A new information-stealing malware called AmnesiaStealer, which targets macOS users via ClickFix attacks, includes a streaming module that allows the attacker to interactively control the victim's web browser. A notable capability is copying the victim's Chromium profile, including its authentication state, and loading it into a hidden, headless browser on the infected system. This allows the hacker to access victims' authenticated sessions while preserving the identifiers associated with the browser, host, and network. AmnesiaStealer can collect data in 16 Chromium-based web browsers as well as other sensitive information, such as passwords, cryptocurrency wallets, Apple Notes and documents, and keychain data. The malware is currently distributed through ClickFix campaigns that use a fake GitHub download page to drop a password-protected ZIP archive.
A new round of the weekly Security Affairs newsletter has arrived! Every week, the best security articles from Security Affairs are free in your email box. Enjoy a new round of the weekly SecurityAffairs newsletter, including international press. Crooks Are Buying Your Expired Domains and Using Them to Deliver MalwareSAP Commerce Cloud CVE-2026-58231 Exploited in the WildmacOS Screen Sharing Flaw Exploited to Deploy Monero MinersGeoServer Zero-Day Is Already Being Probed. That’s the ProblemApple warned hundreds of users of mercenary spyware attacksAmnesiaStealer Gives Attackers Live Control of Victims’ macOS BrowsersChess.com Leak Exposes 7.3 Million Users – Evidence Points to ScrapingUS Authorizes Private Cyber Firms to Hack Transnational Criminal NetworksAdobe Commerce CVE-2026-71362 Comes Under Attack Shortly After Public DisclosureU.S. CISA adds Metabase, Windows, and Cisco Secure Firewall flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogSharePoint CVE-2026-55040 Comes Under Attack Following Public ExploitStorm-1175 Replaces Medusa With New StormEncryptor RansomwareNorth Korean Lazarus Group Uses Windows Zero-Day in Operation Dream JobCEVA Logistics Cyberattack Disrupts European Warehouses and ShipmentsChina-Linked Hackers Use AI Agents in Autonomous Attack on TaiwanKimwolf v7 Hides DDoS Traffic Behind Chrome Fingerprints and EthereumShieldBreak: New Windows Zero-Day Bypasses Microsoft’s RoguePlanet PatchMicrosoft Patch Tuesday for August 2026 Fixed a Zero-Day and Wormable RCEZoom Patches “Zoomsday” Zero-Click Flaw Enabling Remote Code ExecutionExfilSquad Targets New Victims, Shares Data via TorrentsIran-Linked Hackers Target More US Water Infrastructure in New Jersey and AlabamaThe inconvenient truth about AI pentesting: someone has to check all the workCisco Warns of Seven ClamAV Flaws, Two With Public PoCsGym Booking Task Turns Into Real-World AI CyberattackU.S. Defense Manufacturer IEH Hit by Phishing Attack, Exposing Potentially Export-Controlled DataWebmail CSS Attacks Expose a New Risk for AI-Powered Email Tools International Press – Newsletter Cybercrime ExfilSquad Targets New Victims, Shares Data via Torrents Israeli population registry for sale, but the data is old Before Fraud Transacts ExfilSquad Targets New Victims, Shares Data via Torrents Fake CAPTCHA, Real Business: Traffic Distribution for Hire 7.3M chess.com records leaked, and the data is real Drop Something? Don’t Worry, Someone Caught it Malware ShieldBreak – August 2026 disclosure Kimwolf v7: An Evolution of the Kimwolf Botnet AmnesiaStealer: a multi-stage Rust-based macOS infostealer that hijacks Chromium browsers Gone with the WindRelay: A New Malware Combo Behind a Growing Fraud Scheme 737 Chrome VPN Extensions Linked to Brand Impersonation and Browser Traffic Redirection Hacking Chinese Model Kimi K3 Breaks UK AI Safety Institute Benchmark Evaluations AI assistant hacks gym website in first known Australian autonomous cyber attack Zoomsday Attackers Exploit SharePoint Authentication Bypass After Public PoC Release Hackers exploit macOS Screen Sharing flaw to deploy Monero miner It’s a pre-auth, stupid! A root remote command execution on macOS with M5 in 2026? Intelligence and Information Warfare Follow-Up Analysis of the 29 December 2025 Energy Sector Incident New Jersey, Alabama Join States Targeted in Water Cyberattacks Kimsuky Integrates AI into Attack Operations, From AI-Generated Decoy Documents to a Local LLM China-linked hackers hit Taiwan in unprecedented ‘autonomous’ AI cyber attack State Sponsored Hackers Use Fake Job Offers to Deliver New Zero Day Exploit Social engineering performed by UAC-0145: compromising in the employment process Jewelbug: APT Group Runs Espionage and Crypto Fraud Operations Side by Side PATCHCORD: New malware cluster targets Afghan telecom and South Asian critical infrastructure APT group HoneyMyte upgrades CoolClient: the backdoor gets a kernel-level Windows rootkit North Korean Remote Workers Are Infiltrating Government and Businesses: How to Expose Them Before Hiring How Tehran’s Use of Cyber Operations in the U.S.