2025-10-10 AI创业新闻

From HealthKick to GOVERSHELL: The Evolution of UTA0388’s Espionage Malware

A China-aligned threat actor codenamed UTA0388 has been attributed to a series of spear-phishing campaigns targeting North America, Asia, and Europe that are designed to deliver a Go-based implant known as GOVERSHELL . “The initially observed campaigns were tailored to the targets, and the messages purported to be sent by senior researchers and analysts from legitimate-sounding, completely fabricated organizations,” Volexity said in a Wednesday report. “The goal of these spear phishing campaigns was to socially engineer targets into clicking links that led to a remotely hosted archive containing a malicious payload.” Since then, the threat actor behind the attacks is said to have leveraged different lures and fictional identities, spanning several languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, French, and German. Early iterations of the campaigns have been found to embed links to phishing content either hosted on a cloud-based service or their own infrastructure, in some cases, which led to the deployment of malware.

However, the follow-on waves have been described as “highly tailored,” in which the threat actors resort to building trust with recipients over time before sending the link – a technique called rapport-building phishing. Irrespective of the approach used, the links lead to a ZIP or RAR archive that includes a rogue DLL payload that’s launched using DLL side-loading. The payload is an actively developed backdoor called GOVERSHELL. It’s worth noting that the activity overlaps with a cluster tracked by Proofpoint under the name UNK_DropPitch , with Volexity characterizing GOVERSHELL as a successor to a C++ malware family referred to as HealthKick .

As many as five distinct variants of GOVERSHELL have been identified to date - HealthKick (First observed in April 2025), which is equipped to run commands using cmd.exe TE32 (First observed in June 2025), which is equipped to execute commands directly via a PowerShell reverse shell TE64 (First observed in early July 2025), which is equipped to run native and dynamic commands using PowerShell to get system information, current system time, run command via powershell.exe, and poll an external server for new instructions WebSocket (First observed in mid-July 2025), which is equipped to run a PowerShell command via powershell.exe and an unimplemented “update” sub-command as part of the system command Beacon (First observed in September 2025), which is equipped to run native and dynamic commands using PowerShell to set a base polling interval, randomize it, or execute a PowerShell command via powershell.exe Some of the legitimate services abused to stage the archive files include Netlify, Sync, and OneDrive, whereas the email messages have been identified as sent from Proton Mail, Microsoft Outlook, and Gmail. A noteworthy aspect of UTA0388’s tradecraft is its use of OpenAI ChatGPT to generate content for phishing campaigns in English, Chinese, and Japanese; assist with malicious workflows; and search for information related to installing open-source tools like nuclei and fscan, as revealed by the AI company earlier this week. The ChatGPT accounts used by the threat actor have since been banned. The use of a large language model (LLM) to augment its operations is evidenced in the fabrications prevalent in the phishing emails, ranging from the personas used to send the message to the general lack of coherence in the message content itself, Volexity said.

“The targeting profile of the campaign is consistent with a threat actor interested in Asian geopolitical issues, with a special focus on Taiwan,” the company added. “The emails and files used in this campaign leads Volexity to assess with medium confidence that UTA0388 made use of automation, LLM or otherwise, that generated and sent this content to targets with little to no human oversight in some cases.” The disclosure comes as StrikeReady Labs said a suspected China-linked cyber espionage campaign has targeted a Serbian government department related to aviation, as well as other European institutions in Hungary, Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands. The campaign, observed in late September, involves sending phishing emails containing a link that, when clicked, directs the victim to a fake Cloudflare CAPTCHA verification page that leads to the download a ZIP archive, within which there exists a Windows shortcut (LNK) file that executes PowerShell responsible for opening a decoy document and stealthily launching PlugX using DLL side-loading . Found this article interesting?

New ClayRat Spyware Targets Android Users via Fake WhatsApp and TikTok Apps

A rapidly evolving Android spyware campaign called ClayRat has targeted users in Russia using a mix of Telegram channels and lookalike phishing websites by impersonating popular apps like WhatsApp, Google Photos, TikTok, and YouTube as lures to install them. “Once active, the spyware can exfiltrate SMS messages, call logs, notifications, and device information; taking photos with the front camera; and even send SMS messages or place calls directly from the victim’s device,” Zimperium researcher Vishnu Pratapagiri said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The malware is also designed to propagate itself by sending malicious links to every contact in the victim’s phone book, indicating aggressive tactics on the part of the attackers to leverage compromised devices as a distribution vector. The mobile security company said it has detected no less than 600 samples and 50 droppers over the last 90 days, with each successive iteration incorporating new layers of obfuscation to sidestep detection efforts and stay ahead of security defenses.

The malware name is a reference to the command-and-control (C2) panel that can be used to remotely administer the infected devices. The attack chain involves redirecting unsuspecting visitors to these bogus sites to Telegram channels under the adversary’s control, from where they are tricked into downloading APK files by artificially inflating download counts and sharing manufactured testimonials as proof of their popularity. In other cases, bogus websites claiming to offer “YouTube Plus” with premium features have been found to host APK files that can bypass security protections enforced by Google to prevent sideloading of apps on devices running Android 13 and later. “To bypass platform restrictions and the added friction introduced in newer Android versions, some ClayRat samples act as droppers: the visible app is merely a lightweight installer that displays a fake Play Store update screen, while the actual encrypted payload is hidden within the app’s assets,” the company said.

“This session-based installation method lowers perceived risk and increases the likelihood that a webpage visit will result in spyware being installed.” Once installed, ClayRat uses standard HTTP to communicate with its C2 infrastructure and requests users to make it the default SMS application to gain access to sensitive content and messaging functions, thereby allowing it to covertly capture call logs, text messages, notifications, and disseminate the malware further to every other contact. Some of the other features of the malware include making phone calls, getting device information, taking pictures using the device camera, and sending a list of all installed applications to the C2 server. ClayRat is a potent threat not only for its surveillance capabilities, but also for its ability to turn an infected device into a distribution node in an automated fashion, which enables the threat actors to expand their reach swiftly without any manual intervention. The development comes as academics from the University of Luxembourg and Université Cheikh Anta Diop found that pre-installed apps from budget Android smartphones sold in Africa operate with elevated privileges, with one vendor-supplied package transmitting device identifiers and location details to an external third-party.

The study examined 1,544 APKs collected from seven African smartphones, finding that “145 applications (9%) disclose sensitive data, 249 (16%) expose critical components without sufficient safeguards, and many present additional risks: 226 execute privileged or dangerous commands, 79 interact with SMS messages (read, send, or delete), and 33 perform silent installation operations.” Found this article interesting? Follow us on Google News , Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

Hackers Access SonicWall Cloud Firewall Backups, Spark Urgent Security Checks

SonicWall on Wednesday disclosed that an unauthorized party accessed firewall configuration backup files for all customers who have used the cloud backup service. “The files contain encrypted credentials and configuration data; while encryption remains in place, possession of these files could increase the risk of targeted attacks,” the company said . It also noted that it’s working to notify all partners and customers, adding it has released tools to assist with device assessment and remediation. The company is also urging users to log in and check for their devices.

