Hackers are exploiting a macOS Screen Sharing flaw to gain root access and install Monero miners on Macs with port 5900 exposed online. The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre confirmed active exploitation of a critical macOS authentication flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-65400 (CVSS score of 9.8), less than two weeks after Apple shipped the fix. The bug sits in macOS’s built-in Screen Sharing feature, the remote desktop tool baked into every Mac. Apple’s fix improved how the system manages authentication state, closing a gap that let attackers on the network authenticate to Screen Sharing without valid credentials at all. Apple patched this issue with the release of macOS Tahoe 26.6.1, macOS Sequoia 15.7.9, and macOS Sonoma 14.8.9, crediting researcher Alfredo Pesoli (@__rev) at Bynario Atlas (bynar.io) for the discovery. “An attacker on the network may be able to authenticate to Screen Sharing without valid credentials” reads the advisory. That’s a fast, coordinated fix by industry standards. It just wasn’t fast enough to beat whoever started scanning for exposed systems. NCSC-NL says it received reports of active abuse hitting multiple systems where port 5900, the port Screen Sharing runs on, was reachable directly from the internet. “The vulnerability concerns an authentication issue in the Screen Sharing functionality where network attackers can gain access without valid credentials. This is made possible by insufficient state management during the authentication process. As a result, unauthorized individuals can perform authentication attempts that would normally not be accepted.” reads the advisory. “The NCSC has received a security advisory indicating that active exploitation of this vulnerability has been observed on multiple systems where port 5900 was accessible from the internet. In all these cases, root access was obtained on the affected system and a Monero crypto miner was placed.” In every case documented so far, attackers gained root access and dropped a Monero cryptocurrency miner on the compromised machine. Cryptomining is a relatively boring payload compared to what root access on a Mac could actually enable, which makes this look more like opportunistic scanning than a targeted campaign, for now. This flaw sits in the same source code file as two other Screen Sharing bugs Apple patched a month earlier in macOS 26.6, one of them a genuinely pre-authentication flaw that a researcher going by @osxreverser described needing nothing but a target’s IP address to exploit, no password, no username, nothing. That researcher claimed to have found around 40,000 exposed Screen Sharing hosts on the internet during a scan, nearly half of them in the US, spanning residential connections, university networks, and at least a few corporate servers. What ties both bugs together is how mechanically simple they are to trigger. Security firm Calif, which analyzed the flaws, found no memory corruption, no exploitation trickery, no race condition to win, just logic errors that let a couple of correctly ordered packets walk straight past authentication. Calif also said it built a working exploit for both vulnerabilities in about four hours using an AI coding agent, which is the detail that should worry defenders more than the Monero miner itself: the gap between a patch note and a working exploit keeps shrinking, and it’s shrinking because building the exploit barely takes effort anymore. If you’re running a Mac with Screen Sharing enabled and haven’t updated yet, do it now rather than after finishing this article. And if updating isn’t possible immediately, turn Screen Sharing off entirely under General, Sharing, until you can; leaving port 5900 open to the internet at this point is less a risk than an open invitation. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Monero)
GeoServer faces an unpatched zero-day enabling SQL injection and potentially RCE, with attackers already probing exposed systems. A newly disclosed GeoServer zero-day is already attracting active exploitation attempts, and there is no patch available yet. Organisations running the open-source geospatial platform should check their exposure. A security researcher with the handler q1uf3ng discloded the vulnerability that has yet to be assigned a CVE identifier. 实话说今天是非常不开心的一天 实际上最近一段时间我都非常沮丧 各种事情 所以我公布一个0day 希望让你们心情变的开心 GeoServer jsonArrayContains 未授权 SQL 注入 数据库sa的情况下理所当然的可以rce pic.twitter.com/0uTUyMNYU4 — 秋风 (@q1uf3ng) August 12, 2026 The flaw lies in the jsonArrayContains functionality and allows unauthorised SQL injection. Under some configurations, especially where the service can reach a privileged database account, that path may lead to remote code execution The vulnerability has yet to be assigned a CVE identifier. The issue was publicly disclosed on 12 August 2026. Within hours, watchTowr said it had begun seeing exploitation attempts, with hundreds of probes coming from a small number of IP addresses. “Within hours of public disclosure, we began observing exploitation attempts and have since recorded hundreds of attempts originating from a small number of source IP addresses. Yet another example of how quickly attackers move once a vulnerability enters the public domain,” said WatchTowr’s Jake Knott. That timing matters. Once a proof of concept or enough technical detail is public, attackers don’t need to wait for a polished exploit. They can scan broadly, trigger errors, compare responses, and build a list of systems worth revisiting later. It’s reconnaissance with an error message as a compass. Threat actors are probing vulnerable GeoServer systems, but no follow-up activity has been observed yet. However, researchers warn exploitation could soon escalate. “However, this is unlikely to remain the case for long: GeoServer has a track record of being targeted and exploited at scale, with multiple vulnerabilities listed in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog,” Knott added. “With no patch currently available and exploitation already underway, organizations running GeoServer should take this vulnerability seriously and, where possible, identify exposed instances, restrict public access, and monitor for a vendor fix,” Attackers are probing GeoServer systems for the unpatched