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. The two vulnerabilities observed in exploitation attempts are tracked as CVE-2026-61979 and CVE-2026-15981 and can be chained together to bypass authentication. Because the miniOrange SAML SSO plugin accepts the signature algorithm from incoming SAML responses instead of enforcing the configured one, an attacker can leverage CVE-2026-61979 to select HMAC-SHA1. This causes the plugin to treat the RSA public key from the identity provider (IdP) as the shared secret.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced a $400 million settlement with TikTok, ByteDance, and affiliated companies over allegations that they violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The TikTok social media platform, owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance, allows users to create, watch, and share short-form videos. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company, alleging violations of COPPA dating back to 2019. In 2019, Musical.ly, TikTok’s predecessor, agreed to a $5.7 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations of illegally collecting personal data from users under 13 without parental consent. Last year, the FTC referred a new investigation to the DoJ, claiming that TikTok continued to breach COPPA rules despite its 2019 commitment to comply with the rules.
A fake 113GB GTA VI build is packed with malware, using massive empty files to hide a tiny malicious payload. GTA VI hype has reached the point where people are volunteering to infect their own computers just to check if a leak is real. Someone on X asked their followers to “take one for the team” and test a 113GB file claiming to be a playable Grand Theft Auto VI build, according to Tom’s Hardware’s reporting. Someone did, and the results were exactly what you’d expect. A user that goes online with the handler @Aidas29506493 analyzed the file and found that it was completely fake and contained malware. Almost all of its 113GB consisted of empty data, with a tiny malicious payload hidden inside. did some reverse engineering. it is fully fake and full of viruses pic.twitter.com/An6VnSNTkd — Aidas (@Aidas29506493) August 22, 2026 “The decompiled bytecode literally contains commands to whitelist the entire C:\ drive in Windows Defender (powershell Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath %SystemDrive%\) and kill security software (taskkill -f),” The researcher added in a post on X. They also added in another response, “It’s not 100 GB of actual code—it’s just a tiny 50 KB virus padded with 99.99% empty junk (literally endless zeroes).” It’s not 100 GB of actual code—it’s just a tiny 50 KB virus padded with 99.99% empty junk (literally endless zeroes). — Aidas (@Aidas29506493) August 22, 2026 The malware became obvious when researchers examined its code. It included commands to exclude the entire C: drive from Windows Defender and shut down other security software. Anyone who ran it could effectively disable their antivirus before the malware launched its next stage. This was not an accidental side effect, it was a deliberate step to prepare the system for further attacks. This particular fake didn’t appear in a vacuum. According to to the website IGN, that fake GTA 6 downloads have flooded piracy and torrent sites throughout the recent leak wave, riding genuine momentum from a leaker going by CyberLeek, who’s been releasing real gameplay clips and map footage in protest of Rockstar’s digital pre-order plans. That real leak activity is exactly what makes the fake downloads believable, since fans searching for CyberLeek’s actual content are primed to trust whatever else shows up alongside it. Every time GTA 6 appears in the news because of leaked footage, people quickly share it across Discord, mirror sites and other platforms. This creates the perfect conditions to trick users with fake downloads and phishing pages. With real and fake content mixed together, it becomes harder for users to tell what is safe. The scams go beyond huge fake game files. Researchers have found fake GTA 6 websites offering Windows installers that use DLL side-loading to run malware. They also found a fake “GTA 6 Mobile” app that redirects users to a domain linked to infostealers and ransomware. Other fake Rockstar Social Club login pages try to steal users’ account credentials. None of this should be surprising given the numbers involved. Kaspersky separately documented over 19 million attempted downloads of malware disguised as popular game titles across a single year, with GTA, Minecraft, and Call of Duty topping the list of abused brands specifically because of their large, dedicated communities. Big anticipated titles are a magnet for this stuff regardless of whether there’s an active leak cycle happening, and GTA VI right now has both the hype and the leak chaos simultaneously. There is no legitimate playable build of GTA VI circulating anywhere, full stop. The game launches November 19 on consoles, with a PC version to follow, and the only responsible move for anyone tempted by a torrent claiming otherwise is to close the tab. If the file looks too good to be true and it’s a hundred gigabytes of an unreleased AAA game showing up on a torrent site months early, it’s not a leak, it’s bait. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, GTA VI Leaks)
Cybersecurity company ReliaQuest has confirmed that one of its employees was targeted in a social engineering attack after hackers impersonated a member of the security team. In a statement over the weekend, ReliaQuest said that an attacker called multiple employees and tried to trick them into accessing "a fake ReliaQuest single sign-on (SSO) page behind a content delivery network." Last week, ReliaQuest's Threat Research team shared in a now-deleted post, that the ShinyHunters extortion gang was registering .claims domains to impersonate company's help desks and IT teams. "ReliaQuest is tracking a widespread ShinyHunters campaign using domains that follow the company[.]claims pattern. These domains incorporate the targeted organization’s name or abbreviation under the .claims TLD," read the company's post on X.
Microsoft is rolling out a new Teams meeting protection policy that allows administrators to automatically block all identified external bots from joining Teams meetings. This new feature builds on another Teams policy introduced in June that added smarter bot protection, ensuring all detected bots are tagged in the lobby and require organizer approval before joining. The new policy goes one step further and will automatically prevent external bots from joining Teams meetings, without requiring explicit organizer confirmation before they're admitted. "With this update, organizations can strengthen meeting security by configuring Teams policies to automatically block detected external meeting bots from joining meetings," the company said in a Microsoft 365 Message Center update on Friday. "This gives administrators additional control over how identified bots are handled and can help reduce organizational risk."
