DEV Community: Habdul Hazeez

Security news weekly round-up - 25th September 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 21:27:52 +0000

By the looks of it, AI is not going anywhere anytime soon. The same applies to cyber criminals; some people are just bad and love to wreak havoc due to means best known to them. While solutions are being created to ensure our online accounts are safe from compromise, some can still find ways to subvert them.
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‎In the midst of all these, there are fears that AI could cause a doomsday, a ClickFix attack is still a threat, Android malware is still a thing, and you should be careful of the links that you click online.

Google’s Gemini is the latest AI model to hack other companies

There are no surprises in this one. Even the author, from the choice of words in the article's title, did not find the situation surprising. Still, you need to know about it.

Here is a piece of what happened:

Similar to OpenAI’s breach of Hugging Face, the Gemini hacks were less noteworthy for being particularly sophisticated and more for the fact that they were conducted by an AI model.

These breaches took place during cybersecurity testing by a company called Irregular. In one case, Gemini simply guessed passwords until it gained access; in the other two, it found credentials in a public repository.

An undercover Google analyst infiltrated a notorious supply-chain hacking gang

From the things that you can see in a movie to reading about it in the real world. How fun is that? Wow!

Here is a quick one from the article:

Google’s undercover analyst, Larsen says, gained access to a server where TeamPCP was storing its trove of credentials stolen from its many victims: the usernames, passwords, and access tokens it had obtained through its hacking and seemingly planned to use to extort target companies. So Google’s team decided to take action to warn victims and prevent TeamPCP’s ransom scheme.

Muse, Meta’s extraordinarily privileged AI assistant, has a serious 0-day

The introduction of the article noted that Muse was built with privacy and security in mind. This attack changes everything.

Here is what's going on:

The zero-day allows any app or terminal command to gain access to the token that authenticates users to their Muse account. Meta developers designed the assistant so that any locally installed app or executed code, regardless of the macOS permissions it has, can change a long list of undocumented settings.

Most of them are fairly innocuous, such as controlling dark mode. One setting, however, is anything but innocuous. It allows processes to change the endpoint where transcription occurs.

Normally, it’s a server address operated by Meta. Attackers can exploit this flaw by changing the location to their own endpoint. Once that happens, the attackers have the token that gives complete control over the Muse account.

Rogue external MFA providers can steal passwords during logins

When I read this article, I was like: as a security-conscious developer, you can't consider every possible security gap during development. Even when you try your best, someone can just look at the workflow of the app, do something unexpected, and then, boom, the security of the app can come down. Then what's next? Patches or mitigations.

From the article:

Varonis found that an attacker who has already compromised a highly privileged Entra account can register a rogue External Authentication Method (EAM) as one of these external MFA providers and use it to insert a convincing Microsoft password prompt into the legitimate authentication flow.

The fake prompt captures the user's password in plaintext before the malicious provider returns a valid signed token to Entra, causing the login to complete without displaying an error.

IntelligenceA Look at AI Doomsday Scenarios That Researchers Say Could Put Humanity at Risk

All the listed doomsday scenarios are something that we all should be concerned about. Although, you may argue that some are overstretched. I will say: it's better to be proactive than reactive.

The following is an example:

Some AI researchers fear a human extinction event could result from “misalignment” — that is, when AI models act without human authorization, coordinate with other models or evade oversight. It would develop not from malicious intent — AI is not human, nor is it good or evil, after all — but simply because humans might get in the way of the model accomplishing its goal.

New Android malware RemControl steals banking PINs and blocks removal attempts

I feel sick when I read these types of articles. Why would I work for my money and someone will sit down, design an app that's aimed at stealing that money? I still don't know why people do this!

From the article:

RemControl spreads through fake Google Play Store pages impersonating the TVTap IPTV application. TVTap is a popular third-party IPTV application that is not available on the Google Play Store, making users accustomed to seeking it from unofficial sources. This is why IPTV apps like this are among the most popular lures for Android malware distribution

Never Click This Type Of Link—It Could Expose Your Data To Hackers

Over the years, I would say that this became common knowledge to anyone interested in cybersecurity or has an awareness of some sort. Still, we all can forget things and need reminders; that's the way that I want you to view this article if you are already in the loop when it comes to this topic. Also, I have noticed some email clients have built features that warn you if you are navigating to an external link.

From the article:

Hackers and scammers have also gotten better at mimicking legitimate emails, making it possible for a fake message to look like it came from your bank, insurance company, a retailer you use, or even a friend or family member. A familiar name or logo doesn't necessarily mean the message is actually from the person or company it claims to be.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 18th September 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:35 +0000

Cybersecurity awareness is important. The knowledge of what's out there and how to protect yourself can go a long way to ensure that you don't fall victim to data or credential theft. Also, AI is, arguably, here to stay for a long time. You should know what it can do and what can be done against it. At the end of the day, saving the day might come down to a moment where you say to yourself: Wait, this is a threat because I read about it before.

Hackers abused Claude to extract secrets from 1.8M Android apps

This is not like an attack that you should know. I included this article to let you know what's possible with Artificial Intelligence. Like, it's a good thing in the hands of anyone who intends to do good. Meaning, it's the reverse in the hands of a malicious actor. The latter is what the linked article explains.

For example:

With the help of Claude AI, it took a suspected ShinyHunters threat actor about 34 hours to extract authentication data and get more than 2,100 sets of Azure AD authentication tokens linked to over 40 separate corporate Microsoft tenants. According to Anthropic, "AI agents performed nearly all of the work."

