Chinese hackers exploit WordPress, Zyxel flaws to steal govt data

A Chinese-speaking threat actor has been exploiting vulnerabilities in ZyXEL GS1900 Smart Managed Switches and WordPress to steal sensitive data from 996 devices and more than 18,500 records stored in backend databases.

The adversary targeted multiple technologies, including PAN-OS Global Protect, FlowiseAI, Nuclio, Proxmox, Ubiquity, with exploits for known security issues.

Scans and attacks attributed to the adversary originate from the same IP address and have been recorded since early June 2026, and have been attributed to a threat actor related to the Red Heron group, linked to exploiting a critical flaw in the Gitea self-hosted Git service.

The activity was detected by threat intelligence company GreyNoise through its Global Observation Grid (GOG) network of sensors.

According to the researchers, the threat actor leveraged the wp2shell vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-63030 and CVE-2026-60137) in the WordPress Core component to breach at least 49 organizations in 29 countries.