Fortinet warns Stealit malware uses Node.js SEA and fake installers to deliver stealers, RATs, and persistence.
Category: cybercrime/malcode – Page 25
Massive multi-country botnet targets RDP services in the US
A large-scale botnet is targeting Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) services in the United States from more than 100,000 IP addresses.
The campaign started on October 8 and based on the source of the IPs, researchers believe the attacks are launched by a multi-country botnet.
RDP is a network protocol that enables remote connection and control of Windows systems. It is typically used by administrators, helpdesk staff, and remote workers.
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 large language models like ChatGPT could help both novices and experts create “hardware Trojans,” malicious modifications hidden within chip designs that can leak sensitive information, 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.”