ClickFix attacks are tricking Mac and Windows users into hacking themselves

When I see news that ClickFix attack is still a thing, I am always like: I thought everyone should know about it and not fall victim. Then I read the article, only to discover that the attackers are trying to use a convincing way to get the users to run commands on their machines.

I mean, what's this?

Security researchers now say that the latest ClickFix campaign they’ve seen involved hackers posting fake ads on Reddit, linking to a page that looks like HBO Max but contains a ClickFix lure that tricks people into hacking themselves. The hackers compromised the official HBO Max’s account on Reddit that was then used to post hundreds of fake but real-looking adverts to the news-sharing site

Android's hidden privacy tools caught things I never would have noticed on my own

Are you an Android user? This article explains some settings that can improve your privacy on the device.

For example:

Android has a Privacy dashboard that gives me a quick look at which apps have recently accessed permissions, such as the camera, microphone, and location. This offers context instead of presenting a long list of permissions hidden in Settings. If I find an app using my location too often, I can check its permissions and make changes.

A fake ChatGPT billing email is after your OpenAI password

One of the best ways to steer clear of this attack is to look at the sender's email address.

From the article:

The email arrives from a sender named ChatGPT with the subject line “Urgent: Update Your Payment Method to Avoid Service Interruption.” It carries the ChatGPT logo, a final-notice tag and an outstanding balance of $23.80. It warns that the account may be suspended if billing isn’t fixed within 48 hours, then offers a large green “Update Payment Information” button and signs off as “The OpenAI Team.”

Security Researchers Hacked Into OpenAI Using Anthropic’s Claude

Yes. It's a bug bounty program. Then what's the lesson? What AI is capable of doing and evidence that they are getting better with the release of new models.

From the article:

In their conclusion note, the researchers wrote, "Software has long benefited from a kind of security through complexity…AI is removing that protection by turning more of this scarce expertise into compute. Work that once required a well-resourced team and months of effort can now be compressed into days…Security assumptions must catch up with attacker capabilities."

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 11th September 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 21:37:24 +0000

Creativity knows no bounds. But it's up to us to use it in a way that benefits those around us. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to help us with our tasks, but as I said in the last edition, these include users with malicious intent. Also, there are growing concerns that AI could pose a threat to the human race within the decade, although some say the chances are low.

My name is Habdul Hazeez, and I welcome you to this week's security review here on Dev. Let's begin.

OpenAI agents discussed ways to escape their sandbox on public wiki

In the realm of what's possible with AI, this should not be a surprise. We have seen signs before with what happened to Hugging Face. Therefore, AI writing on a public wiki should sound like child's play giving what we know about them.

From the article:

The Hugging Face incident has already raised alarms because it’s among the first times agents have been known to take aggressive actions with no explicit instructions from humans to do so. One of the independent researchers who investigated the event, Ajeya Cotra, said the activity was much more severe than she could have expected.

JSCeal Malware Can Bypass Google Authentication Using Stolen Session Cookies

The level of effort from the malware creator to make the malware difficult to analyze prompted the researchers to develop what they called a "fully static deobfuscation pipeline". This gave the researchers insights into how the malware operates. From the malware creators' POV, why did they go to such lengths? To steal session cookies!

From the article:

JSCeal is equipped to leverage the stolen cookie data to reconstruct a browser session and conduct active session replay attacks to bypass authentication and gain unauthorized access to a victim's Google account. A second module embedded within the malware offers surveillance capabilities by recording keystrokes and taking screenshots.

‘Gambling with our lives’: Anthropic researcher quits, warns against self-improving AI

What should I say about this? I am not sure. But I know one thing: AI is powerful enough to do stuff that was once a figment of our imagination. Now, the question is: should we panic?

Here is what I am talking about:

Coxon joins a growing chorus in the industry calling for a slowdown before AI technology learns to improve itself — a milestone many believe would end human control over AI.

The public resignation comes amid growing pressure from policymakers and industry insiders to slow down AI development, following several incidents involving AI agents breaking out of their sandboxes and accessing the open internet.

Safe word: What is it and why do you need one?

Yes, you need one. Why? With a sample of your voice, anyone that want to can create a deepfake of your voice and use it maliciously.

Here is how they can misuse a deepfake of your voice:

The key for the fraudsters is to keep the victim’s relatives guessing, and traumatized. To this end they’ll use the cloned voice only for a few seconds at a time, mix it with sobbing noises, and potentially introduce background noise to make the whole thing sound more plausible, and chaotic.

New Phishing Attack Creates Malicious Pages Inside the Victim’s Browser

The way the attackers carried out this attack is different than most phishing attacks that you have heard about.

Here is what I am talking about:

The attack flow is similar to standard phishing since the victim must be steered to an external resource. In this campaign, however, the steering is obfuscated through trusted processes. It starts with a Docusign-themed email with an attached calendar invite. The calendar invite is irrelevant to the attack but makes the email appear to be a legitimate business communication.

A crafted redirect routes the user to Microsoft Teams, which then loads an external resource hosted on cdn.bloom[.]io. It is this resource that is converted by the browser into the blob URL that renders the phishing page existing only within the browser.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 4th September 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 21:02:14 +0000

Scammers are not sleeping. Attackers are not giving up either. And of course, in the AI landscape, you should be ready to read something new every day. From models going rogue to having their guardrails removed.

