F5 Breached, Linux Rootkits, Pixnapping Assault, EtherHiding & Extra

It is easy to assume your defenses are strong — till you understand attackers have been inside them the entire time. The most recent incidents present that long-term, silent breaches have gotten the norm. One of the best protection now is not simply patching quick, however watching smarter and staying alert for what you do not anticipate.

This is a fast take a look at this week’s prime threats, new techniques, and safety tales shaping the panorama.

⚡ Menace of the Week

F5 Uncovered to Nation-State Breach — F5 disclosed that unidentified risk actors broke into its programs and stole information containing a few of BIG-IP’s supply code and knowledge associated to undisclosed vulnerabilities within the product. The corporate stated it realized of the incident on August 9, 2025, though it is believed that the attackers had been in its community for a minimum of 12 months. The attackers are stated to have used a malware household known as BRICKSTORM, which is attributed to a China-nexus espionage group dubbed UNC5221. GreyNoise stated it noticed elevated scanning exercise concentrating on BIG-IP in three waves on September 23, October 14, and October 15, 2025, however emphasised the anomalies could not essentially relate to the hack. Censys stated it recognized over 680,000 F5 BIG-IP load balancers and utility gateways seen on the general public web, with the vast majority of hosts positioned within the U.S., adopted by Germany, France, Japan, and China. Not all recognized programs are essentially susceptible, however every represents a publicly accessible interface that ought to be inventoried, access-restricted, and patched proactively as a precautionary measure. “Edge infrastructure and safety distributors stay prime targets for long-term, usually state-linked risk actors,” John Fokker, vp of risk intelligence technique at Trellix, stated. “Over time, we now have seen nation-state curiosity in exploiting vulnerabilities in edge units, recognizing their strategic place in international networks. Incidents like these remind us that strengthening collective resilience requires not solely hardened expertise but in addition open collaboration and intelligence sharing throughout the safety neighborhood.”

• N. Korea Makes use of EtherHiding to Cover Malware Inside Blockchain Sensible Contracts — North Korean risk actors have been noticed leveraging the EtherHiding approach to distribute malware and allow cryptocurrency theft, marking the primary time a state-sponsored hacking group has embraced the strategy. The exercise has been attributed to a cluster tracked as UNC5342 (aka Well-known Chollima). The assault wave is a part of a long-running marketing campaign codenamed Contagious Interview, whereby the attackers strategy potential targets on LinkedIn by posing as recruiters or hiring managers, and trick them into operating malicious code beneath the pretext of a job evaluation after shifting the dialog to Telegram or Discord. Within the newest assault waves noticed since February 2025, the risk actors use a JavaScript downloader that interacts with a malicious BSC good contract to obtain JADESNOW, which subsequently queries the transaction historical past related to an Ethereum tackle to fetch the JavaScript model of InvisibleFerret.
• LinkPro Linux Rootkit Noticed within the Wild — An investigation into the compromise of an Amazon Internet Providers (AWS)-hosted infrastructure led to the invention of a brand new GNU/Linux rootkit dubbed LinkPro. The backdoor options functionalities counting on the set up of two prolonged Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) modules to hide itself and to be remotely activated upon receiving a magic packet – a TCP SYN packet with a selected window dimension (54321) that alerts the rootkit to await additional directions inside a one-hour window, permitting it to evade conventional safety defenses. The instructions supported by LinkPro embrace executing /bin/bash in a pseudo-terminal, operating a shell command, enumerating information and directories, performing file operations, downloading information, and organising a SOCKS5 proxy tunnel. It is at present not identified who’s behind the assault, but it surely’s suspected that the risk actors are financially motivated.
• Zero Disco Marketing campaign Targets Cisco Units with Rootkits — A brand new marketing campaign has exploited a lately disclosed safety flaw impacting Cisco IOS Software program and IOS XE Software program to deploy Linux rootkits on older, unprotected programs. The exercise, codenamed Operation Zero Disco by Development Micro, includes the weaponization of CVE-2025-20352 (CVSS rating: 7.7), a stack overflow vulnerability within the Easy Community Administration Protocol (SNMP) subsystem that might enable an authenticated, distant attacker to execute arbitrary code by sending crafted SNMP packets to a prone machine. The operation primarily impacted Cisco 9400, 9300, and legacy 3750G sequence units, Development Micro stated. The intrusions haven’t been attributed to any identified risk actor or group.
• Pixnapping Assault Results in Knowledge Theft on Android Units — Android units from Google and Samsung have been discovered susceptible to a side-channel assault that might be exploited to covertly steal two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, Google Maps timelines, and different delicate knowledge with out the customers’ information pixel-by-pixel. The assault has been codenamed Pixnapping. Google is monitoring the problem beneath the CVE identifier CVE-2025-48561 (CVSS rating: 5.5). Patches for the vulnerability had been issued by the tech big as a part of its September 2025 Android Safety Bulletin, with extra fixes forthcoming in December.
• Chinese language Menace Actors Exploited ArcGIS Server as Backdoor — Menace actors with ties to China have been attributed to a novel marketing campaign that compromised an ArcGIS system and turned it right into a backdoor for greater than a yr. The exercise is the handiwork of a Chinese language state-sponsored hacking group known as Flax Storm, which can also be tracked as Ethereal Panda and RedJuliett. “The group cleverly modified a geo-mapping utility’s Java server object extension (SOE) right into a functioning internet shell,” ReliaQuest stated. “By gating entry with a hardcoded key for unique management and embedding it in system backups, they achieved deep, long-term persistence that might survive a full system restoration.” The assault chain concerned the risk actors concentrating on a public-facing ArcGIS server that was linked to a non-public, inside ArcGIS server by compromising a portal administrator account to deploy a malicious SOE, thereby permitting them to mix in with regular site visitors and preserve entry for prolonged intervals. The attackers then instructed the public-facing server to create a hidden listing to function the group’s “non-public workspace.” In addition they blocked entry to different attackers and admins with a hard-coded key. The findings display Flax Storm’s constant modus operandi of quietly turning a company’s personal instruments in opposition to itself slightly than utilizing subtle malware or exploits.

