All news with #malware tag

🛡️ Silent Push links the long-running SystemBC malware to more than 10,000 infected IP addresses worldwide, including hosts tied to government sites. SystemBC acts as a multi-platform SOCKS5 proxy, turning compromised machines into relays that help attackers hide infrastructure and maintain persistence, often appearing before ransomware is deployed. Researchers found infections concentrated in data centres, uncovered a Perl-based Linux variant undetected by 62 antivirus engines, and observed reliance on abuse-tolerant hosting for C2 operations.

📨 Cofense reports that security filters caught a phishing email every 19 seconds in 2025 — more than double the 2024 rate of one every 42 seconds — as AI enables faster, larger-scale campaigns. The vendor's report, The New Era of Phishing: Threats Built in the Age of AI, warns that actors now use AI to generate highly personalized, polymorphic and multi-channel phishing that adapts per victim. It also highlights a 105% rise in remote access tool detections, a 19-fold spike in abuse of .es domains, and a 204% increase in email-delivered malware, urging post-delivery behavioral analysis and human validation.

⚠️ Security researcher Paul McCarty (aka 6mile) has identified 386 malicious OpenClaw "skills" on the ClawHub repository that impersonate crypto trading tools. The add-ons use social engineering to trick users into executing commands that deploy infostealers on macOS and Windows, harvesting exchange API keys, wallet private keys, SSH credentials and browser passwords. The discovered skills share a common C2 IP (91.92.242.30) and many remain available, with the most active uploader accounting for nearly 7,000 downloads.

🔒 VulnCheck observed active exploitation of CVE-2025-11953 (Metro4Shell), a critical RCE in the @react-native-community/cli Metro Development Server first seen on December 21, 2025. With a CVSS score of 9.8, the flaw enables unauthenticated remote command execution and was weaponized to deliver a Base64-encoded PowerShell loader that adds Microsoft Defender exclusions. The loader opens a raw TCP channel to 8.218.43.248:60124 to fetch and execute a Rust-based binary with anti-analysis checks; VulnCheck links the activity to multiple attacker IPs and describes it as operational exploitation.

🔓 Security researchers warn that attackers are exploiting the critical CVE-2025-11953 flaw in the React Native Metro server to drop malicious Windows and Linux payloads. The issue abuses the development-only /open-url HTTP endpoint, which accepts POST requests and can pass a user-supplied URL unsanitized to the system open() call. JFrog disclosed the bug and it was fixed in @react-native-community/cli-server-api v20.0.0+, but active exploitation (Metro4Shell) has been observed delivering base64 PowerShell stagers and UPX-packed binaries.

🔒 The open-source editor Notepad++ was the target of a sophisticated supply‑chain attack after threat actors compromised its shared hosting provider and redirected selective update traffic to malicious servers between June and December 2025. Researchers say the campaign is likely Chinese state‑sponsored; Rapid7 identified a custom backdoor called Chrysalis and observed Cobalt Strike and Metasploit activity. Notepad++ has migrated hosting and improved its WinGup updater to verify certificates and signatures, with enforcement planned in forthcoming releases.

🐛 A new GlassWorm campaign distributed through compromised OpenVSX extensions is targeting macOS systems to steal passwords, crypto-wallet data, and developer credentials and configurations. Malicious updates pushed from the hijacked oorzc account on January 30 trojanized four packages with roughly 22,000 cumulative downloads and established persistence via a LaunchAgent while excluding Russian-locale systems. Socket's analysis shows broad data collection across browsers, wallets, macOS Keychain, Apple Notes, developer secrets, and exfiltration to 45.32.150[.]251; affected releases were removed and tokens revoked, but users are advised to perform full system clean-up and rotate secrets.

🛡️ Microsoft Defender Experts report a cross-platform surge in infostealers that now target macOS, leverage Python toolchains, and abuse trusted platforms and utilities to deliver credential-stealing malware at scale. Since late 2025, macOS campaigns such as DigitStealer, MacSync, and AMOS have used social engineering, malicious DMGs, AppleScript, and fileless execution to harvest browser credentials, keychain secrets, developer keys, and crypto wallets. Phishing campaigns have delivered Python-based stealers like PXA Stealer, while platform-abuse activity has weaponized WhatsApp and fake PDF installers to propagate Eternidade Stealer and malicious Crystal PDF installers. Microsoft outlines Defender XDR detections, hunting queries, and mitigations to help organizations detect, contain, and remediate these evolving threats.

🔍 VirusTotal has identified a surge of malicious OpenClaw skills being used as a delivery channel for droppers, backdoors, infostealers and remote access tools, turning automation workflows into a supply‑chain risk. VT added native support in Code Insight to analyze OpenClaw skill packages (including ZIPs) using Gemini 3 Flash, flagging behaviors like downloading and executing external code, network operations, and sensitive data access. The report highlights prolific abuse by a single publisher and provides concrete recommendations for users and marketplaces to reduce exposure.

🔒 OpenClaw (formerly Moltbot/ClawdBot) has had over 230 malicious skills published in less than a week, with many near-identical clones gaining thousands of downloads. The packages impersonate legitimate utilities but include a disguised AuthTool installer that delivers info-stealing malware, including a macOS variant of NovaStealer. Researchers found hundreds of exposed admin interfaces and numerous typosquat registries, and warn users to sandbox the assistant, restrict permissions, secure remote access, and thoroughly vet any third-party skills before installation.