Welcome to this week's review. Let's begin.

Vacation Scammers Can Locate You From A Photo—No Geotag Needed

While you are on vacation, resist the urge to post that picture even though you keep telling yourself: What's there? Or, "There is no harm in it." Trust me, there could be because even the details that you overlook might be the thing that's needed to know your location with a high degree of confidence.

The following is what I am talking about:

"What's surprising is that the clues aren't always the obvious ones," says Steve Grobman, chief technology officer for McAfee. "They can be small, everyday details most travelers would overlook, like the architectural style of an otherwise ordinary building, a regional dish on a restaurant menu, the types of plants in the landscape, or the shape of a mountain range in the distance."

Fake Software Installers Disable Windows Update and Weaken Microsoft Defender

No surprises on this one. When something is deemed a fake software installer, it's bound to cause harm to your system security.

From the article:

The installers, once launched, deploy malware that's capable of setting up persistence, weakening security protections, and communicating with attacker-controlled infrastructure. The activity has resulted in victims spanning healthcare, manufacturing, gaming, technology, logistics, government, and education sectors.

I’ve been deepfaked: What do I do?

Don't panic. Take the necessary steps to make it difficult for people to search it and if you can contact the company hosting this stuff and tell them to take it down.

Here is how to get started:

If someone has made a deepfake of you that doesn’t qualify as NCII, first save the evidence. That means screenshotting the page or account, saving the URL and making a note of the account or username, the date and time you found it, and any accompanying text. It makes sense not to engage with the person who posted it, or they may disseminate the content even further.

How a lone attacker breached enterprise defenses at AI speed: A 10-hour play-by-play

When I say AI can increase productivity, it's a good thing. But you might not think in this sense. And, here we are. AI is increasing the productivity of attackers. I mean, this would take them weeks and now they can do it in hours. Scary.

From the article:

According to the researchers, by leveraging frontier AI models and automation, the attacker was able to leverage over 50 MITRE ATT&CK techniques in less than 10 hours — no zero-day vulnerability or novel attack method necessary.

To add insult to injury, the threat actor left a report behind, detailing the weaknesses in the organization's security.

Abliteration.ai is making a business out of removing AI guardrails

Everything has its good and bad side. One party believes that by removing guardrails from AI they can perceive the threat. While others believe it can do more harm than good.

From the article:

The company said in a recent social media post that its goal is to enable others to perform “offensive cyber, red-teaming, and agent testing work other models refuse to do.” The logic is familiar in security work: You can’t defend against a behavior you can’t reproduce, and a model that refuses to write working exploit code can’t help a red team defend against attackers. But those same removals make other potentially dangerous tasks easier, too.

Scammers have figured out the best time to text you

And it's scary if you don't already know this. But now that you know, you can protect yourself, or at least watch out.

From the article:

Scam texts peak at 12:00 pm ET, a volume that’s about 874% higher than the quietest hour, 1:00 am ET.

The rate of scam texts also builds through the week. Volume is lowest on Sunday and rises steadily until it peaks on Friday, when people get about 50% more fraudulent texts than at the start of the week. This suggests scammers time their campaigns rather than send messages at random.

'I lost my savings after a job interview scam'

One of the key things that led to the victim falling for this attack is "I don't want this opportunity to pass me by." This can be true when you're searching for a job, and out of nowhere, you get an offer that seems to be what you are looking for. Most will let their guard down, and attackers can know this when there is a report that such a thing is currently going on.

From the article:

Criminals are using the pressure and excitement of job interviews to lure people into downloading booby-trapped mobile applications like a fake Indeed Interview app or one called MyInterview.

According to cyber-security company Malwarebytes, the fake recruiters use lures such as: "Complete your interview by installing the Indeed app" or "salary agreement available after app installation".

Once downloaded the malicious apps allow hackers to access private data for extortion or to use in financial attacks.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 28th August 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:08:23 +0000

When you go online, staying safe should be your priority. You watch the links that you click, you be careful of the apps that you download and where you download them from, and so on like that. Somethings might be outside your control, e.g., a rogue AI attacking your favorite platform. Nonetheless, be careful of the personal information that you post online because anyone can easily use AI to piece together information that you never thought was out there.

Attackers impersonate popular AI brands to spread malware

I believe any technically oriented person will not fall for these attacks because it involves an InstallFix attack. Then I remembered not everyone is tech savvy, or knows what this attack is all about.

From the article:

In one case, a fake Claude site walked the victim through an mshta command that pulled a payload from a lookalike domain. The download was packaged as a Windows app named “claude” or “claude.msixbundle.”

Once run, it fetched code that executed in memory and tried to hollow out browser processes. Other variants included a booby-trapped Claude Setup.zip archive and a repackaged claude.exe that functioned as a malware loader.

Frontier AI labs still won’t say how they’d contain a rogue model

After the recent events at OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic, we all need to know how they will do this. And not just figure it out in real-time.

From the article:

To date, most of the plans in place for managing catastrophic risk are still largely left up to the companies. Guidelight’s report says the best public evidence shows that companies have “few containment protocols ready for an emergency.”

There could, of course, be containment plans that companies have in place but haven’t shared publicly.

ToxicPanda Android malware uses VPN permissions to block Google Play

It's another day to learn what malware can do to your device while trying to achieve its aim.

From the article:

The latest version of the malware supports 167 remote commands and phishing overlays for 349 banking, financial, cryptocurrency, and e-wallet applications targeting 16 countries.