‎️‍🔥 Trending CVEs

Hackers transfer quick. They usually exploit new vulnerabilities inside hours, turning a single missed patch into a significant breach. One unpatched CVE could be all it takes for a full compromise. Beneath are this week’s most important vulnerabilities gaining consideration throughout the business. Overview them, prioritize your fixes, and shut the hole earlier than attackers take benefit.

This week’s listing consists of — CVE-2025-24990, CVE-2025-59230 (Microsoft Home windows), CVE-2025-47827 (IGEL OS earlier than 11), CVE-2023-42770, CVE-2023-40151 (Crimson Lion Sixnet RTUs), CVE-2025-2611 (ICTBroadcast), CVE-2025-55315 (Microsoft ASP.NET Core), CVE-2025-11577 (Clevo UEFI firmware), CVE-2025-37729 (Elastic Cloud Enterprise), CVE-2025-9713, CVE-2025-11622 (Ivanti Endpoint Supervisor), CVE-2025-48983, CVE-2025-48984 (Veeam), CVE-2025-11756 (Google Chrome), CVE-2025-49201 (Fortinet FortiPAM and FortiSwitch Supervisor), CVE-2025-58325 (Fortinet FortiOS CLI), CVE-2025-49553 (Adobe Join collaboration suite), CVE-2025-9217 (Slider Revolution plugin), CVE-2025-10230 (Samba), CVE-2025-54539 (Apache ActiveMQ), CVE-2025-41703, CVE-2025-41704, CVE-2025-41706, CVE-2025-41707 (Phoenix Contact QUINT4), and CVE-2025-11492, CVE-2025-11493 (ConnectWise Automate).

