Fortinet has uncovered a new botnet called C0XMO, built from the long-running Gafgyt malware family, that breaks into devices by exploiting an old flaw (CVE-2021-27137) in the UPnP service of DD-WRT router firmware. A booby-trapped network request gives the attacker code execution with no login needed. Once in, C0XMO digs in with hidden files and cron jobs that re-run it every 15 minutes, then hunts down and deletes rival botnets and even researchers' security tools to keep the device to itself. A separate scanner spreads it across many chip types (ARM, MIPS, x86, and more), and infected devices are wired up to launch 19 kinds of denial-of-service floods.
Mandiant has detailed how the extortion crew Silent Ransom Group (also tracked as Luna Moth and UNC3753) is breaking into US law firms and other professional-services companies through phone calls rather than malware. Attackers send a harmless-looking invoice or data-migration email, then call the target pretending to be internal IT support, talk them into starting a screen-share, and get them to install a remote management tool that hands over access. From there, Mandiant has seen data located, staged, and stolen in under an hour. The group skips encryption entirely, instead threatening to leak stolen files unless paid. A recent FBI alert added in-person office visits to the playbook.
The Five Eyes intelligence agencies (US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) issued a joint bulletin, "Safeguarding Our Secrets," warning that Chinese military intelligence officers are posing as recruiters on sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Upwork. Fronting as think tanks, consultancies, or HR firms, they post fake jobs such as foreign-policy or defense-analyst roles, then use the interview process to pressure targets into handing over classified or non-public information. The agencies say current and former government, military, defense-contractor, research, and journalist personnel are all in scope, with extra focus on those tied to the Indo-Pacific. The goal is harvesting privileged military, political, and economic intelligence.
RCI Hospitality, one of the largest US adult-nightclub operators, has confirmed that a breach exposed the personal data of 40,178 people, mostly independent contractors. Attackers got in through an insecure direct object reference (IDOR) flaw on one of the company's IIS web servers, a common web bug where simply changing an ID number in a web address lets you pull up someone else's record. The intrusion began March 19 and was spotted four days later. Stolen data includes names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver's license numbers. RCI says no customer or financial systems were touched, and the data has not yet appeared publicly.
A security startup's autonomous AI agent scanned FFmpeg, the open-source media library built into countless video and audio tools, and turned up 21 previously unknown bugs, each with working proof-of-concept code that crashes or corrupts memory when the software processes a malicious media file. Several flaws are 15 to 20 years old; one dates back to 2003. Nine already carry CVE numbers (CVE-2026-39210 through CVE-2026-39218), and the rest are fixed but not yet numbered. The whole run cost about $1,000. Because FFmpeg sits inside browsers, media servers, and apps everywhere, any product that decodes untrusted video could be at risk.
Google shipped Chrome 149 with fixes for 429 security bugs, the most ever in a single Chrome release. More than 100 are rated critical or high. The worst, an out-of-bounds read and write in the ANGLE graphics engine that Chrome uses to render web pages, lets a booby-trapped website break out of the browser's protective sandbox and run code on the victim's computer; Google paid a $97,000 bounty for it. None are confirmed under attack yet, but a sandbox escape is the kind of bug attackers race to weaponize, so patching before that happens matters.
The self-spreading Miasma worm, a variant of the Shai-Hulud malware linked to the group TeamPCP, has reached Microsoft's own code. Using a stolen access token, attackers pushed a malicious commit into the Azure durabletask repository, and GitHub disabled 73 repositories across four Microsoft organizations including Azure and MicrosoftDocs. The twist: the planted code runs automatically when a developer opens the project in an AI coding assistant like Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, or VS Code, then harvests cloud and developer credentials and uses them to infect more projects. It hides the trigger inside a build file (binding.gyp) that most security tools ignore.
Baker Distributing, one of the largest US wholesalers of heating, cooling, and refrigeration equipment, has been hit by the extortion group ShinyHunters, which stole company data and posted it after the company did not pay. Breach-tracking service Have I Been Pwned has now confirmed 102,935 affected accounts; the gang originally claimed more than 260,000 stolen records pulled from Salesforce and internal SharePoint sites, including HR documents. ShinyHunters has been on a tear this year, breaking into corporate SaaS accounts by tricking IT help desks into resetting credentials. Exposed personal and business data fuels follow-on phishing aimed at Baker's customers and staff.
Researchers at Include Security have shown how a software kit made by Bright Data, embedded inside free apps on Samsung, LG, and Roku smart TVs, quietly turns those always-on devices into relays for someone else's web-scraping traffic. Users opt in through a consent screen buried in the TV's menu, then their home internet connection is used to fetch web pages for Bright Data's paying customers, many of them AI firms. The researchers found the control channel barely checks who is issuing commands, weaker than many malware families, and on iPhones the traffic even slips past VPNs and normal monitoring tools.
Security firm ESET has detailed a new Android spyware it calls Asin that targets Arabic-speaking users, likely journalists and open-source investigators. Victims are lured to convincing fake websites posing as a government news service, a secure PDF reader, and live war-map tools, some promoted through Facebook and Telegram pages. The sites offer apps such as GovLens, WarMap, and Syria Defense Map that work as advertised but hide spyware underneath. Because the apps come from outside official stores, victims must manually install them and grant permissions. ESET has not tied the campaign to a known group, and its exact goals remain unclear.
TrustStrike Labs