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n8n Supply Chain Attack Exploits Community Nodes In Google Ads Integration to Steal Tokens


Hackers were found uploading a set of eight packages on the npm registry that pretended as integrations attacking the n8n workflow automation platform to steal developers’ OAuth credentials. 

About the exploit 

The package is called “n8n-nodes-hfgjf-irtuinvcm-lasdqewriit”, it copies Google Ads integration and asks users to connect their ad account in a fake form and steal OAuth credentials from servers under the threat actors’ control. 

Endor Labs released a report on the incident. "The attack represents a new escalation in supply chain threats,” it said. Adding that “unlike traditional npm malware, which often targets developer credentials, this campaign exploited workflow automation platforms that act as centralized credential vaults – holding OAuth tokens, API keys, and sensitive credentials for dozens of integrated services like Google Ads, Stripe, and Salesforce in a single location," according to the report. 

Attack tactic 

Experts are not sure if the packages share similar malicious functions. But Reversing labs Spectra Assure analysed a few packages and found no security issues. In one package called “n8n-nodes-zl-vietts,” it found a malicious component with malware history. 

The campaign might still be running as another updated version of the package “n8n-nodes-gg-udhasudsh-hgjkhg-official” was posted to npm recently.

Once installed as a community node, the malicious package works as a typical n8n integration, showing configuration screens. Once the workflow is started, it launches a code to decode the stored tokens via n8n’s master key and send the stolen data to a remote server. 

This is the first time a supply chain attack has specially targeted the n8n ecosystem, with hackers exploiting the trust in community integrations. 

New risks in ad integration 

The report exposed the security gaps due to untrusted workflows integration, which increases the attack surface. Experts have advised developers to audit packages before installing them, check package metadata for any malicious component, and use genuine n8n integrations. 

The findings highlight the security issues that come with integrating untrusted workflows, which can expand the attack surface. Developers are recommended to audit packages before installing them, scrutinize package metadata for any anomalies, and use official n8n integrations.

According to researchers Kiran Raj and Henrik Plate, "Community nodes run with the same level of access as n8n itself. They can read environment variables, access the file system, make outbound network requests, and, most critically, receive decrypted API keys and OAuth tokens during workflow execution.”

Salesforce Pulls Back from AI LLMs Citing Reliability Issues


Salesforce, a famous enterprise software company, is withdrawing from its heavy dependence on large language models (LLMs) after facing reliability issues that the executive didn't like. The company believes that trust in AI LLMs has declined in the past year, according to The Information. 

Parulekar, senior VP of product marketing said, “All of us were more confident about large language models a year ago.” This means the company has shifted away from GenAI towards more “deterministic” automation in its flagship product Agentforce.

In its official statement, the company said, “While LLMs are amazing, they can’t run your business by themselves. Companies need to connect AI to accurate data, business logic, and governance to turn the raw intelligence that LLMs provide into trusted, predictable outcomes.”

Salesforce cut down its staff from 9,000 to 5,000 employees due to AI agent deployment. The company emphasizes that Agentforce can help "eliminate the inherent randomness of large models.” 

Failing models, missing surveys

Salesforce experienced various technical issues with LLMs during real-world applications. According to CTO Muralidhar Krishnaprasad, when given more than eight prompts, the LLMs started missing commands. This was a serious flaw for precision-dependent tasks. 

Home security company Vivint used Agentforce for handling its customer support for 2.5 million customers and faced reliability issues. Even after giving clear instructions to send satisfaction surveys after each customer conversation, Agentforce sometimes failed to send surveys for unknown reasons. 

Another challenge was the AI drift, according to executive Phil Mui. This happens when users ask irrelevant questions causing AI agents to lose focus on their main goals. 

AI expectations vs reality hit Salesforce 

The withdrawal from LLMs shows an ironic twist for CEO Marc Benioff, who often advocates for AI transformation. In his conversation with Business Insider, Benioff talked about drafting the company's annually strategic document, prioritizing data foundations, not AI models due to “hallucinations” issues. He also suggests rebranding the company as Agentforce. 

Although Agentforce is expected to earn over $500 million in sales annually, the company's stock has dropped about 34% from its peak in December 2024. Thousands of businesses that presently rely on this technology may be impacted by Salesforce's partial pullback from large models as the company attempts to bridge the gap between AI innovation and useful business application.

Okta Report: Pirates of Payrolls Attacks Plague Corporate Industry


IT helps desks be ready for an evolving threat that sounds like a Hollywood movie title. In December 2025, Okta Threat Intelligent published a report that explained how hackers can gain unauthorized access to payroll software. These threats are infamous as payroll pirate attacks. 

Pirates of the payroll

These attacks start with threat actors calling an organization’s help desk, pretending to be a user and requesting a password reset. 

“Typically, what the adversary will do is then come back to the help desk, probably to someone else on the phone, and say, ‘Well, I have my password, but I need my MFA factor reset,’” according to VP of Okta Threat Intelligence Brett Winterford. “And then they enroll their own MFA factor, and from there, gain access to those payroll applications for the purposes of committing fraud.”

Attack tactic 

The threat actors are working at a massive scale and leveraging various services and devices to assist their malicious activities. According to Okta report, cyber thieves employed social engineering, calling help desk personnel on the phone and attempting to trick them into resetting the password for a user account. These attacks have impacted multiple industries,

“They’re certainly some kind of cybercrime organization or fraud organization that is doing this at scale,” Winterford said. Okta believes the hackers gang is based out of West Africa. 