📰 Across the Cyber World

• Microsoft Unveils New Safety Enhancements — Microsoft revealed that “elements of the kernel in Home windows 11 have been rewritten in Rust, which helps mitigate in opposition to reminiscence corruption vulnerabilities like buffer overflows and helps scale back assault surfaces.” The corporate additionally famous that it is taking steps to safe AI-powered agentic experiences on the working system by making certain that they function with restricted permissions and solely receive entry to sources customers’ explicitly present permission to. As well as, Microsoft stated brokers that combine with Home windows should be cryptographically signed by a trusted supply in order that they are often revoked if discovered to be malicious. Every AI agent will even run beneath its personal devoted agent account that is distinct from the consumer account on the machine. “This facilitates agent-specific coverage utility that may be completely different from the principles utilized to different accounts like these for human customers,” it stated.
• search engine marketing Marketing campaign Makes use of Pretend Ivanti Installers to Steal Credentials — A brand new assault marketing campaign has leveraged search engine marketing poisoning to lure customers into downloading a malicious model of the Ivanti Pulse Safe VPN shopper. The exercise targets customers looking for professional software program on search engines like google and yahoo like Bing, redirecting them to attacker-controlled lookalike web sites (ivanti-pulsesecure[.]com or ivanti-secure-access[.]org). The aim of this assault is to steal VPN credentials from the sufferer’s machine, enabling additional compromise. “The malicious installer, a signed MSI file, incorporates a credential-stealing DLL designed to find, parse, and exfiltrate VPN connection particulars,” Zscaler stated. “The malware particularly targets the connectionstore.dat file to steal saved VPN server URIs, which it combines with hardcoded credentials for exfiltration. Knowledge is shipped to a command-and-control (C2) server hosted on Microsoft Azure infrastructure.”
• Qilin’s Ties with BPH Suppliers Uncovered — Cybersecurity researchers from Resecurity examined Qilin ransomware group’s “shut affiliation” with underground bulletproof internet hosting (BPH) operators, discovering that the e-crime actor has not solely relied on Cat Applied sciences Co. Restricted. (which, in flip, is hosted on an IP tackle tied to Aeza Group) for internet hosting its knowledge leak website, but in addition marketed companies like BEARHOST Servers (aka Underground) on its WikiLeaksV2 website, the place the group publishes content material about their actions. BEARHOST has been operational since 2016, providing its companies for anyplace from $95 to $500. Whereas BEARHOST abruptly introduced the stoppage of its service on December 28, 2024, it’s assessed that the risk actors have taken the BPH service into non-public mode, catering solely to trusted and vetted underground actors. On Could 8, 2025, it resurfaced as Voodoo Servers, just for the operators to terminate the service once more in the direction of the top of the month, citing political causes. “The actors determined to vanish by an ‘exit rip-off’ situation, conserving the underground viewers fully clueless,” Resecurity stated. “Notably, the authorized entities behind the service proceed their operations.” Notably, Cat Applied sciences Co. Restricted. additionally shares hyperlinks to shadowy entities like Crimson Bytes LLC, Hostway, Starcrecium Restricted, and Chang Manner Applied sciences Co. Restricted, the final of which has been related to intensive malware exercise, internet hosting command-and-control (C2) servers of Amadey, StealC, and Cobalt Strike utilized by cybercriminals. One other entity of word is Subsequent Restricted, which shares the identical Hong Kong tackle as Chang Manner Applied sciences Co. Restricted and has been attributed to malicious exercise in reference to Proton66.
• U.S. Choose Bars NSO Group from Concentrating on WhatsApp — A U.S. decide barred NSO Group from concentrating on WhatsApp customers and reduce the punitive damages verdict awarded to Meta by a jury in Could 2025 to $4 million, as a result of the court docket didn’t have sufficient proof to find out that NSO Group’s habits was “significantly egregious.” The everlasting injunction handed out by U.S. District Choose Phyllis Hamilton signifies that the Israeli vendor can not use WhatsApp as a approach to infect targets’ units. As a refresher, Meta sued the NSO Group in 2019 over the usage of Pegasus spy ware by exploiting a then-zero-day flaw within the messaging app to spy on 1,400 folks from 20 international locations, together with journalists and human rights activists. It was fined near $168 million earlier this Could. The proposed injunction requires NSO Group to delete and destroy pc code associated to Meta’s platforms, and she or he concluded that the availability is “obligatory to forestall future violations, particularly given the undetectable nature of defendants’ expertise.”
