Microsoft has reminded customers that systems running Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 24H2 will stop receiving updates in two months. "On October 13, 2026, Windows 11, version 24H2 Home and Pro editions, and Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016 will reach end of updates," Microsoft warned in a message center update. "After this date, devices running these editions will no longer receive monthly security and non-security preview updates containing protections from the latest security threats." However, according to its support website, Windows 11 24H2 Enterprise and Education editions will remain under mainstream support until October 2027. Customers are advised to upgrade to Windows 11 25H2 (also known as the Windows 11 2025 Update), which has become generally available in September 2024 as a minor update installed through an enablement package.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said Tuesday that the Medusa ransomware gang has breached more than 500 critical infrastructure organizations in the United States since June 2021. This was revealed in a joint advisory in coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). "As of April 2026, Medusa actors have impacted more than 500 victims across multiple critical infrastructure sectors, including Healthcare and Public Health, Defense Industrial Base, Critical Manufacturing, Government Services and Facilities, Information Technology, and Financial Services," they said. "Other victims include organizations in the medical, education, legal, insurance, technology, and manufacturing industries." This is an update to a joint report published in March 2025, which said the Medusa ransomware operation had impacted an estimated over 300 critical infrastructure organizations.
Comcast is promoting WiFi-based motion detection as a part of its new Xfinity Shield home protection platform, allowing routers and wireless devices to detect people moving through a home without cameras or motion sensors. This feature was announced as part of a new Xfinity Shield product offering on Tuesday, a new application suite that combines cybersecurity, physical home monitoring, and family safety features through Xfinity WiFi and the Xfinity app. Part of this new offering is WiFi Shield, which is included at no additional cost for Xfinity Internet customers with compatible gateways. It combines Xfinity's CyberSecure network protection, Family Settings, and WiFi Motion, with Home Watch, Away Watch, and Dark Watch modes used to control when notifications are generated. Comcast is also launching Shield Select for $15 per month, which adds an indoor camera, door/window sensor, cloud video storage, and 24/7 urgent response functionality.
A Heights Finance breach exposed personal and financial data of over 1.2 million people after hackers compromised a third-party cloud platform. Heights Finance is a U.S. consumer finance company that provides personal loans and related lending services, mainly to customers who may have limited access to traditional bank credit. It is part of Heights Finance Holdings Co. Heights Finance Holdings is notifying more than 1.2 million people that on May 7, 2026, Heights Finance discovered unauthorized access to a third-party cloud platform storing customer data. The company launched an investigation with external cybersecurity experts and notified federal law enforcement. “On May 7, 2026, Heights discovered that an unauthorized actor gained access to a cloud-based platform hosted by a third party that we use to store certain customer data. This activity was limited to the cloud-based platform only—it did not affect any of our loan management systems or other computer systems or networks. We immediately activated our incident response protocols, brought in outside cybersecurity specialists to investigate, and reported the incident to federal law enforcement.” reads the notice of data breach. “We have since confirmed that the cloud-based platform is secure and that there is no ongoing security threat. Our operations were not impacted by this incident and have continued safely and securely.” Heights said its internal systems and operations were not affected, the platform has been secured, and there is no ongoing threat. The compromised customer information included contact details, financial and bank account data, government IDs and dates of birth. The affected data varies by person and may involve Heights Finance customers, loan applicants, people who inquired about its products, or former borrowers of Curo Management and related brands. Heights Finance is offering affected individuals 24 months of free credit monitoring and identity protection. The company said dark web monitoring has found no evidence that the stolen data has been published. No threat actor has claimed responsibility, and no known ransomware or extortion group has been linked to the breach so far. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Heights Finance)
A custom Java web shell likely linked to the Clop ransomware gang was designed specifically for PTC Windchill and FlexPLM servers, with built-in features to decrypt credentials, enumerate file repositories, and steal files. Cybersecurity company ReliaQuest analyzed the web shell after it is believed to have been deployed in recent data theft attacks exploiting CVE-2026-12569, a critical remote code execution vulnerability affecting PTC Windchill. ReliaQuest says the implant is not a generic web shell repurposed for the attacks, but was instead built with detailed knowledge of Windchill's internal APIs, database schema, keystore, and file-vault structure. "This appears to be an application-specific evolution of Clop's established mass-exploitation playbook," ReliaQuest said in a report shared with BleepingComputer.
