F5 Breached, Linux Rootkits, Pixnapping Assault, EtherHiding & Extra

It is easy to suppose your defenses are strong — till you notice attackers have been inside them the entire time. The most recent incidents present that long-term, silent breaches have gotten the norm. One of the best protection now is not simply patching quick, however watching smarter and staying alert for what you do not count on.

This is a fast take a look at this week’s high threats, new ways, and safety tales shaping the panorama.

⚡ Risk of the Week

F5 Uncovered to Nation-State Breach — F5 disclosed that unidentified risk actors broke into its programs and stole recordsdata containing a few of BIG-IP’s supply code and knowledge associated to undisclosed vulnerabilities within the product. The corporate stated it realized of the incident on August 9, 2025, though it is believed that the attackers had been in its community for at the least 12 months. The attackers are stated to have used a malware household known as BRICKSTORM, which is attributed to a China-nexus espionage group dubbed UNC5221. GreyNoise stated it noticed elevated scanning exercise focusing on BIG-IP in three waves on September 23, October 14, and October 15, 2025, however emphasised the anomalies might not essentially relate to the hack. Censys stated it recognized over 680,000 F5 BIG-IP load balancers and utility gateways seen on the general public web, with nearly all of hosts positioned within the U.S., adopted by Germany, France, Japan, and China. Not all recognized programs are essentially weak, however every represents a publicly accessible interface that must be inventoried, access-restricted, and patched proactively as a precautionary measure. “Edge infrastructure and safety distributors stay prime targets for long-term, usually state-linked risk actors,” John Fokker, vice chairman of risk intelligence technique at Trellix, stated. “Through the years, we now have seen nation-state curiosity in exploiting vulnerabilities in edge units, recognizing their strategic place in international networks. Incidents like these remind us that strengthening collective resilience requires not solely hardened expertise but additionally open collaboration and intelligence sharing throughout the safety group.”

• N. Korea Makes use of EtherHiding to Cover Malware Inside Blockchain Good Contracts — North Korean risk actors have been noticed leveraging the EtherHiding method to distribute malware and allow cryptocurrency theft, marking the primary time a state-sponsored hacking group has embraced the strategy. The exercise has been attributed to a cluster tracked as UNC5342 (aka Well-known Chollima). The assault wave is a part of a long-running marketing campaign codenamed Contagious Interview, whereby the attackers method potential targets on LinkedIn by posing as recruiters or hiring managers, and trick them into working malicious code beneath the pretext of a job evaluation after shifting the dialog to Telegram or Discord. Within the newest assault waves noticed since February 2025, the risk actors use a JavaScript downloader that interacts with a malicious BSC good contract to obtain JADESNOW, which subsequently queries the transaction historical past related to an Ethereum handle to fetch the JavaScript model of InvisibleFerret.
• LinkPro Linux Rootkit Noticed within the Wild — An investigation into the compromise of an Amazon Internet Providers (AWS)-hosted infrastructure led to the invention of a brand new GNU/Linux rootkit dubbed LinkPro. The backdoor options functionalities counting on the set up of two prolonged Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) modules to hide itself and to be remotely activated upon receiving a magic packet – a TCP SYN packet with a particular window measurement (54321) that indicators the rootkit to await additional directions inside a one-hour window, permitting it to evade conventional safety defenses. The instructions supported by LinkPro embody executing /bin/bash in a pseudo-terminal, working a shell command, enumerating recordsdata and directories, performing file operations, downloading recordsdata, and establishing a SOCKS5 proxy tunnel. It is at present not recognized who’s behind the assault, but it surely’s suspected that the risk actors are financially motivated.
• Zero Disco Marketing campaign Targets Cisco Units with Rootkits — A brand new marketing campaign has exploited a just lately disclosed safety flaw impacting Cisco IOS Software program and IOS XE Software program to deploy Linux rootkits on older, unprotected programs. The exercise, codenamed Operation Zero Disco by Development Micro, entails the weaponization of CVE-2025-20352 (CVSS rating: 7.7), a stack overflow vulnerability within the Easy Community Administration Protocol (SNMP) subsystem that would enable an authenticated, distant attacker to execute arbitrary code by sending crafted SNMP packets to a prone machine. The operation primarily impacted Cisco 9400, 9300, and legacy 3750G collection units, Development Micro stated. The intrusions haven’t been attributed to any recognized risk actor or group.
• Pixnapping Assault Results in Information Theft on Android Units — Android units from Google and Samsung have been discovered weak to a side-channel assault that might be exploited to covertly steal two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, Google Maps timelines, and different delicate information with out the customers’ information pixel-by-pixel. The assault has been codenamed Pixnapping. Google is monitoring the problem beneath the CVE identifier CVE-2025-48561 (CVSS rating: 5.5). Patches for the vulnerability had been issued by the tech big as a part of its September 2025 Android Safety Bulletin, with further fixes forthcoming in December.
• Chinese language Risk Actors Exploited ArcGIS Server as Backdoor — Risk actors with ties to China have been attributed to a novel marketing campaign that compromised an ArcGIS system and turned it right into a backdoor for greater than a 12 months. The exercise is the handiwork of a Chinese language state-sponsored hacking group known as Flax Hurricane, which can also be tracked as Ethereal Panda and RedJuliett. “The group cleverly modified a geo-mapping utility’s Java server object extension (SOE) right into a functioning internet shell,” ReliaQuest stated. “By gating entry with a hardcoded key for unique management and embedding it in system backups, they achieved deep, long-term persistence that would survive a full system restoration.” The assault chain concerned the risk actors focusing on a public-facing ArcGIS server that was linked to a non-public, inside ArcGIS server by compromising a portal administrator account to deploy a malicious SOE, thereby permitting them to mix in with regular site visitors and preserve entry for prolonged intervals. The attackers then instructed the public-facing server to create a hidden listing to function the group’s “non-public workspace.” Additionally they blocked entry to different attackers and admins with a hard-coded key. The findings exhibit Flax Hurricane’s constant modus operandi of quietly turning a company’s personal instruments in opposition to itself somewhat than utilizing refined malware or exploits.

