All news with #api abuse tag

🔍 Researchers from the University of Vienna and SBA Research compiled a list of 3.5 billion active WhatsApp mobile numbers and associated personal details by abusing a contact-discovery API that lacked rate limiting. Running from a single server with five authenticated sessions, they queried more than 100 million numbers per hour and tested a generated space of 63 billion potential numbers. The team responsibly reported the issue and WhatsApp has since added rate-limiting protections. Although the researchers did not publish the dataset, their findings illustrate how unprotected APIs enable large-scale scraping and privacy exposure.

⚠️ SquareX disclosed an undocumented API in the Comet AI browser that allows embedded extensions to execute arbitrary commands and launch applications, effectively bypassing long-standing browser safeguards. The feature was discovered in Comet’s Analytics Extension under a non-standard chrome.perplexity namespace and can be invoked via perplexity.ai, creating a covert execution channel. The API is exploitable through low-bar techniques such as extension stomping, XSS, or MitM, and Comet hides its embedded Analytics and Agentic extensions from the extension dashboard so users cannot disable them.

🔐 SonicWall has confirmed a state-sponsored threat actor was responsible for a September breach that exposed cloud-stored firewall configuration backup files. The company said the unauthorized access used an API call against a specific cloud environment and affected backups for fewer than 5% of customers. SonicWall engaged Google-owned Mandiant, implemented recommended mitigations, and released an Online Analysis Tool and a Credentials Reset Tool. Customers are advised to log in to MySonicWall.com to review devices and reset impacted credentials.

🔍 Cybersecurity researchers uncovered a coordinated operation that used 131 rebranded Chrome extensions—about 20,905 active users—to inject automation code into WhatsApp Web and conduct large-scale spam campaigns targeting Brazilian users. Socket found the add-ons share a common codebase, design patterns, and infrastructure and are primarily published under WL Extensão variants. The extensions pose a high spam risk by automating bulk outreach and scheduling to evade WhatsApp rate limits and violate Chrome Web Store policies.

📩 Research from Sekoia.io’s TDR team reveals a wave of smishing attacks that abused APIs on Milesight Industrial Cellular Routers to send phishing SMS, primarily targeting Belgian users by impersonating government services such as CSAM and eBox. The activity was first detected on 22 July 2025 via honeypots, and investigators found messages in Dutch and French using Belgium’s +32 code. Sekoia noted over 19,000 devices are publicly accessible and at least 572 permit unauthenticated SMS access, enabling large-scale abuse. The campaigns used infrastructure linked to Podaon and domains often registered through NameSilo, with attackers testing compromised routers before launching mass waves.

🔒 The 2025 Zimperium Global Mobile Threat Report finds that one in three Android apps and more than half of iOS apps leak sensitive information through insecure APIs, and nearly half of apps contain hardcoded secrets such as API keys. Client-side weaknesses let attackers tamper with apps, intercept traffic and bypass perimeter defences. The report recommends API hardening and app attestation to ensure API calls originate from genuine, untampered apps.

🔒 SonicWall warned that brute-force attacks against its firewall API used for cloud backups may have exposed preference files stored in customers' MySonicWall.com portals. The vendor has disabled the cloud backup capability and is urging admins to restrict or disable SSLVPN and Web/SSH management over the WAN, then reset passwords, keys, and secrets. Less than 5% of the install base had backups in the cloud, but that could still affect thousands of organizations. SonicWall has provided remediation guidance and will notify customers if their accounts show impacted serial numbers.

🔒 Thales' Imperva analysed telemetry from over 4,000 environments and reported about 40,000 API incidents in H1 2025, finding APIs now attract 44% of advanced bot traffic. Key findings included a 40% rise in credential-stuffing and account-takeover attempts against APIs without adaptive MFA, plus data scraping (31%) and coupon/payment fraud (26%). Financial services, telecoms and travel were among the most targeted sectors, and Thales warned the pace and sophistication of attacks will continue to increase.

🔒 Cloudflare confirmed that it and some customers were impacted by the Salesloft/Drift breach which exposed Salesforce support case text. The company found 104 Cloudflare API tokens in the exfiltrated data, rotated them, and observed no suspicious activity tied to those tokens. No Cloudflare infrastructure was compromised; affected customers were notified and advised to rotate any credentials shared in support tickets and to harden third-party integrations.

🔒 Google has filed a lawsuit in New York federal court targeting the operators of the BadBox 2.0 botnet, which compromised over 10 million uncertified devices running the Android Open Source Project. In partnership with HUMAN Security and Trend Micro, Google’s Ad Traffic Quality team identified preinstalled malware used for large-scale ad fraud and other illicit activity. Google updated Play Protect to automatically block BadBox-associated apps and is coordinating with the FBI to further disrupt the criminal operation.