The development comes a couple of weeks after SonicWall urged customers to perform a credential reset after their firewall configuration backup files were exposed in a security breach impacting MySonicWall accounts. The list of impacted devices available on the MySonicWall portal has been assigned a priority level to help customers prioritize remediation efforts. The labels are as follows - Active – High Priority: Devices with internet-facing services enabled Active – Lower Priority: Devices without internet-facing services Inactive: Devices that have not pinged home for 90 days The latest post-mortem marks an about turn from its initial assessment when it claimed the threat actors accessed backup firewall preference files stored in the cloud for less than 5% of its customers. It also stated that while the credentials within those files were encrypted, they also included “information that could make it easier for attackers to potentially exploit the related firewall.” It’s currently not known how many of its customers use the cloud backup service.

SonicWall has yet to reveal when the attacks began or who is behind the activity. However, the company said it has since “hardened” its infrastructure, applied additional logging, and introduced stronger authentication controls to prevent a repeat. Users are advised to follow the steps below with immediate effect - Log in to MySonicWall.com account and verify if cloud backups exist for registered firewalls If fields are blank, there is no impact If fields contain backup details, verify whether impacted serial numbers are listed in the account If Serial Numbers are shown, users should follow the containment and remediation guidelines for the listed firewalls SonicWall said in cases where customers have used the Cloud Backup feature but no Serial Numbers are shown or only some of the registered Serial Numbers are displayed, it will provide additional guidance in coming days. Found this article interesting?

ThreatsDay Bulletin: MS Teams Hack, MFA Hijacking, $2B Crypto Heist, Apple Siri Probe & More

Cyber threats are evolving faster than ever. Attackers now combine social engineering, AI-driven manipulation, and cloud exploitation to breach targets once considered secure. From communication platforms to connected devices, every system that enhances convenience also expands the attack surface. This edition of ThreatsDay Bulletin explores these converging risks and the safeguards that help preserve trust in an increasingly intelligent threat landscape.

How Threat Actors Abuse Microsoft Teams Attackers Abuse Microsoft Teams for Extortion, Social Engineering, and Financial Theft Microsoft detailed the various ways threat actors can abuse its Teams chat software at various stages of the attack chain, even using it to support financial theft through extortion, social engineering, or technical means. “ Octo Tempest has used communication apps, including Teams, to send taunting and threatening messages to organizations, defenders, and incident response teams as part of extortion and ransomware payment pressure tactics,” the company said . “After gaining control of MFA through social engineering password resets, they sign in to Teams to identify sensitive information supporting their financially motivated operations.” As mitigations, organizations are advised to strengthen identity protection, harden endpoint security, and secure Teams clients and apps. LNK Files Used in New Malware Campaign Malicious Shortcut Files Deliver PowerShell Dropper and DLL Implant A campaign that packages passport- or payment-themed ZIP archives with malicious Windows shortcut (.LNK) files has been found to deliver a PowerShell dropper that drops a DLL implant on compromised hosts.

The ZIP archives are distributed via phishing emails. “Execution of the staged payload launches the DLL implant with rundll32.exe using the JMB export and establishes command and control to faw3[.]com,” Blackpoint Cyber said . “The PowerShell dropper uses simple but effective evasion, including building keywords like Start-Process and rundll32.exe from byte arrays, suppressing progress output, clearing the console, and changing server file names based on common antivirus processes. Once active, the implant runs under the user context and can enable remote tasking, host reconnaissance, and delivery of follow-on payloads while blending into normal Windows activity.” Israel Likely Behind an AI Disinfo Campaign Targeting Iran AI-Generated Disinformation Campaign Aimed at Destabilizing Iran The Citizen Lab said a coordinated Israeli-backed network of around 50 social media accounts on X pushed anti-government propaganda using deepfakes and other AI-generated content to Iranians with the goal of fomenting revolt among the country’s people and overthrowing the Iranian regime.

The campaign has been codenamed PRISONBREAK. These accounts were created in 2023 but remained largely dormant until January 2025. “While organic engagement with PRISONBREAK’s content appears to be limited, some of the posts achieved tens of thousands of views. The operation seeded such posts to large public communities on X, and possibly also paid for their promotion,” the non-profit said.

It’s assessed that the campaign is the work of an unidentified agency of the Israeli government, or a sub-contractor working under its close supervision. Opposition to E.U. Chat Control Signal, Tech Firms, and Officials Push Back Against E.U. Chat Control Proposal The president of the Signal Foundation said the end-to-end encrypted messaging app will leave the European Union market rather than comply with a potential new regulation known as Chat Control.

Chat Control, first introduced in 2022, would require service providers, including end-to-end encrypted platforms like Signal, to scan all platform communications and files to screen for “abusive material” before a message is sent. “Under the guise of protecting children, the latest Chat Control proposals would require mass scanning of every message, photo, and video on a person’s device, assessing these via a government-mandated database or AI model to determine whether they are permissible content or not,” Signal Foundation President Meredith Whittaker said . “What they propose is in effect a mass surveillance free-for-all, opening up everyone’s intimate and confidential communications, whether government officials, military, investigative journalists, or activists.” CryptPad , Element , and Tuta are among more than 40 other E.U. tech companies that have signed an open letter against the Chat Control proposal.

Meanwhile, German officials said they will vote against the proposal, signaling that the bloc will not have the votes to move forward with the controversial measure. Autodesk Revit Crash to RCE Crash in Autodesk Revit File Parsing Leads to Reliable Remote Code Execution New research has found that it’s possible to turn a Autodesk Revit file parsing crash ( CVE-2025-5037 ) into a code execution exploit that is fully reliable even on the latest Windows x64 platform. “This RCE is unusually impactful due to the Axis cloud misconfiguration that could have resulted in automatic exploitation during normal usage of the affected products,” Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative researcher Simon Zuckerbraun said . France Opens Probe into Apple Siri Voice Recordings French Authorities Investigate Apple Over Siri Voice Data Collection France said it’s opening an investigation into Apple over the company’s collection of Siri voice recordings.

The Paris public prosecutor said the probe is in response to a whistleblower complaint. Apple subcontractor Thomas Le Bonniec said Siri conversations contained intimate moments or sensitive data that could easily deanonymize and identify users. “Apple has never used Siri data to create marketing profiles, has never made it available for advertising, and has never sold it to anyone for any reason whatsoever,” the company said in a statement shared with Politico. Earlier this January, Apple said it would not keep “audio recordings of interactions with Siri, unless the user explicitly agrees.” North Korea Linked to $2B Theft in 2025 North Korean-Linked Hackers Responsible for Over $2B in Crypto Thefts This Year North Korean hackers have stolen an estimated $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency assets in 2025, marking the largest annual total on record.

A large chunk of the theft came from the Bybit hack in February, when the threat actors stole about $1.46 billion. Other thefts publicly attributed to North Korea in 2025 include those suffered by LND.fi, WOO X, and Seedify. However, it’s suspected that the actual figure may be even higher. “The 2025 total already dwarfs previous years and is almost triple last year’s tally, underscoring the growing scale of North Korea’s dependence on cyber-enabled theft to fund its regime,” Elliptic said .

