All news in category “Threat and Trends Reports”

🔒 Darktrace's Threat Report 2026 warns that identity-based attacks—primarily via compromised cloud and email accounts—now initiate 58% of intrusions in Europe, with network-based breaches comprising the other 42%. Germany and the manufacturing sector were particularly affected as attackers leverage valid credentials and legitimate admin tools to evade detection. The report highlights state-backed groups (e.g., Lazarus, ShadowPad) and RaaS operators such as Akira, noting heavy targeting of Azure, GCP and Docker environments. Experts recommend continuous monitoring of privileged accounts, hardened MFA, device baselines and behavioral detection to spot anomalies early.

📌 Cisco Talos' 2025 retrospective finds 48,196 CVEs (≈132 per day) and highlights persistent root causes—XSS, SQL injection, and insecure deserialization—responsible for roughly 10,000 vulnerabilities. Known Exploited Vulnerabilities rose ~30% to 241, with many affecting network devices and an expanded vendor set of 99, underscoring patching and supply-chain visibility challenges. The author stresses prioritized patch management, accurate asset inventories, and compensating controls (microsegmentation, network isolation, enhanced monitoring) for unpatchable systems, and also notes a near-doubling of AI-related CVEs.

🔒 Mimecast's State of Human Risk Report 2026 warns that insider threats have escalated into a critical business risk, driven in part by employees mishandling or abusing AI tools. The study found 42% of organizations reported increases in both malicious insider activity and negligence-related incidents, while security leaders now anticipate an average of six insider-driven incidents per month. Mimecast cautions that attackers and insiders leveraging AI amplify exposure and call for security to address risk at the user level.

🔐 Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) reports 90 zero-day vulnerabilities were actively exploited in 2025, a 15% increase from 2024. Nearly half targeted enterprise products such as security appliances, networking gear, VPNs, and virtualization platforms. Memory-safety issues comprised 35% of exploited flaws, and commercial spyware vendors overtook state actors as the top zero-day consumers. Google recommends reducing attack surface, continuous monitoring, and rapid patching to detect and contain exploitation.

🛡️ The 2026 State of Browser Security Report from Keep Aware warns that modern browsers—now hosting embedded AI copilots and generative tools—have become the primary execution layer for enterprise work and the largest emerging security gap. The study finds broad adoption of AI web tools, frequent uploads of internal and regulated data, and that traditional DLP and network controls fail to inspect typed inputs, pasted content, and in-session file uploads. It highlights phishing, malicious extensions, and social engineering as leading browser attack vectors and urges organizations to adopt browser-specific visibility, continuous extension governance, and account-level controls for AI usage.

🔒Researchers at Google’s Threat Intelligence Group uncovered Coruna, a sophisticated iOS exploit kit composed of five exploit chains and 23 individual exploits that migrated from a commercial surveillance customer to suspected state and criminal operators within months. The framework resurfaced with UNC6353 on compromised Ukrainian sites and later powered mass attacks by China-based UNC6691 on fake financial pages. Its payload, tracked as Plasmagrid, injects into the root powerd daemon to exfiltrate cryptocurrency wallets, seed phrases and QR codes. GTIG urges immediate iOS updates, enabling Lockdown Mode where updates are impossible, and has published IoCs on VirusTotal.

🛡️ Google Threat Intelligence Group's 2025 review found 90 zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in the wild, down from 2023 but above 2024. Enterprise technologies accounted for a record 48% of zero-days, driven by attacks on networking and security appliances, while browser exploitation fell to historic lows. GTIG highlights growing involvement of commercial surveillance vendors and expanded financially motivated use of zero-days. Defenders are urged to prioritize segmentation, inventory, and rapid mitigation.

📰 This ThreatsDay bulletin summarizes a fast-moving week of cyber activity, covering phishing, malware, large-scale scraping, privacy actions, and research that changes operational risk. Notable items include a CERT-UA–reported phishing campaign delivering SHADOWSNIFF, SALATSTEALER, and a Go backdoor; a DDR5 scraping operation used for scalping RAM inventory; and a new Chrome two‑week release cadence. The update also highlights regulatory action against Reddit and privacy steps by Samsung.

🔐 Organizations often assume multi-factor authentication (MFA) eliminates credential risk, but in many Windows environments that assumption is incomplete. Cloud IdPs like Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, and Google Workspace protect federated sign‑ins, yet traditional Windows authentication paths — including interactive logons, RDP, NTLM, Kerberos ticket abuse, SMB, local admin and service accounts — commonly bypass those controls. The result: attackers can use stolen passwords, NTLM hashes, stolen or forged Kerberos tickets, or reused local credentials to move laterally and maintain persistent access without triggering cloud MFA. Vendor solutions such as Specops Secure Access and Specops Password Policy are presented as practical mitigations to enforce MFA for Windows logon, block compromised passwords, and reduce legacy protocol exposure.

⚠️ Dragos reports that multiple state-affiliated threat groups have shifted from long-term access to actively mapping and preparing disruptive attacks against industrial control systems. Adversaries tracked as Voltzite, Kamacite, Electrum, and others have been observed harvesting engineering workstation files, scanning device types to map control loops, and staging wiper and firmware-corruption capabilities. The access-broker model — exemplified by Sylvanite handing footholds to operational teams — shortens the timeline from intrusion to operational readiness. With under 10% of OT environments monitored, many sites lack the visibility needed to detect or respond to these preparations.

🛠 This article reviews fourteen long-dormant software vulnerabilities that persisted for ten to thirty years and were only recently discovered or fixed. It highlights flaws across foundational components — from libpng and Python modules to Windows internals, bootloaders, network daemons, and secrets vaults — illustrating how legacy design choices and sparse code review can leave pervasive risks. The piece summarizes impacts, discovery timelines, and the remediation actions taken by vendors and maintainers.

⚠️ FortiGuard Labs reports a surge of regional cyber activity in the 24–48 hours following U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian targets, including defacements, broadcast intrusions, Telegram claims, and internet disruptions, but no confirmed large-scale destructive campaign tied directly to the strikes. Many observed events appear to be psychological operations, hacktivist signaling, or opportunistic exploitation of geopolitical noise rather than coordinated state-level retaliation. The report warns that access is often pre-positioned and that activations can be delayed, so organizations should harden basic controls and preparedness now. Recommended actions include enabling MFA, automating patching, isolated backups, segmentation, active monitoring, and exercising incident response playbooks.

🔎 Tycoon2FA emerged in August 2023 as a phishing-as-a-service platform that provided adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) capabilities to relay authentication flows and capture session cookies. Its web-based admin panel centralized templates, redirects, hosting, CAPTCHA, and exfiltration controls while exposing real-time metrics. Fast-moving short-lived domains, Cloudflare hosting, and heavy obfuscation let low-skill operators run scalable campaigns against MFA-protected accounts worldwide.

🔒 Browser-in-the-browser (BitB) phishing renders convincing fake login pop-ups inside malicious pages, and Kaspersky reports attackers are now using this technique in real campaigns to steal Facebook credentials. Threat actors create counterfeit authentication dialogs and even fake address bars so visual inspection is unreliable. Use a password manager — it checks the actual origin before auto-filling — and enable 2FA, adopt passkeys, and use unique passwords to reduce risk.

🔒 AI-driven threats have increased employee awareness, but readiness remains uneven: only about 40% of leaders say staff are prepared to identify, avoid, and report AI-based threats. The 2025 report, based on responses from 1,850 senior IT and security leaders, shows training reduces incidents—67% of organizations report moderate or significant reductions—and measurement is shifting toward behavior-focused programs. However, low completion rates, rising insider risk, and outdated content limit impact; practical fixes include microlearning, role-based content, and clearer accountability backed by leadership.

⚠️ Five days into the US-Israel–Iran conflict, widescale Iranian cyber retaliation has not yet materialized, but security agencies warn the danger is acute and ongoing. The UK NCSC and Canada CCCS issued broad advisories while CISA has not updated since October. Observed DDoS activity is limited, yet vendors highlight the greater risk from destructive wipers (e.g., Shamoon) and an arsenal of 15+ Iranian families. High‑profile APTs such as APT35/APT42 and APT33 remain concerning; organizations should harden OT, remove unmanaged RMM tools, implement phishing‑resistant MFA (FIDO2/WebAuthn), patch VPNs and monitor endpoints for wiper indicators.

🔒 Schools, colleges and universities face sophisticated, resource-rich adversaries that exploit sprawling, mixed on-prem/cloud environments, unmanaged BYOD and student behaviour. Outsourcing continuous monitoring to MDR providers delivers 24/7 detection, expert analysis and rapid containment. Choose providers that customize detection, integrate with operations and support remediation to reduce disruption and protect learning.

🔍 Recruiters and current CSOs warn that true CSO capability combines technical fluency, business judgment, and clear communication. Inflated titles and hasty hires create false confidence, wasted budgets, and a culture of compliance rather than security. Top CSOs prioritize risk choreography, translate risk into business outcomes, and balance risk and revenue. Candidates and employers should verify mandate, budget, and cross‑functional influence before assigning the title.

⚠️ A new Cloudflare Threat Report warns that widespread access to large language models and AI tools has lowered the barrier to entry for cybercriminals, enabling rapid, scalable attacks. Attackers are using LLMs to craft convincing phishing, generate malware, and map networks in real time, increasing impact and reach. The report highlights AI-generated deepfakes and fraudulent IDs used to bypass hiring filters and embed malicious insiders, with state actors like North Korea exploiting this vector. Cloudflare urges organisations to adopt real-time intelligence and proactive defenses to counter the industrialisation of cyber threats.

🔐 Flare researchers found widespread trading of compromised cPanel credentials across fraudulent groups, observing over 200,000 posts in a seven-day sample that reveal a highly commoditized, templated marketplace. Sellers advertise tiered pricing and bulk discounts (e.g., bundles of 100–1,000 accounts), and buyers use panels to host phishing kits, create SMTP accounts, deploy backdoors, and exfiltrate data. Because access uses valid credentials, abuse often bypasses traditional defenses; organizations should enable MFA, enforce strong unique passwords, restrict admin IPs, and monitor file integrity and outbound SMTP.