Recently, the US industry has been plagued with payroll pirates in the education sector. The latest Okta research mentions that these schemes are now happening across different industries like retail sector and manufacturing. “It’s not often you’ll see a huge number of targets in two distinct industries. I can’t tell you why, but education [and] manufacturing were massively targeted,” Winterford said. 

How to mitigate pirates of payroll attacks?

Okta advises companies to establish a standard process to check the real identity of users who contact the help desk for aid. Winterford advised businesses that depend on outsourced IT help should limit their help desks’ ability to reset user passwords without robust measures. “In some organizations, they’re relying on nothing but passwords to get access to payroll systems, which is madness,” he said.



Google Launches Emergency Location Services in India for Android Devices


Google starts emergency location service in India

Google recently announced the launch of its Emergency Location Service (ELS) in India for compatible Android smartphones. It means that users who are in an emergency can call or contact emergency service providers like police, firefighters, and healthcare professionals. ELS can share the user's accurate location immediately. 

Uttar Pradesh (UP) in India has become the first state to operationalise ELS for Android devices. Earlier, ELS was rolled out to devices having Android 6 or newer versions. For integration, however, ELS will require state authorities to connect it with their services for activation. 

More about ELS

According to Google, the ELS function on Android handsets has been activated in India. The built-in emergency service will enable Android users to communicate their location by call or SMS in order to receive assistance from emergency service providers, such as firefighters, police, and medical personnel. 

ELS on Android collects information from the device's GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular networks in order to pinpoint the user's exact location, with an accuracy of up to 50 meters.

Implementation details

However, local wireless and emergency infrastructure operators must enable support for the ELS capability. The first state in India to "fully" operationalize the service for Android devices is Uttar Pradesh. 

ELS assistance has been integrated with the emergency number 112 by the state police in partnership with Pert Telecom Solutions. It is a free service that solely monitors a user's position when an Android phone dials 112. 

Google added that all suitable handsets running Android 6.0 and later versions now have access to the ELS functionality. 

Even if a call is dropped within seconds of being answered, the business claims that ELS in Android has enabled over 20 million calls and SMS messages to date. ELS is supported by Android Fused Location Provider- Google's machine learning tool.

Promising safety?

According to Google, the feature is only available to emergency service providers and it will never collect or share accurate location data for itself. The ELS data will be sent directly only to the concerned authority.

Recently, Google also launched the Emergency Live Video feature for Android devices. It lets users share their camera feed during an emergency via a call or SMS with the responder. But the emergency service provider has to get user approval for the access. The feature is shown on screen immediately when the responder requests a video from their side. User can accept the request and provide a visual feed or reject the request.

High Severity Flaw In Open WebUI Can Leak User Conversations and Data


A high-severity security bug impacting Open WebUI has been found by experts. It may expose users to account takeover (ATO) and, in some incidents, cause full server compromise. 

Talking about WebUI, Cato researchers said, “When a platform of this size becomes vulnerable, the impact isn’t just theoretical. It affects production environments managing research data, internal codebases, and regulated information.”

The flaw is tracked as CVE-2025-64496 and found by Cato Networks experts. The vulnerability affects Open WebUI versions 0.6.34 and older if the Director Connection feature is allowed. The flaw has a severity rating of 7.3 out of 10. 

The vulnerability exists inside Direct Connections, which allows users to connect Open WebUI to external OpenAI-supported model servers. While built for supporting flexibility and self-hosted AI workflows, the feature can be exploited if a user is tricked into linking with a malicious server pretending to be a genuine AI endpoint. 

Fundamentally, the vulnerability comes from a trust relapse between unsafe model servers and the user's browser session. A malicious server can send a tailored server-sent events message that prompts the deployment of JavaScript code in the browser. This lets a threat actor steal authentication tokens stored in local storage. When the hacker gets these tokens, it gives them full access to the user's Open WebUI account. Chats, API keys, uploaded documents, and other important data is exposed. 

Depending on user privileges, the consequences can be different.

Consequences?

  • Hackers can steal JSON web tokens and hijack sessions. 
  • Full account hack, this includes access to chat logs and uploaded documents.
  • Leak of important data and credentials shared in conversations. 
  • If the user has enabled workspace.tools permission, it can lead to remote code execution (RCE). 

Open WebUI maintainers were informed about the issue in October 2025, and publicly disclosed in November 2025, after patch validation and CVE assignment. Open WebUI variants 0.6.35 and later stop the compromised execute events, patching the user-facing threat.

Open WebUI’s security patch will work for v0.6.35 or “newer versions, which closes the user-facing Direct Connections vulnerability. However, organizations still need to strengthen authentication, sandbox extensibility and restrict access to specific resources,” according to Cato Networks researchers.





New US Proposal Allows Users to Sue AI Companies Over Unauthorised Data Use


US AI developers would be subject to data privacy obligations applicable in federal court under a wide legislative proposal disclosed recently by the US senate Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. 

About the proposal

Beside this, the proposal will create a federal right for users to sue companies for misusing their personal data for AI model training without proper consent. The proposal allows statutory and punitive damages, attorney fees and injunctions. 

Blackburn is planning to officially introduce the bill this year to codify President Donald Trump’s push for “one federal rule book” for AI, according to the press release. 

Why the need for AI regulations 

The legislative framework comes on the heels of Trump’s signing of an executive order aimed at blocking “onerous” AI laws at the state level and promoting a national policy framework for the technology.  

In order to ensure that there is a least burdensome national standard rather than fifty inconsistent State ones, the directive required the administration to collaborate with Congress. 

Michael Kratsios, the president's science and technology adviser, and David Sacks, the White House special adviser for AI and cryptocurrency, were instructed by the president to jointly propose federal AI legislation that would supersede any state laws that would contradict with administration policy. 