‎️‍🔥 Trending CVEs

Hackers transfer quick. They usually exploit new vulnerabilities inside hours, turning a single missed patch into a serious breach. One unpatched CVE will be all it takes for a full compromise. Beneath are this week’s most crucial vulnerabilities gaining consideration throughout the trade. Evaluation them, prioritize your fixes, and shut the hole earlier than attackers take benefit.

This week’s checklist consists of — CVE-2025-24990, CVE-2025-59230 (Microsoft Home windows), CVE-2025-47827 (IGEL OS earlier than 11), CVE-2023-42770, CVE-2023-40151 (Crimson Lion Sixnet RTUs), CVE-2025-2611 (ICTBroadcast), CVE-2025-55315 (Microsoft ASP.NET Core), CVE-2025-11577 (Clevo UEFI firmware), CVE-2025-37729 (Elastic Cloud Enterprise), CVE-2025-9713, CVE-2025-11622 (Ivanti Endpoint Supervisor), CVE-2025-48983, CVE-2025-48984 (Veeam), CVE-2025-11756 (Google Chrome), CVE-2025-49201 (Fortinet FortiPAM and FortiSwitch Supervisor), CVE-2025-58325 (Fortinet FortiOS CLI), CVE-2025-49553 (Adobe Join collaboration suite), CVE-2025-9217 (Slider Revolution plugin), CVE-2025-10230 (Samba), CVE-2025-54539 (Apache ActiveMQ), CVE-2025-41703, CVE-2025-41704, CVE-2025-41706, CVE-2025-41707 (Phoenix Contact QUINT4), and CVE-2025-11492, CVE-2025-11493 (ConnectWise Automate).