• Google’s Privateness Sandbox Initiative is Formally Useless — In 2019, Google launched an initiative known as Privateness Sandbox to give you privacy-enhancing alternate options to exchange third-party cookies on the internet. Nonetheless, with the corporate abandoning its plans to deprecate third-party monitoring cookies, the undertaking seems to be winding down. To that finish, the tech big stated it is retiring the next Privateness Sandbox applied sciences citing low ranges of adoption: Attribution Reporting API (Chrome and Android), IP Safety, On-Gadget Personalization, Non-public Aggregation (together with Shared Storage), Protected Viewers (Chrome and Android), Protected App Alerts, Associated Web site Units (together with requestStorageAccessFor and Associated Web site Partition), SelectURL, SDK Runtime and Matters (Chrome and Android). In an announcement shared with Adweek, the corporate stated it can proceed to work to enhance privateness throughout Chrome, Android, and the net, however not beneath the Privateness Sandbox branding.
• Russia Blocks Overseas SIM Playing cards — Russia stated it is taking steps to briefly block cell web for overseas SIM playing cards, citing nationwide safety causes. The brand new rule imposes a compulsory 24-hour cell web blackout for anybody coming into Russia with a overseas SIM card.
• Flaw in CORS headers in Internet Browsers Disclosed — The CERT Coordination Middle (CERT/CC) disclosed particulars of a vulnerability in cross-origin useful resource sharing (CORS) headers in Chromium, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Firefox that permits the CORS coverage to be manipulated. This may be mixed with DNS rebinding strategies to problem arbitrary requests to companies listening on arbitrary ports, whatever the CORS coverage in place by the goal. “An attacker can use a malicious website to execute a JavaScript payload that periodically sends CORS headers in an effort to ask the server if the cross-origin request is secure and allowed,” CERT/CC defined. “Naturally, the attacker-controlled hostname will reply with permissive CORS headers that may circumvent the CORS coverage. The attacker then performs a DNS rebinding assault in order that the hostname is assigned the IP tackle of the goal service. After the DNS responds with the modified IP tackle, the brand new goal inherits the relaxed CORS coverage, permitting an attacker to doubtlessly exfiltrate knowledge from the goal.” Mozilla is monitoring the vulnerability as CVE-2025-8036.
• Phishing Campaigns Use Microsoft’s Emblem for Tech Help Scams — Menace actors are exploiting Microsoft’s Identify and branding in phishing emails to lure customers into fraudulent tech assist scams. The messages include hyperlinks that, when clicked, take the victims to a pretend CAPTCHA problem, after which they’re redirected to a phishing touchdown web page to unleash the following stage of the assault. “After passing the captcha verification, the sufferer is all of a sudden visually overloaded with a number of pop-ups that seem like Microsoft safety alerts,” Cofense stated. “Their browser is manipulated to seem locked, they usually lose the power to find or management their mouse, which provides to the sensation that the system is compromised. This involuntary lack of management creates a fake ransomware expertise, main the consumer to consider their pc is locked and to take instant motion to treatment the an infection.” From there, customers are instructed to name a quantity to succeed in Home windows Help, at which they’re related to a bogus technician to take the assault ahead. “The risk actor might exploit additional by asking the consumer to offer account credentials or persuade the consumer to put in distant desktop instruments, permitting full entry to their system,” the corporate stated.
• Taxpayers, Drivers Focused in Refund and Street Toll Smishing Scams — A smishing marketing campaign has leveraged a minimum of 850 newly-registered domains in September and early October to focus on folks residing within the U.S., the U.Okay., and elsewhere with phishing hyperlinks that use tax refunds, highway toll costs, or failed bundle deliveries as a lure. The web sites, designed to be loaded solely when launched from a cell machine, declare to offer details about their tax refund standing or receive a subsidy of as much as £300 to assist offset winter gas prices (word: this can be a actual U.Okay. authorities initiative), solely to immediate them to offer private particulars corresponding to title, dwelling tackle, phone quantity and electronic mail tackle, in addition to fee card info. The entered knowledge is exfiltrated to the attackers over the WebSocket protocol. Among the rip-off web sites have additionally been discovered to focus on Canadian, German, and Spanish residents and guests, per Netcraft.
