Candiru spyware was delivered to devices at Al Jazeera Media Network via targeted online advertisements in a zero-click attack that required only rendering the malicious ads on the victim's device. Researchers at Citizen Labs investigating the attacks referred to this technique as AdFection, noting that their report is the first public technical confirmation of mercenary spyware delivered through targeted ads. A similar method was documented in late 2025 by Amnesty International, involving ads that infected targets with Predator spyware without them clicking anything. That infection mechanism was called Aladdin and surfaced due to a collection of marketing files and documents leaked from the Intellexa surveillance company that researchers studied and corroborated with technical details from forensic investigations.
Employees using personal ChatGPT accounts at work can expose sensitive company data, even when their organization provides an approved Enterprise workspace. NordLayer explains how IT teams can investigate unauthorized AI use and block sensitive information before it reaches personal accounts.
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)
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)
PEERSTITCH malware exploited FortiManager to expose 500+ firewalls, evade detection inside FortiOS memory, and maintain stealthy access. PEERSTITCH, a stealthy implant deployed during a prolonged intrusion, helped attackers maintain access to a telecom managed service provider after compromising its FortiManager appliance. Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 documented the operation, which began in September 2024 and exposed credentials and configurations for more than 500 downstream firewalls. “Unit 42 investigated a multi-stage network intrusion against a telecommunications organization that occurred in September 2024, which we are tracking as cluster CL-STA-0954 (aka UNC5820). The attackers behind CL-STA-0954 achieved an initial compromise by exploiting CVE-2024-47575 against a centralized FortiManager appliance.” reads the report published by Palo Alto Networks. “From that single appliance, our observations are that the attackers exfiltrated an archive containing running configurations, cryptographic material and database files containing information about more than 500 managed FortiGate firewalls. Those firewalls protected the target’s own infrastructure and the networks of its clients.” The initial access relied on CVE-2024-47575, known as FortiJump, which allowed an unauthenticated attacker to register a rogue virtual device with the central management platform over TCP port 541. Within minutes, the attackers extracted a configuration archive containing serial numbers, public IP addresses, routing tables, VPN credentials, and cryptographic trust material for every managed firewall. One compromised management system had effectively handed them the keys to hundreds of networks. The targeted 500 devices didn’t all belong to the same organization. They protected the managed service provider’s infrastructure and its clients’ networks. The attackers got running configurations and private keys for firewalls belonging to organizations that had no idea any of this was happening. Unit 42 was clear about the scope: the investigation covered only the provider’s own environment, not the downstream clients. Armed with decrypted credentials from the stolen configuration files, which stored passwords as reversible ciphertext, the attackers then established unauthorized SSL/VPN sessions into internal network management segments from external staging addresses. That’s the moment reconnaissance turned into active access. In the second stage, attackers exploited CVE-2025-61624, a path traversal flaw in the FortiOS auto-script engine, to deploy a new implant called PEERSTITCH. The implant is a 64-bit ARM64 binary written in C, but what it does is unusual. Unit 42’s researchers put it plainly: “PEERSTITCH leaves no persistent binary on disk, opens no listening ports and initiates no outbound network connections. Instead, it communicates through traffic generated by legitimate processes on the infected host, which makes the malware resistant to conventional endpoint and network detection.” the report continues. “The attackers also impersonated the FortiManager platform to pull from managed firewalls of other hosts in the targeted network.” Instead, it injects itself into two legitimate FortiOS daemons, the logging process and the VPN service, and creates a covert communication bridge between them using memory that’s already allocated to those running processes. When traffic passing through the logging daemon matches two specific markers, a port number embedded in data and a link-local IP address, it extracts a session token and writes it directly into the VPN daemon’s memory using Linux’s /proc filesystem. When the VPN daemon processes a subsequent session carrying that same tag, it takes an alternate execution path, bypassing FortiOS security checks entirely. PEERSTITCH is hard to detect because it leaves no persistent file on disk, opens no listening ports, and initiates no outbound network connections. The only way to detect it is by inspecting live process memory for anomalous read-write-execute (RWX) regions in the two targeted daemons or identifying NOP patches at specific offsets in their code. Fortinet’s Integrity Checker Tool cannot detect the implant because it scans files on disk, which remain untouched. The attackers also established a secondary command channel by abusing Apache’s built-in certificate management module on the firewalls. They embedded shell commands in the domain name field of certificate validation requests and configured Apache to retry them continuously, creating a persistent outbound reverse shell through a legitimate system process. Before running their malicious auto-scripts, the attackers killed the logging and syslog daemons to suppress any trace of what was about to happen. Crash logs were wiped. Rogue administrator accounts and script objects were automatically deleted shortly after execution. The malicious ACME configuration file was overwritten with innocent-looking text. The PEERSTITCH injector unlinked its own binary from disk after completing execution. “The cryptographic trust material governing the platform’s relationship with every managed device leaves with the attacker and remains valid until it is rotated. Defenders must treat edge management interfaces with the highest level of zero trust isolation.” Palo Alto Networks states. “They must also treat the credentials and certificates those interfaces hold as compromised the moment the platform is.” Patching FortiManager doesn’t reverse the data theft. The stolen cryptographic keys remain valid until the trust material on every managed device is individually rotated. A firmware update alone won’t invalidate them. The broader lesson goes beyond Fortinet: management platforms are high-value targets because compromising one can expose an entire network. As Unit 42 noted, “the management platform is the highest-value target on the network.” When that platform belongs to a managed service provider, a single breach can affect hundreds of downstream customers, turning a local compromise into a supply-chain security incident. “For organizations that manage infrastructure on behalf of others, the management platform is the highest-value target on the network. Compromising the management platform is not contained by the boundary of the organization that owns it.” the report concludes. “That compromise also does not end when the platform is patched.” Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, PEERSTITCH malware)
Microsoft says some users may have trouble turning on Smart App Control after installing this month's KB5127648 Windows 11 security update. Smart App Control is a Windows 11 security feature that uses Microsoft's app intelligence services and code integrity features and works alongside Microsoft Defender and SmartScreen to block potentially harmful apps or binaries. According to the company, on affected devices running Windows 11, version 24H2 and later, the Smart App Control option is grayed out and cannot be toggled. "After installing this update, some devices might be unable to turn on Smart App Control in the Windows Security app if it has been turned off. On affected devices, the option to turn on Smart App Control might be grayed out," Microsoft said in an update to the KB5127648 advisory.
