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Arista Warns of Critical Actively Exploited VCO Vulnerability

  Arista has published Security Advisory 0183 warning of a critical vulnerability in on-premises VeloCloud Orchestrator (VCO), tracked as CV...

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Vulnerability
Account Token Theft AI Assistant Security AI Security Cyber Security Dictation Endpoint Local Privilege Escalation Mac Security MacOS Vulnerability Meta Muse Vulnerability

Meta Muse Flaw Lets Attackers Hijack AI Assistant


The Muse artificial intelligence assistant from Meta has been found to be vulnerable to an attack which allows malicious software to redirect its dictation traffic and control the actions performed by the application if it is locally running malware. 

The issue was demonstrated by security researcher Patrick Wardle in a proof-of-concept published on September 21, which demonstrates how an attacker with code execution rights under the user logged into Muse can exploit a hidden configuration in Muse. Wardle has also emphasized that the vulnerability does not provide an initial entry point into a Mac, but rather becomes dangerous after a malicious program or attacker has already been installed on the device. 

In addition, Wardle also warned that the attack may be delivered remotely via a ClickFix-style method, in which the victim is persuaded to execute a command without downloading or installing traditional malicious software. The Meta AI agent Muse was launched earlier this month as a personal AI agent capable of interacting with services and applications based on user permissions. Its capabilities include file sharing, email, messaging, calendars, shopping services, and smart-home applications. As a result of these permissions, the malicious process does not have to obtain the same access independently, making them particularly relevant to this attack. 

There is a problem with an undocumented Muse preference named endo_voyager_dictation_endpoint that controls the location where voice dictation is processed. The setting can be modified by an application running under the same user account. No additional macOS permission is necessary to modify the setting so that Meta's legitimate endpoint is replaced with an attacker's endpoint. 

A redirected endpoint can allow voice input intended for Muse to be sent to a service controlled by the attacker. Testing has demonstrated that both the audio and transcription can be intercepted. Once the input has been captured, the attacker can observe dictated prompts and influence Muse's instructions. 

A further significant benefit of the redirected traffic is that the token associated with the user's Muse account can be accessed and used to interact directly with Muse. Wardle demonstrated that the token can be accessed and used directly to access the account's chat history. Thus, malicious code is no longer simply stealing information, but rather abusing the AI assistant itself in order to carry out actions based on the privileges that have already been assigned. 

A secondary concern is how conventional endpoint security tools might interpret the activity. The Muse application is a legitimate, signed application, so actions initiated through it may appear to originate from a trusted process rather than directly from malware. Wardle's testing further revealed that access obtained through Muse tokens may extend beyond the compromised computer.

Using the token, the researcher was able to execute commands through Muse on another device since the same account can be used across multiple devices. In testing, the researcher was able to have the assistant on a smartphone report its location, scan for nearby Bluetooth devices, and identify smart home controls. 

Meta Releases Hotfix for Muse Zero-Day

The vulnerability has been addressed by Meta with a hotfix for Muse on MacOS. According to David Singleton of Meta Superintelligence Labs, the issue involves a local privilege escalation rather than a remote vulnerability. Moreover, exploitation requires malicious software to have already been installed under the user's account. 

By closing the configuration path that Wardle used in his proof-of-concept, the hotfix removes the ability to modify the dictation endpoint. As Meta stated, there was a limited practical risk associated with the attack since it requires the installation of local code. However, the requirement for local code execution does not necessarily exclude realistic attack scenarios. Wardle cited ClickFix-style attacks, in which victims are tricked into executing commands on their own computers.

By employing such a method, one might be able to gain a foothold without having to install conventional malware in order to exploit the Muse vulnerability. A broader concern with artificial intelligence agents that operate with extensive permissions has been highlighted by the vulnerability. As a result of Muse accessing a wide range of system resources and connected services, it may be possible for attackers to use those existing permissions once they have obtained control of the agent, rather than requiring separate access to each protected resource. 