📰 Across the Cyber World

• Microsoft Unveils New Safety Enhancements — Microsoft revealed that “elements of the kernel in Home windows 11 have been rewritten in Rust, which helps mitigate in opposition to reminiscence corruption vulnerabilities like buffer overflows and helps cut back assault surfaces.” The corporate additionally famous that it is taking steps to safe AI-powered agentic experiences on the working system by guaranteeing that they function with restricted permissions and solely receive entry to sources customers’ explicitly present permission to. As well as, Microsoft stated brokers that combine with Home windows should be cryptographically signed by a trusted supply in order that they are often revoked if discovered to be malicious. Every AI agent may also run beneath its personal devoted agent account that is distinct from the person account on the machine. “This facilitates agent-specific coverage utility that may be completely different from the principles utilized to different accounts like these for human customers,” it stated.
• web optimization Marketing campaign Makes use of Pretend Ivanti Installers to Steal Credentials — A brand new assault marketing campaign has leveraged web optimization poisoning to lure customers into downloading a malicious model of the Ivanti Pulse Safe VPN consumer. The exercise targets customers looking for reputable software program on serps like Bing, redirecting them to attacker-controlled lookalike web sites (ivanti-pulsesecure[.]com or ivanti-secure-access[.]org). The objective of this assault is to steal VPN credentials from the sufferer’s machine, enabling additional compromise. “The malicious installer, a signed MSI file, incorporates a credential-stealing DLL designed to find, parse, and exfiltrate VPN connection particulars,” Zscaler stated. “The malware particularly targets the connectionstore.dat file to steal saved VPN server URIs, which it combines with hardcoded credentials for exfiltration. Information is shipped to a command-and-control (C2) server hosted on Microsoft Azure infrastructure.”
• Qilin’s Ties with BPH Suppliers Uncovered — Cybersecurity researchers from Resecurity examined Qilin ransomware group’s “shut affiliation” with underground bulletproof internet hosting (BPH) operators, discovering that the e-crime actor has not solely relied on Cat Applied sciences Co. Restricted. (which, in flip, is hosted on an IP handle tied to Aeza Group) for internet hosting its information leak website, but additionally marketed companies like BEARHOST Servers (aka Underground) on its WikiLeaksV2 website, the place the group publishes content material about their actions. BEARHOST has been operational since 2016, providing its companies for anyplace from $95 to $500. Whereas BEARHOST abruptly introduced the stoppage of its service on December 28, 2024, it’s assessed that the risk actors have taken the BPH service into non-public mode, catering solely to trusted and vetted underground actors. On Could 8, 2025, it resurfaced as Voodoo Servers, just for the operators to terminate the service once more in the direction of the top of the month, citing political causes. “The actors determined to vanish by way of an ‘exit rip-off’ state of affairs, protecting the underground viewers fully clueless,” Resecurity stated. “Notably, the authorized entities behind the service proceed their operations.” Notably, Cat Applied sciences Co. Restricted. additionally shares hyperlinks to shadowy entities like Crimson Bytes LLC, Hostway, Starcrecium Restricted, and Chang Method Applied sciences Co. Restricted, the final of which has been related to intensive malware exercise, internet hosting command-and-control (C2) servers of Amadey, StealC, and Cobalt Strike utilized by cybercriminals. One other entity of observe is Subsequent Restricted, which shares the identical Hong Kong handle as Chang Method Applied sciences Co. Restricted and has been attributed to malicious exercise in reference to Proton66.
• U.S. Choose Bars NSO Group from Focusing on WhatsApp — A U.S. choose barred NSO Group from focusing on WhatsApp customers and lower the punitive damages verdict awarded to Meta by a jury in Could 2025 to $4 million, as a result of the court docket didn’t have sufficient proof to find out that NSO Group’s habits was “significantly egregious.” The everlasting injunction handed out by U.S. District Choose Phyllis Hamilton implies that the Israeli vendor can not use WhatsApp as a approach to infect targets’ units. As a refresher, Meta sued the NSO Group in 2019 over the usage of Pegasus spy ware by exploiting a then-zero-day flaw within the messaging app to spy on 1,400 individuals from 20 nations, together with journalists and human rights activists. It was fined near $168 million earlier this Could. The proposed injunction requires NSO Group to delete and destroy laptop code associated to Meta’s platforms, and she or he concluded that the availability is “needed to stop future violations, particularly given the undetectable nature of defendants’ expertise.”