Microsoft has started testing a faster File Explorer and a less cluttered and more customizable context menu in Windows 11 preview builds rolling out to Insiders this week. As the File Explorer team explained in a Monday blog post, the changes focus on improving File Explorer speed, performance, and reliability and addressing customer-reported issues. The redesigned context menu experience also aims to make it faster, reduce clutter, and make it more customizable than ever before. At the bottom of the new right-click menu, Microsoft also added a "Customize menu" shortcut to the Settings page, where users can tweak the context menu to suit their preferences. "We've continued refining File Explorer based on that feedback, removing friction and improving the details that help make everyday tasks feel more natural and predictable. For example, file renames no longer get interrupted by background file synchronization, and case-only filename changes now appear immediately," Microsoft said.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has confirmed that ransomware gangs are also exploiting a high-severity Windows Task Host vulnerability that was flagged as actively exploited in April. Task Host is a core Windows system component that allows DLL-based processes to run in the background and prevents data corruption by ensuring they close properly during shutdown. Tracked as CVE-2025-60710, this Windows privilege escalation security flaw was patched by Microsoft in November 2025 and stems from a link following weakness that affects Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025 devices. Following successful exploitation, local attackers with basic user permissions can gain SYSTEM privileges and take full control of unpatched devices. While it didn't share any details regarding ongoing attacks and Microsoft has yet to update its security advisory to confirm in-the-wild exploitation, CISA added CVE-2025-60710 to its list of actively exploited vulnerabilities on April 13 and gave Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies two weeks to secure their systems.
GitLab patched a critical GraphQL flaw that let unauthenticated attackers remotely modify or delete public projects on self-managed servers. GitLab pushed out an emergency patch this week to address a critical flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-19478 (CVSS score of 9.4), that could let an attacker with zero credentials remotely modify or delete public projects and user data. “GitLab has remediated an issue that under certain conditions could allow an unauthenticated user to remotely modify or delete public projects and user data via a GraphQL directive.” reads the advisory. GitLab issued an emergency patch on August 17, five days after its regular update. The vulnerability impacts only self-managed installations, users should upgrade to versions 19.2.4, 19.1.6, 19.0.8, and 18.11.11. There’s a gap worth flagging for anyone still sitting on an older release. The available patches don’t cover the 18.2 through 18.10 branches, even though those versions technically fall inside the affected range. If you’re running anything in that window, staying put isn’t really an option; you’ll need to upgrade to a patched branch entirely rather than waiting for a fix that isn’t coming for your current one. hiimguardian reported the flaw through the company HackerOne bug bounty program. A second, less severe issue shipped in the same release. CVE-2026-19650 (CVSS score of 7.1), involves a cross-site request forgery weakness in how GitLab’s GraphQL handles multiplex queries, letting an unauthenticated attacker trigger mutations through GET requests due to improper validation. Unlike the critical flaw, this one needs a victim to actually interact with something, so it’s a real risk but a considerably narrower one. There’s no evidence either bug has been exploited in the wild yet, and no public proof-of-concept code has surfaced as of publication. That’s the good news. The less comforting part is GitLab’s own disclosure policy: full technical details typically go public on the company’s issue tracker 90 days after the patching release, which puts a working understanding of exactly how this bug functions squarely in mid-November, plenty of time for someone motivated enough to reverse-engineer the patch diff themselves before then. This is not the first serious GitLab issue in recent months. Last month, researchers released working exploit code for another remote-code-execution flaw affecting self-managed servers. Organizations running GitLab on their own infrastructure should therefore treat this patch as a priority, especially given the critical severity and the fact that the vulnerability requires no authentication or user interaction. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, GitLab)
U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds a Ray-Project Ray vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added a Progress LoadMaster vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-62593 (CVSS score of 9.4), to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. CVE-2025-62593 is a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Ray, an AI compute engine. Versions before 2.52.0 insufficiently protected the Ray dashboard/API against browser-based attacks. Its defense relied on checking whether the HTTP User-Agent header started with “Mozilla”, but browsers can modify this header. By combining this weakness with DNS rebinding, an attacker could potentially execute arbitrary code on a developer’s machine simply by getting them to visit a malicious website or view a malicious advertisement while running Ray. The vulnerability affects Firefox and Safari. Ray 2.52.0 fixes the issue. “This vulnerability is due to an insufficient guard against browser-based attacks, as the current defense uses the User-Agent header starting with the string “Mozilla” as a defense mechanism. This defense is insufficient as the fetch specification allows the User-Agent header to be modified.” reads the advisory. “Combined with a DNS rebinding attack against the browser, and this vulnerability is exploitable against a developer running Ray who inadvertently visits a malicious website, or is served a malicious advertisement (malvertising).” “An attacker exploited a code injection vulnerability in Ray AI Compute Engine via a DNS rebinding attack, leading to remote code execution. This allowed the attacker to escalate privileges within the system, move laterally across the network, establish command and control channels, exfiltrate sensitive data, and ultimately disrupt operations.” reads the analysis published by Aviatrix. According to Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities, FCEB agencies have to address the identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect their networks against attacks exploiting the flaws in the catalog. Experts also recommend that private organizations review the Catalog and address the vulnerabilities in their infrastructure. CISA orders federal agencies to fix the vulnerability by the end of this week, on August 20, 2026. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, CISA)