Blackburn stated in the Friday release that rather than advocating for AI amnesty, President Trump correctly urged Congress to enact federal standards and protections to address the patchwork of state laws that have impeded AI advancement.

Key highlights of proposal:

  • Mandate that regulations defining "minimum reasonable" AI protections be created by the Federal Trade Commission. 
  • Give the U.S. attorney general, state attorneys general, and private parties the authority to sue AI system creators for damages resulting from "unreasonably dangerous or defective product claims."
  • Mandate that sizable, state-of-the-art AI developers put procedures in place to control and reduce "catastrophic" risks associated with their systems and provide reports to the Department of Homeland Security on a regular basis. 
  • Hold platforms accountable for hosting an unauthorized digital replica of a person if they have actual knowledge that the replica was not authorized by the person portrayed.
  • Require quarterly reporting to the Department of Labor of AI-related job effects, such as job displacement and layoffs.

The proposal will preempt state laws regulating the management of catastrophic AI risks. The legislation will also mostly “preempt” state laws for digital replicas to make a national standard for AI. 

The proposal will not preempt “any generally applicable law, including a body of common law or a scheme of sectoral governance that may address” AI. The bill becomes effective 180 days after enforcement. 

Former Cybersecurity Employees Involved in Ransomware Extortion Incidents Worth Millions


It is very unfortunate and shameful for the cybersecurity industry, when cybersecurity professionals themselves betray trust to launch cyberattacks against their own country. In a shocking incident, two men have admitted to working normal jobs as cybersecurity professionals during the day, while moonlighting as cyber attackers.

About accused

An ex-employee of the Israeli cybersecurity company Sygnia has pleaded guilty to federal crimes in the US for having involvement in ransomware cyberattacks aimed to extort millions of dollars from firms in the US. 

The culprit, Ryan Clifford Goldberg, worked as a cyber incident response supervisor at Sygnia, and accepted that he was involved in a year-long plan of attacking business around the US. 

Kevin Tyler Martin, another associate,who worked as an ex DigitalMint employee, worked as a negotiation intermediary with the threat actors, a role supposed to help ransomware targets, has also accepted involvement. 

The situation is particularly disturbing because both men held positions of trust inside the sector established to fight against such threats.

Accused pled guilty to extortion charges 

Both the accused have pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to manipulate commerce via extortion, according to federal court records. In the plea statement, they have accepted that along with a third actor (not charged and unknown), they both launched business compromises and ransom extortions over many years. 

Extortion worth millions 

In one incident, the actors successfully extorted over $1 million in crypto from a Florida based medical equipment firm. According to the federal court, besides their legitimate work, they deployed software ‘ALPHV BlackCat’ to extract and encode target’s data, and distributed the extortion money with the software’s developers. 

According to DigitalMint, two of the people who were charged were ex-employees. After the incident, both were fired and “acted wholly outside the scope of their employment and without any authorization, knowledge or involvement from the company,” DigitalMint said in an email shared with Bloomberg.

In a recent conversation with Bloomberg, Sygnia mentioned that it was not a target of the investigation and the accused Goldberg was relieved of his duties as soon as the news became known.

A representative for Sygnia declined to speak further, and Goldberg and Martin's lawyers also declined to comment on the report.

Amazon Links Five-Year Cloud Cyber Campaign to Russia’s Sandworm Group

 

Amazon is talking about a hacking problem that has been going on for a long time. This problem was targeting customers who use cloud services in countries. Amazon says that a group called Sandworm, which is linked to Russias intelligence is behind this hacking. Amazons team that looks at threats found out that this hacking has been happening for five years. The hackers were looking for weaknesses in how customers set up their devices than trying to find problems with the software. They were exploiting these weaknesses to get into customer environments. 

Amazon and the customers were using cloud services. The hackers were targeting these cloud-connected environments. The hacking group Sandworm is the one that Amazon says is responsible, for this activity. The people at Amazon looked at this problem in December. Amazons chief information security officer, CJ Moses said that this is a change in how some groups try to get into important systems. CJ Moses said that these groups are not trying to get in by using software that has not been updated. 

Instead they are looking at devices that are connected to the cloud and are not set up correctly. These devices are how they get into the organizations they are trying to attack. CJ Moses and the people, at Amazon think that this is a way that state-sponsored actors are trying to get into critical infrastructure. The devices that are connected to the cloud are the way that these actors get into the systems they are trying to attack. 

The cyberattacks were different from others. The systems that were compromised were not old or missing security updates. The people who did the attack found problems with the equipment that helps connect things, like gateways and devices that sit at the edge of networks. These devices had been set up incorrectly by the customers who used them. This equipment is usually between the networks of a company and the cloud services they use outside. 

So it gave the attackers a way to get into the rest of the system without needing to find brand weaknesses or use very complicated bad software at the start. The attackers used these edge devices as a kind of bridge to get into the system. They were able to do this because the devices were not set up correctly by the customers. The cyberattacks were able to happen because of this mistake. It made it easier for the attackers to get into the system. The compromised systems, including the routing equipment and gateways were the key, to the attack. 

The bad people got into the system. They were able to get important information like passwords. Then they were able to move to different cloud services and the internal system. Amazon looked at this. They think that the bad people were able to hide what they were doing by making it look like normal activity on the network. This made it harder to catch them. The bad people used passwords and normal paths, on the network so they did not trip any alarms. This meant that the security people did not notice them because they were not doing anything that seemed out of the ordinary. 

