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Google Launches Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber AI to Find and Fix Software Vulnerabilities
Critical SharePoint RCE CVE-2026-50522 Under Active Exploitation After Public PoC
Critical SharePoint RCE CVE-2026-50522 Under Active Exploitation After Public PoC
Aktualizace, která uvaří vybrané počítače značky Dell. Microsoft musel narychlo hasit problém ve Windows 11
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Zimbra Patches Critical SNMP Command Injection and Four XSS Vulnerabilities
Zimbra Patches Critical SNMP Command Injection and Four XSS Vulnerabilities
A new extortion cocktail: office printers, small ransoms, and BitLocker
Recently, our teams in Latin America investigated a series of incidents involving misconfiguration, the deployment of BitLocker, and the exploitation of corporate printers. Attackers used the devices to notify organizations that their infrastructure had been compromised and they had to pay a ransom to recover their data.
This article analyzes two incidents that occurred in June in Colombia and in May in Mexico. We highlight the similarities in the attackers’ communications and outline emerging trends in ransom amounts.
Initial sign of an attackIn both cases, the affected users initially noticed a padlock icon next to their drives in Windows Explorer. This indicated that the drive was encrypted with BitLocker, blocking access to its contents.
Drive icon indicating that the drive is locked
A recovery key was required to unlock the drive.
Attempt to access the disk’s contents and the prompt for the BitLocker recovery key
This is not the first time we have seen such threats; a few years ago, our team discovered a threat known as ShrinkLocker, which utilized BitLocker to achieve its goals.
First case: abusing RDP to encrypt dataOne of the incidents occurred in Colombia in June. The attackers exploited an internet-exposed RDP service on a machine connected to an 8 TB storage device containing mission-critical data. After taking control of the system and manipulating user credentials, the attackers enabled BitLocker exclusively on the drive that primarily stored financial data. Once the encryption was complete, they locked the drive and used the company’s printers to produce ransom notes.
Ransomware note
Unfortunately, it was not possible to obtain evidence in the case due to the company’s rush to restore the encrypted disk. The communication with the attackers revealed a demand for just $3,000, and the company considered paying the ransom. After that, the system was restored before the forensic team could take any action, eliminating the evidence needed to assess the incident.
Attacker’s reply to the victim’s email sent to the address in the printed ransom note
This attack was made possible by an internet-facing remote desktop service (RDP) with additional open ports, which employees used to access corporate information. By exploiting this network exposure and misconfiguration, attackers breached the system, identified an additional drive, and leveraged BitLocker to encrypt the data and demand a ransom payment. Leaving RDP ports open without proper security controls jeopardizes the security of systems and information, as highlighted in the our “Global Report: Anatomy of a Cyber World“.
Exposed ports identified in the system in recent months
The company confirmed that, due to compatibility issues with applications required for operation, EPP (Endpoint Protection Platform) protection was disabled on the system, making it easier for attackers to validate, enumerate, and execute applications without revealing malicious activity to central monitoring systems.
Second case: meet the XEntry TeamIn another incident, which occurred in Mexico in May, our team identified how the threat actor gained initial access to the infrastructure. They exploited a misconfigured MSSQL service. This allowed them to execute commands on the system after obtaining the database login credentials from code insecurely published on GitHub.
XEntry team attack
In this incident, the attack began three months prior to detection, with the intruder discovering and verifying their access to the environment. After confirming their access and privilege level within the MSSQL server settings, which extended beyond the DBMS to the underlying operating system, the attackers initially focused on manipulating certain aspects of the web server configuration on the same system. They lowered the server’s security settings and created web shell files in the publicly accessible folders. Many of these attempts to manipulate the service or create malicious files were contained by existing EPP security controls, but despite the alerts, the necessary investigation to address the activity was not conducted.
Commands executed when attempting to manipulate the web server
The attackers subsequently confirmed their ability to execute commands locally and set up their attack infrastructure to transmit data via a communications bridge. By exploiting the MSSQL service, they gained access to each of the organization’s internal systems.
The database engine used by the company was Microsoft SQL Server 2019.0150.2160.04, misconfigured to allow operating system сommand execution via the xp_cmdshell extended stored procedure.
Due to this misconfiguration of an internet-exposed service, the attackers established a channel capable of executing any type of command directed at the server and the local infrastructure within its scope.
Attack path
One of the main objectives was to identify shared systems and resources that provided access to critical information. Our analysis confirmed the attackers’ access to systems storing configuration parameters for networking, enterprise management, and cloud services, among others.
A subset of the critical information identified and collected by the attackers
In early May, the attackers focused on running additional scans and deploying ManageEngine’s Endpoint Central RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) to establish persistence and begin the final stages of their intrusion.
Scanning and RMM deployment
Further RMM-type applications, such as Mesh Agent and Tactical RMM, were installed in the days that followed. These were used to deploy scheduled tasks responsible for enabling the BitLocker service and individually encrypting the infrastructure’s disks, generating a key for each encrypted system.
Commands executed through RMM tools to collect Bitlocker keys
Finally, in mid-May, the attackers managed to execute a Group Policy Object (GPO) used to deploy activation and encryption tasks, as well as other policies responsible for continued deployment of RMM applications via scheduled tasks. The activity initially targeted critical systems but later spread to every system synchronized with the domain controller. Users became aware of the attack when their machines displayed a blue screen with the message “Hacked by XEntry Team”, and their credentials stopped working to access their systems.
