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WordlistLoader Delivers Amatera via ClickFix, SynkLoader Phishes Windows Passwords

This leads to the execution of a VBScript loader that decodes and runs PowerShell designed to fetch a JPEG image from an image-hosting service and extract it from the stealer payload in memory to minimize on-disk artifacts and complicate detection and analysis.

“The primary purpose of WordlistLoader, an intermediate stage in the Amatera infection chain, is to reconstruct a shellcode that serves as the entry point for subsequent stages,” Gen Digital said. At the same time, it employs a hardware-breakpoint-based method to bypass Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) and avoid leaving traces of malicious activity.

WordlistLoader gets its name from the fact that the shellcode is stored in encoded form as a sequence of plain English words, with each word representing one byte. Gen said it also identified a variant that replaces the wordlist with an array of 16-byte UUID-encoded chunks.

Operation QUICSILVER Targets Myanmar Government and IT with QUICAgent Backdoor

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a cyber espionage campaign targeting Myanmar that uses graduation ceremony invitation lures to deliver a Go backdoor called QUICAgent.

The campaign, codenamed Operation QUICSILVER, has been found to target government and information technology sectors, per Seqrite Labs. The activity is assessed to be the work of a China-nexus threat actor with moderate confidence.

It was first observed in April 2026, when the attack was observed delivering a file named “HolidayNotice.pdf.exe” along with a lure that was a fabricated Belgian–Myanmar public holiday calendar. Two subsequent artifacts, each detected in June and July 2026, make use of a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file that activates the infection chain.

UAT10147 Uses AI to Scale Server Attacks, Deploys SPECTRE With EDR Bypass and Linux Rootkit

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a Chinese-speaking cybercrime group dubbed UAT-10147 that’s targeting Windows and Linux web servers globally across the education, media, technology, and gaming sectors.

The vast majority of the targets are located in Brazil, Bolivia, China, Canada, and Vietnam. Details of the threat activity came to light following the discovery of an open directory hosted at “139.180.197[.]150,” which was observed communicating with one of the compromised machines.

“The actor leveraged publicly disclosed vulnerabilities to gain initial access at scale,” Cisco Talos said in a two-part report published last week. The actor employed a mixture of open-source offensive frameworks, including Metasploit, ysoserial, PentestGPT, DeepAudit, and multiple privilege escalation exploits to automate intrusion operations and establish persistence.”

Microsoft shares temporary fix for Windows 11 gaming issues

Microsoft has shared a temporary fix for ongoing gaming issues caused by Windows 11 updates released during the August 2026 Patch Tuesday.

On impacted PCs, users reported games crashing or failing to launch, as well as game freezes, “EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION” errors, and even unexpected system restarts.

When it confirmed it was investigating this known issue on Wednesday, Microsoft said it affects games like ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and The Finals on systems running Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2.

Hackers target WordPress sites in miniOrange auth bypass attacks

Hackers are attempting to exploit two critical authentication bypass vulnerabilities in the miniOrange SAML 2.0 Single Sign On plugin for WordPress that can be used to forge SAML responses and log in as administrators.

The miniOrange SAML SSO plugin turns a WordPress site into a SAML service provider, letting users log in through corporate identity platforms such as Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, Google Workspace, or OneLogin instead of separate WordPress credentials.

Created by Xecurify, miniOrange is a family of seven plugins, with a free version that has 10,000 downloads and 30,000 customers for the other six.

Common medications may change your gut for years

Common medications may reshape the gut microbiome long after the last dose is taken. In a study of more than 2,500 people, researchers found lasting microbial changes linked not only to antibiotics, but also to antidepressants, beta-blockers, acid-reducing drugs, and benzodiazepines. Some effects were still detectable years later, suggesting past medication use may strongly influence the gut bacteria people carry today.

NASA’s Roman Telescope Enclosed in SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Fairing

Teams have finished preparing NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope for launch. On Aug. 21, the team encapsulated the observatory inside the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket’s fairing in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The 43-foot-tall fairing encloses the spacecraft and is mounted atop the Falcon Heavy rocket. On the ground, the fairing and its ground support equipment maintain a safe, controlled environment for Roman and allow the team to transport it out of the facility.

During ascent, the fairing protects Roman from acoustic vibrations, aerodynamic pressure, and heating as the rocket travels through Earth’s atmosphere. A few minutes into the flight, once conditions are safe, the fairing separates, allowing Roman to continue its journey toward its destination at Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2). Meanwhile, the two fairing halves will return to Earth and be recovered by SpaceX.

Living circuit boards built by printing bacterial transistors

It points toward a future in which computation isn’t necessarily confined to silicon. Instead, we could build living materials that sense, communicate, compute, and respond—with the “circuit board” itself made of living cells.

Electronic circuit boards carry out different operations on the basis of the configuration of their components. Now, equivalent biological circuits are engineered that compute functions on the basis of the spatial arrangement of different bacterial strains printed on a surface.

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