The Sandworm activity was seen times over a few years with signs of it going back to at least 2021. The people behind this campaign were going after targets all around the world. They were especially interested in organizations that do important work like those that deal with critical infrastructure. Amazon found out that the people behind the Sandworm activity were really focused on energy companies, in North America and Europe. This shows that the Sandworm activity was a thoughtful and planned operation and that is what makes it so serious the Sandworm activity is a big deal. 

Security specialists looked at the results. They think this is part of a bigger pattern with advanced threat actors. What is happening is that people are taking advantage of mistakes in how thingsre set up rather than looking for things that need to be updated. As organizations start to use hybrid and cloud-based systems this is becoming a bigger problem. Even people who are very good at IT can miss mistakes in how thingsre set up and this can leave them open, to attacks all the time. Security specialists and these advanced threat actors know that they can take advantage of these mistakes without setting off the warnings that something is wrong. 

Advanced threat actors are using these mistakes to get in. Amazons disclosure is a warning that having cloud security is not just about doing the usual updates. Companies that use cloud and hybrid environments for work need to do more. They need to make sure everything is set up correctly always check for problems with devices that are connected to the internet and limit who can get into the system. These things are very important, for security. Amazons cloud security is an example of this. Cloud security requires a lot of work to keep it safe. 

In a separate disclosure, Amazon also acknowledged detecting attempts by North Korean operators to conduct large-scale cyber activity, though this was unrelated to the Sandworm campaign. The company later clarified that the Russian-linked operation targeted customer-managed devices hosted on AWS rather than Amazon’s own infrastructure, and that the activity represented sustained targeting over several years rather than uninterrupted access.

Antivirus vs Identity Protection Software: What to Choose and How?


Users often put digital security into a single category and confuse identity protection with antivirus, assuming both work the same. But they are not. Before you buy one, it is important to understand the difference between the two. This blog covers the difference between identity theft security and device security.

Cybersecurity threats: Past vs present 

Traditionally, a common computer virus could crash a machine and infect a few files. That was it. But today, the cybersecurity landscape has changed from compromising computers via system overload of resources to stealing personal data. 

A computer virus is a malware that self-replicates, travelling through devices. It corrupts data and software, and can also steal personal data. 

With time, hackers have learned that users are easier targets than computers. These days, malware and social engineering attacks pose more threats than viruses. A well planned phishing email or a fake login page will benefit hackers more than a traditional virus. 

Due to the surge in data breaches, hackers have got it easy. Your data- phone number, financial details, passwords is swimming in databases, sold like bulk goods on the dark web. 

AI has made things worse and easier to exploit. Hackers can now create believable messages and even impersonate your voice. These shenanigans don't even require creativity, they need to be convincing enough to bait a victim to click or reply. 

Where antivirus fails

Your personal data never stays only on your computer, it is collected and sold by data brokers and advertisers, or to third-parties who benefit from it. When threat actors get their hands on this data, they can use it to impersonate you. 

In this case, antivirus is of no help. It is unable to notice breaches happening at organizations you don't control or someone impersonating you. Antivirus protects your system from malware that exists outside your system. There is a limit to what it can do. Antivirus can protect the machine, but not the user behind it. 

Role of identity theft protection 

Identity protection doesn't concern itself with your system health. It looks out for information that follows you everywhere- SSN, e-mail addresses, your contact number and accounts linked to your finances. If something suspicious turns up, it informs you. Identity protection works more on the monitoring side. It may watch your credit reports for threats- a new account or a hard enquiry, or falling credit score. Identity protection software looks out for early warning signs of theft, as mentioned above. It also checks if your data has been put up on dark web or part of any latest leaks. 

Trust Wallet Chrome Extension Hack Costs $8.5 Million Theft


Chrome extension compromise resulted in millions of theft

Trust Wallet recently disclosed that the Sha1-Hulur supply chain attack last year in November might be responsible for the compromise of its Google Chrome extension, causing $8.5 million assets theft. 

About the incident

According to the company, its "developer GitHub secrets were exposed in the attack, which gave the attacker access to our browser extension source code and the Chrome Web Store (CWS) API key." The attacker obtained full CWS API access via the leaked key, allowing builds to be uploaded directly without Trust Wallet's standard release process, which requires internal approval/manual review."

Later, the threat actor registered the domain "metrics-trustwallet[.]com" and deployed a malware variant of the extension with a backdoor that could harvest users' wallet mnemonic phrases to the sub-domain "api.metrics-trustwallet[.]com."

Attack tactic 

According to Koi, a cybersecurity company, the infected code activates with each unlock causing sensitive data to be harvested. It doesn't matter if the victims used biometrics or password, and if the wallet extension was opened once after the 2.68 version update or in use for months. 

The researchers Yuval Ronen and Oren Yomtov reported that, "the code loops through every wallet in the user's account, not just the active one. If you had multiple wallets configured, all of them were compromised. Seed phrases are stuffed into a field called errorMessage inside what looks like standard unlock telemetry. A casual code review sees an analytics event tracking unlock success with some error metadata."

Movie “Dune” reference? Yes.

Besides this, the analysis also revealed that querying the server directly gave the reply "He who controls the spice controls the universe." It's a Dune reference that is found in similar incidents like the Shai-Hulud npm. "The Last-Modified header reveals the infrastructure was staged by December 8 – over two weeks before the malicious update was pushed on December 24," it added. "This wasn't opportunistic. It was planned."

The findings came after Trust Wallet requested its one million users of Chrome extension to update to variant 2.69 after a malicious update (variant 2.68) was triggered by unknown hackers on December 24, 2025, in the browser's extension marketplace. 

