Researchers at D3Lab warn that new versions of the NFCShare Android malware are spreading as fake updates for real banking apps, hosted on GitHub to look legitimate. Targeting customers of European banks, the malware shows a fake verification screen that tells victims to hold their payment card against the phone. It then uses the phone's NFC chip to read the card number, type, and expiry, and tricks the victim into typing their 4-digit PIN, sending it all to the attacker's server. That stolen data feeds NFC relay fraud, where criminals use it to make contactless payments or withdrawals. The malware only works if users sideload it.
Meta says it caught and shut down fresh spear-phishing attempts linked to Israeli spyware maker NSO Group that tried to lure WhatsApp users into clicking malicious links leading to sites outside the app, mirroring the one-click attacks NSO has used to plant its Pegasus spyware. Meta also found and removed NSO-created test accounts and groups, and published the malicious domains involved. The company is now asking a US federal court to hold NSO in contempt for violating the permanent injunction issued last year barring it from targeting WhatsApp. High-risk users such as journalists, activists, and officials are the usual targets of this kind of mercenary spyware.
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.
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.
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.
With the FIFA World Cup kicking off June 11 across the US, Canada, and Mexico, the FBI and researchers at Group-IB and Fortinet warn that a large fraud operation is already running. Group-IB tracked more than 4,300 fake FIFA websites and a Chinese-speaking crew, GHOST STADIUM, that cloned the official site pixel-for-pixel, fake login and all, across 300-plus domains. Scams include bogus ticket, merchandise, and hospitality sites, fake streaming apps that hide banking malware, and betting sites that harvest passport scans for identity theft. With tickets scarce and 150 million requests filed, scammers are exploiting fans' urgency to steal logins, money, and personal data.
Volexity has detailed Chinese espionage group UNC5221 (also VerdantBamboo) maintaining access to a victim's Microsoft 365 environment using the Brickstorm backdoor plus previously undocumented malware named Plenet and AgentPSD. The actor sat on the network at least 18 months before detection and had also compromised the victim's MSP. UNC5221 has exploited edge-device zero-days since at least 2023; Brickstorm began as Golang, later Rust. In this case the group pivoted from a compromised Egnyte Storage Sync system through the victim's SSL VPN, then used Brickstorm proxying and stolen credentials to reach Microsoft 365 - deliberately blending with legitimate traffic to evade Conditional Access. It re-breached the org after remediation.
TrustStrike Labs