Author: Joe-W

PayPal has confirmed a data leak in its Working Capital loan system that exposed names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers for six months.  – Read More  – Hackread – Cybersecurity News, Data Breaches, AI and More 

Top technology stacks for MVP development in 2026, best tools for fast launch, scalability, cost efficiency, and proven frameworks for startups building products.  – Read More  – Hackread – Cybersecurity News, Data Breaches, AI and More 

A new phishing campaign is spreading XWorm 7.2 via malicious Excel files, hiding the malware in Windows processes, and using AES encryption to steal passwords and Wi-Fi keys.  – Read More  – Hackread – Cybersecurity News, Data Breaches, AI and More 

Security news rarely moves in a straight line. This week, it feels more like a series of sharp turns, some happening quietly in the background, others playing out in public view. The details are different, but the pressure points are familiar. Across devices, cloud services, research labs, and even everyday apps, the line between normal … Read More “⚡ Weekly Recap: Double-Tap Skimmers, PromptSpy AI, 30Tbps DDoS, Docker Malware & More  – The Hacker News” »

As more organizations run their own Large Language Models (LLMs), they are also deploying more internal services and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to support those models. Modern security risks are being introduced less from the models themselves and more from the infrastructure that serves, connects and automates the model. Each new LLM endpoint expands the … Read More “How Exposed Endpoints Increase Risk Across LLM Infrastructure  – The Hacker News” »

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed what they say is an active “Shai-Hulud-like” supply chain worm campaign that has leveraged a cluster of at least 19 malicious npm packages to enable credential harvesting and cryptocurrency key theft. The campaign has been codenamed SANDWORM_MODE by supply chain security company Socket. As with prior Shai-Hulud attack waves, the malicious … Read More “Malicious npm Packages Harvest Crypto Keys, CI Secrets, and API Tokens  – The Hacker News” »

The Iranian hacking group known as MuddyWater (aka Earth Vetala, Mango Sandstorm, and MUDDYCOAST) has targeted several organizations and individuals mainly located across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as part of a new campaign codenamed Operation Olalampo. The activity, first observed on January 26, 2026, has resulted in the deployment of new … Read More “MuddyWater Targets MENA Organizations with GhostFetch, CHAR, and HTTP_VIP  – The Hacker News” »

Researchers demonstrate multiple attacks against major password managers, showing how compromised servers and design flaws can expose encrypted vault data.  – Read More  – Hackread – Cybersecurity News, Data Breaches, AI and More 

Cybersecurity researchers at Veracode reveal a typosquatting attack that disguises Pulsar RAT as images to bypass Windows security and antivirus programs.  – Read More  – Hackread – Cybersecurity News, Data Breaches, AI and More 

Researchers at CyberProof have identified a new fake captcha campaign linked to the ClickFix operation. This stealthy infostealer targets over 25 browsers, cryptocurrency wallets like MetaMask, and gaming accounts by tricking users into executing malicious PowerShell commands.  – Read More  – Hackread – Cybersecurity News, Data Breaches, AI and More 

A Russian-speaking, financially motivated threat actor has been observed taking advantage of commercial generative artificial intelligence (AI) services to compromise over 600 FortiGate devices located in 55 countries. That’s according to new findings from Amazon Threat Intelligence, which said it observed the activity between January 11 and February 18, 2026. “No exploitation of FortiGate  – … Read More “AI-Assisted Threat Actor Compromises 600+ FortiGate Devices in 55 Countries  – The Hacker News” »

With $5.5 trillion in global AI risk exposure and 700,000 U.S. workers needing reskilling, four new AI certifications and Certified CISO v4 help close the gap between AI adoption and workforce readiness. EC-Council, creator of the world-renowned Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) credential and a global leader in applied cybersecurity education, today launched its Enterprise AI … Read More “EC-Council Expands AI Certification Portfolio to Strengthen U.S. AI Workforce Readiness and Security  – The Hacker News” »

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added two security flaws impacting Roundcube webmail software to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerabilities in question are listed below – CVE-2025-49113 (CVSS score: 9.9) – A deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability that allows remote code  – Read … Read More “CISA Adds Two Actively Exploited Roundcube Flaws to KEV Catalog  – The Hacker News” »

Artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic has begun to roll out a new security feature for Claude Code that can scan a user’s software codebase for vulnerabilities and suggest patches. The capability, called Claude Code Security, is currently available in a limited research preview to Enterprise and Team customers. “It scans codebases for security vulnerabilities and … Read More “Anthropic Launches Claude Code Security for AI-Powered Vulnerability Scanning  – The Hacker News” »

Spain’s police force has announced that it has arrested a 20-year-old man who they claim managed to book luxury hotel rooms worth up to €1,000 a night for just one euro cent. Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.  – Read More  – GRAHAM CLULEY 

Anthropic is rolling out a new security feature for Claude Code that can scan a user’s software codebases for vulnerabilities and suggest patching solutions. The company announced Friday that Claude Code Security will initially be available to a limited number of enterprise and team customers for testing. That follows more than a year of stress-testing … Read More “Anthropic rolls out embedded security scanning for Claude   – CyberScoop” »

Most phishing websites are little more than static copies of login pages for popular online destinations, and they are often quickly taken down by anti-abuse activists and security firms. But a stealthy new phishing-as-a-service offering lets customers sidestep both of these pitfalls: It uses cleverly disguised links to load the target brand’s real website, and … Read More “‘Starkiller’ Phishing Service Proxies Real Login Pages, MFA  – Krebs on Security” »

Threat actors have been observed exploiting a recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting BeyondTrust Remote Support (RS) and Privileged Remote Access (PRA) products to conduct a wide range of malicious actions, including deploying VShell and  The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-1731 (CVSS score: 9.9), allows attackers to execute operating system commands in the context of the  … Read More “BeyondTrust Flaw Used for Web Shells, Backdoors, and Data Exfiltration  – The Hacker News” »

In yet another software supply chain attack, the open-source, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered coding assistant Cline CLI was updated to stealthily install OpenClaw, a self-hosted autonomous AI agent that has become exceedingly popular in the past few months. “On February 17, 2026, at 3:26 AM PT, an unauthorized party used a compromised npm publish token to … Read More “Cline CLI 2.3.0 Supply Chain Attack Installed OpenClaw on Developer Systems  – The Hacker News” »

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new ClickFix campaign that abuses compromised legitimate sites to deliver a previously undocumented remote access trojan (RAT) called MIMICRAT (aka AstarionRAT). “The campaign demonstrates a high level of operational sophistication: compromised sites spanning multiple industries and geographies serve as delivery infrastructure, a multi-stage  – Read More  – The … Read More “ClickFix Campaign Abuses Compromised Sites to Deploy MIMICRAT RAT  – The Hacker News” »

A 29-year-old Ukrainian national has been sentenced to five years in prison in the U.S. for his role in facilitating North Korea’s fraudulent information technology (IT) worker scheme. In November 2025, Oleksandr “Alexander” Didenko pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft for stealing the identities of U.S. citizens and selling them to … Read More “Ukrainian National Sentenced to 5 Years in North Korea IT Worker Fraud Case  – The Hacker News” »

With one in three cyber-attacks now involving compromised employee accounts, insurers and regulators are placing far greater emphasis on identity posture when assessing cyber risk.  For many organizations, however, these assessments remain largely opaque. Elements such as password hygiene, privileged access management, and the extent of multi-factor authentication (MFA) coverage are  – Read More  – … Read More “Identity Cyber Scores: The New Metric Shaping Cyber Insurance in 2026  – The Hacker News” »

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned of an increase in ATM jackpotting incidents across the country, leading to losses of more than $20 million in 2025. The agency said 1,900 ATM jackpotting incidents have been reported since 2020, out of which 700 took place last year. In December 2025, the U.S. Department … Read More “FBI Reports 1,900 ATM Jackpotting Incidents Since 2020, $20M Lost in 2025  – The Hacker News” »

Two former Google engineers and one of their husbands have been indicted in the U.S. for allegedly committing trade secret theft from the search giant and other tech firms and transferring the information to unauthorized locations, including Iran. Samaneh Ghandali, 41, and her husband Mohammadjavad Khosravi (aka Mohammad Khosravi), 40, along with her sister Soroor … Read More “Three Former Google Engineers Indicted Over Trade Secret Transfers to Iran  – The Hacker News” »

How AI is reshaping MVP development, helping startups build faster, validate smarter, avoid overbuilding, manage tech debt, and embed security early.  – Read More  – Hackread – Cybersecurity News, Data Breaches, AI and More 

A Ukrainian national who ran multiple operations to aid the North Korean government’s expansive scheme to  hire remote IT workers at U.S. companies was sentenced to five years in prison, the Justice Department said Thursday. Oleksandr Didenko stole U.S. citizens’ identities and created more than 2,500 fraudulent accounts on freelance IT job forums, money service … Read More “Ukrainian sentenced to 5 years in prison for facilitating North Korean remote worker scheme  – CyberScoop” »

In this excerpt of a TrendAI Research Services vulnerability report, Nikolai Skliarenko and Yazhi Wang of the TrendAI Research team detail a recently patched command injection vulnerability in the Windows Notepad application. This bug was originally discovered by Cristian Papa and Alasdair Gorniak of Delta Obscura. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could result in the … Read More “CVE-2026-20841: Arbitrary Code Execution in the Windows Notepad  – Zero Day Initiative – Blog” »

A cybersecurity official at the State Department called for the public and private sector to more tightly coordinate plans to transition their systems, devices and data to quantum-resistant encryption algorithms. Gharun Lacy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Cyber and Technology Security Directorate at the Department of State, issued a challenge for cybersecurity defenders to view … Read More “State Dept. official says post-quantum transition plans will outlive current leadership  – CyberScoop” »

Microsoft has disclosed a now-patched security flaw in Windows Admin Center that could allow an attacker to escalate their privileges. Windows Admin Center is a locally deployed, browser-based management tool set that lets users manage their Windows Clients, Servers, and Clusters without the need for connecting to the cloud. The high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-26119, … Read More “Microsoft Patches CVE-2026-26119 Privilege Escalation in Windows Admin Center  – The Hacker News” »

An international cybercrime operation against online scams has led to 651 arrests and recovered more than $4.3 million as part of an effort led by law enforcement agencies from 16 African countries. The initiative, codenamed Operation Red Card 2.0, took place between December 8, 2025 and January 30, 2026, according to INTERPOL. It targeted infrastructure … Read More “INTERPOL Operation Red Card 2.0 Arrests 651 in African Cybercrime Crackdown  – The Hacker News” »

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered what they say is the first Android malware that abuses Gemini, Google’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, as part of its execution flow and achieves persistence. The malware has been codenamed PromptSpy by ESET. The malware is equipped to capture lockscreen data, block uninstallation efforts, gather device information, take screenshots,  – … Read More “PromptSpy Android Malware Abuses Gemini AI to Automate Recent-Apps Persistence  – The Hacker News” »

The Trump administration wants to boost the use of artificial intelligence for security in a way that doesn’t increase the number of targets for adversaries to attack, a top official with the Office of the National Cyber Director said Thursday. The administration will “promote the rapid implementation of AI enabled cyber defensive tools to detect, … Read More “ONCD official says Trump administration aims to bolster AI use for defense without increasing risk  – CyberScoop” »

A Department of Health and Human Services official said Thursday that HHS is devoting a lot of attention to the security of third-party service providers after the 2024 Change Healthcare cyberattack. That attack, which is widely regarded as the biggest ever in the sector — including by HHS’s Charlee Hess, who spoke Thursday at CyberTalks … Read More “HHS burrows into identifying risks to health sector from third-party vendors  – CyberScoop” »

A top FBI cyber official said Salt Typhoon, the Chinese cyber espionage group behind the widespread compromise of U.S. telecommunications infrastructure in 2024, continues to pose a broad threat to both America’s private and public sectors. Michael Machtinger, deputy assistant director for cyber intelligence at the FBI, touted improved partnerships between the telecommunications industry and … Read More ” FBI: Threats from Salt Typhoon are ‘still very much ongoing’  – CyberScoop” »

Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 19th February 2026, CyberNewswire  – Read More  – Hackread – Cybersecurity News, Data Breaches, AI and More 

Dell warns of a critical security hole in its RecoverPoint software exploited by hackers. Learn how to protect your data from the CVE-2026-22769 vulnerability and the new GrimBolt malware.  – Read More  – Hackread – Cybersecurity News, Data Breaches, AI and More 

The cyber threat space doesn’t pause, and this week makes that clear. New risks, new tactics, and new security gaps are showing up across platforms, tools, and industries — often all at the same time. Some developments are headline-level. Others sit in the background but carry long-term impact. Together, they shape how defenders need to … Read More “ThreatsDay Bulletin: OpenSSL RCE, Foxit 0-Days, Copilot Leak, AI Password Flaws & 20+ Stories  – The Hacker News” »

We’ve all seen this before: a developer deploys a new cloud workload and grants overly broad permissions just to keep the sprint moving. An engineer generates a “temporary” API key for testing and forgets to revoke it. In the past, these were minor operational risks, debts you’d eventually pay down during a slower cycle. In … Read More “From Exposure to Exploitation: How AI Collapses Your Response Window  – The Hacker News” »