The breach caused $8.5 million loss in cryptocurrency assets being stolen from 2,520 wallet addresses. The wallet theft was first reported after the malicious update.

Control measures 

Post-incident, Trust Wallet has started a reimbursement claim process for affected victims. The company has implemented additional monitoring measures related to its release processes.


Airbus Signals Shift Toward European Sovereign Cloud to Reduce Reliance on US Tech Giants

 

Airbus, the aerospace manufacturer in Europe is getting ready to depend less on big American technology companies like Google and Microsoft. The company wants to rethink how and where it does its important digital work. 

Airbus is going to put out a request for companies to help it move its most critical systems to a European cloud that is controlled by Europeans. This is a change in how Airbus handles its digital infrastructure. Airbus is doing this to have control over its digital work. The company wants to use a cloud, for its mission-critical systems. Airbus uses a lot of services from Google and Microsoft. The company has a setup that includes big data centers and tools like Google Workspace that help people work together. 

Airbus also uses software from Microsoft to handle money matters.. When it comes to very secret and military documents these are not allowed to be stored in public cloud environments. This is because Airbus wants to be in control of its data and does not want to worry about rules and regulations. Airbus has had these concerns for a time. 

The company wants to make sure it can keep its information safe. Airbus is careful, about where it stores its documents, especially the ones that are related to the military. The company is now looking at moving its applications from its own premises to the cloud. This includes things like systems for planning and managing the business platforms for running the factories tools for managing customer relationships and software for managing the life cycle of products which's where the designs for the aircraft are kept. 

These systems are really important to Airbus because they hold a lot of information and are used to run the business. So it is very important to think about where they are hosted. The people in charge have said that the information, in these systems is a matter of European security, which means the systems need to be kept in Europe. Airbus needs to make sure that the cloud infrastructure it uses is controlled by companies. The company wants to keep its aircraft design data safe and secure which is why it is looking for a solution that meets European security standards. 

European companies are getting really worried about being in control of their digital stuff. This is a deal for them especially now that people are talking about how different the rules are in Europe and the United States. Some big American companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services are trying to make European companies feel better by offering services that deal with these worries.. European companies are still not sure if they can really trust these American companies. 

The main reason they are worried is because of a law in the United States called the US CLOUD Act. This law lets American authorities ask companies for access to data even if that data is stored in other countries. European companies do not like this because they think it means American authorities have much power over their digital sovereignty. Digital sovereignty is a concern for European companies and they want to make sure they have control, over their own digital stuff. 

For organizations that deal with sensitive information related to industry, defense or the government this set of laws is a big problem. Digital sovereignty is about a country or region being in charge of its digital systems the way it handles data and who gets to access that data. This means that the laws of that country decide how information is taken care of and protected. The way Airbus is doing things shows that Europe, as a whole is trying to make sure its cloud operations follow the laws and priorities of the region. European organizations and Europe are working on sovereignty and cloud operations to keep their information safe. 

People are worried about the CLOUD Act. This is because of things that happened in court before. Microsoft said in a court in France that it cannot promise to keep people from the United States government getting their data. This is true even if the data is stored in Europe. Microsoft said it has not had to give the United States government any data from customers yet.. The company admitted that it does have to follow the law. 

This shows that companies, like Microsoft that are based in the United States and provide cloud services have to deal with some legal problems. The CLOUD Act is a part of these problems. Airbus’ reported move toward a sovereign European cloud underscores a growing shift among major enterprises that view digital infrastructure not just as a technical choice, but as a matter of strategic autonomy. 

As geopolitical tensions and regulatory scrutiny increase, decisions about where data lives and who ultimately controls access to it are becoming central to corporate risk management and long-term resilience.

Online Retail Store Coupang Suffers South Korea's Worst Data Breach, Leak Linked to Former Employee


33.7 million customer data leaked

Data breach is an unfortunate attack that businesses often suffer. Failing to address these breaches is even worse as it costs businesses reputational and privacy damage. 

A breach at Coupang that leaked the data of 33.7 million customers has been linked to a former employee who kept access to internal systems after leaving the organization. 

About the incident 

The news was reported by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency with news agencies after an inquiry that involved a raid on Coupang's offices recently. The firm is South Korea's biggest online retailer. It employs 95,000 people and generates an annual revenue of more than $30 billion. 

Earlier in December, Coupang reported that it had been hit by a data breach that leaked the personal data of 33.7 million customers such as email IDs, names, order information, and addresses.

The incident happened in June, 2025, but the firm found it in November and launched an internal investigation immediately. 

The measures

In December beginning, Coupang posted an update on the breach, assuring the customers that the leaked data had not been exposed anywhere online. 

Even after all this, and Coupang's full cooperation with the authorities, the officials raided the firm's various offices on Tuesday to gather evidence for a detailed enquiry.

Recently, Coupang's CEO Park Dae-Jun gave his resignation and apologies to the public for not being able to stop what is now South Korea's worst cybersecurity breach in history. 

Police investigation 

In the second day of police investigation in Coupang's offices, the officials found that the main suspect was a 43-year old Chinese national who was an employee of the retail giant. The man is called JoongAng, who joined the firm in November 2022 and overlooked the authentication management system. He left the firm in 2024. JoongAng is suspected to have already left South Korea. 

What next?

According to the police, although Coupang is considered the victim, the business and staff in charge of safeguarding client information may be held accountable if carelessness or other legal infractions are discovered. 

Since the beginning of the month, the authorities have received hundreds of reports of Coupang impersonation. Meanwhile, the incident has caused a large amount of phishing activity in the country, affecting almost two-thirds of its population.