• Google’s Privateness Sandbox Initiative is Formally Lifeless — In 2019, Google launched an initiative known as Privateness Sandbox to give you privacy-enhancing options to interchange third-party cookies on the net. Nevertheless, with the corporate abandoning its plans to deprecate third-party monitoring cookies, the challenge seems to be winding down. To that finish, the tech big stated it is retiring the next Privateness Sandbox applied sciences citing low ranges of adoption: Attribution Reporting API (Chrome and Android), IP Safety, On-Machine Personalization, Personal Aggregation (together with Shared Storage), Protected Viewers (Chrome and Android), Protected App Alerts, Associated Web site Units (together with requestStorageAccessFor and Associated Web site Partition), SelectURL, SDK Runtime and Matters (Chrome and Android). In a press release shared with Adweek, the corporate stated it should proceed to work to enhance privateness throughout Chrome, Android, and the online, however not beneath the Privateness Sandbox branding.
• Russia Blocks Overseas SIM Playing cards — Russia stated it is taking steps to quickly block cell web for international SIM playing cards, citing nationwide safety causes. The brand new rule imposes a compulsory 24-hour cell web blackout for anybody getting into Russia with a international SIM card.
• Flaw in CORS headers in Internet Browsers Disclosed — The CERT Coordination Heart (CERT/CC) disclosed particulars of a vulnerability in cross-origin useful resource sharing (CORS) headers in Chromium, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Firefox that allows the CORS coverage to be manipulated. This may be mixed with DNS rebinding strategies to problem arbitrary requests to companies listening on arbitrary ports, whatever the CORS coverage in place by the goal. “An attacker can use a malicious website to execute a JavaScript payload that periodically sends CORS headers in an effort to ask the server if the cross-origin request is protected and allowed,” CERT/CC defined. “Naturally, the attacker-controlled hostname will reply with permissive CORS headers that may circumvent the CORS coverage. The attacker then performs a DNS rebinding assault in order that the hostname is assigned the IP handle of the goal service. After the DNS responds with the modified IP handle, the brand new goal inherits the relaxed CORS coverage, permitting an attacker to doubtlessly exfiltrate information from the goal.” Mozilla is monitoring the vulnerability as CVE-2025-8036.
• Phishing Campaigns Use Microsoft’s Emblem for Tech Help Scams — Risk actors are exploiting Microsoft’s Identify and branding in phishing emails to lure customers into fraudulent tech help scams. The messages comprise hyperlinks that, when clicked, take the victims to a pretend CAPTCHA problem, after which they’re redirected to a phishing touchdown web page to unleash the following stage of the assault. “After passing the captcha verification, the sufferer is abruptly visually overloaded with a number of pop-ups that seem like Microsoft safety alerts,” Cofense stated. “Their browser is manipulated to look locked, they usually lose the power to find or management their mouse, which provides to the sensation that the system is compromised. This involuntary lack of management creates a pretend ransomware expertise, main the person to imagine their laptop is locked and to take rapid motion to treatment the an infection.” From there, customers are instructed to name a quantity to succeed in Home windows Help, at which they’re linked to a bogus technician to take the assault ahead. “The risk actor may exploit additional by asking the person to offer account credentials or persuade the person to put in distant desktop instruments, permitting full entry to their system,” the corporate stated.
• Taxpayers, Drivers Focused in Refund and Street Toll Smishing Scams — A smishing marketing campaign has leveraged at the least 850 newly-registered domains in September and early October to focus on individuals residing within the U.S., the U.Ok., and elsewhere with phishing hyperlinks that use tax refunds, highway toll fees, or failed package deal deliveries as a lure. The web sites, designed to be loaded solely when launched from a cell machine, declare to offer details about their tax refund standing or receive a subsidy of as much as £300 to assist offset winter gas prices (observe: it is a actual U.Ok. authorities initiative), solely to immediate them to offer private particulars resembling identify, house handle, phone quantity and electronic mail handle, in addition to cost card info. The entered information is exfiltrated to the attackers over the WebSocket protocol. Among the rip-off web sites have additionally been discovered to focus on Canadian, German, and Spanish residents and guests, per Netcraft.