zero-day, triggering errors to identify vulnerable targets before likely exploitation. GeoServer is a popular platform for publishing and sharing geographic data through web services. It appears in public-sector portals, environmental platforms, mapping projects, utilities, transport systems, research institutions, and internal business applications. That makes a remotely reachable instance more than a technical footnote; it may expose geospatial information, backend services, credentials, or a route into a wider network. The absence of a patch changes the usual response. Teams cannot simply schedule an update and move on. They need to identify every GeoServer instance, determine whether it is internet-facing, restrict access wherever possible, inspect logs for unusual requests and database errors, and limit the permissions available to the application’s database account. This is also not GeoServer’s first encounter with active exploitation. In 2024, attackers used the critical GeoServer GeoTools vulnerability CVE-2024-36401 (CVSS score of 9.8), to pull compromised systems into DDoS and cryptocurrency-mining botnets and residential proxy networks. That history does not prove that every exposed instance will be compromised this time, but it does make complacency hard to defend. The practical priority is exposure reduction. Put GeoServer behind a VPN, a reverse proxy, IP allow-listing, or another access-control layer if the service does not need to be public. If public access is unavoidable, treat it as a temporary high-risk exception, watch it closely, and prepare to apply the vendor fix as soon as it arrives. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, zero-day)
It could soon become easier to identify AI-generated content, even if it's not the usual "It's Not X, it's Y" type of post you'd come across on LinkedIn and other socials. As you may be aware, the EU now requires AI companies serving its market to mark their AI-generated content so it's easier to identify. Anthropic and several other major AI providers have agreed to comply with the EU's Code of Practice, with Anthropic becoming one of the first companies to share details about how it will implement watermarking across Claude. Anthropic has also confirmed that a regular user won't be able to see the watermark. According to the company, it has no practical impact on the quality or content of Claude's output, including creativity and readability. For those unaware, invisible watermarking and provenance systems are already being used for some AI-generated images, and text-based output will now follow a similar concept, although the underlying implementation is different.
Four cybercriminals were arrested in Brazil, and three others were charged in Europe over allegations that they exploited a vulnerability at a service provider, allowing them to withdraw funds from Commerzbank customers’ bank accounts. The theft, investigated by the Brazilian and German federal police agencies, occurred over four days in November 2023 and caused losses of around €30 million ($34.6 million). While neither the Brazilian Federal Police nor Germany's BKA named the affected German financial institution, Brazilian media identified it as Commerzbank, a major European financial institution that generates more than €11.1 billion ($12.8 billion) in annual revenue. In a statement for BleepingComputer, the bank confirmed that its clients were impacted by the fraudulent activity but customers suffered no financial losses.
Apple warns users of credible, targeted attacks and urges immediate verification, stronger protections, and expert assistance. Apple has sent a new round of threat notifications to users it believes may have been singled out by mercenary spyware. The company told TechCrunch the latest alerts reached people in 110 countries, adding to notifications it has already issued in more than 150 countries since the programme began in 2021. “Apple threat notifications are designed to inform and assist users who may have been individually targeted by mercenary spyware attacks, likely because of who they are or what they do. Such attacks are vastly more sophisticated than regular cybercriminal activity, as mercenary spyware attackers apply exceptional resources to target a very small number of specific individuals and their devices.” reads the alert. “Mercenary spyware attacks cost millions of dollars and often have a short shelf life, making them much harder to detect and prevent. The vast majority of users will never be targeted by such attacks.” That alone should reset the usual mental model. This isn’t about a suspicious app, a recycled phishing email, or the kind of opportunistic malware that lands wherever it can. Apple’s alerts concern highly targeted attacks against particular people, often because of their role, their work, or the people they know. The people most likely to receive these notifications include journalists, activists, politicians, diplomats, lawyers, and others whose devices may hold valuable conversations, contacts, documents, or location data. That does not mean every recipient has been fully compromised, but it does mean Apple has observed enough to treat the risk as credible. Apple has also changed how it delivers those alerts. A recipient may see a push notification directly on the iPhone lock screen and in Settings, receive an email from threat-notifications@email.apple.com, and find a warning banner after signing in to their Apple Account. The company says genuine notices will never ask users to click a link, open a file, install a profile, or provide a password or verification code by email or phone. “Apple relies solely on internal threat-intelligence information and investigations to detect such attacks. Although our investigations can never achieve absolute certainty, Apple threat notifications are high-confidence alerts that a user has been individually targeted by a mercenary spyware attack, and should be taken very seriously.” continues the report. “We are unable to provide information about what causes us to issue threat notifications, as that may help mercenary spyware attackers adapt their behavior to evade detection in the future.” That lack of detail can frustrate recipients. They want to know who targeted them, how the