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Category: cybercrime/malcode

AI tools can help hackers plant hidden flaws in computer chips, study finds

Widely available artificial intelligence systems can be used to deliberately insert hard-to-detect security vulnerabilities into the code that defines computer chips, according to new research from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, a warning about the potential weaponization of AI in hardware design.

In a study published by IEEE Security & Privacy, an NYU Tandon research team showed that like ChatGPT could help both novices and experts create “hardware Trojans,” malicious modifications hidden within chip designs that can leak , disable systems or grant unauthorized access to attackers.

To test whether AI could facilitate malicious hardware modifications, the researchers organized a competition over two years called the AI Hardware Attack Challenge as part of CSAW, an annual student-run cybersecurity event held by the NYU Center for Cybersecurity.

New Android spyware ClayRat imitates WhatsApp, TikTok, YouTube

A new Android spyware called ClayRat is luring potential victims by posing as popular apps and services like WhatsApp, Google Photos, TikTok, and YouTube.

The malware is targeting Russian users through Telegram channels and malicious websites that appear legitimate. It can steal SMS meessages call logs, notifications, take pictures, and even make phone calls.

Malware researchers at mobile security company Zimperium say that they documented more than 600 samples and 50 distinct droppers over the past three months, indicating an active effort from the attacker to amplify the operation.

Microsoft: Hackers target universities in “payroll pirate” attacks

A cybercrime gang tracked as Storm-2657 has been targeting university employees in the United States to hijack salary payments in “pirate payroll” attacks since March 2025.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence analysts who spotted this campaign found that the threat actors are targeting Workday accounts; however, other third-party human resources (HR) software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms could also be at risk.

“We’ve observed 11 successfully compromised accounts at three universities that were used to send phishing emails to nearly 6,000 email accounts across 25 universities,” Microsoft said in a Thursday report.

New FileFix attack uses cache smuggling to evade security software

A new variant of the FileFix social engineering attack uses cache smuggling to secretly download a malicious ZIP archive onto a victim’s system and bypassing security software.

The new phishing and social engineering attack impersonates a “Fortinet VPN Compliance Checker” and was first spotted by cybersecurity researcher P4nd3m1cb0y, who shared information about it on X.

In a new report by cybersecurity firm Expel, cybersecurity researcher Marcus Hutchins shares more details on how this attack works.

The world’s most sensitive computer code is vulnerable to attack. A new encryption method can help

Nowadays data breaches aren’t rare shocks—they’re a weekly drumbeat. From leaked customer records to stolen source code, our digital lives keep spilling into the open.

Git services are especially vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. These are online hosting platforms that are widely used in the IT industry to collaboratively develop software, and are home to most of the world’s computer code.

Just last week, hackers reportedly stole about 570 gigabytes of data from a git service called GitLab. The stolen data was associated with major companies such as IBM and Siemens, as well as United States government organizations.

Hardware vulnerability allows attackers to hack AI training data

Researchers from NC State University have identified the first hardware vulnerability that allows attackers to compromise the data privacy of artificial intelligence (AI) users by exploiting the physical hardware on which AI is run.

The paper, “GATEBLEED: A Timing-Only Membership Inference Attack, MoE-Routing Inference, and a Stealthy, Generic Magnifier Via Hardware Power Gating in AI Accelerators,” will be presented at the IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO 2025), being held Oct. 18–22 in Seoul, South Korea. The paper is currently available on the arXiv preprint server.

“What we’ve discovered is an AI privacy attack,” says Joshua Kalyanapu, first author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University. “Security attacks refer to stealing things actually stored somewhere in a system’s memory—such as stealing an AI model itself or stealing the hyperparameters of the model. That’s not what we found. Privacy attacks steal stuff not actually stored on the system, such as the data used to train the model and attributes of the data input to the model. These facts are leaked through the behavior of the AI model. What we found is the first vulnerability that allows successfully attacking AI privacy via hardware.”

SHIELD activated: Researchers build defense to protect drones from cyberattacks

Fooled into following a hacker’s rogue commands, a drone is liable to do any number of things. Fly erratically. Speed up. Slow down. Hang suspended in the air. Reverse course. Take a new course. And, most dangerously: Crash.

What the compromised drone cannot do, however, is regain control. Lost to its original assignment—whether it’s delivering a package, inspecting an aging bridge or monitoring the health of crops—the machine is essentially useless.

At FIU, cybersecurity researchers have developed a series of countermeasures to fight back mid-flight against hostile takeovers.

BatShadow Group Uses New Go-Based ‘Vampire Bot’ Malware to Hunt Job Seekers

In October 2024, Cyble also disclosed details of a sophisticated multi-stage attack campaign orchestrated by a Vietnamese threat actor that targeted job seekers and digital marketing professionals with Quasar RAT using phishing emails containing booby-trapped job description files.

BatShadow is assessed to be active for at least a year, with prior campaigns using similar domains, such as samsung-work[.]com, to propagate malware families including Agent Tesla, Lumma Stealer, and Venom RAT.

“The BatShadow threat group continues to employ sophisticated social engineering tactics to target job seekers and digital marketing professionals,” Aryaka said. “By leveraging disguised documents and a multi-stage infection chain, the group delivers a Go-based Vampire Bot capable of system surveillance, data exfiltration, and remote task execution.”

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