• Meta’s New Collage Function Could Use Pictures in Telephone’s Digital camera Roll — Meta is formally rolling out a brand new opt-in characteristic to Fb customers within the U.S. and Canada to recommend one of the best pictures and movies from customers’ digital camera roll and create collages and edits. “Together with your permission and the assistance of AI, our new characteristic permits Fb to routinely floor hidden gems – these memorable moments that get misplaced amongst screenshots, receipts, and random snaps – and edit them to avoid wasting or share,” the corporate stated. The characteristic was first examined again in late June 2025. The social media firm emphasised that the strategies are non-public and that it doesn’t use media obtained from customers’ units by way of the digital camera roll to coach its fashions, until customers decide to edit the media with their AI instruments or publish these strategies to Fb. Customers who want to decide out of the characteristic can accomplish that by navigating Settings and Privateness > Settings > Preferences > Digital camera Roll Sharing Options.
• Pretend Homebrew, TradingView, LogMeIn Websites Serve Stealer Malware Concentrating on Macs — Menace actors are using social engineering techniques to trick customers into visiting pretend web sites impersonating trusted platforms like as Homebrew, TradingView, and LogMeIn, the place they’re instructed to repeat and run a malicious command on the Terminal app as a part of ClickFix-style assaults, ensuing within the deployment of stealer malware corresponding to Atomic Stealer and Odyssey Stealer. “Greater than 85 phishing domains had been recognized, related by shared SSL certificates, payload servers, and reused infrastructure,” Hunt.io stated. “The findings recommend a coordinated and ongoing marketing campaign through which operators constantly adapt their infrastructure and techniques to take care of persistence and evade detection inside the macOS ecosystem.” It is suspected that customers are pushed to those web sites by way of sponsored advertisements on search engines like google and yahoo like Bing and Google.
• Dutch Knowledge Safety Watchdog Fines Experian $3.2 Million for Privateness Violations — The Dutch Knowledge Safety Authority (DPA) imposed a advantageous of €2.7 million ($3.2 million) on Experian Netherlands for accumulating knowledge in contravention of the E.U. Common Knowledge Safety Regulation (GDPR). The DPA stated the buyer credit score reporting firm gathered info on folks from each public and private sources and did not make it clear why the gathering of sure knowledge was obligatory. Along with the penalty, Experian is anticipated to delete the database of private knowledge by the top of the yr. The corporate has additionally ceased its operations within the nation. “Till January 1, 2025, Experian offered credit score assessments about people to its purchasers,” the DPA stated. “To do that, the corporate collected knowledge corresponding to unfavorable fee habits, excellent money owed, or bankruptcies. The AP discovered that Experian violated the legislation by unlawfully utilizing private knowledge.”
• Menace Actors Ship Pretend Password Supervisor Breach Alerts — Dangerous actors are sending phishing alerts claiming that their password supervisor accounts for 1Password and Lastpass have been compromised in an effort to trick customers into offering their passwords and hijack their accounts. In response to the assault, LastPass stated it has not been hacked and that it is an try on the a part of the attackers to generate a false sense of urgency. In some circumstances noticed by Bleeping Laptop, the exercise has additionally been discovered to induce recipients to put in a safer model of the password supervisor, ensuing within the deployment of a professional distant entry software program known as Syncro. The software program vendor has since moved to close down the malicious accounts to forestall additional installs.
• SocGholish MaaS Detailed — LevelBlue has revealed an evaluation of a risk exercise cluster often known as SocGholish (aka FakeUpdates), which is thought to be lively since 2017, leveraging pretend internet browser replace prompts on compromised web sites as a lure to distribute malware. Victims are usually routed by Site visitors Distribution Methods (TDS) like Keitaro and Parrot TDS to filter customers primarily based on particular components corresponding to geography, browser sort, or system configuration, making certain that solely the supposed targets are uncovered to the payload. It is supplied beneath a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) by a financially motivated cybercrime group known as TA569. SocGholish stands out for its potential to show professional web sites into large-scale distribution platforms for malware. Appearing as an preliminary entry dealer (IAB), its operations revenue from follow-on compromises by different actors. “As soon as executed, its payloads vary from loaders and stealers to ransomware, permitting for intensive follow-up exploitation,” LevelBlue stated. “This mix of broad attain, easy supply mechanisms, and versatile use by a number of teams makes SocGholish a persistent and harmful risk throughout industries and areas.” One in all its major customers is Evil Corp, with the malware additionally used to ship RansomHub in early 2025.