A notable shift observed this year is the increasing targeting of high-net-worth individuals. “As crypto prices have risen, individuals have become increasingly attractive targets, often lacking the security measures employed by businesses,” the company added. “Some of these individuals are also targeted due to their association with businesses holding large amounts of cryptoassets, which the hackers are looking to steal.” The development comes as Fortune reported that the North Korean fraudulent IT worker scheme has funneled up to $1 billion into the regime’s nuclear program in the past five years, making it a lucrative revenue-generating stream. North Korean actors well-versed in IT have been observed stealing identities, falsifying their résumés, and deceiving their way into highly paid remote tech jobs in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Saudi Arabia, using artificial intelligence to fabricate work and disguise their faces and identities.

According to the latest statistics from Okta, one in two targets were not tech firms, and one in four targets were not U.S.-based companies, indicating that any company recruiting remote talent could be at risk. Besides a “marked” increase in attempts to gain employment at AI companies or AI-focused roles, other sectors prominently targeted by North Korea included finance, healthcare, public administration, and professional services. The identity services provider said it has tracked over 130 identities operated by facilitators and workers, which can be linked to over 6,500 initial job interviews across more than 5,000 distinct companies up until mid-2025. “Years of sustained activity against a broad range of U.S.

industries have allowed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea-aligned facilitators and workers to refine their infiltration methods,” Okta said . “They are entering new markets with a mature, well-adapted workforce capable of bypassing basic screening controls and exploiting hiring pipelines more effectively.” Once hired, North Korea IT workers request payment in stablecoins, likely due to their consistent value, as well as their popularity with OTC traders who can facilitate the off-ramp from cryptocurrency to fiat, Chainalysis noted . The salaries are then transferred through various money laundering techniques, such as chain-hopping, token swapping, bridge protocols, and consolidation addresses, to complicate the tracing of funds. Security Flaws in YoLink Smart Hub YoLink Smart Hub Flaws Allow Remote Control, Credential Exposure Security vulnerabilities have been discovered in the YoLink Smart Hub (v0382), the gateway device that manages all YoLink locks, sensors, plugs, and other IoT products, which could be exploited to achieve authorization bypass and allow attackers to remotely control other users’ devices, and access Wi-Fi credentials and device IDs in plaintext.

To make matters worse, the use of long-lived session tokens allows ongoing unauthorized access. The vulnerabilities relate to insufficient authorization controls (CVE-2025-59449 and CVE-2025-59452), insecure network transmission (CVE-2025-59448), and improper session management (CVE-2025-59451). The most severe vulnerability, CVE-2025-59449, is rated as critical and could allow an attacker who obtains predictable device IDs to operate a user’s devices without strong authentication. The unencrypted MQTT communication between the hub and the mobile app also allows for the exposure of sensitive data like credentials and device IDs.

“An attacker […] could potentially obtain physical access to YoLink customers’ homes by opening their garages or unlocking their doors,” Bishop Fox researcher Nicholas Cerne said. “Alternatively, the attacker could toggle the power state of devices connected to YoLink smart plugs, which could have a variety of impacts depending on the types of devices that were connected.” Authentication Bypass in Tesla TCU ADB Lockdown Bypass in Tesla Telematics Control Unit Could Lead to Root Code Execution Cybersecurity researchers from NCC Group detailed a bypass of the Android debug bridge (ADB) lockdown logic in Tesla’s telematics control unit (TCU) that could potentially allow attackers to gain shell access to production devices. The flaw (CVE-2025-34251, CVSS score: 8.6) is an arbitrary file write that could be used to obtain code execution in the context of root on the TCU. “The TCU runs the Android Debug Bridge (adbd) as root and, despite a ‘lockdown’ check that disables adb shell, still permits adb push/pull and adb forward,” according to an advisory for the vulnerability.

“Because adbd is privileged and the device’s USB port is exposed externally, an attacker with physical access can write an arbitrary file to a writable location and then overwrite the kernel’s uevent_helper or /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug entries via ADB, causing the script to be executed with root privileges.” Spoofed Domains Deliver Android and Windows Malware Threat Actors Use Spoofed Sites to Deliver Android & Windows Trojans A financially motivated threat cluster has used more than 80 spoofed domains and lure websites to target users with fake applications and websites themed as government tax sites, consumer banking, age 18+ social media content, and Windows assistant applications, DomainTools said . The end goal of the attacks is to deliver Android and Windows trojans, likely for the purpose of stealing credentials through the use of fake login pages. The presence of Meta tracking pixels indicates that the threat actors are likely running it as a campaign, using Facebook ads or other methods to drive traffic to the fake pages. NoName057(16) Bounces Back NoName057(16) Resurges After Operation Eastwood Disruption The hacktivist group known as NoName057(16), which suffered a significant blow in July 2025 following an international law enforcement effort called Operation Eastwood, has managed to bounce back, escalate its activities, and leverage new alliances to amplify its reach.

A majority of the group’s targets between late July and August 2025 comprised German websites, focusing on municipalities, police, public services, and government portals, as well as sites in Spain, Belgium, and Italy. “A key limitation remains: the group’s core infrastructure and leadership are based in Russia,” Imperva said . “Without cooperation from Russian authorities, fully dismantling NoName057(16) is highly unlikely. To date, Moscow has not taken action against pro-Russian hacktivist groups, and their activities often continue without interference.” LATAM Banks Targeted by BlackStink Chrome Extension Malware Steals Funds from Latin American Banks Financial institutions in Latin America have become the target of a new malware campaign that uses malicious Google Chrome extensions mimicking Google Docs to initiate fraudulent transfers in real-time by taking remote control of the banking session.

The activity, dubbed BlackStink, leverages advanced WebInject techniques to bypass traditional detection mechanisms, per IBM X-Force. “Once active, it can dynamically inject deceptive overlays into legitimate banking pages to harvest credentials, account details and transaction data,” the company noted . “Beyond simple credential theft, BlackStink is capable of auto-filling and auto-submitting forms, simulating user actions and executing automatic transactions – allowing attackers to move funds in real time without the victim’s awareness.” Over 2K Oracle E-Business Suite Instances Exposed to Internet Thousands of Oracle E-Business Suite Instances Exposed — Patch CVE-2025-61882 Attack surface management company Censys said it observed 2,043 internet-accessible Oracle E-Business Suite instances exposed to the internet, making it crucial that users take steps to secure against CVE-2025-61882 , a critical vulnerability in the Concurrent Processing component that can be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker with network access via HTTP to compromise the system. The vulnerability is assessed to have been weaponized as a zero-day by Cl0p as part of new extortion attacks since August 2025.

Asgard Protector Detailed Asgard Protector Crypter Used to Evade Detection and Deliver Stealers A crypter service called Asgard Protector is being used to hide malicious payloads such as Lumma Stealer to help the artifacts bypass security defenses. “Asgard Protector leverages Nullsoft package installations, hidden AutoIt binaries, and compiled AutoIt scripts in order to inject encrypted payloads into memory, which are decrypted in memory and executed,” SpyCloud said . “The combination of LummaC2 and Asgard Protector represents a potent union for evading detection and stealing data from devices and networks.” Some of the other malware families distributed using this crypter are Quasar RAT, Rhadamanthys, Vidar, and ACR Stealer. There is evidence to suggest that Asgard Protector has some sort of a connection with CypherIT given the functional similarities between the two.

