SonicWall SMA devices hacked with OVERSTEP rootkit tied to ransomware
A threat actor has been deploying a previously unseen malware called OVERSTEP that modifies the boot process of fully-patched but no longer supported SonicWall Secure Mobile Access appliances. The backdoor is a user-mode rootkit that allows hackers to hide malicious components, maintain persistent access on the device, and steal sensitive credentials. Researchers at Google Threat […]
New Fortinet FortiWeb hacks likely linked to public RCE exploits
Multiple Fortinet FortiWeb instances recently infected with web shells are believed to have been compromised using public exploits for a recently patched remote code execution (RCE) flaw tracked as CVE-2025-25257. News of the exploitation activity comes from threat monitoring platform The Shadowserver Foundation, which observed 85 infections on July 14 and 77 on the next […]
Europol disrupts pro-Russian NoName057(16) DDoS hacktivist group
An international law enforcement operation dubbed “Operation Eastwood” has targeted the infrastructure and members of the pro-Russian hacktivist group NoName057(16), responsible for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks across Europe, Israel, and Ukraine. Operation Eastwood was led by Europol and Eurojust with support from 12 countries. It took place on July 15, 2025, and targeted the systems and […]
Grok 4 benchmark results: Tops math, ranks second in coding
Grok 4 is a huge leap from Grok 3, but how good is it compared to other models in the market, such as Gemini 2.5 Pro? We now have answers, thanks to new independent benchmarks. LMArena.ai, which is an open platform for crowdsourced AI benchmarking, has published the results of Grok 4. We’re talking about Grok […]
Google fixes actively exploited sandbox escape zero day in Chrome
Google has released a security update for Chrome to address half a dozen vulnerabilities, one of them actively exploited by attackers to escape the browser’s sandbox protection. The vulnerability is identified as CVE-2025-6558 and received a high-severity rating of 8.8. It was discovered by researchers at Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) on June 23. The security issue is […]
OpenAI’s image model gets built-in style feature on ChatGPT
OpenAI’s image gen model, which is available via ChatGPT for free, now lets you easily create AI images even if you’re not familiar with trends or prompt engineering. Right now, if you want to create outstanding anime art, you need to come up with a very well-written prompt, and then ChatGPT will process your request. […]
Abacus dark web drug market goes offline in suspected exit scam
Abacus Market, the largest Western darknet marketplace supporting Bitcoin payments, has shut down its public infrastructure in a move suspected to be an exit scam. Exit scams occur when the operator of a marketplace decides to vanish with the money they hold in escrow for various transactions between platform users. Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs reports that Abacus […]
Windows KB5064489 emergency update fixes Azure VM launch issues
Microsoft has released an emergency update to fix a bug that prevents Azure virtual machines from launching when the Trusted Launch setting is disabled and Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) is enabled. The bug impacted Windows Server 2025 and Windows 11 24H2 and was introduced during the July Patch Tuesday security updates. “This update addresses an issue that prevented […]
North Korean XORIndex malware hidden in 67 malicious npm packages
North Korean threat actors planted 67 malicious packages in the Node Package Manager (npm) online repository to deliver a new malware loader called XORIndex to developer systems. The packages collectively count more than 17,000 downloads and were discovered by researchers at package security platform Socket, who assess them to be part of the continued Contagious Interview operation. Socket researchers […]
Police disrupt “Diskstation” ransomware gang attacking NAS devices
An international law enforcement action dismantled a Romanian ransomware gang known as ‘Diskstation,’ which encrypted the systems of several companies in the Lombardy region, paralyzing their businesses. The law enforcement operation codenamed ‘Operation Elicius’ was coordinated by Europol and also involved police forces in France and Romania. Diskstation is a ransomware operation that targets Synology […]