-Iran Conflict Has Evolved Cybersecurity How a small Israeli startup was linked to rogue AI hacks at OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta Responding to the next frontier of critical cyber capabilities Facebook is paying controversial creators to produce rage-bait content Cisco Warns of High-Severity ClamAV Vulnerabilities With Public PoC The August 2026 Security Update Review Cyberattack on logistics giant CEVA delivers customer data into the wrong hands About Apple threat notifications and protecting against mercenary spyware If Apple sends you a push notification alerting you to a spyware attack, take it seriously AI isn’t changing how companies work. It’s changing what a company is Swarms of OpenAI systems set up their own chatrooms to discuss and carry out hacks, company reveals Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, newsletter)
Acronis uncovered PATCHCORD, a stealthy backdoor targeting Afghan telecom and South Asian infrastructure via fake VPN tools and Google Sheets C2. Researchers at Acronis just documented an espionage operation that reads like it was built by someone with genuinely good taste in disguises. Their Threat Research Unit report tracks a previously undocumented backdoor called PATCHCORD, hitting Afghan telecom providers and South Asian critical infrastructure through fake VPN installers and management tools branded to look exactly like the real thing. “Acronis Threat Research Unit (TRU) has identified an ongoing campaign delivering a previously undocumented custom backdoor against Afghan telecom providers and South Asian critical infrastructure organizations. The backdoor, tracked as PATCHCORD, is a compiled C/C++ implant delivered through sector-specific lures, including fake VPN installers impersonating Afghan Telecom (AFTEL) and telecom management tools.” reads the Acronis’s report. “Infrastructure pivoting uncovered SHEETCORD, a Go-based implant that builds on PATCHCORD’s capabilities while abusing Google Sheets for C2 communication. The malware was actively distributed through a domain impersonating India’s National Informatics Centre (NIC).” The delivery method leans hard into specificity. One installer impersonated Afghan Telecom down to matching the company name, product fields, and even the URL of the real support portal customers actually use, the kind of detail that only comes from someone who studied the target closely rather than mass-producing generic lures. Click through it, and a 64-bit Windows implant quietly installs itself while a real browser session opens normally in the background, so nothing looks wrong to the person who just got infected. PATCHCORD’s persistence trick is worth pausing on because it’s genuinely sneaky. Instead of the usual registry-only approach, it hijacks the actual shortcut files for Edge, Chrome, and Firefox, backing up the originals and rewriting them to launch the malware first, silently starting the real browser afterward so the shortcut still works exactly as expected. “PATCHCORD establishes persistence by hijacking browser shortcuts. Before modifying shortcuts, the implant checks whether it is running with elevated privileges and then attempts to hijack shortcuts for Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.Browser identifier and executable-name mapping.” continues the report. “The implant searches for shortcuts associated with Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox before attempting to hijack them.” Every time someone clicks their browser icon, the malware runs invisibly in the background before the browser they wanted even opens. Once installed, PATCHCORD checks in with its command server and waits for instructions, supporting five core capabilities: adjusting how often it phones home, listing running processes, executing shellcode entirely in memory, running arbitrary commands through a hidden shell, and controlling its own browser-hijacking persistence remotely. The in-memory shellcode execution is the standout feature here, since the payload never touches disk at any point, which keeps forensic evidence to a minimum for anyone investigating after the fact. Pivoting off the infrastructure led researchers to a second, more evolved implant they’re calling SHEETCORD, written in Go and delivered through a domain impersonating India’s National Informatics Centre. “The Go-based malware combines functionality previously observed in the SHEETCREEP RAT with several capabilities introduced in PATCHCORD, suggesting an evolution of the operator’s tooling.SHEETCORD executing shell command function.” states Acronis. “The implant implements a remote command execution capability main.executeShellCommand