• Meta’s New Collage Characteristic Could Use Pictures in Telephone’s Digicam Roll — Meta is formally rolling out a brand new opt-in characteristic to Fb customers within the U.S. and Canada to recommend one of the best photographs and movies from customers’ digital camera roll and create collages and edits. “Together with your permission and the assistance of AI, our new characteristic permits Fb to routinely floor hidden gems – these memorable moments that get misplaced amongst screenshots, receipts, and random snaps – and edit them to avoid wasting or share,” the corporate stated. The characteristic was first examined again in late June 2025. The social media firm emphasised that the recommendations are non-public and that it doesn’t use media obtained from customers’ units by way of the digital camera roll to coach its fashions, except customers decide to edit the media with their AI instruments or publish these recommendations to Fb. Customers who want to decide out of the characteristic can achieve this by navigating Settings and Privateness > Settings > Preferences > Digicam Roll Sharing Solutions.
• Pretend Homebrew, TradingView, LogMeIn Websites Serve Stealer Malware Focusing on Macs — Risk actors are using social engineering ways to trick customers into visiting pretend web sites impersonating trusted platforms like as Homebrew, TradingView, and LogMeIn, the place they’re instructed to repeat and run a malicious command on the Terminal app as a part of ClickFix-style assaults, ensuing within the deployment of stealer malware resembling Atomic Stealer and Odyssey Stealer. “Greater than 85 phishing domains had been recognized, linked by way of shared SSL certificates, payload servers, and reused infrastructure,” Hunt.io stated. “The findings recommend a coordinated and ongoing marketing campaign during which operators repeatedly adapt their infrastructure and ways to keep up persistence and evade detection throughout the macOS ecosystem.” It is suspected that customers are pushed to those web sites by way of sponsored advertisements on serps like Bing and Google.
• Dutch Information Safety Watchdog Fines Experian $3.2 Million for Privateness Violations — The Dutch Information Safety Authority (DPA) imposed a positive of €2.7 million ($3.2 million) on Experian Netherlands for gathering information in contravention of the E.U. Common Information Safety Regulation (GDPR). The DPA stated the patron credit score reporting firm gathered info on individuals from each public and personal sources and did not make it clear why the gathering of sure information was needed. Along with the penalty, Experian is predicted to delete the database of private information by the top of the 12 months. The corporate has additionally ceased its operations within the nation. “Till January 1, 2025, Experian supplied credit score assessments about people to its purchasers,” the DPA stated. “To do that, the corporate collected information resembling adverse cost habits, excellent money owed, or bankruptcies. The AP discovered that Experian violated the legislation by unlawfully utilizing private information.”
• Risk Actors Ship Pretend Password Supervisor Breach Alerts — Dangerous actors are sending phishing alerts claiming that their password supervisor accounts for 1Password and Lastpass have been compromised in an effort to trick customers into offering their passwords and hijack their accounts. In response to the assault, LastPass stated it has not been hacked and that it is an try on the a part of the attackers to generate a false sense of urgency. In some circumstances noticed by Bleeping Pc, the exercise has additionally been discovered to induce recipients to put in a safer model of the password supervisor, ensuing within the deployment of a reputable distant entry software program known as Syncro. The software program vendor has since moved to close down the malicious accounts to stop additional installs.
• SocGholish MaaS Detailed — LevelBlue has revealed an evaluation of a risk exercise cluster often called SocGholish (aka FakeUpdates), which is understood to be energetic since 2017, leveraging pretend internet browser replace prompts on compromised web sites as a lure to distribute malware. Victims are sometimes routed by way of Visitors Distribution Programs (TDS) like Keitaro and Parrot TDS to filter customers primarily based on particular components resembling geography, browser kind, or system configuration, guaranteeing that solely the supposed targets are uncovered to the payload. It is supplied beneath a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) by a financially motivated cybercrime group known as TA569. SocGholish stands out for its means to show reputable web sites into large-scale distribution platforms for malware. Performing as an preliminary entry dealer (IAB), its operations revenue from follow-on compromises by different actors. “As soon as executed, its payloads vary from loaders and stealers to ransomware, permitting for intensive follow-up exploitation,” LevelBlue stated. “This mixture of broad attain, easy supply mechanisms, and versatile use by a number of teams makes SocGholish a persistent and harmful risk throughout industries and areas.” One in all its main customers is Evil Corp, with the malware additionally used to ship RansomHub in early 2025.

