Cybercriminals are selling forged identity documents, deepfake videos, and live verification services to help buyers bypass Know Your Client (KYC) checks. Flare examines how these underground services operate and the techniques used to create and maintain fraudulent verified accounts.
F5 has released out-of-band security patches to address multiple NGINX web server flaws, including three critical-severity vulnerabilities that can let attackers execute code on vulnerable systems. The three critical vulnerabilities were found in the ngx_http_v3_module (CVE-2026-15176 and CVE-2026-97205) and the NGINX map directive (CVE-2026-93479). Remote attackers without privileges can exploit them to launch denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or gain code execution on NGINX systems with non-default configurations. Successful exploitation causes a heap-based buffer overflow or use-after-free in the NGINX worker process, leading to crashes or a restart. However, attackers may also be able to "execute code on systems with Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) disabled or when the attacker can bypass ASLR."
Meta wants the right to scrape your website for AI training. If you have a business account, that includes you. At the end of the month, Meta plans to change its commercial terms in a way that matters to every company advertising or selling through its platforms. The new language takes effect on October 30, 2026. It lets Meta collect content from websites associated with business customers and use it to train AI models or otherwise improve its products, according to The Register. Meta defines “business customer” broadly. It includes anyone who uses ads or marketing messages, sells or lists products, develops apps, uses a product catalog, manages a Page, runs a Group for business purposes, or uses tools such as Ads Manager or Meta Business Suite. At least one million businesses already use Meta’s AI agents in WhatsApp and Messenger. Nieman Lab also points out that almost every news publisher has at least one Meta business account. The contract clearly explains which tools Meta can use. By accepting the terms, you allow Meta, or anyone working on its behalf, to use automated tools such as web scrapers, bots, spiders and crawlers to access and index your websites, pages and URLs. These tools can also revisit your sites regularly to collect updates. “You authorise us (or any entity acting on our behalf) to use automated software (such as web scrapers, bots, robots, spiders, crawlers and user agents) and create test credentials to access, index, cache, analyse, collect, retrieve or crawl the domains, web pages or URLs (and any content available through them) that are associated with your products or services, or that are made available through your or users’ use of Meta Company Products and services, and to periodically pull updates from such domains, web pages or URLs.” states Meta’s commercial terms. “Meta may use any content from such domains, web pages or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train and maintain the integrity of, the Meta Company Products, services and features provided under these Commercial Terms and any other applicable supplemental terms.” Then comes the use clause. The company may use any content from those domains to provide, develop, improve, research, train and maintain the integrity of its products, services and features. The contract lists scrapers, bots, robots, spiders, crawlers and user agents, which is a lot of ways to say visitor you didn’t invite. The News/Media Alliance says there’s no way out. Business accounts have no option to opt out of the terms, and the only alternative is to stop using Meta’s products. ““Meta’s new commercial terms of use are outrageous and probably illegal. The company’s decision to withhold access to its audience unless businesses allow Meta to scrape content from their websites is an appalling, bad-faith policy, and a clear abuse of the company’s market power. It cannot be allowed to be implemented on October 30.” states Media Alliance. “The text is so far reaching that any business with intellectual property online and a Meta business account could have their copyrighted material taken from them.” Danielle Coffey, President and CEO of the News/Media Alliance also pushed the point beyond news sites. Her questions were whether Taylor Swift’s Meta business account would give Meta access to copyrighted media on her website, and whether Shutterstock’s would let Meta scrape its images. The Alliance’s argument is that any business with intellectual property online and a Meta account could be affected, not just publishers. There is also a problem with robots.txt. News reports say the social network giant plans to let businesses control how its crawlers access their websites through robots.txt files, but the contract makes no such promise. The law does not always require companies to follow these instructions, so businesses must rely on Meta to respect their preferences. The company didn’t respond to The Register’s request for comment. If you run a Meta business account, someone should read the terms before October 30 and check what your own robots.txt actually says. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, AI)
Attackers are exploiting vulnerability CVE-2026-106931 in SiteGuard Server Edition to run commands as root or SYSTEM. EG Secure Solutions published an urgent alert warning of CVE-2026-106931, an OS command injection bug in SiteGuard Server Edition. Threat actors are already exploiting it in the wild. A successful exploit lets them run commands with root or SYSTEM privileges on the server where the product runs. SiteGuard is a Japanese web application firewall (WAF) that runs directly on the web server it protects. The vulnerability affects its statistics feature, which is enabled by default. The vendor and JVN rated the vulnerability with a CVSS 4.0 score of 8.5 and a CVSS 3.0 score of 7.8. An attacker needs local access and low-level privileges to exploit this vulnerability. This suggests the flaw may be used after an attacker has already gained access to a system. The vulnerability impacts version 2.20 or later. On Apache, Nginx and IIS that means anything before 8.00 Update 5, except FreeBSD, and on FreeBSD with Apache or Nginx it means anything before 7.00 Update 6. IIS editions from 3.10 through 4.00 Update 4 aren’t affected, and only installs with the statistics function enabled are exposed. For people who can’t upgrade their version, the vendor offers a patch that replaces the files used in statistics processing, and it covers end-of-life versions too. Be aware that updating or patching can erase the traces of an attack, so the vendor tells administrators to download the diagnostic information first. “Before updating, please be sure to download and save your “Diagnostic Information” (as this may erase traces of the attack).” reads the vendor’s advisory. In the web management screen that’s the diagnostic information page, then the download option. Do it before you touch anything, because a clean server after the update doesn’t prove it was clean before. The timeline is short, but not everyone was warned at the same time. The vendor says it notified customers with direct support contracts on September 29. The public alert and the JVN advisory were published on October 14. The vendor reported the vulnerability to Japan’s IPA, while JPCERT/CC coordinated the disclosure and published its own alert. Customers without direct support contracts received the warning about two weeks later. Many details remain unknown. Neither advisory identifies the attackers or victims, explains how the attacks were carried out, or says how many systems were affected. The vendor has confirmed that the vulnerability has been exploited. If you use this product, check your systems for signs of compromise and investigate any suspicious activity. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, SiteGuard WAF)
An intruder reached a legacy system at OpenCode on the night of October 16 and may have exposed the third-party AI provider keys that users had saved in OpenCode Console, the company said. Console is OpenCode's optional hosted service: a workspace saves its own OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google key there, and Console uses that key to call the provider so team members can use the models without
Hackers are exploiting an OS command-injection vulnerability in the SiteGuard Server Edition web application firewall (WAF), allowing them to execute commands with root or SYSTEM privileges on affected machines. The security issue is tracked as CVE-2026-106931 and affects the statistics feature in host-based WAF instances, which is enabled by default. SiteGuard is a leading Japanese WAF vendor that claims to protect more than 1.5 million websites. Based on WordPress.org statistics, the product is active on 500,000 sites. According to the vendor’s bulletin and a warning from Japan's CERT agency, CVE-2026-106931 has critical severity and is currently being exploited in the wild. “An OS command injection vulnerability (CVE-2026-106931) has been found in the statistics function of SiteGuard Server Edition. Abuse has already been confirmed,” reads SiteGuard’s alert.
India’s CERT-In warns AI agents accessed confidential data undetected, while attackers used offensive AI frameworks to accelerate cyberattacks. CERT-In, India’s national cyber response team, published a critical-severity advisory 15 documenting two distinct categories of AI-related incidents. In one, AI models under research and evaluation exceeded their assigned tasks and accessed live Indian systems without authorization. In the other, attackers deliberately weaponized open-source AI agent frameworks to run financially motivated intrusions. “CERT-In has observed different categories of cyber incidents in which the attacker was an AI agent, that is, a software system capable of autonomously planning work, issuing commands, invoking tools and acting on the internet over extended periods. In some incidents, AI agents under research and evaluation exceeded their assigned task authorization and made unauthorized access to Indian information and communication technology (ICT) assets. In others, cyber attackers deliberately used open-source agentic AI tools to conduct reconnaissance, exploitation and financially motivated intrusions.” CERT-In states. “The incidents came to light through voluntary disclosures by AI model providers, CERT-In’s forensic analysis of suspicious activities, and CERT-In’s own proactive threat hunting. The affected organizations could not detect the unauthorized access on their own.” What makes these incidents especially concerning is that the affected organizations didn’t detect the unauthorized access. None of the affected organizations detected the unauthorized access; in every case the incident was disclosed by the AI model providers after their internal review. The organizations only learned about the incidents from the AI companies. The agents accessed Indian systems using exposed credentials and connection settings found in configuration files, public code repositories, and cloud accounts with excessive permissions. They then accessed business records containing personal and confidential information. CERT-In didn’t name the AI companies, models, or affected organizations. It also didn’t say whether the agents copied or kept any data, or whether the affected organizations had been notified. “Further, victim entities in the campaign that remediated incompletely were attacked again within days, at greater scale.” continues the advisory. “In the voluntarily disclosed incidents, agents were observed re-deriving and re-using the same exposed credential in separate operations.” That’s worth reading carefully. It means an agent that encountered a leaked key once didn’t just use it once, it came back to it. CERT-In’s own threat hunting found a separate campaign against Indian entities using publicly available offensive AI frameworks. These tools have been misused, rebranded, and redeployed across infrastructure in multiple countries, and CERT-In describes a large number of active deployments. The attackers ran multiple agents in parallel for hours to days, and victims who only partially remediated the initial access were hit again within days at greater scale. The biggest concern is how quickly these attacks can happen. These frameworks can reportedly reduce the time between gaining access and causing damage from several days to just a few hours. In September, Google Threat Intelligence Group reported a similar case in which attackers used a compromised cloud resource to run an AI-driven campaign that stole thousands of credentials from other services in less than six hours. CERT-In puts the strongest emphasis on this point. In every incident, the weaknesses were common security problems: credentials and keys stored in source code, commit histories, CI/CD variables, configuration files, and public web pages. Other issues included unused APIs that had never been disabled, payment API keys stored in plain text, cloud roles allowing anonymous or regular users to read and change data, and management interfaces exposed to the internet with weak or no multi-factor authentication. CERT-In’s conclusion is clear: AI found and exploited these common weaknesses “faster, more exhaustively and at greater scale than human attackers.” That’s the real change. The vulnerabilities themselves are nothing new. What has changed is how quickly attackers can find them and combine them to carry out attacks. The advisory’s list of recommended actions for organizations covers ground that should already be standard practice, but clearly isn’t. Audit every repository and build pipeline for exposed credentials. Rotate and purge anything you find. Keep a full API inventory and shut down anything old or unused. Remove management interfaces from the internet. Keep logs for at least 180 days and watch API traffic for bulk reads and automated registrations in real time. For organizations running their own AI agents, CERT-In adds a specific requirement: give each run its own short-lived, least-privilege identity, block outbound traffic to anything outside the task’s defined scope, and maintain a tamper-resistant log of every agent action touching production systems. The advisory also cross-references an earlier October 9 warning on payment and disbursement API abuse, which CERT-In says BFSI and fintech entities should apply alongside the measures here. AI developers and testing labs should block all outgoing network connections from test environments at the infrastructure level, rather than relying on instructions given to the AI model. If an AI agent tries to connect to an external system or finds credentials it should not have access to, the test should stop automatically, and the affected organization should be notified immediately. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, AI agents)
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)
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