In Wardle's testing, he demonstrated that the vulnerability can be exploited for a variety of purposes beyond the theft of dictated information. As part of the proof-of-concept activity, the user was able to take images and create documents on the Mac using Muse, in some cases without being made aware of. 

In addition, the research demonstrated that attackers controlling Muse sessions may interact with connected devices, although some actions are limited to the preparation of drafts during testing. This vulnerability does not imply the bypassing of macOS's underlying permission system directly, but rather the abuse of Muse once sensitive capabilities have been granted. As a result, the compromised process may be able to make requests through legitimate, signed applications, potentially making the results harder to distinguish from normal AI-aided operations. Moreover, the dictation system design of Muse contributed to the vulnerability as well. While Apple's dictation capabilities are available on device, Muse transmits voice inputs to Meta's infrastructure for processing. 

Wardle argued that this architecture created an endpoint that can be redirected by another local process. Several security and isolation controls have been implemented in the context of Muse, including its dedicated Secure VM architecture and additional safeguards designed to limit agent actions. However, the flaw revealed is not in the cloud environment designed to isolate user agents but in the macOS application itself. 

Personal artificial intelligence agents are increasingly being seen as sources of security concerns, particularly those that provide conversational capabilities as well as access to files, devices, accounts, and external services. In the event of an agent weakness, those permissions can be turned into an attack path. However, even if the underlying operating system enforces its normal security boundaries, the agent could potentially act as an attack vector.

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Hacker attack
Chinese Hackers Critical Flaws Data Breach data security data stealing data vulnerability Hacker attack

Chinese Hackers Exploit ZyXEL Switch Flaw to Steal Data From Nearly 1,000 Devices

 

A Chinese threat actor has been using the recently discovered vulnerability in ZyXEL GS1900 switches to steal crucial information from the devices around the world, according to GreyNoise, a threat intelligence company.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-7273, has a CVSS score of 8.8 and is a stack-based buffer overflow, enabling a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute OS commands via a specially crafted HTTP request. 

ZyXEL has issued security updates for ten GS1900 switch models in June. However, according to GreyNoise, the flaw was actively exploited in August, targeting the devices in 48 countries. The threat actors used a Python script, which was significantly obfuscated to hide its purpose, to extract the hashes of the root credentials, configuration, and network information from 996 affected switches. 

While the script targeted the GS1900-24 switches with firmware versions 2.10 to 2.90, some of the command-line options in the script contained values related to libc base addresses and global offsets. Therefore, it might be possible that the threat actors could use the same vulnerability to target other firmware versions. The information stolen from the switches also showed that 564 devices were using default credentials. This lets the attackers effortlessly compromise these devices. 

On Monday, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Also, per the Binding Operational Directive 26-04, all federal agencies must remediate this issue within 3 days of its publication. GreyNoise also reported that the same threat actor conducted Ubiquiti attacks, which involved exploiting the zero-day flaws to gain remote access and execute arbitrary code in the devices. 

In addition, the attackers used exploits targeting WordPress flaws to launch attacks against small businesses and government entities in July. The attacks entailed a threat actor compromising a Western government organization, stealing over 18000 sensitive documents from the agency’s backend database, and publishing the results on a Matrix communication service. 

However, the cybersecurity firm is yet to confirm if any of these attacks were conducted by the same threat actor. Acronis, another cybersecurity firm, previously identified threat actors using the Red Heron hacking group, which primarily used Gitea’s zero-day flaw to target more than 100 organizations worldwide.
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foreign cyber espionage
CISA Cyber Security department of energy FBI foreign cyber espionage

Foreign Hackers Got Into Two Colorado Water Systems, Messed With Pump Controls and Killed the Alarms

 




Foreign actors broke into the industrial control systems of two small private water utilities in Colorado last month, altered pumping cycles, changed equipment settings, and shut off the alarms that would have told operators something was wrong. The state confirmed the incidents on Friday. It has not named the utilities or the attackers.

