The FBI raided 40 Texas homes over a North Korean scheme that used fake IT workers to target 70 US companies and generate $3 million. The Justice Department (DoJ) announced coordinated enforcement actions this week targeting North Korea’s long-running scheme to place fake IT workers inside American companies. Two US nationals were arrested, 14 people charged across two separate indictments, and the FBI searched more than 40 residences in Texas, seizing approximately 187 laptops and KVM switch devices. The Texas operation, called Operation Lonestar Roundup, ran between September 21 and 25. The seized devices are the same laptops American companies shipped to their newly hired remote employees, not knowing those IT workers were North Korean intelligence agents using stolen US identities. “Today the Department of Justice announced coordinated actions against the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK) government’s schemes to fund its regime through remote information technology (IT) work for U.S. companies.” states DoJ. “These actions include an indictment, two arrests, searches of multiple known or suspected “laptop farms” in Texas pursuant to “Operation Lonestar Roundup,” and the seizure of approximately 187 computer devices used by DPRK IT workers.” The scheme was simple. North Korean IT workers applied for remote jobs using stolen or fake identities. They used VPNs and proxy servers to make it look like they were working from the United States. American helpers received the laptops provided by employers and installed remote access software so the North Korean workers could use them. These helpers were paid for their role, while the money earned from the jobs was sent back to North Korea through accounts controlled by the regime. According to an indictment from the Northern District of Ohio, the scheme ran from 2019 to mid-2025 and targeted more than 70 US companies across 17 states. The companies operated in sectors including healthcare, communications, cybersecurity support, retail, and manufacturing. “In total, the scheme impacted more than 70 U.S. company employers and generated approximately $3 million in revenue for IT workers.” SoJ states.”The revenue is believed to have been sent to sanctioned entities controlled by the DPRK. Victim employers included companies in the health care, communications, cyber support, retail, and manufacturing sectors across Ohio, sixteen additional states, and the District of Columbia.” The North Korean IT workers earned about $3 million, which prosecutors believe was sent to North Korean entities subject to international sanctions. The authorities warn the scheme is evolving in response to better detection. “Increasingly, North Korean IT workers are turning to recruiting American facilitators to counter improved private sector detections and law enforcement actions.” states DoJ. “These workers are hiring facilitators to complete a wider variety of tasks, and in some cases subcontracting entire jobs to third-party foreign nationals. “ That’s not just using Americans as props. It’s actively outsourcing parts of the operation to people inside the US, which makes attribution harder and interception more complicated. Some IT workers are now subcontracting entire jobs to third-party foreign nationals. Others are hiring facilitators to handle a wider range of tasks beyond just managing the laptops. CrowdStrike, which helped the FBI investigate, tracks the group behind this operation as Famous Chollima and describes the laptop farm infrastructure as vital to overcoming the physical and legal barriers of operating from outside the US. “These laptop farms enabled FAMOUS CHOLLIMA operatives to pose as legitimate remote workers and siphon illicit wages back to their regime while maintaining persistent access to victim organizations. Working alongside the FBI, CrowdStrike’s threat intelligence into the adversary and their operations, and technical analysis helped make these disruptions possible.” states CrowdStrike. “This operation marks the beginning of a broader U.S. law enforcement effort to dismantle FAMOUS CHOLLIMA’s U.S. infrastructure. CrowdStrike’s Counter Adversary Operations team intends to remain an integral part of that effort.” The FBI’s separate public service announcement puts the operation in broader context: “thousands of North Korean state-controlled IT workers” are currently embedded at Western companies, posing what the agency calls a significant national security and intellectual property theft insider threat. North Korean IT workers have individually earned up to $300,000 per year under these schemes, and the collective revenue is measured in hundreds of millions annually, flowing directly to designated entities including the North Korean Ministry of Defense. This is the fifth round of enforcement actions announced since June 2025 under the DOJ’s DPRK RevGen Domestic Enabler Initiative (June 2025, November 2025, April 2026, and May 2026). The initiative targets people in the United States who help North Korean IT workers carry out these schemes. According to CrowdStrike, North Korean hackers were responsible for about half of all documented hands-on cyber intrusions over the past year. The regime is also targeting cryptocurrency exchanges and open-source software projects. In 2025 alone, North