Updates to WARMCOOKIE Malware WARMCOOKIE (BadSpace) Continues Development; CastleBot Used for Propagation The Windows malware known as WARMCOOKIE (aka BadSpace) is being actively developed and distributed, with recent campaigns leveraging CastleBot for propagation. “The most recent WARMCOOKIE builds we have collected contain the DLL/EXE execution functionality, with PowerShell script functionality being much less prevalent,” Elastic said . “These capabilities leverage the same function by passing different arguments for each file type. The handler creates a folder in a temporary directory, writing the file content (EXE / DLL / PS1) to a temporary file in the newly created folder.

Then, it executes the temporary file directly or uses either rundll32.exe or PowerShell.exe. Below is an example of PE execution from procmon.” Mic-E-Mouse Attack for Covert Data Exfiltration Optical Mouse Turned Into Microphone for Air-Gapped Data Theft Academics from UC Irvine have developed a new technique that turns an optical mouse into a microphone to secretly record and exfiltrate data from air-gapped networks. The new Mic-E-Mouse technique takes advantage of the high-performance optical sensors common in gaming mice to detect tiny vibrations caused by nearby sound and record the pattern in mouse movements. This data is then collected and exfiltrated to recover conversations with the help of a transformer-based neural network.

For the attack to work, a bad actor must first compromise the computer through other means. The study used a $35 mouse to test the system and found it could capture speech with 61% accuracy, depending on voice frequency. “Our target for a suitable exploit delivery vehicle is open-source applications where the collection and distribution of high-frequency mouse data is not inherently suspicious,” the researchers said . “Therefore, creative software, video games, and other high performance, low latency software are an [sic] ideal targets for injecting our exploit.” Crimson Collective Targets AWS Environments Crimson Collective Linked to Red Hat Breach and AWS Data Theft The emerging threat group known as Crimson Collective , which has been attributed to the recent breach of Red Hat, is believed to share ties with the larger Scattered Spider and LAPSUS$ collectives, according to security researcher Kevin Beaumont .

The assessment is based on the fact that the messages posted on the group’s public Telegram channel are signed with the name “Miku,” which refers to an alias for Thalha Jubair, who was arrested last month in the U.K. in connection with the August 2024 cyber attack targeting Transport for London (TfL), the city’s public transportation agency. Interestingly, the Red Hat compromise date is listed as September 13, 2025, a couple of days before Jubair’s arrest. According to Rapid7, the threat actors are increasingly targeting AWS cloud environments to steal sensitive data and extort victim organizations, with the attacks relying on an open-source tool called TruffleHog to find leaked AWS credentials.

“The threat group’s activity has been observed to start with compromising long-term access keys and leveraging privileges attached to the compromised IAM (Identity & Access Management) accounts,” the company said . “The threat group was observed creating new users and escalating privileges by attaching policies. When successful, the Crimson Collective performed reconnaissance to identify valuable data and exfiltrated it via AWS services. In case of the successful exfiltration of data, an extortion note is received by the victim.” The group has since partnered with Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters, with ShinyHunters telling Bleeping Computer that it has been privately operating as an extortion-as-a-service (EaaS), where they work with other threat actors to extort companies in exchange for a share of the extortion demand.

Defending against modern threats requires more than tools — it demands awareness, adaptability, and shared responsibility. As attackers evolve, so must our approach to security. The path forward lies in continuous learning, stronger collaboration, and smarter use of technology to keep trust intact in a connected world. Found this article interesting?

SaaS Breaches Start with Tokens - What Security Teams Must Watch

Token theft is a leading cause of SaaS breaches. Discover why OAuth and API tokens are often overlooked and how security teams can strengthen token hygiene to prevent attacks. Most companies in 2025 rely on a whole range of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to run their operations. However, the security of these applications depends on small pieces of data called tokens.

Tokens, like OAuth access tokens, API keys, and session tokens, work like keys to these applications. If a cybercriminal gets hold of one, they can access relevant systems without much trouble. Recent security breaches have shown that just one stolen token can bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA) and other security measures. Instead of exploiting vulnerabilities directly, attackers are leveraging token theft.

It’s a security concern that ties into the broader issue of SaaS sprawl and the difficulty of monitoring countless third-party integrations. Recent Breaches Involving Token Theft A lot of real-world events show us how stolen tokens can cause security breaches in SaaS environments:

Slack (Jan 2023). Attackers stole a number of Slack employee tokens and used them to gain unauthorized access to Slack’s private GitHub code repositories.

(No customer data was exposed, but it was a clear warning that stolen tokens can undermine internal security barriers.)

CircleCI (Jan 2023). Information-stealing malware on an engineer’s laptop allowed threat actors to hijack session tokens for CircleCI’s systems. Those tokens gave the attackers the same access as the user, even with MFA in place, enabling them to steal customer secrets from the CI platform.
Cloudflare/Okta (Nov 2023). In the fallout of an identity provider breach, Cloudflare rotated about 5,000 credentials. However, one unrotated API token and some service account credentials were enough for cybercriminals to compromise Cloudflare’s Atlassian environment.

This incident showed how a single forgotten token can undermine an otherwise thorough incident response. 4. Salesloft/Drift (Aug 2025). The Drift chatbot (owned by Salesloft) suffered a supply-chain breach that allowed attackers to harvest OAuth tokens for integrations like Salesforce and Google Workspace.

Using those stolen tokens, they accessed hundreds of customer organizations’ SaaS data. This OAuth token abuse allowed the attackers to move laterally into emails, files, and support records across platforms. SaaS Sprawl Fuels Token Blind Spots Why do these token-based breaches keep happening? The issue is bigger than any single app, it’s an ecosystem problem fueled by sprawling SaaS usage and hidden token trust relationships between apps.

Today, every department is leveraging SaaS tools and integrating them across systems. Employees use multiple third-party cloud services, and enterprises manage roughly 490 cloud apps, many of which are unsanctioned or not properly secured. This high usage of SaaS (often called SaaS sprawl) means an explosion of OAuth tokens, API keys, and app connections. Each integration introduces a non-human identity (essentially a credential) that usually isn’t visible to IT or tracked by traditional identity management solutions.

The overall result of this is an ungoverned attack surface. A few factors generally contribute to this blind spot: • Lack of visibility. Many organizations don’t actually know about all the SaaS apps and integrations their employees have enabled, or who authorized them. Shadow IT (employees adding apps without approval) flourishes, and security teams may only discover an OAuth connection after it has created a problem.

• No approval or oversight. Without a vetting process, users can freely connect apps like marketing plugins or productivity tools to corporate SaaS accounts. These third-party apps often ask for broad permissions and get them, even if they’re only needed temporarily. Unvetted and over-privileged apps can sit connected indefinitely if nobody reviews them.

• No regular monitoring. Very few companies enforce security settings on OAuth integrations or watch these connections in real time. Tokens rarely have short lifetimes or strict scope by default, and organizations often don’t limit their usage by IP or device. Logs from SaaS integrations might also not be fed into security monitoring.

