp install claude-code or fastmcp install gemini-cli. These install paths use subprocess.run() with a list argument, but on Windows the target CLIs often resolve to .cmd wrappers that are executed through cmd.exe, which interprets metacharacters in the flattened command string. This issue has been patched in version 3.2.0.

A vulnerability was found in Perl. This security issue occurs while Perl for Windows relies on the system path environment variable to find the shell (`cmd.exe`). When running an executable that uses the Windows Perl interpreter, Perl attempts to find and execute `cmd.exe` within the operating system. However, due to path search order issues, Perl initially looks for cmd.exe in the current working directory. This flaw allows an attacker with limited privileges to place`cmd.exe` in locations with weak permissions, such as `C:\ProgramData`. By doing so, arbitrary code can be executed when an administrator attempts to use this executable from these compromised locations.

HighVulnerabilityGermanyFranceUnited Kingdom+5#cve#cve-2023-47039

MyScreenTools v2.2.1.0 contains a critical OS command injection vulnerability in the GIF compression tool. The application fails to properly sanitize user-supplied file paths before passing them to cmd.exe, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary system commands with the privileges of the user running the application. The vulnerability exists in the CMD() function within GIFSicleTool\Form_gif_sicle_tool.cs, which constructs shell commands by concatenating unsanitized user input (file paths) and executes them via cmd.exe.

HighVulnerabilityGermanyFranceUnited Kingdom+5#cve#cve-2025-63916

DarkComet RAT malware has resurfaced disguised as a fake Bitcoin-related tool, distributed via a RAR archive containing a UPX-packed executable. Upon execution, it installs itself as 'explorer.exe' in the user's AppData folder and establishes persistence through a registry run key. The malware communicates with its command and control server at kvejo991.ddns.net on port 1604. It performs keylogging, storing captured keystrokes in a dedicated folder, and uses process injection into notepad.exe to evade detection. The malware also spawns multiple cmd.exe and conhost.

MediumMalwareGermanyFranceNetherlands+3#c2 communication#cryptocurrency#darkcomet rat

One Identity Password Manager before 5.13.1 allows Kiosk Escape. This product enables users to reset their Active Directory passwords on the login screen of a Windows client. It launches a Chromium based browser in Kiosk mode to provide the reset functionality. The escape sequence is: go to the Google ReCAPTCHA section, click on the Privacy link, observe that there is a new browser window, navigate to any website that offers file upload, navigate to cmd.exe from the file explorer window, and launch cmd.exe as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM.

UnknownVulnerabilityGermanyUnited KingdomFrance+7#cve#cve-2023-48654

Rust is a programming language. The Rust Security Response WG was notified that the Rust standard library prior to version 1.77.2 did not properly escape arguments when invoking batch files (with the `bat` and `cmd` extensions) on Windows using the `Command`. An attacker able to control the arguments passed to the spawned process could execute arbitrary shell commands by bypassing the escaping. The severity of this vulnerability is critical for those who invoke batch files on Windows with untrusted arguments. No other platform or use is affected. The `Command::arg` and `Command::args` APIs state in their documentation that the arguments will be passed to the spawned process as-is, regardless of the content of the arguments, and will not be evaluated by a shell. This means it should be safe to pass untrusted input as an argument. On Windows, the implementation of this is more complex than other platforms, because the Windows API only provides a single string containing all the arguments to the spawned process, and it's up to the spawned process to split them. Most programs use the standard C run-time argv, which in practice results in a mostly consistent way arguments are splitted. One exception though is `cmd.exe` (used among other things to execute batch files), which has its own argument splitting logic. That forces the standard library to implement custom escaping for arguments passed to batch files. Unfortunately it was reported that our escaping logic was not thorough enough, and it was possible to pass malicious arguments that would result in arbitrary shell execution. Due to the complexity of `cmd.exe`, we didn't identify a solution that would correctly escape arguments in all cases. To maintain our API guarantees, we improved the robustness of the escaping code, and changed the `Command` API to return an `InvalidInput` error when it cannot safely escape an argument. This error will be emitted when spawning the process. The fix is included in Rust 1.77.2. Note that the new escaping logic for batch files errs on the conservative side, and could reject valid arguments. Those who implement the escaping themselves or only handle trusted inputs on Windows can also use the `CommandExt::raw_arg` method to bypass the standard library's escaping logic.

CriticalVulnerabilityGermanyFranceUnited Kingdom+6#cve#cve-2024-24576#cwe-78

Deno is a JavaScript, TypeScript, and WebAssembly runtime. Versions prior to 2.5.3 and 2.2.15 are vulnerable to Command Line Injection attacks on Windows when batch files are executed. In Windows, ``CreateProcess()`` always implicitly spawns ``cmd.exe`` if a batch file (.bat, .cmd, etc.) is being executed even if the application does not specify it via the command line. This makes Deno vulnerable to a command injection attack on Windows. Versions 2.5.3 and 2.2.15 fix the issue.

HighVulnerabilityGermanyFranceUnited Kingdom+3#cve#cve-2025-61787#cwe-77