It also includes a separate PIN-harvesting module that targets 140 financial and cryptocurrency apps and can dynamically update the target list.

According to the researchers, the app overlays are invisible to the victim,

Inaudible sounds used to fingerprint browsers catch AliExpress red-handed

It was discovered accidentally. The method is outdated. Still, it shows that some websites still choose to track their users without their consent.

Here is what happened:

Researcher Matthew Callaghan said he stumbled on the stealthy tracking by mistake. After loading the AliExpress homepage, audio from his phone stopped playing over his multipoint headphones, which accept connections from more than one device at a time.

He set the headphones to play sounds from his phone except when his PC was producing audio. Each time he loaded AliExpress, the phone audio stopped. Each time he closed the tab the site was loaded into, the phone was once again audible.

INTERPOL crackdown on West African crime rings uncovers troubling new trend

Work and earn your money legitimately. Say no to a life of crime.

From the article:

Interpol says the operation also surfaced a troubling trend. West African crime groups are increasingly using sextortion against minors, some as young as 14.

“Offenders typically contact minors via social media, build trust and coerce them into sharing explicit images or videos. They then threaten to distribute this material to the victim’s contacts unless a ransom is paid,” Interpol stated.

The MFA Identity Trap: When Authentication Creates a False Sense of Security

Who got in might not be the person who should. Just because they passed the MFA check does not mean you should not verify their identity at a later stage when they are in your system.

Here is why:

Suppose an attacker social-engineers a help desk into resetting an employee’s MFA and then enrolls a device under the attacker’s control. The next login may satisfy every authentication requirement. The credentials are correct, and the registered second factor is successfully completed. The authentication succeeded. The identity assurance failed.

AI-assisted reconnaissance: Why everyone could be a viable target for fraud

Be careful of what you post online. If it's not meant to be there, don't put it there. Resist the urge to join the party or feel among. It's not and will never be worth it. Where you are? Keep it private! Having an anniversary? No need to take pictures and put them online? Your kid started walking? No! You got a promotion at your job? Keep it to yourself.

From the article:

The boundary between work and home has become increasingly blurred in recent years, especially as many of us work in a hybrid setup. We might use personal devices and home addresses for corporate activities. And of course, linking our professional and personal social media accounts is a simple task for AI.

All of which means that reconnaissance efforts can have an impact on your professional life.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 21st August 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 21:08:13 +0000

Cybersecurity is everyone's business as long as you use the internet in one form or the other. Your job might be to develop the next cutting-edge security tools, raise people's cybersecurity awareness, and so on. And, in some cases, resolve to physically damage your infrastructure to stop an intrusion or minimize the impact. The list can go on. The point is to do your best wherever you might find yourself.

Windows 11’s strongest security defenses can be bypassed without a screwdriver

The title got me laughing. Still, do not panic. The attack assumes some level of access to the Windows 11 device, and Microsoft shipped mitigations as part of this year—2026—updates back in April. All in all, you should be interested in what happened and how the attack worked. For that, read the excerpt below.

...the team demonstrated they could reach into parts of the system Windows is built to keep off-limits, including memory the operating system itself is not supposed to touch. By creating these memory aliases, the researchers showed an attacker could:

Turn hundreds of blocklisted drivers with known vulnerabilities back on

Kill antivirus and endpoint detection and response (EDR) software,

How QR-code phishing can slip past corporate security measures

If you're comfortable using something every day, don't rule out that it can't be turned against you. That's why you should never let your guard down. This is an example of such a scenario. Scan QR codes out of necessity alone, if it's in an email, use another medium to check with the sender if they actually sent it, and never stop learning how cyber criminals are innovating ways to steal from you.

From the article:

Most importantly, they take the victim from a relatively well-protected corporate environment to a potentially unmanaged mobile device, thus bypassing business-grade security.

One important advantage for the attacker is concealment. The destination is encoded in a visual pattern, not displayed as readable text, which hides the malicious URLs behind them

T-Mobile ‘chopped a cable’ to expel Chinese hackers from its network

If a keyboard is not available to stop them, take the device offline.

From the article:

After identifying the breach, T-Mobile’s cybersecurity chief, Jeff Simon, told Bloomberg that he and three others drove to the data center nearby to its Bellevue, Washington headquarters, found the compromised system, pulled out a set of scissors, and snipped the cable connecting the box to the outside world.

StopAndProtect Uses Nearly 2,000 Hacked WordPress Sites to Spread Malware and Steal Data

One of the key things that aided the success of this attack was outdated software. It was discovered that one of the compromised websites was running a WordPress version from 2021.

Here are more details:

The infection chain begins with a ClickFix social engineering attack, resulting in the execution of a PowerShell command that leads to the deployment of additional .NET downloaders and loaders.

This subsequently gives way to the main components, including ransomware, SMB/USB worm, LockScreen, VBS spreader, chat utility and credential stealer.

AI is making fraud harder to spot and identity harder to prove

No surprises on this one.

From the article:

AI makes digital scams easier to create and harder to identify. Criminals can imitate emails, messages, websites, documents, voices and customer support interactions. These scams can appear legitimate enough to persuade people to share information, send money or provide account access.

A fraudulent payment or account change may be the final step in a longer chain of deception. AI-generated phishing is a leading concern for businesses, alongside document forgery, automated bot attacks and synthetic identities.