Both systems are privately owned and serve fewer than 200 people each. The intrusions happened in late August. According to the governor's office, the attackers disabled remote access, switched off alarms, and changed how water was being pumped before operators caught on and regained control. Water quality and treatment were not affected at either location.

"These were brief incidents and the risks were quickly addressed by the providers themselves, who subsequently alerted the state," said Ally Sullivan, a spokeswoman for Governor Jared Polis. "To our knowledge, treatment processes and water quality were not impacted at either provider."

Colorado officials did not name a suspect. Sullivan said the office "cannot confirm what foreign actors may have been involved," but pointed to a CISA-tracked Iranian-backed group that has been working to access drinking water and wastewater systems across the country. Federal authorities have made no formal attribution in the Colorado case.


Part of Something Bigger

Colorado is the latest state in a list that has now reached at least 12 reporting intrusions into water system controls this year. The EPA says more than 100 drinking water and wastewater systems have been hit in 2026, most accessed through programmable logic controllers, or PLCs, connected to the open internet via cellular modems, often without the utilities realizing it.

The summer's single worst episode came on July 26 and 27, when attackers hit more than 30 communities in Minnesota in what state IT officials called a coordinated assault. At least four cities publicly confirmed disruptions. One plant went offline entirely; others dropped to manual operation. In Georgia, hackers took down a pump station, cutting pressure enough that residents were advised to boil water before using it. No one reported getting sick.

The FBI and EPA issued a joint warning on July 30 describing attackers who remotely changed IP addresses and passwords on exposed controllers, locking operators out. In some cases, the intrusions created conditions where untreated groundwater could have entered distribution pipes.

CISA said it tracked attacks against more than 100 internet-exposed water sector systems in July alone, the majority accessed through PLCs attached directly to cellular modems.


The Group Investigators Are Watching

The most scrutinized suspect is CyberAv3ngers, a threat group formally tied to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber-Electronic Command. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned six of its senior officials in February 2024. The State Department has offered $10 million for information on the group's activities.

The group has run through four documented phases since 2020. It started by exploiting default passwords on Israeli-made water utility controllers, moved on to deploying custom malware called IOCONTROL against industrial and IoT devices, and this year shifted to actively exploiting an authentication bypass flaw in Rockwell Automation's widely used Logix PLCs. No vendor patch exists for that vulnerability.

Six federal agencies, CISA, the FBI, NSA, EPA, the Department of Energy, and U.S. Cyber Command, warned jointly on April 7 that Iranian-affiliated actors were actively hitting internet-facing PLCs across water, energy, government, and manufacturing sites.


Congress and Industry Push Back

Senators Adam Schiff and Amy Klobuchar introduced the Water Cyber Shield Act in August, which would give the EPA authority to audit utilities and mandate corrective action. The bill authorizes $300 million annually through existing water infrastructure funds.

At DEF CON, the National Rural Water Association launched the Water Watch Center, pairing five managed security firms with small utilities at no cost. The program targets systems serving under 10,000 people, which make up 91 percent of the country's roughly 50,000 community water systems.

Denver Water, which supplies about 1.5 million people across the metro area, told Axios it evaluated the threat after the Colorado disclosure and found its systems unaffected. Federal investigators are working with state officials to determine how the two utilities were accessed.

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User Privacy
Cyber Attacks Dark Web Data Leak University of Munich User Privacy

Cyberattack Hits University of Munich, Exposing Student Data

 

Germany’s Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) is investigating a significant cyberattack that potentially exposed sensitive student information, including financial aid and health insurance data. The breach, detected on a Wednesday, led the university to disconnect affected servers and engage external cyber security experts while cooperating with law enforcement. 

The compromised records reportedly include students’ names, dates of birth, contact details, LMU email addresses, bank account information, and details about their courses of study and prior educational qualifications. In some cases, health insurance numbers and identifiers linked to Germany’s student financial aid program may also have been accessed, along with data related to leaves of absence. However, the university confirmed that examination records, specific course content, and individual academic performance data were not affected. 