Korean attackers stole at least $2 billion in cryptocurrency. The DOJ released a list of email addresses used in these operations, including accounts like randyryang@gmail.com and dev.jerryyang@gmail.com, which companies can add to their screening indicators. The FBI’s public service announcement includes detailed mitigation guidance on spotting DPRK IT worker applications. The red flags are consistent: inconsistencies in work history, reluctance to appear on video, requests to redirect laptop deliveries, and payment accounts that route through intermediaries. “Threats posed by nation-states like North Korea are a stark reminder that our adversaries will go to great measures to exploit our nation’s economic strength to further and fuel their own nefarious agendas,” said U.S. Attorney David M. Toepfer for the Northern District of Ohio. “We are thankful to FBI Cleveland for their incredible work and persistence to put a stop to these bad actors. These charges serve as an urgent alert to all U.S. companies to remain vigilant in their hiring practices.” Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, IT workers)
ConnectWise has shut down customer access to its Cloud Backup service (formerly SkyKick Cloud Backup) after hackers accessed application identities and compromised Microsoft 365 tenants. Reports of the malicious activity began emerging on Friday, with administrators observing unauthorized access to client data in Microsoft 365 tenants due to a potential “SkyKick/CW breach.” Later on the same day, managed cybersecurity and threat detection platform Huntress confirmed the worries, saying that it had identified at least 162 compromised tenants in its environment. In a post today, Microsoft also confirmed malicious activity involving ConnectWise’s Cloud Backup service, saying it identified unauthorized authentication attempts from an IP address on October 15. ConnectWise’s cloud backup solutions provide backup and recovery services that help managed service providers (MSPs) and IT teams protect and restore customer data, such as emails and files, in cloud environments including Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds Fortinet Multiple Products and BeyondTrust Remote Support flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the following vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog: CVE-2025-61624 Fortinet Multiple Products Path Traversal Vulnerability CVE-2026-102764 BeyondTrust Remote Support Authentication Bypass by Spoofing Vulnerability This week, Palo Alto Netwoks researchers reported that PEERSTITCH malware exploited FortiManager to expose 500+ firewalls, evade detection inside FortiOS memory, and maintain stealthy access. The attackers exploited CVE-2025-61624, a path traversal flaw in the FortiOS auto-script engine, to deploy a new implant called PEERSTITCH. The flaw CVE-2026-102764 is an input validation vulnerability in internal components of BeyondTrust Remote Support. BeyondTrust Remote Support is a remote technical support tool that allows IT help desks and support teams to securely access and troubleshoot users’ computers and other devices over a network. From a cybersecurity perspective, the software is important because it can provide privileged access to systems and allow technicians to perform sensitive operations. The components do not properly validate the origin of incoming messages, potentially allowing an attacker to perform file operations on the appliance under certain conditions. “CISA is aware of critical authentication bypass vulnerability CVE-2026-102764 , affecting BeyondTrust Remote Support (formerly Bomgar) versions 26.2.3 and earlier. Patches are available for supported versions (24.3.1 and later); organizations using older versions must upgrade first.” CISA warns. “Cyber threat actors are actively exploiting the vulnerability to gain initial access, then establishing persistence, escalating privileges, and moving laterally. “ 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 flaws by October 19, 2026. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, CISA)
Cybersecurity researchers are sounding the alarm related to an active campaign in which unknown threat actors are abusing a compromised Microsoft 365 (M365) credential belonging to ConnectWise Cloud Backup (formerly SkyKick) to gain unauthorized access to customers' M365 environments. ConnectWise Cloud Backup is a cloud-based backup and recovery service built for managed service providers (MSPs
Researchers warn that hackers could soon exploit a maximum-severity vulnerability (CVE-2026-103849) affecting Magento and Adobe Commerce, potentially allowing them to execute arbitrary PHP code on store servers. According to e-commerce security firm Sansec, attacks leveraging the vulnerability, dubbed BlockStrap, have not yet been observed, but threat actors are expected to find a way to exploit it. The researchers based their assessment on identifying four potential attack paths involving CVE-2026-103849 in less than 24 hours. The flaw impacts September versions of Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source through 2.4.9 and Adobe Commerce B2B through 1.5.3. The security firm warned that Adobe’s “priority 2” rating of this flaw does not reflect the danger and urgency in this case, despite the more complex attack path.