The Administrative Office of the US Courts says a cyberattack on government contractor BAE Systems has taken down the notice system used by federal bankruptcy courts. In a Thursday press release, the Administrative Office of the US Courts said the BAE Systems cyberattack also halted the production and distribution of bankruptcy notices. "The Administrative Office of the US Courts has been in communication with the impacted courts and is also coordinating with BAE Systems. BAE is actively investigating this incident and working to restore operations," it said. "As a result of the incident, all access to the BNC systems and websites that BAE operates on behalf of the Judiciary and the related bankruptcy noticing process are unavailable at this time, including bnc.uscourts.gov, bankruptcynotices.uscourts.gov, notices.uscourts.gov, and the National Creditor Registration Service."
The regulated utility company CenterPoint Energy says a data breach exposed the personal information of more than 1 million people in Texas. CenterPoint Energy is a regulated utility company used to deliver natural gas and electricity infrastructure, maintain power grids and pipelines, and restore service across parts of Texas, Indiana, Ohio, and Minnesota. The organization disclosed a data breach affecting more than 1 million people in Texas. This week, CenterPoint Energy told the Texas Attorney General’s Office that the breach affected 1,062,060 Texas residents. The company does not appear to have notified the affected individuals by letter. “More than one million Texans were affected by a CenterPoint Energy data breach that compromised sensitive personal information, according to newly published information from the Texas Attorney General’s Office.” reported the broadcast Click2Huston. “The state’s data breach database lists 1,062,060 Texans as being affected. The information involved includes customers’ names, addresses, Social Security information and driver’s-license numbers.” Days before the first disclosure, on September 12, a threat actor using the alias “4d722e4d656f77” claimed on a cybercrime forum to have extracted roughly 7.49 million customer records from CenterPoint Energy. “In September 2026, CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (the “Company”) became aware of an online post by a third party claiming to have obtained a data set containing certain of the Company’s customer information.” reads the FORM 8-K report filed with SEC.”While the investigation remains ongoing, the Company has determined that an unauthorized third party obtained personal information relating to a portion of the Company’s customers through one of the Company’s external facing systems (the “Incident”).” The hacker claimed the theft of names, phone numbers, service and billing addresses, account numbers, billing amounts, payment status, and partial Social Security numbers. He offered a 2.5 GB archive for download. The attacker warned that “next time we won’t simply pull data, we’ll start attacking the main infrastructure,” a line that reads well on a forum but should still be taken seriously by any critical infrastructure operator. The attackers claimed they stole over the records through an API they say lacked proper WAF protection, rate limiting, and authentication. They also claimed the company tried to stop the data dump only after millions of records had been extracted. “CenterPoint Energy continues to actively investigate the cybersecurity incident disclosed last month. Upon learning of the issue, CenterPoint activated our incident response procedures and engaged external cybersecurity, forensic, and legal advisors to assist with the investigation.” a spokesperson for CenterPoint said on Wednesday. “We continue to work with third-party experts to assess the scope of affected customer data to identify which customers will be provided notifications in accordance with applicable legal requirements.” Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, data breach)
BeyondTrust warned customers on Thursday to patch a critical flaw in its Remote Support (RS) that has been exploited in zero-day attacks since late August. Remote Support is the company's enterprise-grade support solution that helps IT service desks, help desks, and customer support teams troubleshoot issues remotely. Tracked as CVE-2026-102764, this actively exploited authentication bypass vulnerability lets unprivileged remote attackers perform file operations on unpatched appliances and affects RS 26.2.3 or earlier. BeyondTrust patched the security issue for all Remote Support and Privileged Remote Access SaaS customers on October 8, but self-hosted installations must be patched manually if automatic updates are not enabled. While the company shared limited details about the vulnerability, it said the zero-day was abused in the wild by a suspected China-nexus espionage actor tracked by Mandiant and Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) security researchers as "Armory Castle" (formerly UNC5221) and by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike as "Warp Panda."
In the space of a month, a new category of AI model went from nonexistent to everywhere. TypeSafe AI released Jev on September 15 and called it a System One model, a nod to Kahneman's fast, intuitive thinking. OpenAI announced its own Decisions API at DevDay and opened a public beta on October 6. Cribl published cribl-decision, an open LoRA adapter you can run locally. Others, like Laya, are
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