Malware | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The malware known as Latrodectus has become the latest to embrace the widely-used social engineering technique called ClickFix as a distribution vector. "The ClickFix technique is particularly risky because it allows the malware to execute in memory rather than being written to disk," Expel said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This removes many opportunities for browsers or security tools to detect or block the malware." Latrodectus, believed to be a successor to IcedID, is the name given to a malware that acts as a downloader for other payloads, such as ransomware. It was first documented by Proofpoint and Team Cymru in April 2024. Incidentally, the malware is one among the many malicious software to suffer an operational setback as part of Operation Endgame, which took down 300 servers worldwide and neutralized 650 domains related to Bumblebee, Lactrodectus, QakBot, HijackLoader, DanaBot, TrickBot, and WARMCOOKIE between May 19 and 22, 2025. In...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed that a threat actor codenamed ViciousTrap has compromised nearly 5,300 unique network edge devices across 84 countries and turned them into a honeypot-like network. The threat actor has been observed exploiting a critical security flaw impacting Cisco Small Business RV016, RV042, RV042G, RV082, RV320, and RV325 Routers (CVE-2023-20118) to corral them into a set of honeypots en masse. A majority of the infections are located in Macau, with 850 compromised devices. "The infection chain involves the execution of a shell script, dubbed NetGhost, which redirects incoming traffic from specific ports of the compromised router to a honeypot-like infrastructure under the attacker's control allowing them to intercept network flows," Sekoia said in an analysis published Thursday. It's worth noting that the exploitation of CVE-2023-20118 was previously attributed by the French cybersecurity company to another botnet dubbed PolarEdge ...

As part of the latest "season" of Operation Endgame , a coalition of law enforcement agencies have taken down about 300 servers worldwide, neutralized 650 domains, and issued arrest warrants against 20 targets. Operation Endgame, first launched in May 2024, is an ongoing law enforcement operation targeting services and infrastructures assisting in or directly providing initial or consolidating access for ransomware. The previous edition focused on dismantling the initial access malware families that have been used to deliver ransomware. The latest iteration, per Europol, targeted new malware variants and successor groups that re-emerged after last year's takedowns such as Bumblebee, Lactrodectus, QakBot, HijackLoader, DanaBot, TrickBot, and WARMCOOKIE . The interaction action was carried out between May 19 and 22, 2025. "In addition, €3.5 million in cryptocurrency was seized during the action week, bringing the total amount seized during the Operation Endgame to...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday announced the disruption of the online infrastructure associated with DanaBot (aka DanaTools) and unsealed charges against 16 individuals for their alleged involvement in the development and deployment of the malware, which it said was controlled by a Russia-based cybercrime organization. The malware, the DoJ said, infected more than 300,000 victim computers around the world, facilitated fraud and ransomware, and caused at least $50 million in damages. Two of the defendants, Aleksandr Stepanov (aka JimmBee), 39, and Artem Aleksandrovich Kalinkin (aka Onix), 34, both from Novosibirsk, Russia, are currently at large. Stepanov has been charged with conspiracy, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information, unauthorized impairment of a protected computer, wiretapping, and use of an intercepted communication. Kalinkin has been charged with cons...

A Chinese-speaking threat actor tracked as UAT-6382 has been linked to the exploitation of a now-patched remote-code-execution vulnerability in Trimble Cityworks to deliver Cobalt Strike and VShell. "UAT-6382 successfully exploited CVE-2025-0944, conducted reconnaissance, and rapidly deployed a variety of web shells and custom-made malware to maintain long-term access," Cisco Talos researchers Asheer Malhotra and Brandon White said in an analysis published today. "Upon gaining access, UAT-6382 expressed a clear interest in pivoting to systems related to utility management." The network security company said it observed the attacks targeting enterprise networks of local governing bodies in the United States starting January 2025. CVE-2025-0944 (CVSS score: 8.6) refers to the deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability affecting the GIS-centric asset management software that could enable remote code execution. The vulnerability, since patched, was added to ...