All news with #active exploitation tag

Ransomware Fragmentation and Rising Attacks in Q3 2025

🔍 The ransomware landscape in Q3 2025 reached a critical inflection point: despite law enforcement takedowns earlier in the year, attacks remained at historically high levels. Check Point Research identified 1,592 new victims across 85 active extortion groups, a 25% year‑over‑year increase. While major brands such as RansomHub and 8Base disappeared, numerous smaller actors rapidly filled the void, driving unprecedented RaaS fragmentation and complicating response efforts.

CISA Updates Advisory: Akira Ransomware Evolution Update

🔐 CISA and partner agencies published an updated advisory on Nov. 13, 2025, detailing new indicators, tactics, and detection guidance related to Akira ransomware. The update documents expanded targeting across Manufacturing, Education, IT, Healthcare, Financial, and Food and Agriculture, and links activity to groups such as Storm-1567 and Punk Spider. Key findings include exploitation of edge and backup vulnerabilities, use of remote management tools for defense evasion, and a faster, more destructive Akira_v2 variant that complicates recovery.

Machine-Speed Security: Patching Faster Than Attacks

⚡ Attackers are weaponizing many newly disclosed CVEs within hours, forcing defenders to close the gap by moving beyond manual triage to automated remediation. Drawing on 2025 industry reports and CISA and Mandiant observations, the article notes roughly 50–61% of new vulnerabilities see exploit code within 48 hours. It urges adoption of policy-driven automation, controlled rollback, and streamlined change processes to shorten exposure windows while preserving operational stability.

Kraken Ransomware: Cross-Platform Big-Game Hunting

🐙 Kraken is a Russian-speaking ransomware group active since February 2025 that conducts double-extortion, big-game hunting campaigns across multiple regions. In a documented intrusion Talos observed, attackers exploited SMB flaws for access, used Cloudflared for persistence, exfiltrated data via SSHFS, then deployed cross-platform encryptors for Windows, Linux and ESXi. The family includes on-host benchmarking to tune encryption, and Talos maps detections and IOCs to Cisco protections to aid response.

CISA Alerts Agencies to Exploited WatchGuard Firewall Flaw

🔔 CISA has warned federal agencies to patch a critical, actively exploited vulnerability in WatchGuard Firebox firewalls that permits remote code execution through an out-of-bounds write in Fireware OS 11.x (EOL), 12.x, and 2025.1. The agency added CVE-2025-9242 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog and imposed a three-week remediation deadline under BOD 22-01. WatchGuard released patches on September 17 but only marked the flaw as exploited on October 21. Internet scans tracked over 75,000 vulnerable appliances before counts fell to roughly 54,000.

GlobalLogic Confirmed as Victim of Cl0p Oracle EBS Exploit

🔒 GlobalLogic has notified 10,471 current and former employees that their data was exposed after a zero-day in Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) was exploited in early October 2025. The company says it patched the vulnerability after confirming data exfiltration on 9 October. Stolen records reportedly include HR and payroll details such as names, dates of birth, passport numbers, salary, bank account and routing numbers, creating a high risk of follow-on phishing and identity fraud. GlobalLogic did not confirm contact by the extortion group, while security firms link the incident to Cl0p, which has targeted dozens of organizations including Harvard and Envoy Air.

Amazon: APT Exploits Cisco ISE and Citrix Zero‑Days

🔒 Amazon Threat Intelligence identified an advanced threat actor exploiting undisclosed zero-day vulnerabilities in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Citrix products. The actor achieved pre-authentication remote code execution via a newly tracked Cisco deserialization flaw (CVE-2025-20337) and earlier Citrix Bleed Two activity (CVE-2025-5777). Following exploitation, a custom in-memory web shell disguised as IdentityAuditAction was deployed, demonstrating sophisticated evasion using Java reflection, Tomcat request listeners, and DES with nonstandard Base64. Amazon recommends limiting external access to management endpoints and implementing layered defenses and detection coverage.

Zero-day Attacks Exploit Citrix Bleed 2 and Cisco ISE

🛡️ Amazon's MadPot honeypot observed exploitation of Citrix Bleed 2 (CVE-2025-5777) and Cisco ISE (CVE-2025-20337) before public disclosure. The attacker used the ISE flaw to deploy a stealthy custom web shell named IdentityAuditAction, which registered an HTTP listener, used Java reflection to inject into Tomcat threads, and relied on DES with non-standard base64 encoding for concealment. Apply vendor patches and limit edge device access through layered firewall controls.

Payroll Pirates Malvertising Hijacks Hundreds of Sites

🏴‍☠️ Since mid‑2023, researchers tracked a financially motivated malvertising network named Payroll Pirates that impersonated payroll portals to harvest credentials and facilitate fraud. The operation used sponsored ads to funnel more than 500,000 visitors to cloned login pages and targeted over 200 interfaces, including payroll systems, credit unions, and trading platforms across the U.S. Its tactics evolved with refined ad placement, credential-harvesting pages, and coordinated infrastructure to maximize theft and evade detection.

CISA Adds Three CVEs to KEV Catalog Targeting Federal Assets

🔔CISA added three vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog: CVE-2025-9242 (WatchGuard Firebox out-of-bounds write), CVE-2025-12480 (Gladinet Triofox improper access control), and CVE-2025-62215 (Microsoft Windows race condition). Under BOD 22-01, Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies must remediate KEV entries by the required due dates. CISA urges all organizations to prioritize timely remediation and other mitigations to reduce exposure to active threats.

CISA Issues Guidance on Cisco ASA and Firepower Risks

⚠️ CISA released Implementation Guidance for Emergency Directive 25‑03 addressing ongoing exploitation of Cisco ASA and Firepower devices, identifying minimum software versions that remediate known vulnerabilities. The guidance directs federal agencies to perform corrective patching and recommends all organizations verify and apply the specified minimum updates. CISA also provides the RayDetect scanner to analyze ASA core dumps for RayInitiator compromise and offers temporary mitigation recommendations for agencies still completing compliance.

Microsoft Fixes Windows Kernel Zero Day in November

🔒 Microsoft released its November Patch Tuesday updates addressing over 60 CVEs, including an actively exploited Windows kernel zero-day (CVE-2025-62215). The flaw is a race-condition and double-free that can let low-privileged local attackers corrupt kernel memory and escalate to system privileges, though exploitation requires precise timing and local code execution. Administrators should also prioritise a critical GDI+ RCE (CVE-2025-60724, CVSS 9.8) that can be triggered by parsing specially crafted metafiles. Microsoft additionally issued an out-of-band update (KB5071959) to resolve Windows 10 Consumer ESU enrollment failures.

November 2025 Patch Tuesday: One Zero-Day, Five Criticals

🔒 Microsoft’s November 2025 Patch Tuesday addresses 63 CVEs, including one actively exploited zero‑day and five Critical vulnerabilities that span Windows, Office, Developer Tools and third‑party products. This release is the first Extended Security Update (ESU) roll‑out for Windows 10 after its October 14 end‑of‑life; ESU enrollment and upgrade to 22H2 are required to receive fixes. CrowdStrike notes elevation of privilege, remote code execution and information disclosure are the leading exploitation techniques this month. Administrators should prioritize the zero‑day and Critical fixes (notably GDI+ and Nuance PowerScribe) and adopt mitigations where patching is delayed.

November Patch Tuesday: Critical Windows Kernel Zero-Day

⚠️ Microsoft’s November Patch Tuesday addresses 63 vulnerabilities, including an actively exploited Windows kernel zero-day CVE-2025-62215 that can allow local attackers to escalate to SYSTEM via a complex race-condition double-free. Administrators should prioritize this fix across servers, domain controllers, and desktops, including Windows 10 systems enrolled in the ESU program. Other notable fixes include a Copilot Chat extension RCE (CVE-2025-62222) and a critical Microsoft Graphics Component overflow that could be triggered by specially crafted document uploads.

Hackers Exploit Triofox AV Feature to Deploy Remote Tools

⚠️ Hackers exploited a critical Triofox vulnerability (CVE-2025-12480) and abused the product's built-in antivirus configuration to achieve remote code execution as SYSTEM. Google Threat Intelligence Group traced the activity to UNC6485 targeting a Triofox server in August; attackers bypassed authentication via Host header/Referer spoofing and configured a malicious scanner to run a PowerShell downloader. Vendor patches are available; administrators should update and audit admin and scanner settings.

Maverick Banking Malware Spreads via WhatsApp Web in Brazil

⚠️ Threat hunters report a .NET banking trojan dubbed Maverick propagating via WhatsApp Web, with analyses noting significant code overlaps with the Coyote family and attribution to the actor known as Water Saci. The campaign uses a self-propagating component named SORVEPOTEL to distribute a ZIP containing an LNK that launches PowerShell/cmd to fetch loaders from zapgrande[.]com. The loader installs modules only after geo/linguistic checks confirm the victim is in Brazil and then deploys banking-targeted credential-stealing and web-injection capabilities.

Microsoft November 2025 Patch Tuesday: 63 Vulnerabilities

🔒 Microsoft released its November 2025 Patch Tuesday addressing 63 vulnerabilities across Windows, Office, Visual Studio and other components, including five labeled Critical. One important kernel elevation flaw, CVE-2025-62215, has been observed exploited in the wild. Critical issues include RCE in GDI+, Office, and Visual Studio, plus a DirectX elevation-of-privilege; Microsoft rates several as less likely to be exploited. Cisco Talos published Snort and Snort 3 rules and advises customers to apply updates and rule packs promptly.

KONNI APT Abuses Google Find Hub to Wipe Android Devices

🔐 Genians Security Center (GSC) has attributed a recent destructive campaign to the KONNI APT, which abused Google’s Find Hub service to remotely wipe Android phones and tablets. Threat actors distributed a signed MSI via compromised KakaoTalk accounts, installed an AutoIt loader, and stole Google credentials to trigger remote resets when victims were away. GSC describes this as the first confirmed state-linked misuse of Find Hub and recommends stronger authentication, verification for remote wipes, and enhanced EDR and behavioral monitoring.

Qilin Ransomware Activity Surges, Targeting SMEs in 2025

🔐 Researchers at S-RM report a surge in activity by the Qilin ransomware-as-a-service operation, which leverages unpatched VPNs, single-factor remote access and exposed management interfaces to gain initial access. While some high-profile incidents hit healthcare, most victims are small-to-medium businesses in construction, healthcare and finance. S-RM also observed affiliates from Scattered Spider using Qilin’s platform, and noted new extortion channels including Telegram and public leak sites. The firm urges routine patching, widespread MFA adoption, network segmentation and proactive monitoring.

Attackers Exploit Critical Triofox Flaw for Code Execution

⚠️ Mandiant and Google GTIG observed UNC6485 exploiting a critical improper access control flaw, CVE-2025-12480, in Gladinet Triofox versions prior to 16.7.10368.56560. Attackers spoofed a localhost Host header to reach setup pages, create a native 'Cluster Admin' account and upload payloads. They abused the product's anti‑virus configuration to execute arbitrary scripts as SYSTEM, then deployed remote access tools, escalated privileges and exfiltrated credentials. Users are urged to update, audit admin accounts and hunt for indicators of compromise.