cPanel has released patches for a security flaw affecting domain parking and addon domain functionality in cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM), which could allow code execution as the root user. The vulnerability, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2026-65643, impacts all supported versions of cPanel & WHM. cPanel described the issue as a critical security vulnerability and said that an
PaperCut has alerted customers that bad actors are actively exploiting a vulnerability impacting all versions of its PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF print management software in zero-day attacks. The company has released an emergency patch for v25 and v26 to address the issue. It said it's "aware of confirmed customer incidents and is treating this matter with the highest priority." An
Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a fresh set of campaigns targeting government and diplomatic organizations in Romania, Spain, and Türkiye between late September 2025 and early April 2026. These campaigns, per Recorded Future Insikt Group, have led to the deployment of a previously undocumented backdoor dubbed HOOKEDGE, a lightweight Windows batch script that's distributed via
New details about the July attack on Hugging Face reveal that hundreds of AI agents driven by OpenAI’s internal IM1 model coordinated the compromise through an unauthorized message board. Last month, Hugging Face disclosed that autonomous AI agents exploited two vulnerabilities in its dataset-processing pipeline to execute code, steal cloud and cluster credentials, and move laterally across its production infrastructure. OpenAI later confirmed that its models escaped an ExploitGym evaluation environment through a zero-day vulnerability in a locally hosted instance of JFrog's Artifactory package manager that was connected to the internet. The agents searched online for benchmark solutions and breached the Hugging Face platform using exposed credentials and additional vulnerabilities. OpenAI's investigation, validated by CrowdStrike and an independent assessment by METR and Redwood Research, found that rogue activity started in May.
Dark Caracal targets Venezuela with GoCaracal, an upgraded Bandook toolkit and an Ethereum fallback for resilient C2 communications. Dark Caracal is back with new malware and the same hunting grounds. Arctic Wolf Labs researchers link a June 2026 intrusion against a communications organisation in Venezuela to the Lebanon‑linked espionage group, and says it deployed a previously undocumented Go‑based framework called GoCaracal alongside an updated Bandook backdoor. Dark Caracal is an APT group associated with the Lebanese General Directorate of General. In past campaigns, it targeted entities in Singapore, Cyprus, Chile, Italy, the USA, Turkey, Switzerland, Indonesia, and Germany. “In June 2026, Arctic Wolf Labs investigated a targeted intrusion affecting a communications organization in Venezuela. We assess with medium confidence that this activity is linked to Dark Caracal, a cyberespionage group associated with Lebanon’s General Directorate of General Security (GDGS) that has historically targeted governments, businesses, journalists, and activists.” reads the report published by Arctic Wolf. “GoCaracal supports separate lightweight and extended build profiles derived from a shared architecture. Both were observed in the same intrusion.” The delivery method will feel familiar to anyone who has followed the group’s recent campaigns. Phishing emails with financial or tax lures drop weaponised SVG attachments, which redirect victims through URL shorteners to attacker‑controlled sites that serve the real payload. When a recipient opens one of these SVG files, the embedded content directs the browser to a shortened URL that resolves through a redirector to getpdfdigital[.]cloud, a known attacker site used to stage malicious payloads. The site then delivers a 7‑Zip archive containing a lightweight Go implant that Arctic Wolf identifies as part of the GoCaracal framework. “While Arctic Wolf did not recover the original phishing email or SVG attachment associated with the intrusion, the artifact’s financial and tax-themed filename, the campaign’s established delivery pattern, and more than 100 related SVG files found communicating with the same malicious hosting site support our assessment that the file was delivered through phishing.” continues the report. That initial implant is not the endgame. It establishes a foothold and then pulls in a Delphi loader carrying Bandook and a more capable, extended GoCaracal build with broader post‑compromise features. The two profiles split the work. The lightweight build handles host profiling, encrypted C2, remote shell, payload download and execution, and shellcode injection. The extended build adds file management, browser credential and cookie theft, keylogging, targeted file search, WebRTC remote desktop, hidden browser sessions, a SOCKS5 proxy and persistence mechanisms. Arctic Wolf traced 249 related samples from January to July 2026 and sees a clear development arc. GoCaracal started as a focused access implant, then became modular, then gained broad post‑compromise capabilities, and finally added an Ethereum‑based C2 fallback while keeping both profiles in play. “Analysis of 249 related samples revealed two GoCaracal build profiles: a lightweight implant designed to establish access and deliver additional payloads, and an extended build intended for sustained intelligence collection and interactive control.” states the report. “The extended build also supports an Ethereum smart-contract fallback that allows operators to retrieve replacement command-and-control (C2) infrastructure without redeploying the malware.” That fallback is the most interesting twist. The extended GoCaracal configuration can include an Ethereum smart‑contract address alongside the usual HOST and PORT values. If the malware cannot reach its primary C2 after repeated tries, it calls a public Ethereum JSON‑RPC endpoint, reads a stored value from the contract, and updates its in‑memory C2 address before retrying. “An extended GoCaracal variant uses Ethereum smart contracts as a fallback source for replacement C2 addresses.” states Artic Wolf “Blockchain activity indicates that the capability was tested and operationalized rather than merely included as dormant code.” Ethereum does not carry the malware’s entire command channel. Instead, GoCaracal uses it as a backup source for a new C2 address. This lets the attackers change the server the malware contacts without releasing a