A breach at South Korea's government-backed startup platform exposed encrypted personal data after an encryption key was included in an API. Penta Security explains why encryption keys must be securely managed and kept separate from the data they protect.
Microsoft has confirmed that .NET Framework updates released as part of the August 2026 Patch Tuesday are breaking printing and PDF export in some applications. In a Windows release health alert seen by BleepingComputer, Microsoft says this known issue affects only apps that use the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) UI framework, an open-source graphical subsystem for building Windows desktop client applications. "After installing the August 2026 .NET Framework cumulative update, some WPF applications may fail with a System.IO.FileFormatException when printing or generating PDF/XPS content that uses certain fonts, including Calibri," Microsoft says. The complete list of impacted platforms includes both Windows client releases (including the latest versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11) and Windows Server (from Windows Server 2012 up to Windows Server 2025).
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has ordered U.S. government agencies to patch an actively exploited vulnerability in Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) within three days. The Zimbra security team patched the security flaw (tracked as CVE-2026-73570) in version 10.1.20, released on July 20. Successful exploitation allows unauthenticated attackers to gain remote code execution by exploiting a command injection weakness in the SNMP monitoring component when SNMP notifications are enabled on the targeted system. "Due to improper sanitization of untrusted input during SNMP notification processing, an unauthenticated attacker can send specially crafted SMTP requests that may result in execution of arbitrary operating system commands as the Zimbra user," it explained. CISA's warning comes after CERT Polska, the Polish Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), first flagged the vulnerability as targeted in the wild last Monday.
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. "Following the release of Windows updates on August 11, 2026 (KB5121003) and later, Microsoft received reports of issues involving inability to run games as expected," Microsoft noted. In a Thursday update, the company linked the gaming issues to drivers or components installed by RGB devices on affected Windows systems.
Slovakia warns that vulnerable speed cameras could expose vehicle data, enable remote access and provide attackers with a foothold into public networks. Slovakia’s National Security Authority, NBÚ, recently issued a warning about several road speed cameras, calling them a significant cyber threat. The alert is not about someone deleting a speeding ticket. It is about connected devices that collect vehicle data, communicate with other systems, and may contain remote-access functions that the operator cannot fully control. The Slovak authority examined a sample of the NERO R-ONE camera system at the request of the Interior Ministry. It named three product lines in its warning: NERO R-ONE devices sold by Cyprus-based SODASUS, Cordon-series speed cameras made by Russia’s Simicon, and Cordon-series products sold by Croatia’s NEROline. “The National Security Authority warns of a significant cyber threat associated with the use of several types of road speed cameras.” reads the alert. “A security analysis has identified several risks and recommends that affected entities identify the products in question in their infrastructure.” The problems went beyond a simple configuration issue. NBÚ found differences between the documented and actual communication settings, uncertainty about where the hardware and software came from, software that did not match the declared version, and weak security protections. “The security analysis identified several risks, including the true origin of the camera hardware and software, inconsistency between the documented and detected configuration of the product’s communication interfaces, and pre-configured remote access and product management mechanisms.” the agency wrote on LinkedIn. That last point deserves attention. A road camera should be managed by the organisation that owns it, under controls that it can inspect, configure and audit. If a device includes pre-set remote-access or management mechanisms outside the customer’s full control, it creates a blind spot in a system that may sit on a public-sector network or communicate with other operational services. Speed cameras do much more than take pictures and measure speed. They photograph vehicles, record timestamps, process licence-plate data, store evidence and send information to backend systems used by authorities. Depending on the setup, they may also connect to mobile networks, roadside equipment, police systems, municipal platforms or third-party maintenance services. If attackers compromise a camera, they could access data, change or delete records, manipulate how it measures or reports violations, or shut it down. If the network lacks proper segmentation, they could also use the camera as a foothold to reach other systems. The camera may not be the real target. It could simply be the unlocked door. The warning aims to alert essential-service operators and other organisations that these road cameras could pose a serious cybersecurity risk. In the wrong circumstances, attackers could use them to disrupt networks, systems or services. The Slovak Interior Ministry reportedly took the equipment out of its pilot deployment while the matter was investigated. Public reporting also says the ministry asked the supplier to remove the units and replace them with equipment meeting Slovak and EU legal, technical and security requirements. The Russian connection adds an obvious geopolitical dimension, but it should not become a substitute for technical analysis. NBÚ did not say that every device was actively spying on users or that the equipment contained a proven backdoor. Its warning is about identified security risks, limited operator control, uncertainty over hardware and software provenance, and remote-management mechanisms that could not be fully accounted for. That is enough reason to take action. Security checks for connected public devices cannot rely only on the brand, the country listed on the invoice or the vendor’s claims. Operators should know exactly what software and firmware the device runs, how remote access works and who controls it. They should also use independent security testing, secure updates and network segmentation. The same lesson applies beyond Slovakia. Smart cameras, licence-plate readers, parking sensors, environmental monitors, traffic lights and roadside communication systems are becoming part of public infrastructure. They are often cheap, easy to overlook and managed by public agencies, contractors and manufacturers. That makes them just as important to secure as other critical systems. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Speed Cameras)
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