FTC Refuses to Lift Ban on Stalkerware Company that Exposed Sensitive Data


The surveillance industry banned a stalkerware maker after a data breach leaked information of its customers and the people they were spying on. Consumer spyware company Support King can't sell the surveillance software now, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said. 

The FTC has denied founder Scott Zuckerman's request to cancel the ban. It is also applicable to other subsidiaries OneClickMonitor and SpyFone.

Recently, the FTC announced the move in a press release when Zuckerman petitioned the agency to cancel the ban order in July of 2025. 

The FTC banned Zuckerman from “offering, promoting, selling, or advertising any surveillance app, service, or business,” in 2021 and stopped him from running other stalkerware business. Zuckerman had to also delete all the data stored by SpyFone and went through various audits to implement cybersecurity measures for his ventures. Then acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Samuel Levine said that the "stalkerware was hidden from device owners, but was fully exposed to hackers who exploited the company’s slipshod security."

Zuckerman in his petition said that the FTC mandate has made it difficult for him to conduct other businesses due to monetary losses, even though Support King is out of business and he now only operates a restaurant and plans other ventures.

The ban came from a 2018 incident after a researcher discovered an Amazon S3 bucket of SpyFone that left important data such as selfies, chats, texts, contacts, passwords, logins, and audio recordings exposed online in the open. The leaked data comprised 44,109 email ids.

According to Samuel, “SpyFone is a brazen brand name for a surveillance business that helped stalkers steal private information." He further said that the "stalkerware was hidden from device owners, but was fully exposed to hackers who exploited the company’s slipshod security.r

According to TechCrunch, after the 2021 order, Zuckerman started running another stalkerware firm. In 2022, TechCrunch found breached data from stalkerware application SpyTrac. 

According to the data, freelance developers ran SpyTrac who had direct links with Support King. It was an attempt to escape the FTC ban. Additionally, the breached data contained records from SpyFone, which Support King was supposed to delete. Beside this, the data also contained access keys to the cloud storage of OneClickMonitor, another stalkerware application. 

700+ Self-hosted Gits Impacted in a Wild Zero-day Exploit


Hackers actively exploit zero-day bug

Threat actors are abusing a zero-day bug in Gogs- a famous self-hosted Git service. The open source project hasn't fixed it yet.

About the attack 

Over 700 incidents have been impacted in these attacks. Wiz researchers described the bug as "accidental" and said the attack happened in July when they were analyzing malware on a compromised system. During the investigation, the experts "identified that the threat actor was leveraging a previously unknown flaw to compromise instances. They “responsibly disclosed this vulnerability to the maintainers."

The team informed Gogs' maintainers about the bug, who are now working on the fix. 

The flaw is known as CVE-2025-8110. It is primarily a bypass of an earlier patched flaw (CVE-2024-55947) that lets authorized users overwrite external repository files. This leads to remote code execution (RCE). 

About Gogs

Gogs is written in Go, it lets users host Git repositories on their cloud infrastructure or servers. It doesn't use GitHub or other third parties. 

Git and Gogs allow symbolic links that work as shortcuts to another file. They can also point to objects outside the repository. The Gogs API also allows file configuration outside the regular Git protocol. 

Patch update 

The previous patch didn't address such symbolic links exploit and this lets threat actors to leverage the flaw and remotely deploy malicious codes. 

While researchers haven't linked the attacks to any particular gang or person, they believe the threat actors are based in Asia.

Other incidents 

Last year, Mandiant found Chinese state-sponsored hackers abusing a critical flaw in F5 through Supershell, and selling the access to impacted UK government agencies, US defense organizations, and others.

Researchers still don't know what threat actors are doing with access to compromised incidents. "In the environments where we have visibility, the malware was removed quickly so we did not see any post-exploitation activity. We don't have visibility into other compromised servers, beyond knowing they're compromised," researchers said.

How to stay safe?

Wiz has advised users to immediately disable open-registration (if not needed) and control internet exposure by shielding self-hosted Git services via VPN. Users should be careful of new repositories with unexpected usage of the PutContents API or random 8-character names. 

For more details, readers can see the full list of indicators published by the researchers.



Researchers Find Massive Increase in Hypervisor Ransomware Incidents


Rise in hypervisor ransomware incidents 

Cybersecurity experts from Huntress have noticed a sharp rise in ransomware incidents on hypervisors and have asked users to be safe and have proper back-up. 

The Huntress case data has disclosed a surprising increase in hypervisor ransomware. It was involved in malicious encryption and rose from a mere three percent in the first half to a staggering 25 percent in 2025. 

Akira gang responsible 

Experts think that the Akira ransomware gang is the primary threat actor behind this, other players are also going after hypervisors to escape endpoint and network security controls. According to Huntress threat hunters, players are going after hypervisors as they are not secure and hacking them can allow hackers to trigger virtual machines and manage networks.

Why hypervisors?

“This shift underscores a growing and uncomfortable trend: Attackers are targeting the infrastructure that controls all hosts, and with access to the hypervisor, adversaries dramatically amplify the impact of their intrusion," experts said. The attack tactic follows classic playbook. Researchers have "seen it with attacks on VPN appliances: Threat actors realize that the host operating system is often proprietary or restricted, meaning defenders cannot install critical security controls like EDR [Endpoint Detection and Response]. This creates a significant blind spot.”

Other instances 

The experts have also found various cases where ransomware actors install ransomware payloads directly via hypervisors, escaping endpoint security. In a few cases, threat actors used built-in-tools like OpenSSL to run encryption of the virtual machine volume without having to upload custom ransomware binaries.