new version. Arctic Wolf found a custom Solidity contract called BulletproofC2 that stores a changeable C2 address. Only its owner can update it. Transaction records show that the attackers changed the address to a public IP, suggesting they tested and used the system. The same wallet also deployed similar contracts on Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet before moving some to the mainnet. The contracts contained both public and private IP addresses, suggesting the attackers first tested the mechanism before using it operationally. GoCaracal is not replacing Bandook, at least not yet. Arctic Wolf says the two families now run in parallel, with GoCaracal augmenting the group’s existing toolkit and potentially reducing future reliance on Bandook, but current evidence does not show a full swap‑out. The June 2026 Bandook sample shows deliberate anti‑analysis tweaks. Sequential command identifiers like @0001 through @0136 were replaced with randomised strings, and plugin export names were obfuscated with generic labels, preserving functionality while weakening signature‑based detection built on older naming conventions. The wider campaign still looks like Dark Caracal. Arctic Wolf identified seven related Spanish‑language, document‑themed domains used to deliver malicious SVGs and downstream payloads, with two previously linked to the group and a new one registered in July 2026 observed delivering GoCaracal. Infrastructure is compartmentalised. Of 24 unique C2 addresses extracted from GoCaracal samples, 23 sat on AEZA Group‑operated networks, while Bandook C2 addresses were hosted on AlexHost, a provider previously associated with Dark Caracal. That separation likely limits the blast radius if one provider gets hit. Geographically, the focus remains Latin America. Arctic Wolf sees related artifacts and infrastructure tied to Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador and Uruguay, and assesses broader regional activity with moderate confidence while continuing to map the scope. “Taken together, the findings show Dark Caracal is preserving familiar targeting and delivery practices while modernizing their malware and infrastructure.” concludes the report. “Dark Caracal’s continued use of established tooling such as Bandook, combined with the introduction of GoCaracal and its separate C2 footprint, suggests an expanding and increasingly compartmentalized toolkit rather than a wholesale change in operational strategy.” Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, malware)
PaperCut is warning that hackers are actively exploiting a vulnerability in all versions of its PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF print management software in zero-day attacks. The company says it is aware of confirmed attacks on customers and is urging organizations with Internet-exposed PaperCut Application Servers to immediately restrict access to the web interfaces to trusted IP addresses. "PaperCut Software security response team is investigating active exploitation of a vulnerability affecting PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF," reads an urgent security advisory published Thursday. "We are aware of confirmed customer incidents and are treating this matter with the highest priority." PaperCut says the vulnerability affects all versions of PaperCut NG and MF, but has not shared details about the flaw or how it is being exploited.
The Manchester Airports Group (MAG) disclosed that hackers breached its systems and stole customer data, including Wi-Fi sign-ups from Manchester, Stansted, and East Midlands airports. The intruder did not access customer payment details, and the attack had no impact on airport operations, the company said. A statement from the company today notes that the exfiltrated data also "relates to car park, lounge and Fast Track bookings." The list of compromised details includes customers' email addresses, phone numbers, vehicle registration numbers, and postcodes. “The incident has not resulted in any operational disruption,” assured the organization, adding that “Airport operations remain unaffected and customer parking services continue to operate normally.” Out of an abundance of caution, MAG has temporarily suspended its online “Manage My Booking” service and is instead directing travelers to use its phone line.
Threat research gives security teams insight into how attackers operate, while MDR turns that intelligence into faster detection and response. ESET explains how combining threat intelligence, continuous monitoring, and human expertise can help SMBs strengthen their defenses.
Google is introducing new network security protections in Android 17 to strengthen connection privacy, address cellular vulnerabilities, and protect the privacy of users’ home networks. Android 17 adds support for Encrypted Client Hello (ECH), a new privacy standard that operates in conjunction with private DNS to hide profiling metadata, including visited domain names. ECH acts as a privacy extension for TLS, the protocol that secures HTTPS connections, encrypting the opening part of the TLS handshake that reveals the contacted hostname via the Server Name Indication (SNI). Even if the connection to a website or service is secure, internet service providers (ISPs) and Wi-Fi operators can still see the destination, which can be collected for commercial profiling purposes. Android users benefit from ECH when browsing with Chrome 117 and later or Firefox 119 and later, but Android 17 incorporates the protection at the platform level.
Microsoft has started rolling out a permanent fix for a known issue that causes system crashes and gaming issues on Windows 11 devices. On affected PCs, users have also reported games failing to launch and freezing with "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION" errors. When it was first confirmed, Microsoft said that this issue affects games like ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and The Finals on systems running Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2. While it was initially believed that the August 2026 updates may be behind these problems, Microsoft later blamed them on peripherals with built-in RGB lighting. "Ongoing investigation indicates that this issue is related to peripherals or internal device components which have RGB lighting features," Microsoft noted. "Such devices may install drivers or code components with file names similar to inpoutx64. In systems where these drivers are found, the issue is then triggered by launching certain games."
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