device was approached, and whether the attacker got in. Apple can’t safely answer most of those questions in public, because publishing the detection logic would give spyware vendors a free quality-assurance report. Nobody needs to make Pegasus-style operators more efficient. If you receive the warning, don’t panic and don’t start improvising. First, verify it by signing in directly at account.apple.com: a genuine Apple threat notification appears at the top of the page. Then preserve the device, avoid unnecessary resets or changes until you have spoken to someone qualified, and seek expert help, such as the Digital Security Helpline run by Access Now. Apple recommends enabling Lockdown Mode, its high-security setting designed to reduce the attack surface available to sophisticated spyware. It also advises keeping devices updated, using a strong passcode with Touch ID or Face ID, turning on two-factor authentication, enabling Stolen Device Protection, using strong and unique passwords or passkeys, installing apps only through the App Store, and treating unexpected links or attachments as hostile until proven otherwise. “Since 2021, we have sent Apple threat notifications multiple times a year as we have detected these attacks, and to date we have notified users in over 150 countries in total. The extreme cost, sophistication, and worldwide nature of mercenary spyware attacks make them some of the most advanced digital threats in existence today.” states the alert. “As a result, Apple does not attribute the attacks or resulting threat notifications to any specific attackers or geographical regions.” The wider value of these alerts goes beyond the device in front of the recipient. Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton told TechCrunch that notifications can reveal that an entire community is being targeted, because people who receive them often seek help and their cases lead investigators to others. Most people will never receive one of these warnings. Apple says that plainly, and it is worth repeating because not every cybersecurity story needs to become a universal panic. But if your phone shows an Apple notice saying it detected a targeted mercenary spyware attack, assume it matters until an expert tells you otherwise. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Apple)
The Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is warning that hackers are actively exploiting a macOS authentication bypass vulnerability after public exploit code emerged. The security issue lies in macOS Screen Sharing, a built-in remote desktop feature that allows remote desktop control over a network, using the VNC protocol over TCP port 5900. Apple fixed CVE-2026-65400 on August 6 in macOS Tahoe 26.6.1 and earlier releases. The flaw allows network-based attackers to gain access without valid credentials. An attacker could use this access to open applications remotely, access files, change security settings, and perform various other actions. In an update to the initial advisory, the Dutch agency said it received a report indicating that the vulnerability is being exploited in the wild in attacks where port 5900 is exposed to the internet.
Google Workspace attacks do not always begin with phishing. Stolen OAuth tokens can provide another path into Gmail, Drive, and connected systems. Material Security explains why organizations need defenses that cover the entire Workspace attack chain.
A maximum-severity SAP Commerce Cloud remote code execution vulnerability patched three days ago is already being targeted in attacks, according to threat intelligence company Defused. Commerce Cloud (formerly known as SAP Hybris) is a cloud-based e-commerce platform used by online stores owned by high-profile global brands and large retailers. Tracked as CVE-2026-58231, this critical flaw stems from an improper authorization weakness in the core Data Hub Adapter extension for Commerce Cloud that threat actors without privileges can exploit in low-complexity attacks to execute arbitrary code. "SAP Commerce Cloud allows an unauthenticated attacker to abuse a default authentication client and submit specially crafted input to certain functions lacking sufficient validation," SAP explains. "Successful exploitation could enable arbitrary code execution and compromise internal components, resulting in high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the application."
Oil giant Shell has confirmed it is investigating a potential security incident after the Clop ransomware gang claimed it stole 89GB of data. Shell is a British multinational energy conglomerate and one of the world's top three oil and gas companies, after Chevron and ExxonMobil. It has 85,000 employees in more than 70 countries and operates a massive network of tens of thousands of service and recharge stations that serve over 20 million customers daily. According to a recent post on Clop's dark web data leak site, the allegedly stolen files include engineering drawings, scans of facility testing reports, photos of the facilities, and project plans. "We are aware of a potential incident. We are working with our security teams and relevant experts to investigate," a Shell spokesperson told BleepingComputer when asked to confirm Clop's data theft claims.
The ShinyHunters extortion group stole personal information from 1.6 million RingCentral accounts after hacking the company in July, according to the data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. RingCentral is a cloud-based collaboration and communication platform used by over 600,000 businesses for services such as calling, messaging, and voicemail. The company disclosed the incident on July 28, revealing that its systems were compromised following what it described as a "sophisticated social engineering campaign." "We have not seen any new unauthorized activity since taking these remediation efforts. To date, this incident has affected data for a limited portion of RingCentral customers, and we are communicating with affected customers directly," it noted. "If you are not contacted by RingCentral, you are not affected. This incident did not impact the core RingCentral platform, and our services continue to operate without disruption."
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