Attack tactic 

Huntress researchers have also found attackers disrupting a network to steal login credentials and then attack hypervisors.

“We’ve seen misuse of Hyper-V management utilities to modify VM settings and undermine security features,” they add. “This includes disabling endpoint defenses, tampering with virtual switches, and preparing VMs for ransomware deployment at scale," they said.

Mitigation strategies 

Due to the high level of attacks on hypervisors, experts have suggested admins to revisit infosec basics such as multi-factor authentication and password patch updates. Admins should also adopt hypervisor-specific safety measures like only allow-listed binaries can run on a host.

For decades, the Infosec community has known hypervisors to be an easy target. In a worst-case scenario of a successful VM evasion where an attack on a guest virtual machine allows hijacking of the host and its hypervisor, things can go further south. If this were to happen, the impact could be massive as the entire hyperscale clouds depend on hypervisors to isolate tenants' virtual systems.

Beer Firm Asahi Not Entertaining Threat Actors After Cyberattack


Asahi denies ransom payment 

Japanese beer giant Asahi said that it didn't receive any particular ransom demand from threat actors responsible for an advanced and sophisticated cyberattack that could have exposed the data of more than two million people. 

About the attack

CEO Atsushi Katsuki in a press conference said that the company had not been in touch with the threat actors. But Asahi has delayed the release of financial results. Even if the company received a ransom demand, it would not have paid, Katsuki said. Asahi Super Dry is one of Japan's most popular beers. Asahi suffered a cyberattack on 29th September. However, the company clarified on October 3 that it was hit by a ransomware attack.

Attack tactic 

In such incidents, threat actors typically use malicious software to encrypt the target's systems and then ask ransom for providing encryption keys to run the systems again.

Asahi said threat actors could have hacked or stolen identity data like phone numbers and names of around two million people- employees, customers and families.

Qilin gang believed to be responsible 

The firm didn't disclose details of the attacker at the conference. Later, it told AFP via mail that experts hinted towards a high chance of attack by hacking group Qilin. The gang issued a statement that the Japanese media understood as a claim of responsibility. Commenting on the situation, 

Katsuki said the firm thought it had taken needed measures to prevent such an incident. "But this attack was beyond our imagination. It was a sophisticated and cunning attack," Katsuki said. 

Impact on Asahi business 

Interestingly, Asahi delayed the release of third-quarter earnings and recently said that the annual financial results had also been delayed. "These and further information on the impact of the hack on overall corporate performance will be disclosed as soon as possible once the systems have been restored and the relevant data confirmed," the firm said.

The product supply hasn't been affected. Shipments will resume in stages while systems recover. "We apologise for the continued inconvenience and appreciate your understanding," Asahi said.

Critical Vulnerabilities Found in React Server Components and Next.js


Open in the wild flaw

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added a critical security flaw affecting React Server Components (RSC) to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog after exploitation in the wild.

The flaw CVE-2025-55182 (CVSS score: 10.0) or React2Shell hints towards a remote code execution (RCE) that can be triggered by an illicit threat actor without needing any setup. 

Remote code execution 

According to the CISA advisory, "Meta React Server Components contains a remote coThe incident surfaced when Amazon said it found attack attempts from infrastructure related to Chinese hacking groupsde execution vulnerability that could allow unauthenticated remote code execution by exploiting a flaw in how React decodes payloads sent to React Server Function endpoints."

The problem comes from unsafe deserialization in the library's Flight protocol, which React uses to communicate between a client and server. It results in a case where an unauthorised, remote hacker can deploy arbitrary commands on the server by sending specially tailored HTTP requests. The conversion of text into objects is considered a dangerous class of software vulnerability. 

About the flaw

 "The React2Shell vulnerability resides in the react-server package, specifically in how it parses object references during deserialization," said Martin Zugec, technical solutions director at Bitdefender.

The incident surfaced when Amazon said it found attack attempts from infrastructure related to Chinese hacking groups such as Jackpot Panda and Earth Lamia. "Within hours of the public disclosure of CVE-2025-55182 (React2Shell) on December 3, 2025, Amazon threat intelligence teams observed active exploitation attempts by multiple China state-nexus threat groups, including Earth Lamia and Jackpot Panda," AWS said.

Attack tactic 

Few attacks deployed cryptocurrency miners and ran "cheap math" PowerShell commands for successful exploitation. After that, it dropped in-memory downloaders capable of taking out extra payload from a remote server.

According to Censys, an attack surface management platform, 2.15 million cases of internet-facing services may be affected by this flaw. This includes leaked web services via React Server Components and leaked cases of frameworks like RedwoodSDK, React Router, Waku, and Next.js.

According to data shared by attack surface management platform Censys, there are about 2.15 million instances of internet-facing services that may be affected by this vulnerability. This comprises exposed web services using React Server Components and exposed instances of frameworks such as Next.js, Waku, React Router, and RedwoodSDK.


The New Content Provenance Report Will Address GenAI Misinformation


The GenAI problem 

Today's information environment includes a wide range of communication. Social media platforms have enabled reposting, and comments. The platform is useful for both content consumers and creators, but it has its own challenges.

The rapid adoption of Generative AI has led to a significant increase in misleading content online. These chatbots have a tendency of generating false information which has no factual backing. 

What is AI slop?

The internet is filled with AI slop- content that is made with minimal human input and is like junk. There is currently no mechanism to limit such massive production of harmful or misleading content that can impact human cognition and critical thinking. This calls for a robust mechanism that can address the new challenges that the current system is failing to tackle. 