Why Legacy Security Misses the Token Problem As such, traditional security tools haven’t fully caught up to this problem at all. Single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication protect user logins, but OAuth tokens bypass these controls. They grant persistent trust between apps with no further verification. A token acts on behalf of a user or service without needing a password, so an attacker who obtains a valid token can access the connected app’s data as if they were already authenticated.

There’s no pop-up to re-check MFA when an OAuth token is used. As a result, without special oversight, OAuth and API tokens have become an Achilles’ heel in SaaS security. Other legacy solutions, like cloud access security brokers, focus on user-to-app traffic and don’t monitor these app-to-app connections. This gap has led to the arrival of dynamic SaaS security platforms that aim to discover and secure SaaS integrations amid SaaS sprawl.

These platforms attempt to map out all the third-party apps, tokens, and privileges in use, giving back visibility and control. Whether through automated discovery (scanning for connected apps) or enforcing policies on OAuth usage, the goal is to close the SaaS security gap created by unchecked tokens. At the end of the day, every organization, with or without new tools, can apply better token hygiene practices. You can’t protect what you can’t see.

The first step is knowing where your tokens and SaaS integrations are. The next is controlling and monitoring them so they don’t become backdoors. Token Hygiene Checklist The following checklist can be used to reduce risk from token compromise: Practice Action Y/N Maintain OAuth App Inventory Discover and track all third-party applications connected to your SaaS accounts. Keep an updated inventory of OAuth tokens, API keys, and integrations.

This provides visibility into your token footprint. Enforce App Approval Establish a vetting process for new SaaS integrations. Require security review or admin approval before employees grant OAuth access to their accounts. This curbs unvetted apps and ensures each token issued is necessary and comes with known risks.

Least-Privilege Tokens Limit the scope and permissions of tokens to the minimum required. Avoid granting overly broad access (“allow all”) when authorizing an app. For example, if an app only needs read access, don’t give it read-write admin privileges. Least privilege reduces the impact if a token is stolen.

Rotate Tokens Regularly Treat long-lived tokens like expiring credentials. Configure tokens to expire after a short period, if possible, or periodically revoke and reissue them. Regular rotation (or short lifespans) means a stolen token will quickly become useless, narrowing an attacker’s window of opportunity. Remove or Alert on Unused Tokens Identify tokens and app connections that haven’t been used in weeks or months.

Unused tokens are latent threats – revoke them if they’re not needed. Implement alerts or reports for dormant tokens so that they can be cleaned up proactively, preventing forgotten credentials from lingering indefinitely. Monitor Token Activity Enable logging and monitoring for token use across your SaaS platforms. Watch for unusual token activity, such as a normally unused integration suddenly making large data requests or access from odd locations.

Set up alerts for anomalies in token usage (e.g. a spike in API calls, or use of a token from an unfamiliar IP). Integrate Tokens into Offboarding When employees leave or when a third-party app is retired, ensure their tokens and access keys are promptly revoked. Make token revocation a standard step in user offboarding and app lifecycle management.

This prevents old credentials from persisting after they’re no longer needed. Found this article interesting? Follow us on Google News , Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

Weaponized GenAI + Extortion-First Strategies Fueling a New Age of Ransomware

From Phishing to Malware: AI Becomes Russia’s New Cyber Weapon in War on Ukraine

Russian hackers’ adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in cyber attacks against Ukraine has reached a new level in the first half of 2025 (H1 2025), the country’s State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP) said. “Hackers now employ it not only to generate phishing messages, but some of the malware samples we have analyzed show clear signs of being generated with AI – and attackers are certainly not going to stop there,” the agency said in a report published Wednesday. SSSCIP said 3,018 cyber incidents were recorded during the time period, up from 2,575 in the second half of 2024 (H2 2024). Local authorities and military entities witnessed an increase in attacks compared to H2 2024, while those targeting government and energy sectors declined.

One notable attack observed involved UAC-0219’s use of malware called WRECKSTEEL in attacks aimed at state administration bodies and critical infrastructure facilities in the country. There is evidence to suggest that the PowerShell data-stealing malware was developed using AI tools. Some of the other campaigns registered against Ukraine are listed below - Phishing campaigns orchestrated by UAC-0218 targeting defense forces to deliver HOMESTEEL using booby-trapped RAR archives Phishing campaigns orchestrated by UAC-0226 targeting organizations involved in the development of innovations in the defense industrial sector, local government bodies, military units, and law enforcement agencies to distribute a stealer called GIFTEDCROOK Phishing campaigns orchestrated by UAC-0227 targeting local authorities, critical infrastructure facilities, and Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centers (TRCs and SSCs) that leverage ClickFix-style tactics or SVG file attachments to distribute stealers like Amatera Stealer and Strela Stealer Phishing campaigns orchestrated by UAC-0125, a sub-cluster with ties to Sandworm, that sent email messages containing links to a website masquerading as ESET to deliver a C#-based backdoor named Kalambur (aka SUMBUR) under the guise of a threat removal program SSSCIP said it also observed the Russia-linked APT28 (aka UAC-0001) actors weaponizing cross-site scripting flaws in Roundcube and ( CVE-2023-43770 , CVE-2024-37383 , and CVE-2025-49113 ) and Zimbra ( CVE-2024-27443 and CVE-2025-27915 ) webmail software to conduct zero-click attacks. “When exploiting such vulnerabilities, attackers typically injected malicious code that, through the Roundcube or Zimbra API, gained access to credentials, contact lists, and configured filters to forward all emails to attacker-controlled mailboxes,” SSSCIP said.

“Another method of stealing credentials using these vulnerabilities was to create hidden HTML blocks (visibility: hidden) with login and password input fields, where the attribute autocomplete=’on’ was set. This allowed the fields to be auto-filled with data stored in the browser, which was then exfiltrated.” The agency also revealed that Russia continues to engage in hybrid warfare, synchronizing its cyber operations in conjunction with kinetic attacks on the battlefield, with the Sandworm (UAC-0002) group targeting organizations in the energy, defense, internet service providers, and research sectors. Furthermore, several threat groups targeting Ukraine have resorted to abusing legitimate services, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Bitbucket, Cloudflare Workers, Telegram, Telegra.ph, Teletype.in, Firebase, ipfs.io, mocky.io, to host malware or phishing pages, or turn them into a data exfiltration channel. “The use of legitimate online resources for malicious purposes is not a new tactic,” SSSCIP said.

“However, the number of such platforms exploited by Russian hackers has been steadily increasing in recent times.” Found this article interesting? Follow us on Google News , Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

Critical Exploit Lets Hackers Bypass Authentication in WordPress Service Finder Theme

Threat actors are actively exploiting a critical security flaw impacting the Service Finder WordPress theme that makes it possible to gain unauthorized access to any account, including administrators, and take control of susceptible sites. The authentication bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-5947 (CVSS score: 9.8), affects the Service Finder Bookings, a WordPress plugin bundled with the Service Finder theme. It was discovered by a researcher who goes by the name Foxyyy. “This vulnerability makes it possible for an unauthenticated attacker to gain access to any account on a site, including accounts with the ‘administrator’ role,” Wordfence researcher István Márton said .