Operational impact and response 

Following the discovery of the breach, LMU took several systems offline as a precaution, temporarily disrupting some internal services. While teaching activities continued uninterrupted, enrollment processes were briefly suspended and are expected to resume with extended deadlines to ensure students are not disadvantaged. Some students reported difficulties accessing university services needed for semester preparation, including course registration and grade viewing. The institution has not disclosed the number of affected individuals or the duration of unauthorized access, and no ransom demand has been publicly confirmed. 

Universities remain attractive targets for cybercriminals due to their extensive networks containing vast amounts of personal and financial information across large populations of students, researchers, and staff. Recent ransomware attacks have affected prominent U.S. institutions such as the University of Texas, University of Oklahoma, Stanford University, and the University of Michigan, with several incidents occurring after holiday breaks. Other notable cases include disruptions at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Harvard University over the past years.

LMU has enlisted specialists to monitor dark-web forums and other platforms for signs that the stolen information is being circulated or misused. While there is currently no evidence that the data has been altered, deleted, or published, the investigation remains ongoing to determine the full extent of the breach. The attacker has not yet been identified, and the university continues to work with cybersecurity professionals and authorities to secure its systems and protect affected students.
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Windows Backdoor
Clipboard Stealing Command And Control Data Theft malware PowerShell Malware Securonix TASK#STOMP Wi-Fi Password Theft Windows Backdoor

STOMP Backdoor Uses PowerShell for Sensitive Data Theft


An advanced malware campaign known as TASK#STOMP has recently been discovered, which utilizes a PowerShell-based backdoor to collect business documents, Wi-Fi passwords, clipboard data, and screenshots from compromised computers using a PowerShell backdoor. Moreover, the malware also provides attackers with remote command execution and maintains multiple channels for further access. VBScript files are executed via the legitimate Windows Script Host utility wscript.exe in order to initiate the infection. 


In spite of the fact that the exact method of delivery has not been confirmed, phishing or social engineering could be considered possible methods of delivering the script. Following the script's delivery, it sets up a set of scheduled tasks resembling legitimate Windows components, establishing persistence. 

By naming these tasks Local Credential Manager, Network Audio Service, Windows Display Manager, and Device Credential Handler, malicious activities can be blended seamlessly with normal system activities. Another persistence mechanism places another VBScript file in the Windows Startup folder, enabling it to run when the user logs in. 

Upon launching the malware, it executes two PowerShell components. Among these are sys_loader.ps1, which collects documents, gathers system information, steals Wi-Fi passwords, monitors clipboards, captures screenshots, and executes remote commands. Another persistent command-and-control channel, win_conn.ps1, provides additional collection capability as well as a persistent command-and-control channel. 

By monitoring each other and restarting the other process if one is disabled, this setup provides redundancy, making it more difficult to remove the malware if only one process is terminated or a single persistence entry is deleted. In addition to hiding execution activities, timestamp manipulations, and cleanup activities, Task#STOMP can also be used for continuous document theft, increasing the difficulty of detection and forensic investigation. 

As opposed to collecting only files that are already present on an infected computer, TASK#STOMP monitors the file system for newly created or modified documents. This enables the collection of business files as they appear and change during an active infection. In addition to obtaining Wi-Fi credentials and clipboard contents, the malware targets saved Wi-Fi credentials as well. 

With clipboard monitoring, operators can identify information temporarily copied by users, while screenshot capture allows them to view information displayed on a compromised system. By combining these capabilities with remote command execution, Task#STOMP is able to gather more information about user activity than a conventional file-stealing malware. 

A separate command-and-control path, Win_conn.ps1, is maintained by TASK#STOMP in addition to data collection. From win_conn_cfg.dat, the component decodes its configuration and connects to attacker-controlled infrastructure at corecloudfileshare[.]xyz and attachmentsharingdrive[.]xyz. Researcher identification of related traffic can be improved by using a hardcoded authentication token for communication. 