🎥 Cybersecurity Webinars

• The Sensible Framework to Govern AI Brokers With out Slowing Innovation → AI is altering the whole lot quick — however for many safety groups, it nonetheless appears like a struggle simply to maintain up. The objective is not to gradual innovation with extra controls; it is to make these controls work for the enterprise. By constructing safety into AI from the beginning, you possibly can flip what was once a bottleneck into an actual accelerator for progress and belief.
• The Way forward for AI in GRC: Turning Threat Right into a Compliance Benefit – AI is altering how firms handle threat and compliance — quick. It brings huge alternatives but additionally new challenges. This webinar exhibits you methods to use AI safely and successfully in GRC, keep away from widespread errors, and switch advanced guidelines into an actual enterprise benefit.
• Workflow Readability: The best way to Mix AI and Human Effort for Actual Outcomes – Too many groups are speeding to “add AI” with no plan — and ending up with messy, unreliable workflows. Be a part of us to be taught a clearer method: methods to use AI thoughtfully, simplify automation, and construct programs that scale securely.

🔧 Cybersecurity Instruments

• Beelzebub – It turns honeypot deployment into a robust, low-code expertise. It makes use of AI to simulate actual programs, serving to safety groups detect assaults, monitor rising threats, and share insights by way of a worldwide risk intelligence community.
• NetworkHound – It maps your Lively Listing community from the within out. It discovers each machine — domain-joined or shadow-IT — validates SMB and internet companies, and builds a full BloodHound-compatible graph so you possibly can see and safe your setting clearly.

Disclaimer: These instruments are for academic and analysis use solely. They have not been absolutely security-tested and will pose dangers if used incorrectly. Evaluation the code earlier than making an attempt them, take a look at solely in protected environments, and comply with all moral, authorized, and organizational guidelines.

🔒 Tip of the Week

Most Cloud Breaches Aren’t Hacks — They’re Misconfigurations. This is The best way to Repair Them — Cloud storage buckets like AWS S3, Azure Blob, and Google Cloud Storage make information sharing straightforward — however one improper setting can expose the whole lot. Most information leaks occur not due to hacking, however as a result of somebody left a public bucket, skipped encryption, or used a take a look at bucket that by no means received locked down. Cloud platforms provide you with flexibility, not assured security, so you might want to verify and management entry your self.

Misconfigurations normally occur when permissions are too broad, encryption is disabled, or visibility is misplaced throughout a number of clouds. Doing guide checks would not scale — particularly if you happen to handle information in AWS, Azure, and GCP. The repair is utilizing instruments that routinely discover, report, and even repair unsafe settings earlier than they trigger injury.

ScoutSuite is a robust start line for cross-cloud visibility. It scans AWS, Azure, and GCP for open buckets, weak IAM roles, and lacking encryption, then creates an easy-to-read HTML report. **Prowler** goes deeper into AWS, checking S3 settings in opposition to CIS and AWS benchmarks to catch unhealthy ACLs or unencrypted buckets.

For ongoing management, Cloud Custodian permits you to write easy insurance policies that routinely implement guidelines — for instance, forcing all new buckets to make use of encryption. And CloudQuery can flip your cloud setup right into a searchable database, so you possibly can monitor modifications, monitor compliance, and visualize dangers in a single place.

One of the best method is to mix them: run ScoutSuite or Prowler weekly to search out points, and let Cloud Custodian deal with automated fixes. Even a couple of hours spent setting these up can cease the type of information leaks that make headlines. At all times assume each bucket is public till confirmed in any other case — and safe it like it’s.

Conclusion

The reality is, no software or patch will ever make us absolutely safe. What issues most is consciousness — understanding what’s regular, what’s altering, and the way attackers suppose. Each alert, log, or minor anomaly is a clue. Maintain connecting these dots earlier than another person does.