The problem, at its core, is a case of privilege escalation stemming from authentication bypass due to the plugin not adequately validating a user’s cookie value before logging them in through an account switching function (service_finder_switch_back()). As a result, an unauthenticated attacker could take advantage of this behavior to sign in to the site as any user, including administrators, effectively hijacking the site and using it for nefarious purposes , such as inserting malicious code to redirect users to fake sites or use it to host malware. The shortcoming affects all versions of the theme prior to and including 6.0. It was addressed by the plugin maintainers on July 17, 2025, with the release of version 6.1.

The theme has been sold to more than 6,100 customers , per data from Envato Market. The WordPress security company said it has observed exploitation activity targeting CVE-2025-5947 since August 1, 2025, with over 13,800 attempts detected to date. However, the success rate of these efforts is currently not clear. The following IP addresses have been observed targeting the Service Finder Bookings plugin account switching function - 5.189.221.98 185.109.21.157 192.121.16.196 194.68.32.71 178.125.204.198 Administrators are recommended to audit their sites for any signs of suspicious activity and ensure all the plugins and themes are running the latest version.

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Hackers Exploit WordPress Sites to Power Next-Gen ClickFix Phishing Attacks

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a nefarious campaign targeting WordPress sites to make malicious JavaScript injections that are designed to redirect users to sketchy sites. “Site visitors get injected content that was drive-by malware like fake Cloudflare verification,” Sucuri researcher Puja Srivastava said in an analysis published last week. The website security company said it began an investigation after one of its customer’s WordPress sites served suspicious third-party JavaScript to site visitors, ultimately finding that the attackers introduced malicious modifications to a theme-related file (“functions.php”). The code inserted into “functions.php” incorporates references to Google Ads, likely in an attempt to evade detection.

But, in reality, it functions as a remote loader by sending an HTTP POST request to the domain “brazilc[.]com,” which, in turn, responds with a dynamic payload that includes two components - A JavaScript file hosted on a remote server (“porsasystem[.]com”), which, as of writing, has been referenced on 17 websites and contains code to perform site redirects A piece of JavaScript code that creates a hidden, 1x1 pixel iframe, within which it injects code that mimics legitimate Cloudflare assets like “cdn-cgi/challenge-platform/scripts/jsd/main.js” – an API that’s a core part of its bot detection and challenge platform It’s worth noting that the domain “ porsasystem[.]com “ has been flagged as part of a traffic distribution system (TDS) called Kongtuke (aka 404 TDS, Chaya_002, LandUpdate808, and TAG-124). According to information shared by an account named “ monitorsg “ on Mastodon on September 19, 2025, the infection chain starts with users visiting a compromised site, resulting in the execution of “porsasystem[.]com/6m9x.js,” which then leads to “porsasystem[.]com/js.php” to eventually take the victims to ClickFix -style pages for malware distribution. The findings illustrate the need for securing WordPress sites and ensuring that plugins, themes, and website software are kept up-to-date, enforcing strong passwords, scanning the sites for anomalies and unexpected administrator accounts created for maintaining persistent access even after the malware is detected and removed. Create ClickFix Pages Using IUAM ClickFix Generator The disclosure comes as Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 detailed a phishing kit named IUAM ClickFix Generator that allows attackers to infect users with malware by leveraging the ClickFix social engineering technique and come up with customizable landing pages by mimicking browser verification challenges often used to block automated traffic.

“This tool allows threat actors to create highly customizable phishing pages that mimic the challenge-response behavior of a browser verification page commonly deployed by Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and cloud security providers to defend against automated threats,” security researcher Amer Elsad said . “The spoofed interface is designed to appear legitimate to victims, increasing the effectiveness of the lure.” The bespoke phishing pages also come with capabilities to manipulate the clipboard, a crucial step in the ClickFix attack, as well as detect the operating system used in order to tailor the infection sequence and serve compatible malware. In at least two different cases, threat actors have been detected using pages generated using the kit to deploy information stealers such as DeerStealer and Odyssey Stealer , the latter of which is designed to target Apple macOS systems. The emergence of the IUAM ClickFix Generator adds to a prior alert from Microsoft warning of a rise in commercial ClickFix builders on underground forums since late 2024.

Another notable example of a phishing kit that has integrated the offering is Impact Solutions . “The kits offer creation of landing pages with a variety of available lures, including Cloudflare,” Microsoft noted back in August 2025. “They also offer construction of malicious commands that users will paste into the Windows Run dialog. These kits claim to guarantee antivirus and web protection bypass (some even promise that they can bypass Microsoft Defender SmartScreen), as well as payload persistence.” It goes without saying that these tools further lower the barrier to entry for cybercriminals, enabling them to mount sophisticated, multi-platform attacks at scale without much effort or technical expertise.

ClickFix Becomes Stealthy via Cache Smuggling The findings also follow the discovery of a new campaign that has innovated on the ClickFix attack formula by employing a sneaky technique referred to as cache smuggling to fly under the radar as opposed to explicitly downloading any malicious files on the target host. “This campaign differs from previous ClickFix variants in that the malicious script does not download any files or communicate with the internet,” Expel Principal Threat Researcher Marcus Hutchins said . “This is achieved by using the browser’s cache to pre-emptively store arbitrary data onto the user’s machine.” Expel said it was unable to determine the final payload received as part of the attack. It’s also currently not known who users are redirected to the phishing page, and if it involves techniques like malvertising or search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning.

In the attack documented by the cybersecurity company, the ClickFix-themed page masquerades as a Fortinet VPN Compliance Checker, using FileFix tactics to deceive users into launching the Windows File Explorer and pasting a malicious command into the address bar to trigger the execution of the payload. The invisible command is designed to run a PowerShell script via conhost.exe. What makes the script stand apart is that it does not download any additional malware or communicate with an attacker-controlled server. Instead, it executes an obfuscated payload that passes off as a JPEG image and is already cached by the browser when the user lands on the phishing page.

“The file extracted from the cache is used to set up a scheduled task, which is set to run after each reboot,” Hutchins told The Hacker News. “When the task runs, it connects to a command-and-control server waiting for follow-up commands.” “Neither the web page nor the PowerShell script explicitly downloads any files,” Hutchins explained. “By simply letting the browser cache the fake ‘image,’ the malware is able to get an entire ZIP file onto the local system without the PowerShell command needing to make any web requests.” “The implications of this technique are concerning, as cache smuggling may offer a way to evade protections that would otherwise catch malicious files as they are downloaded and executed. An innocuous-looking ‘image/jpeg’ file is downloaded, only to have its contents extracted and then executed via a PowerShell command hidden in a ClickFix phishing lure.” (The story was updated after publication to include additional insights from Expel.) Found this article interesting?