The content provenance report 

For restoring the integrity of digital information, Canada's Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) and the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) have launched a new report on public content provenance. Provenance means "place of origin." For building stronger trust with external audiences, businesses and organisations must improve the way they manage the source of their information.

NSSC chief technology officer said that the "new publication examines the emerging field of content provenance technologies and offers clear insights using a range of cyber security perspectives on how these risks may be managed.” 

What is next for Content Integrity?

The industry is implementing few measures to address content provenance challenges like Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). It will benefit from the help of Generative AI and tech giants like Meta, Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft. 

Currently, there is a pressing need for interoperable standards across various media types such as image, video, and text documents. Although there are content provenance technologies, this area is still in nascent stage. 

What is needed?

The main tech includes genuine timestamps and cryptographically-proof meta to prove that the content isn't tampered. But there are still obstacles in development of these secure technologies, like how and when they are executed.

The present technology places the pressure on the end user to understand the provenance data. 

A provenance system must allow a user to see who or what made the content, the time and the edits/changes that were made. Threat actors have started using GenAI media to make scams believable, it has become difficult to differentiate between what is fake and real. Which is why a mechanism that can track the origin and edit history of digital media is needed. The NCSC and CCCS report will help others to navigate this gray area with more clarity.


Google Confirms Data Breach from 200 Companies


Google has confirmed that hackers stole data from more than 200 companies after exploiting apps developed by Gainsight, a customer success software provider. The breach targeted Salesforce systems and is being described as one of the biggest supply chain attacks in recent months. 
 
Salesforce said last week that “certain customers’ Salesforce data” had been accessed through Gainsight applications, which are widely used by companies to manage customer relationships at scale. According to Google’s Threat Intelligence Group, more than 200 Salesforce instances were affected, indicating that the attackers targeted the ecosystem strategically rather than going after individual companies one by one. The incident has already raised deep concern across industries that depend heavily on third-party integrations to run core business functions. 
 
A group calling itself Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, which includes members of the well-known ShinyHunters gang, has claimed responsibility. This collective has previously targeted prominent global firms and leaked confidential datasets online, earning a reputation for bold, high-impact intrusions. In this case, the hackers have published a list of alleged victims, naming companies such as Atlassian, CrowdStrike, DocuSign, GitLab, LinkedIn, Malwarebytes, SonicWall, Thomson Reuters, and Verizon. Some of these organisations have denied being affected, while others are still conducting internal investigations to determine whether their environments were touched. 
 
This attack underscores a growing reality: compromising a widely trusted application is often more efficient for attackers than breaching a single company. By infiltrating Gainsight’s software, the threat actors gained access to a broad swath of organisations simultaneously, effectively bypassing individual perimeter defences. TechCrunch notes that supply chain attacks remain among the most dangerous vectors because they exploit deeply rooted trust. Once a vendor’s application is subverted, it can become an invisible doorway leading directly into multiple corporate systems. 
 
Salesforce has stated that it is working closely with affected customers to secure environments and limit the impact, while Google continues to analyse the breadth of data exfiltration. Gainsight has not yet released a detailed public statement, prompting experts to call for greater transparency from vendors responsible for critical integrations. Cybersecurity firms advise all companies using third-party SaaS tools to review access permissions, rotate credentials, monitor logs for anomalies, and ensure stronger compliance frameworks for integrated platforms. 
 
The larger picture here reflects an industry-wide challenge. As enterprises increasingly rely on cloud services and SaaS tools, attackers are shifting their attention to these interconnected layers, where a single weak link can expose hundreds of organisations. This shift has prompted analysts to warn that due diligence on app vendors, once considered a formality, must now become a non-negotiable element of cybersecurity strategy. 
 
In light of the attack, experts believe companies will need to adopt a more vigilant posture, treating all integrations as potential threat surfaces, rather than assuming safety through trust. The Gainsight incident serves as a stark reminder that in a cloud-driven world, security is only as strong as the least protected partner in the chain.

Banking Malware Can Hack Communications via Encrypted Apps


Sturnus hacks communication 

A new Android banking malware dubbed Sturnus can hack interactions from entirety via encrypted messaging networks like Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram, as well as take complete control of the device.  

While still under growth, the virus is fully functional and has been programmed to target accounts at various financial institutions across Europe by employing "region-specific overlay templates."  

Attack tactic 

Sturnus uses a combination of plaintext, RSA, and AES-encrypted communication with the command-and-control (C2) server, making it a more sophisticated threat than existing Android malware families.

Sturnus may steal messages from secure messaging apps after the decryption step by recording the content from the device screen, according to a research from online fraud prevention and threat intelligence agency Threatfabric. The malware can also collect banking account details using HTML overlays and offers support for complete, real-time access through VNC session.

Malware distribution 

The researchers haven't found how the malware is disseminated but they assume that malvertising or direct communications are plausible approaches. Upon deployment, the malware connects to the C2 network to register the target via a cryptographic transaction. 

For instructions and data exfiltration, it creates an encrypted HTTPS connection; for real-time VNC operations and live monitoring, it creates an AES-encrypted WebSocket channel. Sturnus can begin reading text on the screen, record the victim's inputs, view the UI structure, identify program launches, press buttons, scroll, inject text, and traverse the phone by abusing the Accessibility services on the device.

To get full command of the system, Sturnus gets Android Device Administrator credentials, which let it keep tabs of password changes and attempts to unlock and lock the device remotely. The malware also tries to stop the user from disabling its privileges or deleting it from the device. Sturnus uses its permissions to identify message content, inputted text, contact names, and conversation contents when the user accesses WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal.