Viry a Červi

Two former RAC workers in the UK have three months to pay more than £118,000 ($158,500) collectively after being convicted of selling crash victims’ data, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Debbie Okparavero and Maliha Islam, of Salford and Manchester respectively, were sentenced to six-month prison stints, suspended for 18 months, and 150 hours’ unpaid work in 2024, after being found guilty of offenses under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the Data Protection Act 2018. The pair, who worked for roadside accident biz RAC, were caught selling the personal data of car crash victims – just shy of 30,000 lines of data to an unknown buyer, the ICO revealed following an investigation. Okparavero and Islam were in a WhatsApp chat together, where they discussed the data and its sale to the unknown third party. RAC clocked on to the activity after deploying unspecified monitoring software, which detected Okparavero copying the data from RAC systems. A resulting investigation showed that around 29,500 lines of data were shared with Islam via WhatsApp. Islam was ordered to repay £39,522.50 ($48,274.45) for her part in the scheme in November, and the ICO noted in a Thursday announcement that she paid this in full. Reflecting more serious offending, at Manchester Crown Court on May 29, Okparavero was ordered to repay £89,277.32 ($119,962.38) within three months. Failure to do so will result in her serving 18 months in prison. Andy Curry, head of investigations at the ICO, said: “This outcome demonstrates justice did not end at sentencing. Our powers enabled us to continue to pursue these two individuals in order to strip them of assets gained through their serious criminal activity. Through the Proceeds of Crime Act, we are ensuring people do not financially benefit from their criminal activity. “I would like to once again thank the RAC for informing us about this breach and fully supporting the ICO’s investigation, which enabled us to hold these two individuals to account.” ®

There's a lot of fear surrounding the bug-finding capabilities of super-advanced AI models like Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT 5.5-Cyber. But attackers are already using free, publicly available LLMs to hijack networks and worm through software supply chains at a much lower cost – to them at least. The latest example comes from University of Toronto researchers, who used an unnamed, publicly available open-weight model released in 2025 to develop a computer worm that they claim spread through an enterprise test network. The self-propagating code adapts on the fly to identify known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations on target systems, then generates and executes attacks to move laterally through the network and compromise additional machines. And it’s all built on a small, free model that runs on a single GPU. “People need to understand that it’s not just the biggest and most powerful AI models that pose security concerns – a whole other area of threat has been vastly underestimated,” University of Toronto computer engineering professor Nicolas Papernot told The Register. Papernot and fellow researchers Jonas Guan, Tom Blanchard, Hanna Foerster, Hengrui Jia, and Gabriel Huang published their findings [PDF] on Tuesday. While guardrails and other safety features implemented by major commercial AI systems are “essential,” Papernot told us, in reality “they will not prevent the threat of AI-driven worms with a similar design.” “The majority of real-world cyberattacks don’t rely on zero-day vulnerabilities,” he added. “Our work demonstrates that attackers can now cheaply operationalize known vulnerabilities at scale, which decreases the window of time defenders have to fix vulnerabilities and find human errors, like reused passwords or poorly configured backup jobs.” The paper doesn’t specify, and Papernot declined to say, which LLM they used. “We omitted certain methodological details (such as the agent’s reasoning graph and tool harness) and experimental specifics (such as the AI model) that could materially help a malicious actor construct similar malware,” Papernot said. “We shared enough information to make the threat credible enough for scientific scrutiny without providing a blueprint that would enable misuse.” The researchers also noted that they are not publicly releasing the code, but are working with the University of Toronto to set up a vetting process through which qualified researchers may request access for defensive research purposes. Not NotPetya Before you start breathing into a paper bag, there are a few things to note about this research. First, unlike Mythos and friends, the prototype worm does not exploit zero-day vulnerabilities. It only targets publicly disclosed but unpatched bugs, misconfigurations, and recurring weakness classes. This is intentional, because known security flaws – not zero-days – are what most real-world cyberattacks use, the authors say, citing WannaCry and NotPetya as examples. Both of these worms exploited security holes that had patches available for at least a month before the malware infected vulnerable machines. Both spread rapidly and caused global disruption. The worm did, however, find and abuse vulnerabilities disclosed after the model’s training cutoff by ingesting publicly available security advisory information at runtime and using this data to develop exploits. While the paper repeatedly points to WannaCry and NotPetya as worst-case scenario examples, this lab-tested prototype or something similar is not going to cause the level of destruction that either of those two earlier worms did. Both propagated very quickly: WannaCry infected more than 230,000 computers across 150 countries in just one day in May 2017. In June 2017, NotPetya spread globally within hours, taking down at least one large banking network in just 45 seconds. Plus, they both used very sophisticated evasion techniques to avoid being detected by security tools. This worm, on the other hand, moves slowly. In the “FakeCorp” network they used in the experiments, the prototype took about five days to replicate across half the network, requiring hundreds of LLM inference calls per target for reconnaissance, strategy formulation, and payload generation. The timeline gives defenders a longer window for detection and response. However, it will likely shorten as inference hardware and model efficiency improve. Also, unlike WannaCry and NotPetya, the worm doesn’t try to hide itself. “We deliberately chose not to equip the worm with concealment capabilities – it is not instructed to cover its tracks or minimize its network footprint, and it has no tools to do so,” the boffins wrote. “This was a conscious methodological choice to further limit the risk of misuse.” Finally, the test-network devices themselves didn’t have any endpoint detection, antivirus, or firewall software deployed, which (we hope) makes this a not-quite-realistic setup. Exploiting the FakeCorp target network Here’s how the experiments worked. The team deployed the worm prototype in 15 independent experiments on an isolated 33-host network including Linux servers, Windows environments, and IoT devices. Each computer had been seeded with at least one real-world vulnerability, including software bugs and misconfigurations. The worm operated fully autonomously for seven days, and correctly identified an average of 31.3 vulnerabilities, exploited 23.1 hosts to elevated access, and propagated to 20.4 hosts. It reached up to seven generations of self-replication, we’re told. “Put another way, on average, the proof-of-concept worm successfully exploited 73.8 percent of the network and then replicated to 61.8 percent of the network,” according to the research paper. In addition to finding and abusing the known flaws on the devices, the worm also found vulnerabilities disclosed after the LLM’s training cutoff: two recent Linux flaws, CopyFail and DirtyFrag, and a critical bug that leads to remote code execution in the Marimo notebook platform (CVE-2026-39987). The AI-based worm gained root access in 41 of 67 attempts (61 percent) across the three hosts with these one-day vulnerabilities. This includes 13 of 27 attempts on the Marimo host, 15 of 17 on DirtyFrag, and 13 of 23 on CopyFail. The two Linux vulnerabilities were disclosed shortly before the experiments, and a single document containing publicly available exploit instructions was enough for the worm to weaponize them successfully 70 percent of the time, or in 28 out of 40 attempts. “This result suggests that the same exploitation pipeline can absorb newly published vulnerability information without architectural changes,” the team wrote. When worms get sneaky In addition to finding and exploiting vulnerabilities, the AI worm did some other interesting, sneaky things during the experiments. Despite the lack of firewalls and endpoint security products enabled, the researchers added some components to the worm’s code to “provide increased defence-in-depth.” This included a denylist of IP addresses baked into the source code. So in theory, the worm would read the denylist every time it targets a new machine, and if the IP address matched one on the list, it would move on to a new target, thus preventing it from infecting some hosts. Instead, at “various points” during the experiments, the worm rewrote its source code to allow it to attack an IP address on the denylist. In another workaround example: when a virtual-machine check caused replica worms on Alpine Linux and Windows Server 2008 machines to crash at startup, the parent worm found the attestation source file on the target computer and removed the VM-detection check, allowing the worm to replicate successfully on the new machine. “This behavior was not prompted or incentivised by the agent’s instructions; it autonomously diagnosed the failure, identified the responsible code, and modified it to achieve its objective,” the boffins wrote. In another test run, the researchers accidentally packaged a FakeCorp network configuration file that included admin credentials with the worm code. The worm discovered the credentials and shared them with other active replica worms, “causing a rapid increase in propagation within the contained environment.” Additionally, in two separate instances, the worm established persistence on a compromised computer using mechanisms outside of the intended replication pipeline, we’re told. In one instance, it started the replica process and then registered it with the machine’s service-management system to auto-restart if terminated. In another, it created a scheduled task that relaunched the replica worm, causing it to reappear even after the original process was killed. “The agent appears to have inferred, from the general objective of maintaining an operational replica, that persistence mechanisms available on the target could be used to make the replica more robust,” the researchers noted. Prior to publishing their work, the academics say they shared their findings with “national science, security, and defence” agencies to seek advice on how to responsibly release the information. We asked Papernot for details, including which government agencies and how they responded, but he declined to share anything else. ®

PWNED Welcome back to PWNED, the weekly column where we talk about weak security policies and how to avoid them. Hopefully, we can learn from others’ mistakes – or at least have a good laugh at them. Have a story about someone leaving a gaping hole in their network? Share it with us at [email protected]. Anonymity is available upon request. This week, we have a tale of password passivity involving Active Directory. It comes to us courtesy of Rob Anderson, head of reactive consulting services at Reliance Cyber, a UK-based security firm. Anderson recalls in the past working with a firm that was creating service accounts that developers needed to use, but the org didn’t have a proper password vault for storing the associated credentials. Instead, to make it easy for team members to find what they needed, they put the passwords into the description field for Active Directory. “People don't realize that as soon as you've got an Active Directory user — just an ordinary user — you can read the comments field or the description field across the whole of Active Directory,” Anderson told The Register. “It's such an amazing lapse of security.” Soon enough, an Initial Access Broker (IAB), someone who specializes in gaining access to protected networks and then selling it to other threat actors, used a phishing campaign and executed offensive hacking tool Sliver on the endpoint. At that point, they captured a victim’s credentials, which led them to query Active Directory. Once in AD, the hackers found plenty of passwords, which came with full domain access. They used this access to delete all the backups and execute ransomware. In total, the crimes put 2000+ users out of action by encrypting Hyper-V hypervisors and their hosts. The company was taken offline for months. What we can learn from this sad story is that you can’t put passwords in cleartext anywhere that's easy to access, unless you want an enormous attack surface. Even without a phish, an untrustworthy colleague could have sold the passwords to a threat actor. After all, a recent survey found one in eight workers think selling company logins can be justified. “I've seen it where configuration details are kept in application servers that are running, and threat actors are using fuzzing — trying likely file and directory names — which again exposes configuration and credentials to the threat actors,” Anderson said. He noted that developers are a bit more savvy these days about where they put their credentials, but security naivete sinks ships. Trust no one. ®

AI-enabled cybercriminals have better tools and are inflicting more pain on their victims, wiping out virtual machines and hypervisors and leaving infrastructure in a "dark, dead" state after an attack, said Commvault Chief Technology Officer Brian Brockway. "The majority of cyber cases that we've seen in the customer base have moved well beyond the breaking inside, and encrypting and corrupting some of your key files and folders, to taking over control of your entire VM environment, wiping out all VMs, destroying all hypervisors, blowing up the center and leaving you in basically a dark, dead state," Brockway told The Register. Frontier AI is reshaping the threat landscape in two ways, he explained: advanced models are uncovering a deluge of software vulnerabilities, and attackers are exploiting disclosed flaws within minutes rather than weeks. “The more unplanned work that has to be done to react to this, that's always going to challenge priorities,” Brockway said. “We had the plan in place, we had sprints already dedicated to kind of get out to the next launch, and we have to come back over and reinvest more engineering time to corrective actions versus the next new get ahead feature.” Commvault cited Palo Alto Networks research showing that frontier AI models such as Mythos and GPT-5.5-Cyber identified more than seven times the typical number of software vulnerabilities found within a single month during testing. To prepare for this, Commvault recommends that IT and security teams look beyond backups and ask whether they can restore critical systems cleanly, whether recovery environments are isolated from compromised production systems, and whether recovery plans include the most important applications and dependencies. Brockway said air-gapping is the starting point. He said organizations should keep immutable and isolated copies of critical data separated from production identity, network, and management planes, and pressure-test recovery time and recovery point objectives against realistic attack scenarios, a hard lesson learned from witnessing victims recover from recent attacks. “One team is just trying to even clear the smoke to figure out what happened, then you have to come back over, strip it all down to bare metal, and basically redeploy the data center all over again,” he said. “While that's ongoing – and that's not a couple hour process by any means, that could take you, even in a well-exercised environment, it could be a couple of days or longer to get it back into a stable, usable state – what are our sanitized versions that we're going to come back over to (in order to) rebuild or restart the business again?” Businesses should prioritize the systems they cannot operate without — identity platforms, billing systems, operational databases, and cloud services — and define the order in which they will be restored, he said. As AI moves into core operations, teams should also account for newer dependencies such as data pipelines, model repositories, vector databases, and agentic workflows. In its recommendations, Commvault said it is also critical that organizations continuously test recovery. Brockway recommends rehearsing those plans in isolated cleanroom environments before the worst happens. “I need a testing environment that's got the same makeup, the same builds, which we're using, maybe not on full production resources, but I need to be able to say, ‘How do I put that application stack into a live environment, so we can come back over and test?’ “ he said. “That's what we're saying about things like this clean room concept of not just being a reaction to an incident, but it is also a quick environment for you to come back over and clone.” Brockway said this new normal in the AI era is straining the engineers who build and maintain enterprise software. He said while the first wave of AI scanning tools flooded teams with potential vulnerabilities, newer models go further, entering controlled environments and attempting the exploits themselves — a capability that mirrors what attackers do. "When you let them in, you have to do it under an extremely tight security control, because you're effectively almost automating the same thing that bad guys can do on the outside too," Brockway said. The output can swamp downstream teams. Brockway said one frontier model flagged roughly 10,000 critical vulnerabilities across operating systems, browsers, and other infrastructure. "That's 10,000 patches that have to come out of the system," he said. That volume forces hard choices about engineering priorities. Brockway said unplanned remediation work pulls staff off planned releases. To absorb the load at Commvault, Brockway runs a standing group dedicated to just those items. "They're the fast action team to analyze, make a quick assessment," he said. Brockway said the signal volume emerging from AI bug finders ultimately calls for more automation and AI to filter noise, assist with patching, and support deployment. "The amount of information and signals that are coming in are way overwhelming. People just get desensitized, and that's when bad things really start to occur," he said.®

Wireless jamming attacks are on the rise. Rice University researchers have shown how self-curving radio beams can make a jammer appear to be somewhere it isn't, potentially undermining some anti-jamming defenses. Jamming relies on flooding a wireless receiver with noise that denies service. Some modern receivers identify and block jamming attempts using direction-of-arrival (DoA) estimation technology that pinpoints the jammer's direction and directs an array null that blocks signals emanating in the jammer’s direction. Were a jammer to transmit a self-curving beam, however, it could fool DoA-based anti-jamming defenses by appearing to come from somewhere else entirely, and that's exactly what the Rice researchers demonstrated. Rice electrical and computer engineering professor Edward Knightly and doctoral student Caroline Spindel presented a paper [PDF] last month in which they demonstrated a curving-beam jamming attack that caused "catastrophic bit-error-rate degradation" while also "fool[ing] the receiver's DoA estimator," preventing conventional DoA-based defenses from stopping the interference. Knightly and Spindel have done prior research developing wireless technology that could bend beams around objects to increase signal strength - particularly useful for short-range millimeter wave signals - and found that the same technology could be used to deploy jammers that are far harder to locate. Spindel gave the perfect analogy in a recent Rice press release about the research for understanding how curved beams confuse DoA estimators by considering a soccer ball kick to the head. “Imagine being hit on the right side of your head by a soccer ball - you would naturally look to the right,” Spindel said. “If the ball actually curved through the air, like a David Beckham free kick, then it was kicked from somewhere else entirely.” Were Sir David to keep moving and kicking curveballs at your head you’d probably spot him eventually, but it might take a minute, and a few more smacks, to stop him. A signal jammer at radio-wave distances will probably be far harder to spot, and it won’t even have to move: Knightly and Spindel were able to create the illusion that the jammer was mobile by modulating the beam parameters from a stationary position, making it even more difficult to locate the jamming signal and negating the point of blindly searching for the best spot to point an array null. Conventional recovery methods used to block jamming completely failed in laboratory tests, Spindel said. “This is the first demonstration of a jammer that cannot be reliably localized and the first time self-curving wireless beams have been used as an attack,” Knightly added. The pair sees their research not just as a way to point out a serious threat to wireless signals - GPS jamming of aircraft is on the rise, for example - but also something that can inform the direction of future wireless technologies as we move toward the 6G era. Until then, however, there’s the potential for even more devastating jamming attacks to come. ®

UPDATED Yet another aggrieved bug hunter has leaked a vulnerability affecting a Microsoft product after becoming disillusioned with the way the company handles security reports. Ammar Askar dropped a proof of concept (PoC) exploit for a Visual Studio Code (VS Code) flaw within just an hour of disclosing it to “an old contact” at the open source platform, according to his account of things. The vulnerability he exposed involves attackers configuring repos, either of their own making or those they have compromised separately, to push malicious VS Code extensions via its Workspace Recommendations feature, which then steal OAuth tokens they can then use to read/write public and private GitHub repos. It affects anyone who has ever used github.dev, a feature that allows users to open a GitHub repo in a browser-based version of VS Code. Askar said that the feature is enabled by github.com passing an OAuth token over to github.dev and, crucially, this token is not limited to the repo from which github.dev was spun up. It means that this token can hand an attacker access to any other repo – public or private – to which the target also has access. The exploit is contingent on an attacker being able to modify a repo’s .vscode/extensions.json file and recommending an attacker-controlled extension for the browser-based VS Code instance. In normal scenarios, a pop-up would appear asking for a user to accept the installation of this extension, potentially tipping them off to foul play. However, because of the way in which the attacker delivers the repo to the target, they already have a Jupyter Notebook file running in the target’s github.dev before the extension is installed. The attacker must initially get the target to open their repo using a github.dev link that points to this ipynb file, which VS Code immediately opens inside a Webview. Inside the Jupyter Notebook is a hidden HTML snippet inside a Markdown cell, which when loaded allows attacker-controlled JavaScript code to run. This code fires a simulated keyboard shortcut, which VS Code bubbles up to the main editor, tricking the system into automatically accepting the malicious extension popup. The attaker-controlled extension is then running with access to the browser environment, and steals the OAuth token, which can be used to read and change any public or private repo. Askar said past negative experiences with Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) influenced his decision not to go through the typical responsible disclosure process, publishing the PoC roughly an hour after tipping off his GitHub contact. “To summarize the last time I interacted with MSRC regarding reporting a VSCode bug, it was a horrible experience where they silently fixed the bug I pointed out without any credit,” he wrote. “They also marked it as not having any security impact. As I mentioned in that post, going forward I would be doing full public disclosure for any security bugs I found in VSCode. Taking a look at a recent report by Starlabs on a VSCode XSS bug marked as ineligible and low severity, it doesn’t look like MSRC has gotten any better about VSCode bugs. “I’m sure the VSCode team would have appreciated a longer heads up on this to come up with solutions. There is legitimately a UI/UX balance here that needs to be struck with the security concerns. To those folks, I am sorry, but this is one of the few levers I have to try to influence MSRC and the security posture of VSCode. Finding and fully developing security bugs into proof-of-concepts like this takes time and effort on the part of security researchers that should not be disrespected or taken for granted.” Askar’s approach is reminiscent of a researcher who goes by Nightmare Eclipse, a suspected former Microsoft employee who has attracted a great deal of attention in recent weeks for leaking zero-days without informing Microsoft beforehand. The researcher has so far released six zero-days, three of which were quickly confirmed to be exploited by attackers in the wild. As regards their motivation for launching this attack on Microsoft, Nightmare Eclipse previously alluded to being stabbed in the back and being left homeless after an agreement that was not honored – all very vague. After the sixth zero-day, Microsoft vaguely threatened the researcher with its Digital Crimes Unit, which works closely with law enforcement, before quickly backing down after an outpouring of negative responses. ® Updated to add on June 4: Microsoft has been on touch with a statement: "We value the critical role that the security research community plays in strengthening the security of our products, services, and the broader technology ecosystem. "While independent researchers determine when and how to publish their findings, we remain committed to rapidly assessing reported issues, mobilizing the appropriate engineering and security response resources, and delivering mitigations, guidance, and protections as quickly as possible to help safeguard our customers." A Microsoft spokesperson also told us that the issue that Askar pointed out "has been mitigated and no customer action is required."

Updated: UK banks are set to receive access to OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 Cyber after being excluded from Anthropic’s latest expansion of Project Glasswing. Project Glasswing, and access to the Mythos Preview model, is geared toward ensuring critical infrastructure providers are prepared to handle the threat posed by advanced AI models, once they inevitably make their way into the public domain, and therefore the hands of attackers. However, amid a fourfold expansion of Glasswing’s partners, only JPMorganChase was named among the financial institutions to receive access to Mythos Preview, despite financial services falling under the critical infrastructure umbrella. In light of the news, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, and Nationwide will be among the banks to receive access to GPT-5.5 Cyber, the BBC reported, while NatWest and Santander have already been playing with it as part of separate agreements. OpenAI offered nine UK banks access to its Mythos-rival model in total, after they were snubbed from Glasswing. It is not clear if this number also includes the Bank of England, whose governor, Andrew Bailey, has been outspoken about its exclusion from Glasswing. Bailey told Bloomberg TV last week that despite pushing for access so the UK’s financial system is protected, Anthropic has not handed over the keys to Mythos Preview. Liam Salsi, director of architecture at Talion, told The Register he suspects the decision to exclude UK banks was political. Bailey had also previously alluded to suspicions that Anthropic had not yet granted access to Mythos Preview due to processes at play related to the US administration. “The US government wants to control who has access to the platform and this is largely because it will limit the chances of it falling into the wrong hands,” said Salsi. “However, limiting access will ultimately leave some banks more exposed to cyber threats and could impact their vulnerability management, leaving larger windows of opportunities for attackers. “It's hopeful these gaps won't exist for too long because of competition among Advanced AI platforms. GPT-5.5 was issued only a few weeks after Mythos, and it's safe to assume more advanced AI platforms will surface soon, closing gaps and delivering more of these systems to a larger pool of critical organizations.” He added that it could also introduce a single point of failure in the global banking sector if every institution were using the same product. Anthropic has not commented publicly on its approach regarding which financial institutions receive Mythos access, although it's not just financiers who are pondering the company’s decision-making. It transpired this week that the EU’s cybersecurity agency, ENISA, will receive access to Mythos Preview, while the US equivalent, CISA, is yet to be selected. Glasswing goes big In other news, Anthropic said on Tuesday it is looking to induct many more organizations into its Project Glasswing initiative, taking the total number of members from around 50 to 200. The additional 150 or so organizations hail from 15 different countries and will join the old guard, comprised of security shops and other tech giants, government agencies, and open-source maintainers. It has not named these organizations officially, although reports suggest that South Korea is among the 15 countries, and its science ministry, Samsung, SK Hynix, and SK Telecom are among the new inductees. Project Glasswing is something of a private members’ club – a carefully selected cohort of organizations with early access to Anthropic’s most advanced Mythos Preview model, the one the company claims will fundamentally alter the cybersecurity landscape. The cynics among us may see such claims as an extension of Anthropic’s marketing playbook, which some believe involves stoking excitement about a product through fear. When the AI biz announced Mythos in April, it did so by dubbing it too dangerous to unleash on the public. It was billed as an expert bug hunter and zero-day specialist, capable of finding vulnerabilities in code far more efficiently than humans. The oft-touted nugget from launch was the 27-year-old OpenBSD bug Mythos found during initial testing, but there were many more zero-days and other critical vulnerabilities – novel ones – Anthropic said its model was able to unearth. Those who have tinkered with Mythos Preview already report mixed results. Cloudflare CISO Grant Bourzikas wrote in May that the model represented “a real step forward,” and was able to find a series of low-severity bugs and chain them into working exploits. Others, such as cURL’s Daniel Stenberg, called Mythos Preview “an amazingly successful marketing stunt,” after it found just one vulnerability in the data transfer software. Likewise, security expert Kevin Beaumont said the model “is not great,” and “it’s marketing, essentially.” He said Mythos Preview was good at finding bugs in vibe-coded applications, but aside from that, it was not discovering much beyond what the models of yesteryear were capable of. Regarding the new intake of Glasswing partners, Anthropic but said each would have to pass its own security requirements before being granted access to Mythos Preview. It also said the new organizations brought into the fold all managed critical infrastructure services, and a successful attack on their systems could be “catastrophic.” “For most partners, we estimate that a major attack could affect more than 100 million people, with important ramifications for both global and national security,” the company said on Tuesday. “This expansion is the next step toward our long-term goals: for AI to make all software more secure, and for us to help the industry adjust to how AI could change many of the core assumptions of cybersecurity.” The big when? As for when the Mythos model will be made available to the wider public, Anthropic has kept that largely under wraps, but don’t expect it to be anytime soon. In its latest Glasswing announcement, the company said the safeguards required to prevent abuse are not yet available. “We’re working as quickly as we can to safely release Mythos-level capabilities in general access,” it stated. “To do so, we’ll need highly robust safeguards that prevent the model’s cyber capabilities from being misused – safeguards that we (and, to our knowledge, all other AI developers) have yet to develop. “Because cybersecurity has both helpful and destructive uses, making safeguards that are both strong and precise enough is a major challenge.” Anthropic may face some tough decisions in the next year, however, as by its own reckoning other AI companies will produce Mythos-level capabilities within their own models inside 6-12 months. Confusingly, it also said on Friday that it would be releasing Mythos-class models to all customers in the coming weeks. Anthropic said it will expand Glasswing further before Mythos is more widely launched, bringing in more critical infrastructure orgs, open-source maintainers, and safety testers. “We intend for future expansions to cover organizations in the US and overseas, just as this one does. We also intend to scale up our Cyber Verification Program, which would grant Mythos-class capabilities to many more organizations for specific cyberdefense tasks.” ® Updated to add at 1420 UTC: An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to us that retired Brit politico and newspaper editor George Osborne – who has been OpenAI’s Head of OpenAI for Countries since the end of 2025, has "written to the CEOs / CISOs" at several UK financial institutions including HSBC, Natwest, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, and others "to extend access to our latest defensive cyber capabilities." Global financial infrastructure provider Swift is also included. They added: "In total, we are extending access to nine leading financial institutions, which includes Santander Group and Natwest Group that already have access to GPT-5.5-Cyber as part of our existing relationships."

In April 2026, we discovered a new malware campaign targeting players of “hentai” games. Once launched, the infected games install a previously unknown malicious implant on the user’s machine. After a few days, the implant downloads and executes a Trojan, resulting in full system compromise and broad remote control capabilities for the attackers. We dubbed this malware family “Argamal”.

The malware uses COM hijacking to persist on the victim’s machine, replacing the InprocServer32 entry for Windows Color System Calibration Loader DLL. This task is triggered when the user logs in, effectively allowing the malware to run at startup.

Kaspersky solutions detect this threat as Trojan.Win32.Termixia.*, Trojan.Win32.Agent.*, HEUR:Trojan.Win32.Argamal.gen and HEUR:Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Argamal.gen.

Technical details Background

In April, as part of our ongoing monitoring of telemetry data, we found some suspicious DLLs. Further analysis revealed that various versions of these DLLs have existed since at least 2024.

The DLLs were spawned by different games written using various game engines and programming languages, including RenPy (Python) and RPG Maker MV (JavaScript), among others. However, they all had one thing in common: they were all hentai games. We searched for the distribution sources and found a number of websites hosting game screenshots and download links. These links redirected users to PixelDrain, a free file transfer service.

Adult games catalogue

In addition to these websites, the trojanized games have also been distributed via different torrent trackers, including AniRena.

Malicious game torrent in AniRena

Delivery

Both the dedicated websites and torrents delivered an archive containing the infected game.

Contents of the game archive

This archive contained fully functional, legitimate game files, as well as a modified FFmpeg DLL (SHA1: 42add9475e67a1ccc6a6af94b5475d3defc01b85), that imported the DllGetClassObject function from a file called natives2_blob.bin. Since the game needs ffmpeg.dll to run properly, the library loads as soon as the user starts the game.

Script executor

The natives2_blob.bin (SHA1: edce72f59e4c1d136cd1946af70d334c19df858d) file is a DLL that executes a Base64-encoded PowerShell script when loaded.

The natives2_blob.bin file code

This PowerShell script, which we’ll call Stage1, performs basic checks for controlled environments. For example, it checks for the Sandboxie folder in Program Files and Procmon64 in the process list. If all the checks indicate that the process is not running in a controlled environment, it proceeds to establish persistence.

Stage1 sets the MI_V environment variable (and also MI_V2 in the new versions of malware) for the current user to another Base64-encoded PowerShell script, which we’ll call Stage2. After that, it sets the InprocServer32 registry key at HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{722D0F89-B69C-4700-AE8C-4A44350E4876} to a random DLL file name in a random subdirectory of %USER%\AppData\Local, as well as the ShellFolder subkey to another random DLL file name in the same location. Stage1 also creates a scheduled task that will execute three days later. This task executes Stage2 and runs once.

Stage2 is a payload downloader script. It takes previously generated DLL filenames from the registry and downloads an encrypted payload called zaesdl.dat from GitHub using bitsadmin.exe. The downloaded payload is saved in the settings.dat file in the randomly chosen subdirectory of %USER%\AppData\Local. Stage2 decrypts it using AES-CBC with the key zbcd1j9234r670eh and an IV equal to the key. The decrypted payload is then saved in the DLL file specified in the ShellFolder registry subkey.

The decrypted payload is set as InprocServer32 at HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{B210D694-C8DF-490D-9576-9E20CDBC20BD}, which is a COM object used by the \Microsoft\Windows\WindowsColorSystem\Calibration Loader scheduled task. This task runs every time a user logs in, allowing the malware to run during every user session.

Before quitting, Stage2 also removes the changes made under the HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{722D0F89-B69C-4700-AE8C-4A44350E4876} registry key, unsets the MI_V environment variable (and MI_V2 in newer versions), and removes the scheduled task that launched Stage2.

Malicious agent

Early payload versions decrypted themselves using the 0xB0C1D4E9 rolling XOR key, where the decryption key for the i + 1 block is the encrypted content of the i block (each encrypted block being four bytes long). The most recent agent versions don’t do that.

The samples we found had string encryption; they use a simple substitution with a key that corresponds position-by-position to the following alphabet: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789@#$./:<>*&~. The decryption process involves finding the position of each symbol of the encrypted strings in the key, and replacing it with the symbol that occupies the same position in the alphabet.
During our investigation, we found the following keys were used:

• 17htUno/I3L&fK2H#yapE@b5NqZ$Q4xmeF.s96uB>jkdWCPvAgD*XwO:iR~TMrV0YGl8z<JSc
• 71htUno/I3L&fK2H#aypE@b5NqZ$Q4xmeF.s96uB>jdkWCPvAgD*XwO:iR~TMrV0YGl8z<JSc
• E1hUtno/IL3&fK2H#ypa7@b5NqZ$Q4xmeF.s69uB>jkdWCvPAgD*XwO:iR~TrMV0YGl8z<JcS

All symbols not used in the key remain unchanged.

String decryption

The payload checks for the presence of the following security solutions using the output of the tasklist command:

• Kaspersky
• Avast
• McAfee
• BitDefender
• MalwareBytes
• +36 other solutions

Security solution detection logic

The payload itself is a RAT with broad functionality. The default C2 server is asper1[.]freeddns[.]org for earlier versions and Winst0[.]kozow[.]com for the latest versions of the payload. Both domains point to 186[.]158.223.35. We also saw another IP address for the first C2 in pDNS records, though we haven’t actually seen it in use. The C2 address can change based on a C2 reply or when certain conditions are met. For example, if the user’s default locale is set to “zh-CN”, the RAT sets its C2 address to country1[.]ignorelist[.]com. During most of our investigation, this domain pointed to 127[.]0.0.1, but starting April 26, it has been pointing to 186[.]158.223.35 as well.

The payload sends UDP heartbeats to port 57441 of the C2 server. These heartbeats contain information about detected security solutions, system startup time, time since last input activity, architecture info, machine IP address and username.

The C2 may respond to the heartbeat. Based on this response, the payload can perform different actions. Below is the full list of available commands.

Response first byte Description 0x31 Run DLL on the system 0x57 Send UDP request to the specified address 0x55 Open file or link from the response 0x50 Collect information about the infected system (e.g. process list and architecture) 0x53 Execute command from the response using ShellExecuteW 0x52 Run the file specified in the response using WinExec 0x42 Delete the file specified in the response 0x41 Update C2 domain 0x59 Get new payload: connect to C2 port 63559/UDP, get new DLL and update COM path in the registry

The C2 can also set a flag in the response that will turn on the extended RAT mode. In this mode, the payload communicates with the C2 server using the 3747/tcp port.

TCP communications are encrypted using a simple substitution cipher. Each character is replaced using a fixed mapping defined by the key:

koP]Y4Os-_t?cB',aK.Wm>QM2[U!^C`*@Ff:X\6Dp8H%ATydE<e(#G&LhwRZ5znjJqgNrl)I7V$3=910"+Svxi/;ub

This key corresponds position-by-position to the standard ASCII character sequence:

!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}

In other words, each character in the ASCII set is replaced by the corresponding character in the key string.

C2 requests and responses are divided into two parts by the first space character. The first part is a command and the second part is usually an argument.
After connecting and before receiving information from the C2, the malware sends metadata about the infected machine using the NOOP command. This metadata includes a run cycle counter, mounted drive metadata, time since the last input activity and data about the display settings.

Based on the C2 command, the malware can execute commands on the infected machine, perform reboot and shutdown actions, control the cursor, take screenshots, compress files into archives, and send files to other specified servers. In short, it can fully control the machine. The full list of commands is as follows:

System control

• KILL REBOOT: Reboots the infected system
• KILL POWER: Shuts down the infected system
• KILL SELF: Same as the QUIT command (described below)
• KILL ME: Exits process running the malware

Surveillance

• SCREEN / SCREEN9: makes a screenshot, saves it to the ~wra1269.tmp file and sends it to the C2

File operations

• DELETE <filename>: deletes specified file
• DELDIR <dirname>: deletes specified directory
• REN <file path 1>#<file path 2>: moves specified file
• MAKDIR <path>: creates directory
• ZIPFILE <file or folder name> / ZIPFOLDER <file or folder name>: compresses specified file/folder into a .zip archive
• TAR <file or folder name> / TAR2 <file or folder name>: compresses specified file/folder into a .tar archive
• GETFILEDATE <filename>: sends file’s last modification date
• SETFILEDATE <filename>: sets file’s last modification date
• GETFILEACC <filename>: sends file’s last access date
• DWLOAD <filename>: sends file to the C2
• UPLOAD <filename>#<C2 address>: uploads file to the specified C2 server

Reconnaissance

• USER: sends username
• KALIVE: sends run cycle counter
• IDLE: sends number of seconds passed since last input activity
• DRIVES: sends information about mounted drives
• FOLDEX <folder type>: sends full path to a directory of the specified type:
• – type = 0x63: temporary directory
• – type = 0x64: \Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\ in AppData\Local folder
• – type = 0x65: \Downloads\ in user home directory
• – type = 0x66: \Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART\ in AppData folder
• – type = 0x67: AppData folder
• LFILES <folder path>: lists and sends paths to all files in the directory
• OSVER: sends information about user, hostname, OS architecture and version
• COMPILERDATE: sends constant hardcoded in the RAT, e.g., 25.10.2025

Generic control

• DSOCKE: recreates TCP keep-alive socket
• QUIT: notifies the C2 about quitting, closes the socket and stops the process
• RUNHID <command> / RUN <command>: runs specified command inside ShellExecuteW
• RUNDOS <command>: runs specified command inside CreateProcessW
• RUNTASK <command>: creates, runs and deletes task that executes specified command
• SKEY <key code>: presses specified key
• MOUSE FREEZE: freezes mouse movement
• MOUSE <command>: clicks the specified mouse button or sets the cursor position to the specified coordinates

Other delivery methods

During our research, we also observed other delivery methods for the RAT. Instead of patching FFmpeg and downloading the payload from GitHub, the attackers included the main payload as libpython64.dat or another file with a similar name in the lib\py3-windows-x86_64 directory of the game. This .dat file was loaded by one of the libraries used in the game, which was patched for this purpose.

In another case, the threat actor posted their malicious DLL file (payload downloader) on a gaming forum, disguising it as a cheat.

Infrastructure

Our research revealed the following infrastructure was used in this attack.

Domain IP First seen ASN asper1[.]freeddns[.]org 181[.]116.218.56 September 16, 2024 11664 186[.]158.223.35 July 01, 2025 11664 country1[.]ignorelist[.]com 186[.]158.223.35 September 10, 2025 11664 127[.]0.0.1 November 11, 2025 – Winst0.kozow[.]com 186[.]158.223.35 April 26, 2026 11664 Victims

According to our telemetry, hundreds of individuals were infected with this malware. The majority of the victims were located in Russia, Brazil, Germany and Vietnam.

Distribution of victims (download)

Attribution

Based on the language of the comments in the code, infrastructure data and other facts we assess with medium confidence that the developer of the downloader chain speaks Spanish.

The actor behind this attack uses Spanish in variable names and comments. For example, the Base64-decoded delivery script contains the following lines:

Part of the PowerShell script used in the payload delivery

In addition, the JavaScript code from the website distributing infected games contains variable names, function names and comments in Spanish:

JavaScript code from the malicious site

Notably, the malware payloads used in this attack had previously chosen 127.0.0.1 as their C2 server when the victim’s default locale is set to “zh-CN”, thus not targeting Chinese users. This may indicate that the attacker is associated with a Chinese-speaking threat actor or uses payloads developed by a Chinese-speaking threat actor. However, we still believe it’s unlikely that the developer of these delivery chains is Chinese-speaking.

Conclusions

The Argamal Trojan is a new RAT targeting individuals who seek adult games. During our analysis, we observed a steady stream of updates to the payload, including the addition of new features and fixes for various bugs, as well as changes to the infrastructure. This leads us to believe that the threat actor behind this malware will continue to develop and enhance it. The campaign’s goal is likely data and credential theft; however, the RAT enables the attacker to take full control of the device and execute any malicious activity they want.

Creating malware in today’s development landscape has become significantly easier thanks to the wide availability of detailed guides, tooling, and automation resources. As a result, it is crucial not only to detect known malware but also to identify new and evolving threats as they emerge. Kaspersky solutions prevented the malicious activity in the earliest stages of the attack. The solutions help ensure device security by identifying not only known threats but also the behavior of the software and its actions, providing comprehensive protection against malware.

Indicators of Compromise

File hashes
RAT payloads:
76253fb55aed707440e808ea78e7101318436b1c
1405a3c5e0aeb08012484134e16cdec4ab29b4a4
535f4337f261b6da20a3c614eb13270bed2d533a
d2cb0d7a9ad2b5d4ea7c2da8aec62beb37cf36d6
e05f1767c2a337910ed75e90288838d6d0541164
dad26f61da7b8bccc78364411812be74c025b475
29f1d346a6e71774c7dad25b90f446b2974393df
e815a9b418d09c2d4bcd074c2c0bc21406eeb22f
17f8f8f34dfa737f36182fed7ff9e9814a114058
954722b0c9c678b1313d1f8b204e102842dc5889
69331cfdac792dc79240e6a6bb6e803eabd70beb
901cfa97b1baaf908fd4a02bb52d970f576c4193
5f1f3689bcf23de1b280b5f35712946da0f7978f
c2d9d48b3b10bd58cdf5df9463e3ffcd60533ff3
2423a5bf0fa7cb9ec09211630a5488629499691b
ae4601a19d28332a3ec6ac31b385cdf53be53450

Trojan downloaders:
9803604ec45f31f9ef75bcca1e1310d8ac1fc3a6
edce72f59e4c1d136cd1946af70d334c19df858d
02819d200d1424882af81cb504b3e8614b32397a

Domains and IPs
asper1[.]freeddns[.]org
Winst0[.]kozow[.]com
Country1[.]ignorelist[.]com
186[.]158.223.35

GitHub repositories used in the campaign
hxxps://github[.]com/gmz159/u
hxxps://github[.]com/DnyP/files
hxxps://github[.]com/mgzv/p

Even ransomware cartels make mistakes, and in this case, it was a biggie that could have landed the responsible crim in a Russian gulag: accidentally infecting a company located in a Commonwealth of Independent States country. In what threat-hunter Dominic Alvieri deemed the ransom “dumbass of the day,” Nova, the affiliate program for ransomware crew RAlord, on Tuesday issued an apology to Eriell Group, a major oilfield services company with headquarters in Uzbekistan and a corporate office in Moscow. Apparently, Eriell contacted Nova and notified the ransomware operators about an affiliate's mess-up. The affiliate has since been banned from the criminal operation, we’re told. In addition to issuing a “formal apology,” the ransomware gang promised to assist Eriell with the recovery process “free of charge.” The malware slingers claimed they didn’t encrypt any files, and pledged not to leak any of the stolen data. “Apparently, the first rule of ransomware club, you don't attack organizations in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), is still very much in effect in 2026,” Recorded Future threat intelligence analyst Allan Liska told The Register. While cybercrime is technically illegal in Russia and other CIS countries, their governments often provide safe harbor for extortionists and other financially motivated crims - especially if they also happen to work day jobs as state-sponsored hackers - and local police look the other way unless the gangs infect any in-country organizations. Some crews, like the DragonForce cartel, VanHelsing ransomware-as-a-service group, and notorious LockBit operators, expressly prohibit their gang members and affiliates from hitting Russian and other CIS targets. We’re guessing that the Nova affiliate will be high up on all of these gangs’ do-not-hire lists for quite a while. Still, they aren’t the first cybercriminal, Russian-speaking or otherwise, to make seriously dumb mistakes. Earlier this year, notorious data-leak-and-extortion crew Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters claimed they had gained "full access" to Resecurity's systems and stolen "everything." Resecurity later offered its "congratulations" to the cybercrime crew, which had fallen into the threat intel team's honeypot – resulting in a subpoena being issued for one of the data thieves. Pro-Russian hacktivist crew CyberVolk got sloppy when they debuted a ransomware service late last year. They hardcoded the master keys - this same key encrypted all files on a victim's system - into the executable files, thus allowing victims to recover encrypted data without paying any extortion fees. While that mess-up worked in the victim orgs’ favor, another coding error committed by Sicarii malware developers makes it nearly impossible for companies to recover their files: the Sicarii encryptor generates a new cryptographic key pair during every execution - but then discards the private key, meaning there's no recoverable master key. Similarly, a programming mistake in Nitrogen ransomware prevents the gang's decryptor from recovering victims' files, again making paying up futile. Trellix VP of threat intel strategy John Fokker recently told us that he got so sick of seeing the security industry "glorifying threat actors,” that he and his team decided to troll the baddies, and started publishing the Dark Web Roast. “These are just individuals, they just use computers, and they just want to steal your data and make money,” Fokker told The Register. “They're not mythical. They don't have superpowers." And just like any other individual - or superhero - they sometimes slip up, and give the rest of us a moment of snarky joy. ®

Bug hunting has become a whole lot more exciting in recent months with both Anthropic and OpenAI touting their latest models (that also happen to be super-scary exploit machines). On Tuesday, as Anthropic announced a fourfold expansion to its Mythos preview program, Cisco jumped into the fray, praising the transformative power of AI - but without disclosing how many bugs the latest frontier models found. Cisco SVP Anthony Grieco in a Tuesday blog said that the advanced AI systems, including Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview and OpenAI’s GPT 5.5-Cyber, scanned 1.8 billion lines of code in eight weeks looking for vulnerabilities in Cisco products - a task that otherwise would have taken the networking giant’s advanced security team eight years to accomplish. However, Grieco, who heads Cisco’s security and trust organization, didn’t say how many flaws Mythos and other frontier models uncovered, or if they have all been fixed. The company also did not respond to The Register’s questions about this. Grieco did say that “speed is only half the story,” calling the “real breakthrough” the “scale, quality, and impact” of the models’ findings. The 1.8 billion lines of code, written in more than 25 different languages, spanned Cisco’s portfolio, we’re told. Netzilla paired the models with a “human-guided harness,” and achieved a false positive rate of under 3 percent, Grieco wrote. “Rather than focusing on a specific scope for a security evaluation, we can assess entire code bases of a product. It’s like switching from a flashlight to a flood light to illuminate a dark room,” he said. “Because each finding is validated through a hybrid of AI and human expertise, our engineering teams are receiving actionable intelligence rather than a wall of warnings.” Meanwhile, Anthropic on Tuesday said it expanded Project Glasswing to about 150 additional organizations, bringing the total partner count to about 200. Project Glasswing is the AI giant’s controlled partner program for giving selected orgs access to Claude Mythos Preview. When it announced the new model and partner program in early April, Anthropic limited the preview to about 50 entities, claiming Mythos is so good at finding and exploiting security holes that all hell would break loose and the zombie apocalypse would hit should the model fall into the wrong hands. Since April, these select government agencies and corporate partners - including Cisco - have been using Mythos to find and fix bugs in their own products. Palo Alto Networks, one of the original Project Glasswing partners, said in May that after spending a month using frontier AI models, including Anthropic's Mythos, to scan more than 130 products across its three platforms, it uncovered 26 CVEs representing 75 underlying security issues. For comparison, the cybersecurity giant said it typically discloses fewer than five CVEs per month. At the time, a company exec forecast “a narrow three-to-five-month window for organizations to outpace the adversary before AI-driven exploits start to become the new norm.” The newly expanded Project Glasswing spans more than 15 countries, and, while an Anthropic spokesperson declined to name them or the new partner companies, it’s a safe bet that these are likely Western and/or “friendly” nations. So not China and Russia. Rubrik, a data security and management vendor, said that it was among the new Glasswing partners. The expanded list also reportedly includes the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA), along with Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and SK Telecom, among other Korean companies. “The group covers several industries that weren’t well-represented in our initial cohort, such as power, water, healthcare, communications, and hardware,” according to a Tuesday Anthropic blog. “And many of the new partners are vendors - companies or nonprofits that maintain codebases that are relied upon by lots of other organizations around the world, including governments.” Each new partner must meet Anthropic’s security requirements before they gain access to Mythos, the company added. ®

Russia's domestic spy agency says it has uncovered a sprawling foreign espionage operation that allegedly turned the smartphones of senior Russian officials into pocket-sized surveillance devices, though it has so far offered little in the way of evidence. In a statement Tuesday, the Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed foreign intelligence agencies implanted malware on the mobile devices of high-ranking Russian officials, allowing operators to steal data, intercept conversations, and secretly activate microphones and cameras to monitor targets and their surroundings. “This software is used to steal existing data, eavesdrop on ongoing conversations, and conduct covert acoustic and video monitoring of the environment near electronic devices, all aimed at obtaining sensitive information,” the FSB said. The agency said it had opened a criminal investigation into illegal access to computer information and the distribution of malicious software. It did not identify the alleged intelligence service responsible, disclose how many officials were affected, name the malware involved, or provide any technical indicators that would allow independent verification of the claims. As things stand, the FSB has revealed the accusation but not the proof. However, the notion that foreign intelligence agencies might target the phones of senior Russian officials is hardly farfetched. State-backed mobile surveillance campaigns have become a routine feature of modern espionage, and Moscow has spent years accusing Western intelligence services of abusing consumer technology platforms for intelligence gathering. In 2023, the FSB claimed that thousands of iPhones had been compromised in a US National Security Agency spying operation. At the time, Russian security vendor Kaspersky disclosed what became known as “Operation Triangulation”, an iPhone surveillance campaign that infected devices through iMessage. Apple denied cooperating with any government, while Kaspersky stopped short of attributing the operation to the NSA. Moscow's spy agencies are hardly strangers to offensive cyber operations themselves. Last year, the FBI warned that hackers linked to the FSB's Center 16 were exploiting a years-old Cisco vulnerability to collect configuration files from thousands of network devices associated with critical infrastructure operators. So while the FSB's latest allegations may ultimately prove accurate, they lack the technical evidence security researchers would normally expect before accepting claims of a major cyber espionage campaign. ®

Microsoft has moved to calm an increasingly noisy backlash from the security community after appearing to threaten legal action against a researcher who spent the past several weeks dumping Windows zero-days onto the internet. In a statement published on Monday, Redmond said it has "no intention to pursue action against individuals conducting or publishing security research”, a noticeably softer position than the one it adopted just days earlier when it condemned a string of public vulnerability disclosures and invoked its Digital Crimes Unit. The updated statement follows a public feud with a researcher known as Nightmare-Eclipse, who released multiple Windows zero-days along with proof-of-concept exploit code. Several of those vulnerabilities have since been exploited in the wild, turning what might have remained an obscure disclosure dispute into a much larger argument about how vendors handle security researchers. Last week, Microsoft described the publication of exploit code for unpatched flaws as "never justifiable" and warned it would work with law enforcement when criminal activity harmed customers. The statement triggered immediate criticism from parts of the security community, with researchers warning that the language risked creating a chilling effect around vulnerability research. Former Microsoft employee and security researcher Kevin Beaumont described the company's position as a "dumpster fire of its own making," while Luta Security founder Katie Moussouris, who created Microsoft's bug bounty program, told The Register the response sent mixed messages. She questioned Microsoft's decision to tout researcher compensation and recognition while responding to a researcher who claims he received neither, and argued that references to the Digital Crimes Unit made the post feel "vaguely threatening." She added that, regardless of the specifics of the dispute, Microsoft risked creating a chilling effect on other researchers considering whether to report vulnerabilities. What’s more, if Microsoft's goal was to isolate Nightmare-Eclipse, that may not be going entirely to plan. The researcher claimed over the weekend that other researchers had begun handing over vulnerabilities following Microsoft's response, including an alleged flaw dubbed "Bitskrieg" that breaks Secure Boot trust guarantees and bypasses BitLocker. Nightmare-Ecipse said the bug will be released “sometime in June”. Against that backdrop, Microsoft's Monday message read more like damage control than deterrence. "We have no intention to pursue action against individuals conducting or publishing their security research," Microsoft said, adding that legal referrals would be reserved for people engaging in malicious activity that causes harm to customers. The company also acknowledged that "some interactions have fallen short" and said it was working to learn from feedback. Notably, Microsoft stopped well short of conceding any of Nightmare-Eclipse's specific allegations. The researcher had accused Microsoft of deleting accounts used for vulnerability reporting, refusing to pay bounties, and mishandling communications through the Microsoft Security Response Center. The company has not publicly addressed those claims directly. Nobody should mistake Monday's statement for a sudden conversion to the church of full disclosure. Microsoft remains firmly of the view that researchers should report vulnerabilities privately, give vendors time to fix them, and avoid dropping working exploit code onto the internet for everyone else to play with. The problem for Redmond was that the argument had drifted well beyond the actions of one researcher. What began as a dispute over a string of Windows zero-day releases was rapidly turning into a debate about Microsoft's relationship with the security community and whether the company was comfortable invoking lawyers when that relationship soured. The updated statement looks very much like an attempt to slam the brakes on that narrative. ®

Introduction

Mexico is one of the host countries for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with matches to be played in three major cities: Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara. These locations are expected to see a large influx of international visitors, increasing the potential security risks. Many of those risks arise from users connecting to public wireless networks.

To better understand the wireless environments that visitors may encounter, we at Kaspersky GReAT conducted a wardriving assessment in the three host cities. The aim of the study was to analyze characteristics, deployment patterns, security configurations and potential exposure risks of public Wi-Fi infrastructure in urban wireless environments.

The information collected during the assessment was used exclusively for passive observation and infrastructure analysis. No attempts were made to authenticate, intercept communications, exploit systems or interact with the detected wireless networks beyond the publicly broadcast management information.

During processing of the collected data, one step involved filtering out networks belonging to cars or cell phones categorized as mobile hotspots because they do not represent networks that can be considered part of the assessment.

Research scope

The cities included in the study have high population density and extensive wireless infrastructure deployments. We chose areas with the most prominent wireless network activity and highly concentrated public access points. We carried out wardriving research in Monterrey back in 2008, but the city’s hotspot landscape has changed since then.

We chose the following analysis areas for each of the cities:

1. Mexico City: México City Stadium, Mexico City International Airport, Zócalo, Paseo de la Reforma, Colonia Roma, La Condesa, Polanco, and Coyoacán.
2. Guadalajara: Guadalajara Stadium, Guadalajara International Airport, the city center, Zapopan, Providencia, Avenida Chapultepec, Colonia Americana, Tlaquepaque, and the area around Andares.
3. Monterrey: Monterrey Stadium, Monterrey International Airport, Fundidora Park, Cintermex Monterrey, the downtown area, Barrio Antiguo, MacroPlaza, and the San Pedro financial district.

The wireless information was collected using passive wireless reconnaissance techniques. The collected information included:

• SSID analysis and information exposure, including BSSID-derived SSIDs
• Default router configurations and ISP deployments
• Frequency and signal characteristics
• Channel congestion and spectrum usage
• Wireless security configurations, including:
  • Open and insecure wireless networks
  • WPS-enabled networks
  • Secure networks (WPA2/WPA3) with WPS enabled

We performed a wireless infrastructure analysis in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. We drove through the areas surrounding the World Cup stadiums, tourist zones, and other places where fan concentrations are likely to be largest. Our goal was to evaluate the security status, deployment characteristics and operational exposure of detected wireless networks.

In total, we recorded 84,588 signals with 69,473 unique Service Set Identifiers (SSIDs) in busy locations and World Cup zones across the three cities. Mexico City accounted for 61.4% of the signals, Guadalajara for 23.6%, and Monterrey for 14.8%. Approximately 82% of the signals had a single SSID (81.9%, 81.34%, and 84% respectively). Notably, they all operate under the IEEE 802.11 standard protocol.

Particular attention was given to identifying standard deployment patterns, legacy configurations, default vendor settings and information disclosure through publicly broadcast wireless identifiers.

The following sections present the results that were obtained by analyzing wireless infrastructure across the three locations.

Our findings SSID analysis and information exposure

SSID analysis was conducted to evaluate naming conventions, deployment standardization and potential information exposure.

Only a few networks (0.0047%) have an invisible SSID, meaning the names of these networks are not broadcast. Some users prefer to hide the SSID for various reasons, such as the network’s purpose, the profile of its users, internal policies, etc. In contrast, the rest of the networks maintained active SSID broadcasting.

SSID structures may unintentionally disclose operational details about internet service providers (ISPs), device manufacturers, deployment practices, organizational ownership or user identity. The repeated presence of default SSID naming patterns across the analyzed locations indicates a significant degree of infrastructure homogeneity and reuse of default wireless configurations. It may also facilitate passive infrastructure profiling by revealing standard characteristics in use.

Approximately 34% of the detected networks retained the default SSID naming conventions provided by the manufacturer or ISP, while 66% used customized identifiers.

Distribution of SSID naming conventions (download)

Several recurring SSID naming conventions associated with ISP-provided deployments were identified in the three cities. The most frequently observed patterns include identifiers such as “Club_Totalplay_WiFi”, “izzi WiFi”, and “Megacable WiFi”, which suggests extensive standardization of wireless infrastructure deployment. Additionally, we observed distinctive location-specific SSIDs in each area of analysis, such as “XXXX-Internet para Todos-CDMX” or “RED JALISCO”.

Most frequently observed SSID patterns (download)

Sequential SSID naming structures were also identified during the analysis. Patterns such as “INFINITUMXX” and “IZZI-XX” suggest automated ISP deployment and large-scale deployment strategies.

We identified 33 unique sequential naming structures among the 137 sequential SSIDs in total, representing approximately 0.16% of the detected wireless networks.

The following graph shows the top five sequential SSID patterns found in the largest number of networks:

Five most frequently observed sequential patterns (download)

Several customized SSIDs contained personal or organizational identifiers, including family names, professions, addresses or internal department references. Although personalized SSIDs may simplify local network identification for users, they may also expose sensitive information that could be useful for social engineering, physical targeting, or organizational profiling.

BSSID-derived SSID

During the analysis, multiple networks were identified that used the physical MAC address of a Wi-Fi access point (BSSID) as the visible SSID. This practice exposes hardware-level information that could facilitate vendor fingerprinting and targeted reconnaissance activities.

The organizationally unique identifier (OUI) contained in the first bytes of the BSSID identifies the equipment manufacturer. Threat actors can correlate exposed manufacturers with device-specific vulnerabilities.

BSSID-derived SSID by city (download)

Notably, we found that more than 30% of networks in all three cities reuse the MAC address as the SSID.

Default router configurations and ISP deployments

We performed wireless infrastructure profiling to identify the most common wireless equipment manufacturers and ISP deployments across the three locations.

Large-scale ISP deployments frequently use standardized wireless configurations and vendor-specific hardware platforms. Identifying dominant manufacturers and ISP naming conventions can provide insight into infrastructure and deployment practices facilitating the mapping of standardized attack surfaces.

The following figure shows the distribution of the most commonly used manufacturers.

Most frequently observed wireless equipment manufacturers (download)

The manufacturer analysis revealed a strong concentration of wireless infrastructure among a limited number of vendors. Across the three locations, Huawei Technologies, MediaTek-based devices, and other manufacturers’ equipment that is distributed through ISP channels represented a significant portion of the detected deployments. Mexico City had the most diverse infrastructure, while Monterrey and Guadalajara had a greater concentration of wireless equipment known as SOHO (small office/home office) or residential-grade hardware. The widespread presence of standard vendor platforms may facilitate infrastructure fingerprinting and large-scale targeting of known device-specific vulnerabilities.

Most frequently observed wireless equipment manufacturers across the three cities (download)

ISP deployments frequently exhibited standardized configuration patterns and recurring manufacturer identifiers. Our ISP deployment analysis revealed a high concentration of access points associated with major residential internet providers. Deployments associated with Infinitum, Totalplay and Izzi represented a substantial portion of the detected wireless infrastructure across all locations. These findings suggest a high degree of deployment standardization across networks associated with major residential internet providers. This observation was supported by the repeated presence of ISP-associated SSIDs such as “Infinitum”, “Totalplay”, and “Izzi”, combined with manufacturer identifiers frequently associated with consumer equipment, including Huawei, ZTE and other residential wireless equipment vendors.

It is important to note that, for this analysis, ISPs were primarily inferred from SSID naming conventions and manufacturer fingerprint data. A significant portion of the detected wireless networks fell into the “UNKNOWN/CUSTOM” category. This classification includes custom hotspots and networks whose naming conventions did not expose identifiable ISP-associated patterns. The findings suggest that many users and organizations (as we saw previously, approximately 66%) use custom network names, limiting direct provider attribution.

The following figure illustrates the distribution of ISP-associated wireless deployments in general.

Most frequently observed ISPs (download)

To better understand this distribution, we took the most frequently observed ISPs by city.

Most frequently observed ISPs across the three cities (download)

Frequency and signal characteristics

We also analyzed wireless signal characteristics to evaluate coverage quality, signal strength, and frequency band utilization in the three cities. In dense urban environments, signal quality and frequency spectrum distribution can affect wireless reliability, client connectivity, roaming performance, and overall network efficiency.

Signal quality analysis revealed that a substantial portion of the detected access points operated under weak or very weak signal conditions. Monterrey had the highest percentage of very weak signals, with approximately 50% of detected deployments. Similar patterns were observed in Guadalajara and Mexico City, suggesting high-density wireless environments with overlapping coverage areas. Only a limited percentage of networks were classified within the very good or excellent signal categories across the three locations.

Signal quality distribution by city (download)

Signal stability analysis revealed that most detected wireless deployments exhibited stable beacon transmission behavior. More than 96% of the detected access points across all locations were classified as stable, while only a small percentage exhibited unstable or indeterminate signal behavior.

These findings imply that the majority of the wireless infrastructure observed during the assessment corresponded to permanently deployed access points rather than transient or intermittent wireless devices.

Signal stability status (download)

Frequency band analysis revealed the strong prevalence of 2.4 GHz wireless deployments across the three locations. More than 95% of the detected wireless networks operated within the 2.4 GHz spectrum, while only a small percentage of deployments were classified under the unknown or non-standard frequency categories. This uneven distribution reflects the continued prevalence of legacy-compatible wireless infrastructure and SOHO deployments.

Frequency band utilization (download)

These findings are consistent with dense urban wireless environments with large numbers of access points in restricted spectrum allocations.

Channel congestion and spectrum usage

Next, we analyzed wireless channel utilization to evaluate frequency spectrum congestion and channel allocation patterns across the three cities. Our analysis focused on the 2.4 GHz spectrum, where channel overlap and high access point density commonly produce interference and degraded wireless performance. In densely populated wireless environments, an excessive concentration of access points on a limited number of channels can lead to co-channel interference, packet collisions, reduced throughput, and degraded network stability.

Spectrum congestion analysis revealed that the 2.4 GHz band consistently experienced elevated congestion levels across the three cities. The detailed results showed a strong concentration of deployments on channels 11, 6 and 1, which are traditionally recommended as non-overlapping channels within the 2.4 GHz spectrum. Channel 11 was the most utilized channel, accounting for 25.2% of the detected access points, followed by channel 6 with 22.5% and channel 1 with 19.5%. This distribution indicates that most wireless deployments adhere to standard channel allocation practices for 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi environments.

The following figure illustrates the overall distribution of the most frequently utilized wireless channels.

Most utilized wireless channels (download)

To further assess wireless spectrum saturation, the detected access points were grouped according to channel congestion levels: VERY_HIGH, HIGH, UNKNOWN, MEDIUM, LOW and NONE.

Mexico City had the highest proportion of heavily congested wireless channels, with approximately 7% of detected access points operating under HIGH congestion conditions. Guadalajara followed with nearly 5% of deployments categorized as HIGH congestion, while Monterrey had the lowest percentage at approximately 3.29%.

These findings suggest that wireless spectrum saturation increases proportionally with urban infrastructure density and access point concentration. Despite the presence of congested deployments, most detected access points were categorized as LOW or MEDIUM congestion, suggesting severe spectrum saturation was localized rather than uniformly distributed.

Channel congestion by city (download)

A thorough analysis of individual channel utilization revealed that channels 11, 6 and 1 consistently experienced the highest congestion levels across the three cities, which correlates with our previous findings. These channels accounted for the majority of VERY_HIGH congestion classifications, particularly within the 2.4 GHz band.

In Mexico City, channel 11 alone accounted for more than 25% of detected deployments and consistently exhibited VERY_HIGH congestion levels.

This behavior reflects the limited availability of non-overlapping channels within the 2.4 GHz spectrum and the widespread reliance on default wireless configurations.

Most congested channels by city (download)

Overall, the channel utilization analysis showed that wireless deployments are concentrated heavily within the traditional, non-overlapping 2.4 GHz channels. While this strategy reduces adjacent-channel interference, excessive access point density on the same channels can still produce significant co-channel contention and poor wireless performance in high-density urban environments.

Wireless security configurations

The next thing we evaluated was the security posture of the detected wireless networks. We analyzed the wireless security configurations advertised by access points in each of the locations.

Overall security configuration distribution

The analysis revealed that WPA2 was the dominant wireless authentication mechanism across the three cities. Mexico City had the highest WPA2 adoption rate at 81.19%, followed by Monterrey at 79.19% and Guadalajara at 77.59%.

The study found that every 6th open access point (17%) was unsafe, namely 16.5% in Mexico City, 18.5% in Guadalajara, and 17.2% in Monterrey. Open wireless deployments were consistently present across all locations, ranging between 10% and 12% of detected access points. These findings show that despite the widespread deployment of modern wireless security standards, encryption adoption remains incomplete.

Distribution of wireless authentication mechanisms across the three locations (download)

To simplify the interpretation of wireless security posture, we grouped detected networks into four categories:

• Secure (WPA2/WPA3)
• Insecure (Open/WEP)
• Weak (WPA)
• Unknown

Across the three locations, secure networks comprised most of detected deployments, accounting for approximately 82% of all access points. However, insecure open networks still account for between 10% and 12% of detected wireless infrastructure, consistent with our previous findings. It is important to mention that networks within the unknown category are not considered secure.

Mexico City had the highest percentage of secure deployments at 83.54%, while Guadalajara had the highest percentage of insecure open networks at 12.46%. Although Monterrey had the lowest percentage of insecure networks, open deployments still accounted for more than 10% of the detected access points.

Wireless security posture grouping across the three locations (download)

Although modern WPA2/WPA3 encryption standards dominate current wireless deployments, the continued presence of open and legacy WPA deployments indicates that insecure wireless configurations remain relevant from an operational standpoint. These networks may expose users to passive traffic interception, unauthorized monitoring, rogue access point attacks, and credential harvesting techniques.

WPS-enabled networks

We also analyzed Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) in all the locations to evaluate additional attack surfaces. WPS is a standard feature on wireless routers that enables devices such as printers, repeaters or mobile phones to connect to a secure Wi-Fi network without manually entering a long password, typically through a PIN-based enrolled mechanism. Although WPA2 and WPA3 provide strong encryption mechanisms, the presence of WPS can introduce security weaknesses due to inherently vulnerable PIN-based enrollment methods.

By combining detections from the three locations, we found that 55% of all detected access points did not advertise WPS capabilities, leaving 45% of deployments vulnerable to WPS-based abuse. These results suggest that, despite the adoption of modern encryption standards, a significant portion of wireless infrastructure continues to expose legacy convenience features.

During the analysis, we found that Mexico City had the highest proportion of WPS-enabled networks, with 46.61% of the detected access points advertising WPS capabilities. Guadalajara was second with 43.45%, while Monterrey had the lowest proportion at 40.93%.

The percentage of detected access points advertising WPS capabilities across the three locations (download)

Almost half of the detected wireless networks in each city continued to advertise WPS, indicating that WPS prevalence is consistently high across the three cities.

Secure networks with WPS enabled

In many cases, networks classified as secure because of WPA2/WPA3 encryption still had WPS functionality enabled, which effectively increased the available attack surface.

To further assess the relationship between encryption strength and WPS exposure, we conducted a secondary analysis of secure networks (WPA2/WPA3) only. The results showed that around half of all secure deployments still exposed WPS, with the following breakdown for each city:

• Mexico City: 53.7%
• Guadalajara: 50.9%
• Monterrey: 47.5%

The proportion of secure networks with WPS enabled across the three locations (download)

These findings indicate that encryption strength alone is not enough to evaluate wireless security posture because additional protocol features, such as WPS, may still expose exploitable attack vectors.

Additional security considerations

Overall, travelers operating within dense public environments are exposed not only to insecure wireless infrastructure but also to various risks associated with digital interactions. These risks include many threats, from public USB charging systems and phishing QR codes to proximity-based protocols and exposure to shared public devices, such as interactive totems or kiosks. One particular point that should be taken into account in light of our research is the issue of rogue wireless deployments.

Rogue access points are not necessarily malicious; they may be set up accidentally by misconfiguring router settings. An entry point for potential compromise might be caused by various misconfigurations, from a weak password to an insecure protocol. However, attackers deploy such unauthorized hotspots with malicious intent to infiltrate a network. Threat actors may deploy rogue access points posing as legitimate public wireless networks in airports, hotels, cafés and tourist areas. These deployments are called “evil twins” and can trick users into connecting to attacker-controlled infrastructure capable of intercepting traffic, harvesting credentials, or performing man-in-the-middle attacks. Further risk lies in the potential compromise of local network devices or even malware distribution. Such threats complement our findings, underscoring the importance of implementing traffic encryption, using a security solution and exercising extreme caution while browsing via public networks.

Conclusion

The wardriving assessment conducted in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey revealed that modern wireless infrastructure continues to present multiple forms of operational exposure despite the widespread adoption of WPA2 and WPA3 security standards. The analysis demonstrated that wireless environments are highly standardized in all the locations, with recurring ISP deployments, default SSID naming conventions, homogeneous manufacturer distribution, and predictable channel allocation practices observed in all three cities.

Although most of the detected networks were classified as secure under WPA2/WPA3 authentication mechanisms, a significant proportion were exposing additional attack surfaces through enabled WPS functionality, default configurations, sequential SSID structures, and infrastructure metadata disclosure. This demonstrates that encryption strength alone is insufficient for evaluating the overall security posture of wireless infrastructure. Additionally, the prevalence of open networks and legacy wireless configurations indicates that insecure deployments are still operationally relevant in all the locations.

The results also showed that wireless infrastructure is heavily concentrated within the 2.4 GHz spectrum, particularly around channels 11, 6, and 1. This leads to elevated congestion and increased co-channel interference in densely populated urban environments.

SSID analysis further revealed that publicly broadcast wireless identifiers frequently expose valuable operational information about ISPs, equipment manufacturers, deployment templates, organizational ownership, and user-defined naming practices. The identification of default ISP naming conventions, sequential SSID structures, and BSSID-derived SSIDs demonstrated that many deployments prioritize operational convenience and simplicity over exposure minimization and privacy.

The scope of the threats stemming from vulnerable wireless configurations poses serious digital exposure risks for users. The widespread presence of standard deployments, predictable SSID naming and publicly exposed infrastructure identifiers can facilitate passive reconnaissance, infrastructure fingerprinting and opportunistic targeting.

Recommendations

To minimize the risks of wireless-based exposure and the attack surface related to hotspot infrastructure, we recommend taking the following measures:

• Disable WPS functionality on wireless routers whenever possible, particularly within WPA2/WPA3 deployments.
• Avoid using default SSID naming conventions that disclose ISP providers, router manufacturers, or deployment templates.
• Refrain from using personal, organizational, or location-based identifiers in wireless network names.
• Avoid configuring SSID using BSSID or naming conventions derived from MAC addresses, as these may expose hardware fingerprinting information.
• Promote migration toward modern WPA3-capable infrastructure while removing legacy wireless protocols when operationally feasible.
• Reduce wireless congestion by optimizing channel allocation strategies and minimizing excessive dependence on the 2.4 GHz spectrum.
• Encourage adoption of 5 GHz and newer wireless technologies to reduce interference and improve spectrum efficiency.

The findings presented in this assessment emphasize the importance of combining strong wireless encryption standards, secure deployment practices, exposure minimization strategies, and user awareness to enhance the overall security posture of wireless environments.

Updated Claude has gone offline on the day after its maker Anthropic filed for what is expected to be a blockbuster IPO. The popular chatbot and coding tool suffered an outage from around 0600 UTC on Tuesday, with Anthropic saying the team was investigating the issue. By 1042 UTC, the status page said a fix had been implemented and the technical team was monitoring the results. Some users continued to complain to The Register about the disruption after that point. Downdetector shows users reporting the LLM service from Anthropic was down twice momentarily yesterday. A surge in reports started from 0700 UTC today and peaked at 0948 UTC, after which they started to fall. The timing of the technical difficulties is unfortunate for Anthropic, the company founded in 2021 by former employees of OpenAI. Yesterday, the company submitted a draft registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering (IPO) for common stock. It has yet to set the price of shares but a May funding round which raised $65 billion valued the company at around $965 billion (£717 billion), more than rival OpenAI, makers of chatbot ChatGPT. It is set to be a monster year for IPOs, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and OpenAI also anticipated to join the frenzy. Each is expected to be valued at around $1 trillion. Claude Code has bolstered Anthropic’s reputation and has been well-received by some developers. Reportedly, Anthropic earns more in revenue despite having a fraction of the users OpenAI claims to serve. According to the Wall Street Journal, Anthropic is on the verge of reporting its first quarter of operating profit, according to people at the company who spoke anonymously. ® Updated to add at 1618 UTC, June 2: A source from Anthropic told us: "Earlier today, some users may have experienced intermittent issues or slower response times across Claude Code, Cowork, Claude.ai, and the API. Service has been fully restored, and we're grateful to our users for their patience. Customers accessing Claude through Google Cloud's Vertex AI or Amazon Bedrock were not affected."

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is warning the public to be wary of scammers spoofing its switchboard number in an attempt to profit by calling marks from a "trustworthy" number. A member of the public reported an attempted scam on Monday afternoon. A phone call came in from what appeared to be the PSNI’s switchboard number, and the caller pretended to be a member of the force inquiring about a case in which the recipient was involved. “The caller told the person there was an investigation linked to their name involving money transfers to narcotic-related countries and was subsequently asked to provide information about their bank cards,” said the PSNI’s Inspector Walker. We don’t have any expert criminals here at The Register, but we think it would be pretty sage advice for someone looking to increasingly pass as a police representative not to be so stupid as to ask for gift cards as “part of the investigation process.” “The caller then asked them to purchase gift cards and send across the codes for those, stating that this was part of the investigation process and that the money would be returned to them,” Inspector Walker added. “This made the reporting party suspicious, however, and thankfully, the victim didn’t share any of their personal or bank details with the caller, who they then blocked.” Officials confirmed to The Register that the police’s number was spoofed, and this case was not instigated by a real member of the switchboard team. Spoofing the switchboard’s phone number marked “a very concerning situation,” Walker said, urging the public to remain vigilant to similar calls. The PSNI is continuing to make follow-up enquiries about the report, but has not yet detained any individual in connection with the attempted fraud. Anyone who falls victim to digital fraud in the UK should contact the police, their bank, and Action Fraud, all of which can offer the necessary assistance. “Our advice is that you should never disclose your personal or financial details over the phone, in person, or by email, to someone you don't know,” said Walker. “Guarding your personal and banking details is essential.” The attempted scam is the second disclosed by the PSNI in as many days. On Monday, it warned of a separate case involving an elderly woman being defrauded of a sum north of £250,000 ($336,000) after being targeted by individuals operating a fake cryptocurrency scheme. “After initially sending a relatively small amount, the woman then ‘invested’ larger amounts on a number of occasions after the criminals convinced her that she needed to send more in order to get her initial investment back,” said Detective Inspector Moffett, of the PSNI’s Serious Crime Branch. “After she unknowingly downloaded malware at their instruction, they were able to gain control of her electronic devices and, we believe, transfer further sums from her account.” Cryptocurrency investment scams are among the most pervasive in the world, with figures from the US suggesting the problem is growing increasingly severe. According to the FBI’s annual digital crimes report, it received 48 percent more complaints about crypto investment scams last year than it did the year before, with losses also rising 25 percent. Much of this pain was shouldered by those aged 60 and over, the agency added. ®

Security researchers on Monday found dozens of Red Hat npm package releases infected with the Mini Shai-Hulud worm that TeamPCP cybercriminals recently open-sourced. The new supply chain attack hit at least 32 npm package releases published under the Red Hat Cloud Services namespace, according to security researchers from Google-owned Wiz, who traced the malware to one Red Hat employee’s compromised GitHub account. They said the affected packages are downloaded around 80,000 times a week. “The compromised account pushed malicious orphan commits to two RedHatInsights repositories, bypassing code review,” the threat hunters said in a Monday blog. “This happened across two waves of activity.” Wiz considers this a “live threat,” and says its researchers are actively monitoring it for any new developments. Socket, meanwhile, counted 95 affected package versions as of 11:00:22 UTC. The supply-chain security shop continues to monitor the ongoing attack and update the artifacts list – so be sure to check it out, and if your organization or any development pipelines have installed one of the poisoned versions, assume compromise and immediately rotate credentials. The compromised versions execute a hidden payload through a preinstall hook so that the malware automatically runs during the npm install process – before a developer imports or uses the package. “Based on Socket’s analysis, the payload is designed to collect GitHub Actions secrets, npm tokens, cloud credentials, Kubernetes and Vault material, SSH keys, Git credentials, and other sensitive files,” Socket’s research team wrote on Monday. “It also includes encrypted exfiltration logic and GitHub-based fallback mechanisms, indicating that the attacker was not only attempting to steal credentials, but also potentially enable further supply chain propagation.” A Red Hat spokesperson told The Register that the IBM-owned software firm is aware of the reports. “We immediately initiated an investigation and removed the packages from the npm registry,” the spokesperson said. “The packages are strictly limited to internal development, and the malicious code was never published for customer consumption via the console.redhat.com system. While our investigation is ongoing, we have not identified any impact to customer or partner environments or Red Hat production systems.” Both security firms say the malware resembles the Mini Shai-Hulud worm – but because TeamPCP open sourced the credential-stealing tool, it’s tough to say whether TeamPCP or a copycat crew is responsible for the latest developer-targeting supply chain infection. According to Wiz, the modifications look “largely cosmetic, with references to the Dune universe replaced by Greek mythology themes (i.e ‘spartan’), while the underlying functionality and tradecraft remain substantially similar.” One of the notable changes, the security sleuths said, is that the new variant adds data collectors for Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure identities, and this new capability snarfs up all the identities that the infected machine has access to, as opposed to just stealing secrets from the cloud environments. This suggests “an increased attacker focus on gaining and leveraging access to the cloud itself,” Wiz warns. This variant also creates repositories containing the description “Miasma: The Spreading Blight.” And unlike earlier variants of the self-spreading worm that copied themselves, this one generates a uniquely encrypted payload for each infection, which makes hash-based indicators-of-compromise useful only for a specific package version. ®

The biggest threat to America’s midterm elections in November likely isn’t foreign attackers hacking US voting machines. Phishing and election-official impersonation are the bigger risks, according to Check Point, which documented more than 5,000 election-themed domains registered between April and May. These domains can be used by attackers for phishing, impersonation, fraud, misinformation, or influence activity, especially when coupled with about 17,000 exposed credentials associated with fundraising orgs, political parties, and government-related services also spotted by the security shop’s intelligence arm in May. "Election-related domains and leaked credentials represent two sides of the same problem: infrastructure and access," Danielle Hess, a cyber threat intelligence analyst at Check Point Software, told The Register. "A rise in election-themed domains not only creates more potential infrastructure that could be abused for phishing or impersonation, but also reflects a growing election-related ecosystem with more organizations, accounts, and users that can be targeted," Hess said. "When combined with a large pool of exposed credentials, attackers have more opportunities to conduct convincing and scalable election-related operations." Plus, AI gives phishing, impersonation, election misinformation and other scam operations a massive boost, making them faster, cheaper, and easier to scale. The uptick in election-related threats follows the Trump administration’s efforts to gut America’s lead cyber-defense agency and decimate its efforts to combat election-related fraud, while slashing its budget and workforce, and cutting all federal funding for the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC). According to a Monday report, Check Point has been monitoring registered domains and documented about 1,300 containing the keyword “election” and 2,957 containing “vote” in January. Three months later, between April 13 and May 14, about 1,140 newly registered domains contained the word "election," while the number containing "vote" had climbed to about 4,010. While simply registering a domain doesn’t guarantee it will be used for malicious purposes, such domains are often used for phishing pages that impersonate voter info sites or candidates themselves, and campaign donation scams, and misinformation sites designed to look like official election communications. Along these lines, the security shop documented thousands of leaked credentials in May linked to fundraising and political party websites including about 9,500 ActBlue.com (Democrats’ fundraising site) compromised credentials, 6,500 leaked WinRed.com (Republican fundraising) credentials, plus 600 from the official Republican gop.com website, 130 from democrats.org, and 150 leaked usa.gov citizen services’ site credentials. Hess told us that "it's important to note that the credential statistics reflect credentials identified on Check Point's External Risk Management (ERM) platform as of May 2026 and are not limited to credentials that were necessarily stolen or leaked during May 2026 itself." As the reports point out, the credential leaks aren't limited to one political party or specific campaigns. “Individual political campaign domains showed little to no observed credential exposure across a sample of swing-state candidates from both major political parties, reinforcing that current exposure is concentrated in centralized platforms rather than campaign-specific infrastructure,” according to the report. “A single campaign domain stood out as an exception, with around 90 leaked credentials identified,” the report continued. "The campaign domain referenced was associated with candidate Tom Kean," Hess said, referring to Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ). "However, it's important to note the credentials were identified within infostealer malware logs, which typically reflect opportunistic compromise rather than deliberate targeting of a specific campaign. While not indicative of direct targeting, the presence of these credentials may still pose a security risk if associated accounts remain active or reused.” In addition to the political org-related credential exposure, voter information is also appearing across dark web forums ahead of the November midterms. This includes a January 30 BreachForums post advertising data - being given away for free - tied to the Fremont County, Colorado election division. The data dump included names, email addresses, IP address data, and election-related portal submission information. On April 26, the threat hunters spotted a post on criminal forum Spear[.]cx, claiming to offer a multi-state US voter database covering more than two dozen states and Washington, DC. ®

Grand Theft Auto cheat users have discovered that even the people selling ways around the rules struggle to follow some basic security ones. According to breach notification site Have I Been Pwned, the operators of Atlas Menu, a cheat service for Grand Theft Auto V and Counter-Strike 2, suffered a data breach in May that exposed information belonging to tens of thousands of users after an attacker allegedly gained access to the service's systems and dumped its database online. The breach exposed 64,000 unique email addresses, according to HIBP. The leaked data also included usernames, IP addresses, support tickets, and passwords stored as bcrypt hashes. The individual who claimed responsibility for the breach published the stolen database to a public GitHub repository, claiming to have gained access to "all Atlas systems" before extracting customer records, support conversations, menu license keys, signup dates, and Rockstar Games account identifiers. The data, reviewed by The Register, also appears to include lists of thousands of banned users, administrator logs, and other internal records. Posts discussing the breach on Reddit suggest this was not Atlas Menu's first security incident, but users said the latest leak appears to contain significantly more sensitive information than previous disclosures. Anyone signing up for a GTA cheat service probably wasn't expecting privacy guarantees. Even so, having your email address leaked is one thing. Having support tickets, account identifiers, and purchase records dumped onto GitHub is another. The Atlas breach comes weeks after Rockstar Games was pulled into a separate data leak claimed by ShinyHunters. In that case, the extortion crew alleged it had accessed Rockstar data through cloud cost-monitoring platform Anodot and threatened to publish the information unless its demands were met. Atlas users now have their own security headache to deal with. Whether they're more concerned about the leaked database or the screenshot-spying allegation will likely depend on what they were doing while the software was running. ®

Palo Alto customers are being been told to patch yet another internet-facing security flaw after researchers caught attackers bypassing GlobalProtect authentication and gaining unauthorized VPN access. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-0257, affects PAN-OS deployments using GlobalProtect authentication override cookies under specific configurations. Palo Alto disclosed the bug on May 13 and initially assigned it a medium-severity rating, saying it was aware of attempts to exploit it but had not observed any malicious exploitation. That assessment has not aged well. Security boffins at Rapid7 said they observed successful exploitation across multiple customer environments dating back to at least May 17 and validated the attack technique using its own proof-of-concept testing. Attackers established unauthorized VPN sessions on vulnerable systems, potentially granting access to internal corporate networks without legitimate credentials, it added. Rapid7's analysis suggests the flaw comes down to how PAN-OS trusts authentication override cookies. In certain deployments, hackers can create their own cookies and have the firewall accept them as legitimate. The risk is highest where the same certificate is used for both HTTPS services and authentication override cookies, giving the baddies access to the information needed to generate convincing fakes. Rapid7 said it observed multiple waves of activity targeting vulnerable devices. In some cases, cybercrims successfully obtained VPN IP addresses and network access, but the company said it didn’t observe evidence of successful lateral movement following initial access in the incidents it investigated. The flaw has now landed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, with federal agencies given until June 1 to patch or otherwise secure affected systems. Palo Alto has also revised its advisory, elevating the severity rating and attaching its highest urgency label. Fixes are available for supported releases. "Palo Alto Networks has become aware of limited exploit attempts on unpatched PAN-OS devices without mitigations applied," the firm said in an update. The latest PAN-OS headache arrives less than a month after another Palo Alto emergency. In May, state-backed attackers were found exploiting CVE-2026-0300, a critical remote code execution flaw in the PAN-OS User-ID Authentication Portal, before patches became widely available. Organizations running vulnerable GlobalProtect gateways now face a familiar choice: patch quickly or find out whether someone else gets there first.®

Password manager Dashlane has disabled a number of user accounts as a precaution amid a spate of brute force attacks. It didn't specify the scale of the attack, although scores of users have queried the reason for receiving emails informing them of account suspensions. “Your account has been temporarily suspended for security reasons as someone has attempted to register a new device and didn't enter the correct token after several tries,” the emails read, along with instructions to contact customer support to restore access. The attacks began on Sunday afternoon and the Dashlane team said it had finished investigating the matter later that evening, restoring all affected user accounts in the process, according to its status page. In a copy-paste statement sent to a number of users via social media, Dashlane also confirmed there was no compromise of internal systems. Dashlane posted an update to its status page on Monday morning, repeating the same statement from a day earlier, but changing the incident status from "resolved" to "monitoring." Several users reported unauthorized login attempt notifications from various countries - the common culprits being Korea and Russia. Dashlane did not specify whether any attempts on customer accounts were successful. Dashlane’s interventions involved suspending accounts and its two-factor authentication (2FA) service. Some users reported trying to access Dashlane’s 2FA one-time passcodes, but when entering them, all that returned was an error. Some criticised the company for a lack of public comms about the attacks. Aside from the direct account suspension emails and some replies to users on social media, Dashlane has not disclosed the attack through any high-visibility channels. Users also queried whether the initial account suspension emails were a phishing attempt. But the emails showed no hallmarks of phishing as they contained no suspicious links, no attachments and were sent from a real Dashlane domain. However, the nature of the message and the fact that the emails contained an old Dashlane logo only exacerbated some customers’ fears. The Register has contacted Dashlane for more information. ®