Grok exfiltrates user data when malicious instructions are encrypted

This raises a question: when the engineers were building the guardrails, did they take this into consideration?

I mean, think of the following:

Adversa can’t be sure what causes Grok to refuse precisely the same plaintext instructions and follow the encrypted ones. The leading theory is that the Grok filtering guardrail inspects text entering and leaving the model, but not the output of its own code execution.

Researchers find a loophole that lets expired credit cards make unauthorized payments

On the list of things that should not be possible, this should make the cut.

Here is what happened:

Credit card accounts don’t expire along with the physical card, so a return still gets refunded even after the purchasing card has expired. That’s what led Muhammad Taqi Raza, assistant professor in the Riccio College of Engineering at UMass Amherst, to ask: “If the card can get a refund, can the card make a payment?”

Working with Raja Hasnain Anwar and Gerard DeCunha, Raza found the answer is yes for at least some cards. The researchers describe it as a gap between systems that each assume someone else already checked whether the card should still work.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 14th August 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:19:23 +0000

As humans, we always find a way to break stuff. That's evident in all the articles that we have for this week's review. Still, that will not deter us from continuing to break stuff because if we break them and fix them, it's better for a malicious user to break them and exploit them.

New CSS Attacks Can Break Webmail Defenses to Steal Passwords and Tokens

What got me interested in this article was the role that CSS played. It's been a while since I read articles that remind me that CSS is more than a stylesheet.

From the article:

The research follows two paths: abuse HTML and CSS that webmail already allows, or create a discrepancy between what a sanitizer approves and what the browser or application ultimately creates. Both can cross the boundary between an untrusted message and its trusted interface.

‘Ghostjacking’ Attack Uses Poisoned Logs to Turn AI Agents Bad

It's just the beginning. Attacks like this will be common in the future, and it will be up to defenders to stop them from happening.

Here is what's going on:

Dubbed Ghostjacking, the newly demonstrated attack builds on the same assumption: an external threat actor is able to plant instructions as text in logs or alerts to turn AI agents rogue.

The underlying issue, it says, is spread widely, as the attack targets three highly trusted platforms: Cloudflare, which routes 20% of all web traffic, Datadog, and Sentry.

Terabytes of credentials leaked in massive supply-chain attack

Yes, it's a lot of credentials. How did this happen? The use of a compromised AI package. For how long? 40 minutes.

From the article:

CloudSEK said it found cloud keys, repository tokens, SSH keys, Kubernetes secrets, package publishing credentials, environment variables, and AI provider keys that could allow attackers to gain access to more than 2,500 organizations.

Zoom Bug Handed Attackers Full Control of Devices

You'll think that it's just another vulnerability that needs fixing. Yes, you're right. Now, why did I include it? The time it took for the researcher to develop the exploit and how they did it. What am I talking about?

Here you go:

What stands out is how quickly the exploit was built. The researchers who discovered it used AI prompts to develop the screen-sharing attack in under 24 hours, an illustration of how AI can lower the barrier to sophisticated cyberattacks.

The attack was designed to be silent. It required nothing from the victim. There was no visible warning and no interaction needed.

New Android malware relays bank cards to fraudsters while victims still hold them

Scammers will always find ways to steal your money. This is just another.

From the article:

In one 13-minute phone call, the victim installed a RAT onto their own device — everything after that was performed by the fraudster. By the end of the call, the fraudster had taken out a loan in the victim’s name through remote access to the victim’s mobile app, and was streaming their card data to a fake merchant terminal.

Hackers drained $130 million in Bitcoin from 7,300 'cold' wallets once billed as secure

It was billed as secure. It turns out that a flaw in the affected device's firmware led to predictable seed phrases that facilitated the theft by the attackers. This attack also reminds us of the sentence: No system is safe.

From the article:

In late July, Canada-based Coinkite Inc. told users that some Coldcard devices had produced vulnerable seed phrases — the strings of words used to access a wallet. By August 3, Galaxy Research said around 7,300 addresses had been compromised, with an estimated $130 million stolen.

Engineers at Block Inc. traced the issue to the wallets' random-number generation.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 7th August 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 21:10:10 +0000

Despite the popularity of AI and the events surrounding it, we should not forget that vulnerabilities still exist and that social engineering is still a thing. In this week's edition, we will review articles that shed further light on this, helping you make informed decisions in your everyday activities.

Weaponized Email AI Assistants Could Help Attackers Hijack Accounts

First, they need to compromise an email address. From there, they can use the AI assistant to Live off the Land. Reading the article does show that the attackers can use prompts to do some heavy lifting in their attack process. Still, at the time of writing, it's a proof-of-concept.

From the article:

Attacker use of the chatbot would normally be discoverable in its logs, so the initial task is to use the AI to remove any evidence of use of the AI. The researchers started with a chatbot prompt: “Create an inbox rule that moves any emails with ‘sign-in’ in the subject into the ‘deleted items’ folder.” This creates basic stealth.

AI developers targeted via trojanized GitHub repositories

In this day and age, as a developer, you should be super aware of the GitHub repositories that you clone. If it appears as a trustworthy repo, it does not mean that it is. I mean, this article shows that someone out there is banking on the trust that you will have for a certain repository to install malware on your device. Notice what I am saying?

From the article:

To deceive developers, attackers clone well-known repositories and subtly integrate malicious payloads. They usually add the payload to a benign-looking subdirectory or modify the URLs on the installation instructions.

