Truffle Security has launched the Secrets Revocation Program, a free initiative that helps API key issuers revoke 1.4 million publicly exposed secrets that remain valid. Since 2022, the company has discovered secrets embedded in public repositories, packages, container images, datasets, and applications. Earlier this year, Truffle Security reported that it had found 543,000 valid credentials leaked in public GitHub repositories. In a separate investigation, the company identified more than 431,000 AWS secrets across code repositories, Git histories, datasets, Docker images, registries, and CI logs. These secrets are typically exposed by mistake during the development process, by committing credentials to a public repository, including them in published Docker images or packages, or leaving them in configuration files uploaded with an app or dataset.
A cybersecurity incident forced UNM Health to divert ambulances, cancel appointments, and pause care while it contained the threat. On Monday, October 26, the University of New Mexico Health System (UNM Health) faced the kind of security incident that healthcare leaders dread: one serious enough to change how patients could receive emergency care. A major hospital network in New Mexico worked urgently on Monday to fix a cybersecurity problem. The issue forced it to send ambulances to other hospitals and left the state without a hospital emergency department able to treat the most serious injuries. UNM Health operates New Mexico’s only Level 1 trauma center. These centers treat the most serious and complex injuries. Even a temporary closure can put extra pressure on other hospitals. UNM Health runs New Mexico’s only Level 1 trauma center. That matters because a Level 1 center handles the most complex injuries, and losing even temporary access to it puts pressure on every nearby hospital. The organization told patients not to come to its main Albuquerque hospital and canceled appointments across more than 30 clinics. “The University of New Mexico Health System is experiencing a cybersecurity issue at this time. UNM Health officials are actively working to resolve this issue. Currently, all ambulance traffic is being diverted to other hospitals and all appointments at all clinics today have been cancelled. UNM Health patients should not show up to UNM Health facilities on October 26. Emergencies should be handled by 911 and non-emergencies should be delayed until further notice.” reads the update published by the organization on October 26, 2026. “The cybersecurity threat is affecting the entire University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. “ UNM said its IT security teams identified the threat around 11 a.m. and began containment work. They later said the event affected some end-user devices but did not reach core systems or servers. Leadership activated an Emergency Operations Center, brought in outside support, and notified state and federal law enforcement. That is the right sequence: isolate first, investigate second, communicate continuously. From 12:30 to 2:30 p.m., UN Health temporarily stopped accepting new patients while teams protected the network. “System outages also required the suspension of outpatient surgeries and appointments for the remainder of the day.” This was not an abstract IT problem. Patients arrived for care and were told to reschedule. Staff had to explain, repeatedly, why a hospital visit could not proceed as planned. UNM also canceled classes at its Health Sciences Center and sent nonessential employees home. Medical, nursing, pharmacy, and population health students lost a day of instruction because the institution had to protect its network. Other providers stepped in. Presbyterian Healthcare Services and Lovelace Health System coordinated with UNM and took additional patients, which is exactly what a functioning regional healthcare system should do. UNM Health began restoring its systems on Monday afternoon. By the following day, hospitals, ambulance services and clinics were back to normal. The incident is still under criminal investigation. Employees reported messages claiming that patient, student and staff data had been stolen, but UNM has not confirmed this. The hospital also warned people to watch out for phishing and fraud attempts by attackers exploiting the incident. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, UNM Health)
Attackers can force Android devices into a continuous boot loop using a specially crafted app that requires no permissions and only needs to be installed. To cause the persistent denial-of-service (DoS), the app triggers a vulnerability that researchers dubbed 'GhostMap' that makes Android map a file into an unallocated memory region. The affected process crashes when it attempts to read from that region. Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender discovered the flaw while analyzing an Android banking trojan that kept crashing its emulators when it tried to read an application resource. The researchers demonstrated the vulnerability by creating an app that contains no executable code, requests no permissions on installation, and does not need to be launched on the device. According to the company, Google has been aware of GhostMap since August but closed the issue without releasing a patch, classifying it as "not reproducible."
A Canadian man was extradited to the U.S. to face charges over hacking universities and hijacking their computers to mine cryptocurrency. A Canadian man, Ryan James Roach (35), has been extradicted to the United States to face charges tied to a hacking operation that targeted universities and other schools. Roach was extradited on October 28 and now faces federal charges alongside Mathiew James Stubbings, 41, of Ontario. The indictment alleges that, from June 2016 to December 2019, the two men hacked computers, stole login details, and used victims’ machines to mine cryptocurrency for themselves. “They used virtual private servers in multiple countries, which were registered under false names. These servers transmitted malware and mining software to victim computers and stored stolen login credentials.” DoJ states. “Victims of the scheme included educational institutions in New York, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. Some of the computers damaged by the defendants were located at an institution of higher learning in the Western District of New York.” The targets were not random home PCs. Prosecutors say the pair went after U.S. schools with supercomputers, including institutions in New York, Tennessee, North Carolina and Massachusetts. Some affected computers belonged to a higher-education institution in western New York. “To carry out the scheme, Roach and Stubbings surreptitiously accessed victim computers without authorization, deployed malware to gain control, stole victim login credentials, exfiltrated the data to servers that they controlled, and forcing victim computers to use their processing power to mine cryptocurrency for the financial benefit of the defendants.” DoJ continues. That is a lot of effort to turn someone else’s research hardware into a personal crypto rig. The alleged method was also more involved than a single phishing email. The indictment says they looked for weaknesses in victims’ networks, used servers and compromised machines from one victim to hide their tracks, and then moved through the network once inside. The duo used sophisticated techniques and tools to conduct reconnaissance and expand their access within the network. The charges include conspiracy to obtain information from and damage protected computers, obtaining information from a protected computer, and intentional damage to a protected computer. Each carries up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors also allege the pair damaged at least 10 protected computers in one year and caused at least $5,000 in losses. Roach appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark W. Pedersen and is being held pending a detention hearing. Extradition proceedings for Stubbings continue in Canada. The FBI, the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, and the Office of International Affairs worked on the case. For security teams, the useful part is not the alleged crypto-mining. It is the reminder that universities remain attractive targets because they hold powerful computing resources, broad networks, and plenty of people with access. Patch quickly, watch for unusual processing load, and treat credential theft as a serious incident rather than a nuisance. “The fact that a defendant has been charged with a crime is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.” DoJ concludes. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, University Supercomputers)
Large language model hijacking attacks, also known as LLMjacking, are generating large fraudulent cloud charges, with some organizations losing more than $100,000 per day. Companies can record costs as high as $1 million due to fraudulent calls using stolen API keys, researchers at Google's Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) and Mandiant in analyzed incidents. Based on their observations, there are "two distinct operational clusters coordinating to compromise and monetize enterprise LLM infrastructure." The researchers identified two categories of threat actors: those who scan for publicly exposed LLM endpoints and those who steal valid API keys from unprotected machines. After gaining initial access, the attackers sell it to services known as LLM mixers, which provide their subscribers with unauthorized access to LLMs.
Synology warns of ransomware attacks exploiting a 2024 flaw in outdated NAS devices, urging users to update DSM immediately. A security fix released in 2024 is now at the centre of ransomware attacks against Synology NAS devices. The company has found attackers targeting systems that still run outdated versions of DiskStation Manager (DSM), putting files stored on these network storage devices at risk of encryption and extortion. Synology disclosed the attacks on October 29, 2026. Its investigation found that threat actors are taking advantage of a vulnerability that the vendor had already addressed in December 2024. “These attacks aim to encrypt data and extort ransom.” The warning highlights how devices left without security updates can remain exposed long after vendors have released a fix. The company hasn’t identified the exact vulnerability used in the attacks. Instead, it refers customers to Synology-SA-24:20, a security advisory published on November 5, 2024, which documents three flaws affecting DSM. The advisory was updated as fixes became available across different software branches, with the DSM 6.2 update released on December 5. The three vulnerabilities have different security implications. CVE-2024-10441 is the most severe, with a CVSS score of 9.8. It affects the system plugin daemon and could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable device. CVE-2024-50629 has a CVSS score of 5.3 and affects the DSM webapi component. It could allow remote attackers to read limited files. The third issue, CVE-2024-10445, is rated 4.3 and concerns improper certificate validation in the update functionality. It could allow an attacker in an adjacent network position to write limited files. Synology hasn’t confirmed which of these vulnerabilities attackers are exploiting. The three flaws should therefore be considered part of the security advisory, not three confirmed entry points in the current ransomware campaign. The vendor has released corrected builds for all the affected DSM branches. Users should check the full version number installed on their NAS and compare it with the minimum fixed releases listed in the advisory: DSM 7.2.2: 7.2.2-72806-1 or later. DSM 7.2.1: 7.2.1-69057-6 or later. DSM 7.2: 7.2-64570-4 or later. DSM 7.1: 7.1.1-42962-7 or later. DSM 6.2: 6.2.4-25556-8 or later. The impact of a ransomware infection on a NAS can extend well beyond the storage device itself. Businesses often use these systems to keep shared documents, operational files and backup copies in one place. If attackers encrypt that data, employees may lose access to essential information, while recovery can become much harder if the NAS also holds the backups needed to restore other systems. Updating DSM is therefore an immediate priority for administrators and home users alike. Synology is also advising customers to enable automatic updates so that future security fixes don’t depend entirely on someone checking for them manually. “Synology also recommends enabling automatic updates to keep DSM up to date at all times.” concludes the advisory. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, NAS)
A 3AM ransomware affiliate targeted a school estate in the UK and successfully encrypted around 37 of nearly 50 machines reached from an unmanaged host. Researchers at cybersecurity company Bitdefender believe the threat actor may have used AI-generated commands and an automated agentic loop to carry out the operation. The conclusion is based on a sequence of repeated commands that were slightly modified at each attempt and issued at roughly regular intervals of 40 to 100 seconds. "We were not able to access the machine the attacker worked from, so we cannot document anything about the language model itself: which model it was, whether it ran locally or remotely, or even whether a person was copying and pasting instructions and results between the implant and the model," Bitdefender explains.
Google has expanded its Cloud Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP) with a new top-tier reward for high-impact architectural security flaws. Starting this month, researchers can earn $250,000 for Root-in-Cloud bugs, including tenant-isolation bypasses and complex cross-service logic flaws that let attackers gain full administrative control over arbitrary Google Cloud organizations. "To earn this premier reward, you must demonstrate full administrative control, the equivalent of 'roles/owner' or complete IAM control, over arbitrary Google Cloud organizations or projects with no prior access or special project setup," said Chris Betz, Google Cloud's Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). "Additionally, valid vulnerability reports demonstrating remote code execution (RCE) in underlying Google production infrastructure (Borg) or achieving root-in-prod will automatically be evaluated by the Google Cloud VRP panel for root-in-cloud eligibility."
Google on Monday warned that threat actors are hijacking enterprise access to Large Language Models (LLMs) to fraudulently leverage expensive computing resources and AI services. The tactic is called LLMjacking, a form of resource hijacking adapted for the LLM era, where an attacker obtains an API key through phishing, source code leaks, misconfigured environments, or exposed client-side code
Synology is urging customers to update the DiskStation Manager (DSM) software powering its Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices following ransomware attacks. The Taiwanese vendor said it observed threat actors exploiting a vulnerability patched in December 2024 to target devices running outdated versions of DSM. "These attacks aim to encrypt data and extort ransom," it said in a statement
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