Unit 42 details the top initial access vectors adversaries use to breach organizations, led by edge exploits, credential abuse and phishing The post Top 5 Initial Access Threat Vectors Observed by Unit 42 in September 2026 appeared first on Unit 42.
Burger King Japan disclosed a breach exposing 11.18 million app users’ personal data after attackers accessed its membership system in early October. Burger King Japan has disclosed a data breach that exposed the personal information of approximately 11.18 million official app members. Burger King Japan, the company operating the fast-food chain in the country, said attackers accessed the system managing customer membership information between October 2 and October 7, 2026. The company disclosed the incident on October 15, after discovering the data leak two days earlier. In its official notice published on October 15, the company confirmed the unauthorized access and apologized to affected customers. The announcement doesn’t identify the attackers or explain how they gained access. BK Japan says it’s working with external security specialists to determine the cause. “We have confirmed that customer membership information from the official app has been leaked externally following unauthorized access by a third party.” reads the data breach notification. The compromised data includes membership IDs, email addresses, names in Japanese characters and kana, phone numbers, dates of birth, gender, prefecture of residence, and membership registration type. The exposed information also indicates whether a customer has a mobile ordering history and whether their email address has been verified. These details can be useful to criminals even without payment data or passwords. Attackers can use them to craft convincing phishing emails, text messages, or phone calls that refer to a customer’s real identity and relationship with Burger King. A message that includes a person’s name, phone number, and other accurate details may look far more credible than a generic scam. Burger King Japan confirmed it does not store credit card numbers and found no evidence that passwords were exposed, with no confirmed cases of fraud so far. However, these factors do not completely rule out the risk of future misuse. According to the company, unauthorized access took place from October 2 through October 7, and the leak was confirmed on October 13. BK Japan says it blocked access from the source of the unauthorized communications as soon as it became aware of the incident. The company has also introduced temporary countermeasures, established an incident response team, and reported the breach to Japan’s Personal Information Protection Commission. It says permanent security improvements, further investigation with external specialists, and email notifications to affected customers are ongoing. “At present, we have confirmed that the unauthorized access was carried out by a third party.” continues the notification. The company has not yet disclosed the precise circumstances that made the intrusion possible, and the investigation is continuing. Until more details emerge, it’s too early to draw conclusions about the initial access vector or attribute the attack to a particular threat actor. Large-scale data breaches create long-lasting risks for follow-on attacks, as criminals can use stolen details for phishing, impersonation, and highly convincing scams. BK Japan urges customers to stay vigilant against fraudulent emails, texts, and calls, warning them never to click unverified links or share sensitive credentials. The core danger is that attackers no longer need network access to cause harm; they can leverage existing stolen data to target customers directly through social engineering. “Please do not access URLs, open attachments, or enter membership information or passwords if you receive a suspicious communication.” concludes the report. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Burger King Japan)
F5 addressed multiple vulnerabilities, including critical RCE flaws in NGINX that attackers could exploit without authentication. Security and application delivery firm F5 announced fixes for eleven security issues in NGINX. Among them, critical vulnerabilities tracked as CVE-2026-15176 and CVE-2026-93479 could be exploited without authentication via crafted HTTP requests. Under certain conditions beyond their control, an unauthenticated attacker could exploit the security flaws to trigger a buffer overflow leading to a restart. If ASLR is disabled or can be bypassed, the attacker could achieve RCE. The flaw CVE-2026-15176 (CVSS score of 9.2) is a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in NGINX Plus and NGINX Open Source that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to trigger a denial-of-service condition or potentially execute arbitrary code by sending crafted HTTP requests. The vulnerability occurs under specific configurations involving the alias directive and the $request_filename variable. Remote code execution may be possible if ASLR is disabled or bypassed. The flaw CVE-2026-93479 (CVSS score of 9.2) is a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in NGINX Plus and NGINX Open Source that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to