similar to PATCHCORD. However, instead of invoking cmd.exe /c, it executes commands through powershell -Command with script block wrapping, suggesting an evolution of the operator’s tooling.” This one drops the traditional web server entirely and instead uses the Google Sheets API for command and control, creating a dedicated spreadsheet tab for each victim to send and receive instructions. Hiding malicious traffic inside a service as mundane as Google Sheets is a clever way to blend in with normal corporate network traffic that nobody thinks twice about. The researchers also found a third malware family, HACKERAI C2 Agent, that uses GitHub Gists for the same purpose and shows clear signs of having been built with AI coding assistance. Acronis pointed to leftover debug messages, AI-style code comments, and a redundant double-XOR routine using the same key twice as tells. “The implant contains code comments and implementation patterns consistent with AI-assisted code generation. Together, these observations suggest that the malware was developed, at least in part, using LLM-assisted coding tools.” the researchers state. Threat actors are actually using generative AI in practice, not only for some dramatic autonomous hacking campaign, but just as an ordinary coding shortcut. What really opened the investigation up was an exposed staging server the operator left unsecured. It contained the operator’s entire toolkit laid bare: SuperShell, a Chinese-language command-and-control framework, multiple remote access trojan frameworks, credential-harvesting tools, exploit code for a known OpenSSH vulnerability, and files that appear to follow an iOS call history database format, hinting the group may have also pulled data off mobile devices. Finding a threat actor’s actual staging server is rare, and it’s the kind of mistake that turns a hard-to-attribute campaign into a much clearer picture very quickly. Acronis links this activity to APT36, also known as Transparent Tribe, a threat group with a documented history of targeting Indian government and defense organizations, though the researchers rate the connection at moderate rather than full confidence. The reasoning holds up: matching credential-harvesting tools previously seen in confirmed APT36 campaigns, a shared C2 framework independently attributed to the same group by other researchers, and a Google Sheets technique closely resembling an earlier documented campaign already linked to the same actor. None of these signals alone would be conclusive, but stacked together they paint a consistent picture rather than a coincidence. The infrastructure was still live at the time of publication, with domains steadily rotating while the underlying server stayed the same for months. If your organization touches Afghan telecom operations, Indian government systems, or South Asian energy infrastructure, this is exactly the kind of report worth forwarding to whoever handles phishing awareness training, because the lures here are good enough that “just don’t click suspicious links” isn’t much of a defense on its own. “The PATCHCORD campaign demonstrates an evolving espionage operation targeting telecom, government, defense, and critical infrastructure organizations across South Asia. The discovery of PATCHCORD, SHEETCORD, and HACKERAI C2 Agent highlights the operator’s continued evolution, from a custom C/C++ backdoor to Go-based implants that abuse legitimate cloud services, including Google Sheets and GitHub Gists, for command-and-control.” concludes the report. “The exposed staging server and related infrastructure provided valuable insight into the operator’s tooling, campaign development, and operational practices, enabling the identification of additional infrastructure and previously undocumented malware.” Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, PATCHCORD)
A maximum-severity security vulnerability impacting SAP Commerce Cloud is witnessing active exploitation efforts. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-58231, is rated 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. It relates to an instance of insufficient authorization checks and input validation. "SAP Commerce Cloud allows an unauthenticated attacker to abuse a default authentication client and submit
A recently patched security flaw in Apple macOS has come under active exploitation in the wild to deploy a cryptocurrency miner, the Netherlands National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-65400 (CVSS score: 9.8), a critical authentication issue impacting the Screen Sharing component that could allow an attacker already on the network to
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)
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."
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