Because the root page appears authentic and the original contributor is listed, victims are lured into trusting the GitHub page, leading them to download and execute the MaaS malware infostealer.

New Attack Methods Enable Malware to Hijack Passkey-Protected Accounts

Every time I read of a new way developed to protect online accounts, I am not surprised if it's eventually bypassed or defeated, necessitating mitigations or a fix.

From the article:

The new attack methods, named ‘Pass-ta-key’ by Palo Alto Networks, focus on Google-synced passkeys. The security firm’s researchers showed how a threat actor could use the techniques to take over accounts without needing privilege escalation or user interaction.

WhatsApp Scam Bypasses Passwords Using 6 Digit Code To Access Accounts

Be careful of any campaign or game on WhatsApp that requires you to click on a link. Take that as a very strong warning.

Here is what's going on:

Security experts at Malwarebytes Labs have confirmed that they are receiving ongoing reports of the attacks, which have been identified as "vote for my friend" scams, and have warned WhatsApp users to be alert.

The Malwarebytes Labs team has confirmed what the typical "vote for my friends" attack flow looks like, which might prove helpful in better understanding the threat.

You tap the "vote" link.

A page opens that appears to be related to WhatsApp.

You're prompted to complete a connection or verification step.

That action links your WhatsApp account to a device controlled by the attacker.

Zero-Click AI Browser Hacking: Claude and ChatGPT Atlas Hijacked via Emails, X Posts

The affected companies OpenAI and Anthropic both acknowledge the reported flaws in their AI browsers. Meanwhile, at the time of writing, there is no easy patch for ChatGPT Atlas and Anthropic said the report was "informative."

From the article:

The researchers demonstrated how, operating within active session cookies, the attacker’s script queries Gmail’s Atom feed, extracts message IDs, parses full email bodies, and silently exfiltrates inbox contents to the attacker server. The attacker can also silently share every file in the targeted user’s Google Drive account with an account they control.

Meta AI model hacked third-party systems during security testing

After what happened at OpenAI and Anthropic in recent weeks, there are no surprises in this one.

From the article:

"A misconfiguration by Irregular, an independent testing company Meta uses, inadvertently allowed one of our models access to the internet during evaluation," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement. "The model subsequently exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service, in a manner similar to previously reported instances with other companies."

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 31st July 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 21:14:39 +0000

Interesting, to say the least, is how I qualify the articles that we have for this week's review. It's fascinating to know what's possible and reading articles that challenge your reality is something that you and I can put in our autobiography sometime in the future. I mean, wow. Just wow. I bet you'll feel the same when you read each article that I have for you.

Now, what are you waiting for? Let's get started.

Malicious sites use JavaScript to build malware in browser memory

Just when you think that you have seen it all. You read something like this. What's the end goal? Avoiding detection. But, building malware in browser memory? I need to do more research on this. For now, read the excerpt below.

After building the final malware executable, the fake download page hands it to the service worker at the beginning of the process and triggers a same-origin download path. "From the browser’s point of view, the user is downloading an executable from the landing page domain,"

MedusaHVNC Malware Uses Hidden Windows Desktops to Evade Detection

It's invisible to the naked eye. The way to detect this malware? During data exfiltration that goes through the network. Then, it might be too late.

From the article:

The hidden desktop allows the attacker to take full advantage of legitimate Windows tools without being observed by the user. The C2 is hardcoded into the malware but is relatively safe from observation. The result is a stealthy and persistent RAT. The only obvious mitigation is detection of unexpected data exfiltration.

For Some, So-Called ‘Skynet Day’ Came too Close to Sci-Fi After a Rogue Agent Hacked Into a Startup

The difference between reality and Sci-Fi might appear far away. However, with the recent incidents at OpenAI—where an AI model escaped its sandbox and attacked Hugging Face—and Anthropic—where Claude breached three organizations and uploaded a PyPi malware during tests—you can say that it's only a matter of time.

From the article:

Generative AI is growing so fast that government and evaluation systems are struggling to keep pace with the technology. Countries around the world are cobbling together their own laws, some conflicting.

The technology was adopted by nearly 53% of the world’s population in three years, faster than the spread of the PC or the internet, according to a study released this year by Stanford University.

Nine-Year Fraud Campaign Clones Russian Company Sites to Steal Advance Payments

Nine years. How many lives have been impacted? How many have cried with their tears never ending when they realized that they sent money for goods that never existed? How about the reputational damage suffered by the affected companies? And, I can go on.

From the article:

The scheme works by deceiving potential clients into visiting the replica sites, which have the contact details altered to lead them to the attackers.

Select instances have involved the threat actors hiring unsuspecting sales representatives to make cold calls, who are instructed to pass the customer to a "senior manager" once the negotiations reach the final stage.

From this point onwards, the customer's communications are with the fraudsters,

Attackers are using Microsoft’s legitimate login system to camouflage phishing attacks

It's one thing to attempt a phishing attack. It's another way to convince the user through the process without them being suspicious. In this campaign, the attackers are using the latter approach and leveraging Microsoft's legitimate login system.

From the article, here is how to prevent yourself from falling victim:

Check Point advises hovering over links before clicking, and treating it as a warning sign if several buttons in one email lead to the same URL. It also recommends checking whether the sender name, address, and domain line up, since display names can be spoofed even when the address looks internal.

Exposed credentials are giving attackers a head start many organizations don’t see

As the saying goes: modern attackers don't break in. They log in. Organizations should know this and act as if attackers are already in their systems.