🎥 Cybersecurity Webinars

• The Sensible Framework to Govern AI Brokers With out Slowing Innovation → AI is altering every part quick — however for many safety groups, it nonetheless looks like a battle simply to maintain up. The aim is not to sluggish innovation with extra controls; it is to make these controls work for the enterprise. By constructing safety into AI from the beginning, you’ll be able to flip what was a bottleneck into an actual accelerator for progress and belief.
• The Way forward for AI in GRC: Turning Danger Right into a Compliance Benefit – AI is altering how corporations handle danger and compliance — quick. It brings massive alternatives but in addition new challenges. This webinar reveals you methods to use AI safely and successfully in GRC, keep away from widespread errors, and switch complicated guidelines into an actual enterprise benefit.
• Workflow Readability: The way to Mix AI and Human Effort for Actual Outcomes – Too many groups are speeding to “add AI” and not using a plan — and ending up with messy, unreliable workflows. Be a part of us to study a clearer strategy: methods to use AI thoughtfully, simplify automation, and construct programs that scale securely.

🔧 Cybersecurity Instruments

• Beelzebub – It turns honeypot deployment into a robust, low-code expertise. It makes use of AI to simulate actual programs, serving to safety groups detect assaults, observe rising threats, and share insights by a world risk intelligence community.
• NetworkHound – It maps your Lively Listing community from the within out. It discovers each machine — domain-joined or shadow-IT — validates SMB and internet companies, and builds a full BloodHound-compatible graph so you’ll be able to see and safe your surroundings clearly.

Disclaimer: These instruments are for academic and analysis use solely. They have not been totally security-tested and will pose dangers if used incorrectly. Overview the code earlier than attempting them, take a look at solely in secure environments, and comply with all moral, authorized, and organizational guidelines.

🔒 Tip of the Week

Most Cloud Breaches Aren’t Hacks — They’re Misconfigurations. This is The way to Repair Them — Cloud storage buckets like AWS S3, Azure Blob, and Google Cloud Storage make knowledge sharing simple — however one flawed setting can expose every part. Most knowledge leaks occur not due to hacking, however as a result of somebody left a public bucket, skipped encryption, or used a take a look at bucket that by no means obtained locked down. Cloud platforms provide you with flexibility, not assured security, so it’s good to verify and management entry your self.

Misconfigurations often occur when permissions are too broad, encryption is disabled, or visibility is misplaced throughout a number of clouds. Doing guide checks would not scale — particularly for those who handle knowledge in AWS, Azure, and GCP. The repair is utilizing instruments that routinely discover, report, and even repair unsafe settings earlier than they trigger harm.

ScoutSuite is a robust place to begin for cross-cloud visibility. It scans AWS, Azure, and GCP for open buckets, weak IAM roles, and lacking encryption, then creates an easy-to-read HTML report. **Prowler** goes deeper into AWS, checking S3 settings in opposition to CIS and AWS benchmarks to catch dangerous ACLs or unencrypted buckets.

For ongoing management, Cloud Custodian enables you to write easy insurance policies that routinely implement guidelines — for instance, forcing all new buckets to make use of encryption. And CloudQuery can flip your cloud setup right into a searchable database, so you’ll be able to monitor adjustments, observe compliance, and visualize dangers in a single place.

One of the best strategy is to mix them: run ScoutSuite or Prowler weekly to seek out points, and let Cloud Custodian deal with automated fixes. Even a number of hours spent setting these up can cease the sort of knowledge leaks that make headlines. At all times assume each bucket is public till confirmed in any other case — and safe it like it’s.

Conclusion

The reality is, no software or patch will ever make us totally safe. What issues most is consciousness — realizing what’s regular, what’s altering, and the way attackers assume. Each alert, log, or minor anomaly is a clue. Hold connecting these dots earlier than another person does.