Chinese Hackers Weaponize Open-Source Nezha Tool in New Attack Wave

Threat actors with suspected ties to China have turned a legitimate open-source monitoring tool called Nezha into an attack weapon, using it to deliver a known malware called Gh0st RAT to targets. The activity, observed by cybersecurity company Huntress in August 2025, is characterized by the use of an unusual technique called log poisoning (aka log injection) to plant a web shell on a web server. “This allowed the threat actor to control the web server using ANTSWORD , before ultimately deploying Nezha, an operation and monitoring tool that allows commands to be run on a web server,” researchers Jai Minton, James Northey, and Alden Schmidt said in a report shared with The Hacker News. In all, the intrusion is said to have likely compromised more than 100 victim machines, with a majority of the infections reported in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong.

“The activity has been going on since at least June of 2025 but it may have been longer,” Minton, principal security operations analyst at Huntress, told The Hacker News. “This is assessed based on the first seen timestamps of systems connecting back to the threat actor’s Nezha dashboard which is also a good indication of when the individual systems were breached.” The attack chain pieced together by Huntress shows that the attackers, described as a “technically proficient adversary,” leveraged a publicly exposed and vulnerable phpMyAdmin panel to obtain initial access, and then set the language to simplified Chinese. The cybersecurity company said, while it has not observed other initial access vectors, it assessed with high confidence that there are other methods the threat actors are using to break into networks of interest. “This is assessed based on the metadata of the diverse systems which the threat actors Nezha agent was installed on which indicate some systems we wouldn’t necessarily expect to be running a phpMyAdmin panel,” it said.

The threat actors have been subsequently found to access the server SQL query interface and run various SQL commands in quick succession in order to drop a PHP web shell in a directory accessible over the internet after ensuring that the queries are logged to disk by enabling general query logging. “They then issued a query containing their one-liner PHP web shell, causing it to be recorded in the log file,” Huntress explained. “Crucially, they set the log file’s name with a .php extension, allowing it to be executed directly by sending POST requests to the server.” The access afforded by the ANTSWORD web shell is then used to run the “whoami” command to determine the privileges of the web server and deliver the open-source Nezha agent, which can be used to remotely commandeer an infected host by connecting to an external server (“c.mid[.]al”). An interesting aspect of the attack is that the threat actor behind the operation has been running their Nezha dashboard in Russian, with over 100 victims listed across the world.

A smaller concentration of victims is scattered across Singapore, Malaysia, India, the U.K., the U.S., Colombia, Laos, Thailand, Australia, Indonesia, France, Canada, Argentina, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Ireland, Kenya, and Macao, among others. The Nezha agent enables the next stage of the attack chain, facilitating the execution of an interactive PowerShell script to create Microsoft Defender Antivirus exclusions and launch Gh0st RAT , a malware widely used by Chinese hacking groups. The malware is executed by means of a loader that, in turn, runs a dropper responsible for configuring and starting the main payload. “This activity highlights how attackers are increasingly abusing new and emerging publicly available tooling as it becomes available to achieve their goals,” the researchers said.

“Due to this, it’s a stark reminder that while publicly available tooling can be used for legitimate purposes, it’s also commonly abused by threat actors due to the low research cost, ability to provide plausible deniability compared to bespoke malware, and likelihood of being undetected by security products.” (The story was updated after publication to include additional insights from Huntress.) Found this article interesting? Follow us on Google News , Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

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LockBit, Qilin, and DragonForce Join Forces to Dominate the Ransomware Ecosystem

Three prominent ransomware groups DragonForce , LockBit , and Qilin have announced a new strategic ransomware alliance, once underscoring continued shifts in the cyber threat landscape. The coalition is seen as an attempt on the part of the financially motivated threat actors to conduct more effective ransomware attacks, ReliaQuest said in a report shared with The Hacker News. “Announced shortly after LockBit’s return, the collaboration is expected to facilitate the sharing of techniques, resources, and infrastructure, strengthening each group’s operational capabilities,” the company noted in its ransomware report for Q3 2025. “This alliance could help restore LockBit’s reputation among affiliates following last year’s takedown, potentially triggering a surge in attacks on critical infrastructure and expanding the threat to sectors previously considered low risk.” The partnership with Qilin is no surprise, given that it has become the most active ransomware group in recent months , claiming a little over 200 victims in Q3 2025 alone.

“In Q3 2025, Qilin disproportionately targeted North America-based organizations,” ZeroFox said in its Q3 2025 Ransomware Wrap-Up report. “Qilin’s operational tempo began to increase significantly in Q4 2024, when the collective conducted at least 46 attacks.” The development coincides with the emergence of LockBit 5.0 , which is equipped to target Windows, Linux, and ESXi systems. The latest iteration was first advertised on September 3, 2025, on the RAMP darknet forum on the sixth anniversary of the affiliate program. LockBit was dealt a massive blow in early 2024 following a law enforcement operation dubbed Cronos that seized its infrastructure and led to the arrest of some of its members .

At its peak, the group is estimated to have targeted over 2,500 victims worldwide and received more than $500 million in ransom payments. “If the group manages to rebuild its trust among affiliates, it could reemerge as a dominant ransomware threat, driven by financial motives and by a desire for revenge against law enforcement crackdowns,” ReliaQuest said. R&DE incidents by week in Q3 2025 The return of LockBit and its alliance comes as the threat actor known as Scattered Spider appears to be gearing up to launch its own ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) program called ShinySp1d3r , making it the first such service by an English-speaking extortion crew. ReliaQuest said it’s tracking a total of 81 data leak sites, a significant jump from 51 reported in early 2024.

Companies in the professional, scientific, and technical services sector account for the largest number of victims during the time period, affecting more than 375 entities. Manufacturing, construction, healthcare, finance and insurance, retail, accommodation and food services, education, arts and entertainment, information, and real estate are some of the other commonly affected sectors. Another noteworthy trend is the spike in ransomware attacks targeting countries like Egypt, Thailand, and Colombia, indicating that threat actors are expanding beyond “traditional hotspots” such as Europe and the U.S. to evade law enforcement scrutiny.

The vast majority of the victims listed on data leak sites are based in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Canada, and Italy. According to data from ZeroFox, there have been a total of at least 1,429 separate ransomware and digital extortion (R&DE) incidents in Q3 2025, down from 1,961 incidents observed in Q1 2025. Qilin, Akira, INC Ransom, Play, and SafePay have been found to be responsible for approximately 47 percent of all global R&DE attacks in Q2 and Q3 2025. “The disproportionate targeting of North America-based entities can be partly attributed to the geopolitical motivations and ideological beliefs of financially motivated threat collectives fueled by opposition to ‘Western’ political and social narratives,” the company said.

“North America hosts a wide variety of robust industries that comprise substantial and fast-growing digital attack surfaces. The widespread integration of technologies such as cloud networking services and Internet of Things devices contributes to the accessibility of North American assets.” Found this article interesting? Follow us on Google News , Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

Severe Framelink Figma MCP Vulnerability Lets Hackers Execute Code Remotely

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a now-patched vulnerability in the popular figma-developer-mcp Model Context Protocol ( MCP ) server that could allow attackers to achieve code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-53967 (CVSS score: 7.5), is a command injection bug stemming from the unsanitized use of user input, opening the door to a scenario where an attacker can send arbitrary system commands. “The server constructs and executes shell commands using unvalidated user input directly within command-line strings. This introduces the possibility of shell metacharacter injection (|, >, &&, etc.),” according to a GitHub advisory for the flaw.