trigger a denial-of-service condition or potentially execute arbitrary code through crafted HTTP requests. It affects specific configurations where regular-expression capture variables from the map directive are referenced before the map output variable, or where a non-cacheable variable is used in a string expression under certain conditions. Remote code execution may be possible if ASLR is disabled or bypassed. The third critical flaw fixed by the vendor, tracked as CVE-2026-97205 (CVSS score of 9.2), is a use-after-free vulnerability in NGINX ngx_http_core_module that, under certain configurations with asynchronous file I/O (AIO) enabled, may cause memory corruption or unexpected worker process termination when processing Server Side Includes (SSI) pages containing include virtual commands. A remote attacker could exploit the flaw to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) or potentially execute code, particularly when ASLR is disabled or can be bypassed. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, NGINX)
Burger King Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of global fast-food giant Burger King, disclosed a major data breach after attackers accessed a server containing 11.18 million customer records. Founded in 1953 in Florida, Burger King is now a multinational fast-food chain with nearly 20,000 locations worldwide, including 350 in Japan. In a Thursday press release, Burger King Japan said it concluded a follow-up investigation on October 13 and apologized to customers whose data was stolen in early October and leaked online. The breached servers stored the personal information for users of the company's official smartphone app, including their names, dates of birth, gender, email addresses, phone numbers, and order history. "We identified a potential unauthorized third-party access to the system that manages member information for our official app and conducted an investigation," Burger King Japan said.
U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds Atlassian flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added an Atlassian flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-21589 (CVSS score of 9.3), to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. In early October, threat actors started exploiting CVE-2026-21589, a critical arbitrary file access flaw in Atlassian Data Center products. The vulnerability could allow attackers to access sensitive files under certain conditions. Affected products include Bitbucket, Confluence, Jira Service Management, Jira Software, Bamboo, Crowd, Crucible, and Fisheye. “This Arbitrary File Access vulnerability allows an unauthenticated attacker to access specific files within the web application root directory in affected versions. Exploitation requires prior knowledge of the target file’s exact name and path; this vulnerability does not allow attackers to enumerate or list directory contents.” reads the advisory. “In some configurations, there may be some sensitive files that make this highly severe.” Previdian telemetry has detected 15 exploitation attempts from three IP addresses in Japan and the U.S.. “Exploitation has now started to hit our honeypot network” Previdian Founder Ryan Dewhurst wrote on LinkedIn. On October 6, watchTowr Labs published a technical analysis of CVE-2026-21589 after comparing vulnerable and patched Atlassian packages. Researchers found a path traversal flaw where double-colon (::) sequences can be treated as path separators, allowing attackers to read files from the application web root. “While semicolons (;) are very common in path traversal within Java applications, along with the everyday dots (.) and slashes (/), one item stood out: the matching of double colons (::).” reads the analysis. “This is uncommon syntax for this type of vulnerability, but grepping through the codebase we came across an all too familiar sight.” In one Crowd deployment with Jira, researchers were able to read crowd.properties, which exposed application credentials. They then used those credentials to create a user and add it to the jira-administrators group. Crowd IP allowlisting can block this attack path. Exploitation attempts against its honeypot network reportedly began two hours after watchTowr published additional technical details about the vulnerability. According to watchTowr, the problem is in Atlassian’s web-resource handling. It can turn a string such as ..::..::..::..::WEB-INF::web.xml into ../../../../WEB-INF/web.xml, allowing attackers to move through directories and access files they should not be able to read. Atlassian says all versions before the listed fixed versions are affected: ProductFixed versionsBitbucket Data Center9.4.26, 10.2.8, 10.5.1Confluence Data Center9.2.26, 10.2.19Jira Service Management Data Center5.12.40, 10.3.26, 11.3.12Jira Software Data Center9.12.40, 10.3.26, 11.3.12Bamboo Data Center10.2.24, 12.1.12Crowd Data Center6.3.7, 7.0.3, 7.1.7, 7.2.4Crucible4.9.15Fisheye4.9.15 watchTowr has released a free tool on GitHub to help check if a server is vulnerable. 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 flaw by October 18, 2026. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, CISA)
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