From the article:

More than seven in 10 companies experienced an authentication-related incident during the past year, and two-thirds of the most recent incidents involved attackers signing in with valid credentials.

Exposed credentials often stay active long enough to be exploited, making early identification a key part of reducing credential-based risk.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 24th July 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 21:20:08 +0000

All the articles that we are going to cover today have an element of Artificial Intelligence in them. You should not be surprised; AI is almost everywhere. Now, we'll take a look at what, without reading it, will look like it came out of a Sci-Fi movie, the dangers of searching for your favorite applications using a search engine, and AI going rogue, among others.

To think of it, when we talk about the popularity of AI, we are just in its infancy.

How a Stranger Used One Text Message to Steal My Entire Digital Life

Please, if you are going to read any article from start to finish in today's edition, it should be this. Reading through it will make it seem like a movie, but I bet you not. This is someone's life where they lost their identity and lots of money. The AI connection in it, the author turned to Anthropic's Claude to assist with something that the author was initially told was impossible.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

When I asked the caller to prove he was who he claimed to be, he did something that turned my stomach: he read my entire Social Security number and my date of birth back to me. That was the moment I knew my identity had been stolen. No honest caller needed to recite my full Social Security number to me; the only reason he had it was that he already had everything.

Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, Antigravity hit by sandbox escapes

When you read the term "sandbox" and you read an article like this, you just wonder: how did it happen? Well, it happened. This just shows you that if humans designed something to be locked down, we eventually find a way to unlock it for fun, or research purposes.

From the article:

The underlying class is not new. In April, Cymulate documented the same pattern, which it named "Configuration-Based Sandbox Escape," across Claude Code, Gemini CLI and Codex CLI, where a file written inside the sandbox runs on the host at the next launch.

What is new is the breadth. The same failure shows up across four tools from three vendors.

Denying the Worm: Detecting SANDWORM_MODE and the Emerging Class of AI Toolchain Supply Chain Attacks

When I read an article like this, I ask myself one question: Given the effort that the attackers (in this case, the creator of the worm) put into developing this malware, why not use it to build a meaningful application? Because, read the following excerpt and tell me if you will not ask the same question:

SANDWORM_MODE spreads through three independent vectors, each exploiting a different credential type. With stolen npm tokens, it calls whoami to identify the compromised identity, enumerates all packages published under that account, injects the Stage 0 loader shim into each, and then runs npm publish to distribute infected versions to downstream consumers

When Identity Verification Fails: Lessons from a Real-World SIM Swap and Near Account Takeover

What to take away from this article: when the so-called customer service calls you, disconnect and call their number. Why, it can be a spoofed call.

From the article:

The most important lesson from this incident is not that SIM swaps remain dangerous. It is that attackers increasingly chain together multiple identity attacks during a single engagement. Social engineering, credential theft, session hijacking, account manipulation, and recovery abuse are no longer isolated techniques. They are coordinated stages of a single identity attack campaign.

How OpenAI’s human mistake led to the AI-powered hack on Hugging Face

We all thought that it was impossible or that it could only happen in movies, in reality, we are seeing it play out.

ICYMI: An OpenAI model went rogue and attacked Hugging Face. This is the aftermath of that attack. I mean, it was not meant to happen. This article explains that human mistakes made the impossible possible.

From the article:

Daniel Card, a cybersecurity consultant, agreed that OpenAI “didn’t put adequate effort into the design of the sandbox nor its controls” by giving the sandbox or some part of it “an unfiltered route to the internet.” Setting up the sandbox, even with limited network access as OpenAI described it, was not a “reasonable” decision, according to Card.

How attackers hosted a fake Claude download page on the claude.ai domain

If you need that software, go to the official website by typing the URL in your web browser's address bar. Don't search it.

From the article:

A threat actor abused Anthropic’s Claude Artifacts feature to funnel users toward malware, Huntress researchers have disclosed.

In this particular case, the artifact to which potential victims were directed rendered a fully functional page that looked like a legitimate Claude download page, and the fact that it was hosted on the Claude.ai domain completed the illusion.

Clicking on the “Download” button redirected victims to an external domain, first claude.ai.download-app[.]us and subsequently downloading-api.it[.]com/html/claude/win, from which they downloaded a bundle.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 17th July 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 22:25:45 +0000

In cybersecurity, attackers and defenders are always trying to beat each other. The former seeks new ways that can circumvent the defense put in place by the latter. It might look like in the movies, but in reality, there are lives, money, and reputation at stake. At the end of the day, it's good news when the defenders come out on top.

Now, defenders are embracing the prompt injection, too

That awesome moment when you turn the weapon against the attackers and you feel so good about yourself; this is an example. For months, we have read how attackers use prompt injections to bypass LLMs guardrails. Now, defenders are using it to shut them down!

Here is how the defenders pulled it off:

Researchers from Tracebit on Monday said they found that placing prompt injections alongside passwords, cryptographic keys, and other secrets stored on Amazon Web Services was often all that was needed to shut down attacks from AI hacking agents.

The prompts direct the attacking LLM to perform an action forbidden by its guardrails, the safety barriers AI developers erect to prevent it from taking harmful actions. The LLM responds by shutting down.