Evooo1Bot is a Mirai-based Linux botnet that hijacks routers and IoT devices for DDoS attacks, credential theft and criminal proxy services. Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs disclosed Evooo1Bot in mid-August, a previously undocumented Linux botnet that’s been active since July 2026. The bot borrows Mirai‘s DDoS engine but adds encrypted command-and-control communications, an SSH brute-force scanner, a credential sniffer, and a SOCKS5 proxy module on top. “FortiGuard Labs has been tracking a previously undocumented Linux botnet family, which we have named Evooo1Bot. The name derives from the hardcoded string “evooo1” found in every binary.” reads the report published by Fortinet. “While the malware reuses the DDoS engine from the publicly leaked Mirai source code, it extends the original framework with numerous capabilities, including encrypted C2 communications, an SSH brute-force scanner, a SOCKS relay module, a credential sniffer, and an integrated exploit arsenal targeting multiple known vulnerabilities.” The botnet targets 18 known CVEs, some of them dating back to 2007, including: CVE-2007-3010: Alcatel OmniPCX Enterprise Remote Code Execution Vulnerability CVE-2016-6277: NETGEAR Multiple Routers Remote Code Execution Vulnerability CVE-2018-14558: Tenda AC7, AC9, and AC10 Routers Command Injection Vulnerability CVE-2019-14931: Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. ME-RTU devices and INEA ME-RTU devices remote Command Injection vulnerability CVE-2020-10987: Tenda AC1900 Router AC15 Model Remote Code Execution Vulnerability CVE-2021-46422: Telesquare SDT-CW3B1 Command Injection vulnerability CVE-2022-37055: D-Link Routers Buffer Overflow Vulnerability CVE-2024-29269, Telesquare TLR-2005KSH Command Injection Vulnerability CVE-2025-10123, D-Link DIR-823X Command Injection Vulnerability CVE-2025-55583: D-Link DIR-868L B1 router Command Injection Vulnerability The bot communicates exclusively over port 443, which is intentional: the traffic blends into expected HTTPS flows at the network perimeter. After gaining initial access through one of its exploit modules or via brute-forced SSH credentials, the bot runs a loader script that clears Bash history to erase evidence of the intrusion before pulling the architecture-appropriate binary from an external server. The breadth suggests the operators are scanning opportunistically for anything unpatched rather than targeting specific organizations. “This capability significantly increases the value of an infected host to attackers. The victim’s IP address can be used to disguise malicious traffic, bypass geographic restrictions, or provide access to internal networks through an already compromised machine.” continues the report. “In larger botnets, the same functionality could also be used to build a distributed proxy infrastructure, enabling anonymous traffic forwarding or monetization through residential and enterprise proxy services.” Evooo1Bot stands out because of its proxy module. A network of compromised routers, cameras, and firewalls acting as SOCKS5 relays is a valuable commodity; operators can use it themselves to obscure attack traffic, or sell access to other criminals looking for residential or enterprise IP addresses that don’t trigger geographic blocks. “Unlike typical botnet commands that focus on downloading payloads or launching attacks, the !socks module turns an infected host into a SOCKS5 proxy that the operator can use as a network relay. It supports two operating modes. In direct mode, it opens a SOCKS5 listener on the infected host on the default TCP port 1080 and waits for incoming client connections. The implementation first attempts to create a dual-stack IPv6 listener and falls back to IPv4 if that fails. Each accepted client is then passed to the session handler for proxying.” continues the report. “The botnet also implements a reverse relay mode. Instead of exposing a listening port, the bot establishes an outbound encrypted connection to an operator-specified relay server. This persistent control channel listens for commands such as RELAY_NEW:<session_id>, which indicate that a new proxy session should be created.” After establishing C2 contact, the bot accepts commands covering the full post-compromise toolkit: file upload and download, interactive shell access, persistence installation, binary updates, HTTP Basic Auth and Cookie header interception, DDoS over DNS, TCP, and UDP, and the HTTP exploit dispatcher. The credential sniffer intercepts authentication headers in transit, so any HTTP Basic Auth credentials passing through an infected device can be captured without any additional effort from the operator. If you’re still running devices with unpatched firmware from the CVE list above, or if any of your edge hardware is using default SSH credentials, Evooo1Bot is already scanning for you. “Beyond traditional botnet functionality, it features encrypted C2 communications, multiple layers of string obfuscation using AES-256-CTR, ChaCha20, and XOR-based key derivation, as well as a 28-command remote administration interface.” concludes the report. “These capabilities place Evooo1Bot well beyond the technical baseline of conventional Mirai-derived malware.” Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Evooo1Bot botnet)
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