A few hours later, ransom notes began emerging from office printers.
Ransom note printed by the XEntry team
These cases confirm that adversary’s objective is to gain access to infrastructure while avoiding investment in or partnership with ransomware groups. Instead, they leverage built-in Microsoft tools to facilitate data encryption and ransom payments. Monitoring and centralizing logs on protected resources, as well as promptly managing alerts, are critical to countering this type of intrusion.
Conclusions- Although the systems under review had security measures in place, there was a lack of proper alert management or inadequate decisions regarding application incompatibilities.
- We strongly recommend configuring the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) in strict accordance with cybersecurity best practices to prevent unauthorized access. This is especially critical: according to our Global Report: Anatomy of a Cyber World, more than 13% of incidents are related to policy violations and configuration errors, confirming that misconfigurations continue to pose a significant risk.
- Organizations should prioritize strict application control policies and active monitoring of network traffic for command-and-control (C2) communications. This is especially critical: according to the same report, more than 20% of incidents involved the abuse of RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) tools for execution and C2 strategies. The fact that attackers used more than three distinct tools to gain control during a single incident further underscores the urgent need for these measures.
- Some questions remain unanswered due to a lack of evidence and a hasty system restoration effort that bypassed critical stages of the incident response process. It is important to ensure an adequate incident response procedure, preserving evidence to confirm all related activities, and adjusting or proposing controls to prevent future incidents involving similar TTPs.
- Although the ransom notes do not reveal a clear connection between the actors, certain words used in the messages, as well as the method of delivery and communication, may confirm a link:
“As a guarantee, we have no negative online reviews about non-fulfillment of our obligations…” (Ransom note from the first case)
“Our reputation is the guarantee that all content will be fulfilled…” (Ransom note from the second case)
Our teams continue to monitor these threats.
Detection signatures- Trojan.Multi.Agent.gen
- Trojan.Win32.GenAutorunMsSqlServerCommandRun.a
- Trojan.Win32.Generic
- Exploit.Win32.SCShell.a
Intel fortifies Foundry with an actual customer: Fortinet
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US AI testing institute chief steps down within three months
The head of the US government’s AI testing institute, Chris Fall, has resigned about three months after taking charge of the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), the federal organization responsible for evaluating advanced artificial intelligence models for safety and security.
Current National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST Director Arvind Raman will serve as acting CAISI Director following Fall’s departure while continuing to oversee the Commerce Department office responsible for the institute, the Daily Signal reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
A Commerce Department spokesperson who spoke to the publication did not disclose a reason for the resignation.
Fall assumed leadership of CAISI in April after the Trump administration reorganized the former US AI Safety Institute under NIST. The institute develops methodologies for evaluating frontier AI models and works with AI developers on voluntary technical assessments covering areas such as cybersecurity, model misuse, reliability and other risks associated with increasingly capable AI systems.
The leadership change comes as governments and AI companies continue developing technical approaches for evaluating frontier AI models while enterprises expand deployments of generative AI and agentic AI across business operations.
In recent months, the Commerce Department has taken a more active role in AI policy involving advanced models, placing greater attention on how the federal government evaluates technologies with potential national security implications.
Continuity matters more than personalitiesCAISI works with AI developers such as Anthropic, Google’s DeepMind and OpenAI on voluntary evaluations of frontier AI models and develops methodologies for testing model capabilities and risks. The institute does not regulate AI developers or certify commercial AI systems.
For enterprises, those evaluations are one source of technical information alongside vendors’ own testing, third-party security assessments and internal AI governance programs.
Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, said enterprises should focus less on the individual leading the institute and more on whether its technical work continues with the same level of consistency and transparency.
“Leadership churn at CAISI weakens the signal long before it weakens the science,” Gogia said. “The testing has not stopped. Its authority simply does not travel as cleanly once the leadership does not.”
According to Gogia, the more important question for enterprises is not whether the institute’s evaluation work will continue but whether the processes supporting those evaluations remain stable.
“The instinct is to ask whether the pipeline is breaking,” he said. “The more useful question is where the pipeline now sits.”
Enterprises still carry the burden of AI governanceGogia said organizations should continue treating government-led AI evaluations as one input into their governance processes rather than as evidence that a model is inherently safe for enterprise deployment.
“A government evaluation was always a signal, never a certificate,” he said. “A signal loses value the moment its issuer becomes unpredictable.”
He said enterprises should instead monitor whether CAISI maintains consistent evaluation methodologies, continues publishing technical findings and preserves continuity within its research teams under interim leadership.
“The name on the door is not the signal. The behaviour underneath it is,” Gogia said.
Gogia also cautioned against linking Fall’s resignation to recent Commerce Department actions involving AI policy or export controls, noting that there is no public evidence connecting the two.
“CAISI evaluates; it does not enforce export controls, because it holds no such power,” he said. “This is not a testing body reaching for enforcement. It is enforcement reaching past the testing body.”
With Raman assuming the role on an interim basis, the next significant milestone for enterprises will be the appointment of a permanent director, and whether the institute’s evaluation programs continue without disruption, the analyst said.
Gogia said the successor’s mandate may prove more important than the individual selected.
“A CAISI result is not a safe harbour,” he said. “It informs an obligation; it does not discharge one.” NIST did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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