New ClickLock macOS Stealer Kills Apps Every 210ms Until Victims Type Their Password

It's quite funny to read through the article. And I bet it will be frustrating for anyone who falls victim. I mean, a constant dialog box telling you to enter your password while at the same time killing some apps that will make you productive? And if you eventually type your password (which you should not), you hand over some personal details like Keychain, browser credentials, and crypto wallets to the attackers.

Here are the affected regions so far:

Group-IB's telemetry counts at least 100 targets across 33 countries since May, over half of them in Europe. Its analysts assume from the code structure that the malware is still under development. Uploaded to VirusTotal on June 9, the orchestrator script had zero detections there when Group-IB analyzed it.

New TELEPUZ Malware Spreads via ClickFix to Steal Data and Run Commands

For some while, ClickFix attacks have been in the news. This one is no different; I added it to further raise your awareness that the threat is still out there.

In the case of this TELEPUZ malware, here is how the attack works:

The ClickFix attack chain linked to TELEPUZ results in the execution of PowerShell, which downloads a second-stage payload from a remote URL and executes it.

The payload is a Go variant of the Vidar Stealer, which is known to harvest sensitive data from infected hosts and deploy secondary malware, in this case a stager binary that's responsible for launching TELEPUZ ("telepuz.dll") using "rundll32.exe."

Spirals ransomware locks down victim systems in under 24 hours

I know that it's just another ransomware. So, why is it special? Well, at the time of writing, there is only ONE confirmed victim. Therefore, by the time that you're reading this, there is possiblity of more victims.

Here is what's going on:

Spirals is written in Rust and encrypts files using a separate AES-128 key per file, each wrapped with an attacker-controlled ECDH P-256 public key. To speed up encryption, files larger than 5 MB are encrypted in chunks.

Victims were left with a ransom note, RECOVERY_SECTION.log, directing them to a Tor negotiation site and threatening to leak stolen data within six days if no payment was made.

The script, not the voice, is what makes AI voice phishing work

We have reached an age where you must not believe that the voice at the end of the end is who you think it is. If you work in an environment where you receive phone calls a lot, especially from a higher authority telling you to do some task, have a way to verify that it's really them. I will suggest, as also stated at the end of the article, something like a code word that only the two party knows, i.e., you and the person calling you.

From the article:

Industrial scam operations in Southeast Asia have run voice fraud at volume for years on labor costs nowhere near that. Vishing was economical before any of this. The change AI brings is the removal of language, staffing and geography as constraints, which is a different claim and a more defensible one.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.

Security news weekly round-up - 10th July 2026

Habdul Hazeez — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:21:42 +0000

This week's edition of our security review is all about the security challenges that arise from the use of Generative AI systems and AI Agents. By the looks of it, it's compulsory that if you're using these systems every day, you must know their security implications (that's if you don't know already). And if you're in the loop already, this should serve as a reminder of why you should take it more seriously.

Prompt Injection Attacks Trick AI Agents Into Making Crypto Payments

It's my first time reading this kind of attack that uses prompt injection.

Here is what's going on:

Zscaler says it identified two campaigns relying on indirect prompt injection, including a payment scam hiding behind API documentation, and a typosquatting operation promoting a crypto platform that impersonates DeBank.

As part of the first campaign, the threat actor has been using SEO poisoning to target AI agents searching for the Python library requests-secure-v2.

As part of the second campaign, a threat actor is promoting a fraudulent website typosquatting the decentralized finance portfolio tracker DeBank. The indirect prompts used in this campaign tell the AI agents that the impersonating website is the legitimate DeBank domain.

CrowdStrike Uncovers New Prompt Injection Techniques

I am not surprised. I mean, as humans, when we notice that a system is deemed secure or at least, it was advertised that it does not allow certain things, we find a way to make it do that very same thing. While reading the article, I greatly admired the creativity of the prompt injection. It just shows you, and as things stand, GenAI systems can be tricked.

From the article:

Prompt injection is no longer just about obvious jailbreaks. Adversaries can manipulate AI systems through hidden context, delayed triggers, semantic constraints, boundary spoofing, formatting tricks, encoded payloads, and implied procedural knowledge.

New HalluSquatting Attack Could Trick AI Coding Assistants Into Installing Botnet Malware

A key lesson from this article: as a developer using Generative AI in your daily activities, always inspect the package names in the AI-generated code.

From the article:

The trap is not code that runs by itself. It works because these assistants keep a terminal among their built-in tools, so once the planted instructions take over, "install a bot" is simply something the assistant can do.

What makes it practical is that the fake names are not random. In the researchers' experiments, the mistake was consistent: across different phrasings and across models from different companies,

Why AI Governance Without Guardrails Is Theater

What I learned from this article is this: any organization that needs AI to work effectively for them, needs all hands on deck. No if's. No but's.

Here is why:

AI governance isn’t only about what’s allowed. It’s about what’s possible in the architecture, what’s safe in the threat model, and what’s useful to the business.

AI Coding Tools Tricked Into Hacking Developer Machine via Decades-Old Technique

The title says it all. Now, the question: what made this possible?

Here you go:

Dubbed GhostApproval, the attack has been successfully tested against Claude Code, Amazon Q Developer, Cursor, Google Antigravity, Augment, and Windsurf.

In a GhostApproval attack, hackers plant a symbolic link in a seemingly benign repository that masquerades as a normal project file but actually points to a sensitive location outside the workspace.

When a developer opens the repo in an AI coding assistant and instructs it to make edits, the agent follows the symlink and performs the write on the target specified by the attacker.

Credits

Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.