“Successful exploitation can lead to remote code execution under the server process’s privileges.” Given that the Framelink Figma MCP server exposes various tools to perform operations in Figma using artificial intelligence (AI)-powered coding agents like Cursor, an attacker could trick the MCP client to execute unintended actions by means of an indirect prompt injection. Cybersecurity company Imperva, which discovered and reported the problem in July 2025, described CVE-2025-53967 as a “design oversight” in the fallback mechanism that could allow bad actors to achieve full remote code execution, putting developers at risk of data exposure. The command injection flaw “occurs during the construction of a command-line instruction used to send traffic to the Figma API endpoint,” security researcher Yohann Sillam said. The exploitation sequence takes place over through steps - The MCP client sends an Initialize request to the MCP endpoint to receive an mcp-session-id that’s used in subsequent communication with the MCP server The client sends a JSONRPC request to the MCP server with the method tools/call to call tools like get_figma_data or download_figma_images The issue, at its core, resides in “src/utils/fetch-with-retry.ts,” which first attempts to get content using the standard fetch API and, if that fails, proceeds to executing curl command via child_process.exec – which introduces the command injection flaw.

“Because the curl command is constructed by directly interpolating URL and header values into a shell command string, a malicious actor could craft a specially designed URL or header value that injects arbitrary shell commands,” Imperva said. “This could lead to remote code execution (RCE) on the host machine.” In a proof-of-concept attack, a remote bad actor on the same network (e.g., a public Wi-Fi or a compromised corporate device) can trigger the flaw by sending the series of requests to the vulnerable MCP. Alternatively, the attacker could trick a victim into visiting a specially crafted site as part of a DNS rebinding attack . The vulnerability has been addressed in version 0.6.3 of figma-developer-mcp, which was released on September 29, 2025.

As mitigations, it’s advisable to avoid using child_process.exec with untrusted input and switch to child_process.execFile that eliminates the risk of shell interpretation. “As AI-driven development tools continue to evolve and gain adoption, it’s essential that security considerations keep pace with innovation,” the Thales-owned company said. “This vulnerability is a stark reminder that even tools meant to run locally can become powerful entry points for attackers.” The development comes as FireTail revealed that Google has opted not to fix a new ASCII smuggling attack in its Gemini AI chatbot that could be weaponized to craft inputs that can slip through security filters and induce undesirable responses . Other large language models (LLMs) susceptible to this attack are DeepSeek and xAI’s Grok.

“And this flaw is particularly dangerous when LLMs, like Gemini, are deeply integrated into enterprise platforms like Google Workspace,” the company said . “This technique enables automated identity spoofing and systematic data poisoning, turning a UI flaw into a potential security nightmare.” Found this article interesting? Follow us on Google News , Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

No Time to Waste: Embedding AI to Cut Noise and Reduce Risk

Artificial intelligence is reshaping cybersecurity on both sides of the battlefield. Cybercriminals are using AI-powered tools to accelerate and automate attacks at a scale defenders have never faced before. Security teams are overwhelmed by an explosion of vulnerability data, tool outputs, and alerts, all while operating with finite human resources. The irony is that while AI has become a dominant theme in cybersecurity, many enterprises still struggle to apply it effectively within their programs.

The problem isn’t access to information, as teams already have more data than they can process. It’s cutting through the noise and focusing on what truly matters. AI is crucial here. Not only can it make security teams more efficient, it can generate insights that would be impossible to gather at scale or in real time without machine assistance.

If adversaries are already weaponizing AI, then defenders must embed it into their strategies as well or risk falling further behind in a fight that is moving faster every day. Where to Embed AI to Deliver the Most Impact
To keep pace with adversaries, defenders should focus on these key areas where AI provides the greatest advantage:
Deduplication and correlation:
Cut through redundant data to create a trusted view of risk. Prioritization: Ensure limited resources are spent on the exposures that matter most. The intelligence layer: Augment human judgment with context, simulations, and recommendations.

Together, these elements form the foundation of an AI-driven exposure management strategy to enable organizations to reduce risk continuously rather than reactively. Security tools are quickly developing AI to enhance decisions and analysis. When evaluating solutions, choose those with proven investment in AI and a clear vision for expansion. PlexTrac , the Pentest Report Automation & Threat Exposure Management platform, introduced AI in 2024 and is actively expanding its use to help teams manage their centralized data across the vulnerability lifecycle.

Deduplication and Correlation: Creating a Clean Risk Picture One of the biggest obstacles security teams face isn’t the absence of tools, but the overload they create. Multiple scanners, asset inventories, and threat feeds often surface the same vulnerabilities again and again. Duplicate findings create noise, slow remediation, and make it nearly impossible to see a clean picture of risk. Analysts often spend more time reconciling conflicting data than actually reducing exposures, especially when findings are scattered across siloed tools instead of centralized in one place where they can be managed together.

This is where AI can change the game. By normalizing, correlating, and deduplicating millions of records, AI can distill a massive dataset of duplicated vulnerabilities into a single, accurate, and correlated view. This clarity is the foundation for effective risk management. Without it, prioritization is guesswork.

With centralized data management , platforms like PlexTrac already automate parts of this process, and the next step is applying intelligence to ensure teams can rely on the data in front of them, free from noise, duplication, and distraction. Prioritization: Smarter Risk Prioritization Once your data is clean, the next challenge is deciding what to fix first. Traditional severity scores, like CVSS, often overwhelm teams with endless lists of “critical” issues. But severity doesn’t always equal risk.

AI-driven prioritization blends exploit likelihood, asset exposure, business context, and real-time threat intelligence to surface the exposures that matter and have the highest impact on the business or likeliness of exploitation. Instead of spreading resources thin, teams can narrow their focus on the vulnerabilities most likely to be exploited. Platforms like PlexTrac have already released contextual risk-based scoring to prioritize remediation using relevant business context and are investing deeply in this intelligence-first prioritization to help organizations align security decisions directly with business outcomes. The Intelligence Layer: Augment Human Analysis The future of AI in cybersecurity isn’t about replacing analysts, but empowering them.

AI can recommend areas of focus, surface potential exploits based on active threats, simulate attack scenarios, and enrich risk scores with live threat data. Analysts still make the calls, but with far more guidance, context, and confidence. This “intelligence layer” bridges automation and human judgment to help teams shift from reactive compliance to business-aligned defense. Platforms like PlexTrac are building toward this future, where defenders gain an edge not just in efficiency but in foresight.

Fight Back Against AI: Turn Data Into Defense AI-powered deduplication and prioritization are the levers that determine whether organizations stay buried in noise or achieve measurable risk reduction. With adversaries already weaponizing AI, defenders must embed it into their strategies now. Done responsibly, AI transforms the flood of security data into actionable insight, allowing teams to cut through chaos, focus resources, and fight back against attackers who are already wielding AI as a weapon. As adversaries advance cyberattacks with AI, platforms like PlexTrac are investing heavily in advancing AI-driven capabilities to cut through noise, prioritize what matters, and reduce risk.

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