⚠️ A security audit by Koi Security found 341 malicious skills among 2,857 listings on the ClawHub marketplace, many deploying a macOS stealer tracked as Atomic Stealer in a campaign dubbed ClawHavoc. Attackers used fake prerequisites and social engineering to trick users into running installers or terminal scripts that fetch next-stage payloads from attacker-controlled infrastructure. The malicious skills include typosquats, crypto tools, YouTube utilities and backdoors that exfiltrate bot credentials and keys, exposing OpenClaw users to significant supply-chain risks.

🔒 Security researchers at Point Wild’s Lat61 team disclosed a Windows campaign that uses a multi-stage chain to establish persistent, memory-resident access and steal sensitive data. The attack starts with a small batch script that creates a per-user Registry Run key and launches a PowerShell loader which decodes Donut-generated shellcode and injects a heavily obfuscated .NET payload into memory. The modular Pulsar RAT supports live, interactive operator control alongside a parallel stealer, with stolen data exfiltrated as ZIP archives via Discord webhooks and Telegram bots.

🔒 A new Android remote access trojan (RAT) leverages the AI hosting platform Hugging Face to store and deliver malicious APK payloads, researchers at Bitdefender report. The campaign distributes a dropper app called TrustBastion that uses fake update dialogs to trick users into downloading an updater which redirects to repositories hosting polymorphic RAT APKs. Operators made frequent commits and shifted repositories to avoid takedowns, while the malware requests Accessibility and screen-recording permissions to capture credentials and relay data to command-and-control servers.

⚠ MicroWorld Technologies confirmed unknown attackers compromised the update infrastructure for its eScan antivirus and pushed a malicious update that deployed a multi-stage downloader to enterprise and consumer endpoints. The rogue update replaced the legitimate reload.exe with a binary signed by a fake or invalid signature; it executes three Base64-encoded PowerShell stages, includes an AMSI bypass and prevents automatic remediation. Kaspersky and Morphisec report hundreds of attempted infections mainly in India and neighboring countries. MicroWorld isolated affected update servers for hours and released a remediation package; impacted customers should contact the vendor for the fix.

🛡️ On January 30, 2026, threat actors used a compromised developer account to publish malicious updates to four Open VSX extensions, embedding the GlassWorm loader. The extensions — previously legitimate utilities with over 22,000 combined downloads — were removed after discovery. The loader decrypts and execute payloads at runtime, employing EtherHiding and Solana memos for C2 rotation. It targets macOS credentials and cryptocurrency wallets.

⚠️Researchers discovered a coordinated network of malicious Google Chrome extensions that inject attacker affiliate tags into e-commerce links, scrape product data, and exfiltrate OpenAI ChatGPT authentication tokens. A cluster of 29 add-ons (including Amazon Ads Blocker) targeted Amazon, AliExpress, Best Buy, Shein, Shopify and Walmart. Separate groups intercepted ChatGPT tokens or abused permissions to harvest cookies and clipboard data. Experts warn these behaviors violate Chrome Web Store policies and urge caution when installing extensions requesting broad permissions or combining unrelated features.

🛡️ Bitdefender Labs reports a large-scale Android malware campaign that leveraged Hugging Face's public hosting to deliver a remote access trojan (RAT). The operation begins with a scareware dropper disguised as a security app, TrustBastion, which tricks users via fake infection alerts into downloading a second-stage APK from a Hugging Face dataset. Attackers automated payload generation with thousands of unique APKs and frequent commits to evade signature-based detection. The installed RAT requests high-risk permissions — Accessibility Services, screen recording, casting, and overlay rights — enabling credential harvesting, screen capture, persistent control, and exfiltration; Bitdefender notified Hugging Face and the malicious datasets were removed, though variants resurfaced elsewhere.

🚨 French cybersecurity firm HarfangLab uncovered a January 2026 campaign dubbed RedKitten that leverages emotionally charged, forged forensic files to deliver a .NET implant called SloppyMIO. The attack begins with a password-protected 7z archive containing malicious Excel spreadsheets that prompt users to enable macros and drop a C# payload. SloppyMIO hijacks a legitimate Windows binary to run stealthily, establishes persistence via scheduled tasks, fetches modules from GitHub and Google Drive, and uses Telegram as its command-and-control channel. Researchers noted multiple traces of LLM-assisted development and assessed the campaign as aligned with Iranian government security interests.

🛡️ Orange Cyberdefense compiled a dataset of 418 publicly reported law enforcement actions from 2021 to mid-2025 to clarify how agencies address cybercrime. The study shows extortion (including ransomware), malware, and hacking are the most targeted offenses, while arrests (29%), takedowns (17%) and charges (14%) are the predominant responses. The U.S. DOJ and FBI are most visible, with extensive public–private collaboration supporting operations.

🚨Researchers at Bitdefender found an Android campaign using the Hugging Face platform to host and serve thousands of malicious APK variants. A scareware dropper called TrustBastion lures victims with fake Google Play update prompts, redirects to a Hugging Face dataset, and downloads the payload via the platform's CDN. The RAT aggressively abuses Android Accessibility Services to present overlays, capture screens, impersonate login UIs for services such as Alipay and WeChat, block uninstall, and exfiltrate credentials; Hugging Face removed the malicious datasets after notification.