Parts of network communication are handled by a compiled C# component. During connection times, connections can proceed when certificates are invalid, self-signed, or otherwise mismatched due to the code disabling TLS certificate validation. This reduces the level of protection usually provided by certificate checks and makes it easier for the malware to communicate with its servers. Additionally, TASK#STOMP alters file timestamps and cleans up activity following execution to provide further anti-forensic measures. 

According to the researchers, several files have been backdated to January 15, 2024, but that date is not conclusive of when the campaign began. This date was deliberately inserted by the malware, and therefore cannot be regarded as evidence of the age of the campaign. Securonix has not determined why the malware opens a page associated with irantenders[.]com in Chrome, but the page relates to government contracts and tenders in Iran. 

Securonix has not established whether the site indicates a specific victim profile or why it is opened. Researchers have cautioned that the domain alone may not be sufficient to confirm the campaign's geographical or sectoral targeting. Securonix has not linked TASK#STOMP to a known threat group. Due to the use of a single compromised system, it is unclear how the overall campaign scope and duration were determined. 

The initial delivery method is also unclear, although similar VBScript campaigns suggest phishing involving archive or disk image attachments as a possible route. To detect an infection, researchers recommend examining suspicious Windows Script Host and PowerShell activity that originates from writable locations, newly created scheduled tasks, and instances where PowerShell invokes the C# compiler from .NET C#. 

A suspected infection can be investigated with additional evidence from PowerShell Script Block Logging, AMSI telemetry, and scheduled task records.
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Malware attacks
Backdoors Cyber Attacks Fake Job Ads IT Companies Mac Malware macOS Malware attacks

TraderTraitor Mac Malware Targets IT Firm Through Weaponized Terraform Projects

 

A North Korean-linked cybercrime group known as TraderTraitor has tied another macOS infection in an IT services company with no cryptocurrency ties to the exploitation of fake job interviews to gain access to developer systems. The second victim, which has been identified as an India-based IT services provider, was targeted through one of the employees’ Apple Silicon MacBook belonging to a DevOps engineer. 

The compromised machine was used to manage AWS, OVH and OpenStack environments with the help of Terraform and Ansible, while the account also held cloud credentials and source code access. SentinelOne attributed the breach to the same FLATROOF and ROOFDECK macOS backdoors employed by TraderTraitor in the attack targeting LayerZero Labs that resulted in the $292 million heist from crypto project KelpDAO. Initially detected on March 18 the malicious implants remained undetected until March 29, when they were triggered by the victim launching a workspace within the Cursor development environment. 

FLATROOF implant, which has been dropped as SystemUpdate, can be used to execute arbitrary shell commands, terminate processes and steal data. Its capabilities also include harvesting browser information, terminal history, installed applications, running processes, system properties and the macOS login keychain database. ROOFDECK, which was deployed as iSync utility, allows for full command and control over the compromised system while also facilitating reverse shell access, file transfer exfiltration of data, reconnaissance, and persistent access through the use of LaunchAgents. 

It also has the capability to read the clipboard content, which may also contain passwords, cryptocurrency seed phrases and two-factor authentication (2FA) credentials. On April 20, which came shortly after the public disclosure of the LayerZero breach, the threat actors deployed a modified version of ROOFDECK while removing the initial implants. The new sample continued to communicate with the C2 infrastructure controlled by the attacker until June 1. “The incident serves as a stark reminder that developer endpoints must always be protected and monitored for suspicious activity,” the report noted. 

“These machines can serve as a gateway to cloud infrastructure, source code and deployment resources, which makes them attractive targets even for organizations with no direct involvement in crypto operations.” It added that organizations should carefully monitor developer workstations for anomalous behaviors, including the launch of unsigned binary from the home directory, processes spawned by the development environments, and unusual network connections. 

It also recommended conducting regular audits of the Terraform lock files and make sure that the providers listed in them are legitimate before launching unfamiliar coding assignments or repositories.
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