Infosec News

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ShadyPanda Extension Campaign Hits 4.3 Million Users Across Chrome and Edge

Security researchers at Koi Security have uncovered a long-running browser extension operation known as ShadyPanda, affecting over 4.3 million installs across Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

The campaign operated in four phases beginning in 2018. Many extensions originally appeared legitimate, with some even gaining trust badges and large userbases before receiving malicious updates.

Key Findings

• 145 total malicious extensions were identified (20 Chrome, 125 Edge).
• Early activity (2023) involved affiliate fraud by injecting tracking codes into eBay, Booking.com, and Amazon links.
• Search hijacking (2024) redirected queries through trovi.com while exfiltrating cookies and search data.
• Five extensions were later updated with a full backdoor, checking api.extensionplay[.]com hourly to download and execute arbitrary JavaScript with full browser API access.
• Stolen data included browsing history, search queries, cookies, fingerprinting data, keystrokes, and mouse clicks.
• Data was sent to multiple servers, including api.cleanmasters[.]store and 17 domains in China.
• One extension, Clean Master, was previously featured and verified by Google before being weaponized.
• WeTab 新标签页 (3 million installs) and Infinity New Tab (Pro) (650k installs) remain live on the Microsoft Edge Add-ons store at the time of reporting.

Impact

The malicious updates allowed:
• Remote code execution through hourly payload retrieval
• Browser-level surveillance
• Search hijacking and manipulation
• Potential credential theft via adversary-in-the-middle techniques

Recommendations

Users who installed any affected extensions should:

Remove them immediately
Reset all account passwords
Monitor accounts for unusual activity

Koi Security notes that the abuse of the browser auto-update pipeline allowed attackers to weaponize trusted extensions without user interaction. Google has removed the known malicious Chrome extensions; Microsoft has been notified but some listings remain active.

Sources:

freeroute

Record 29.7 Tbps DDoS Attack Linked to AISURU Botnet with up to 4 Million Infected Hosts

Cloudflare on Wednesday said it detected and mitigated the largest ever distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that measured at 29.7 terabits per second (Tbps).

The activity, the web infrastructure and security company said, originated from a DDoS botnet-for-hire known as AISURU, which has been linked to a number of hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks over the past year. The attack lasted for 69 seconds. It did not disclose the target of the attack.

The botnet has prominently targeted telecommunication providers, gaming companies, hosting providers, and financial services. Also tackled by Cloudflare was a 14.1 Bpps DDoS attack from the same botnet. AISURU is believed to be powered by a massive network comprising an estimated 1-4 million infected hosts worldwide.
...
As many as 36.2 million DDoS attacks were thwarted in 2025, of which 1,304 were network-layer attacks exceeding 1 Tbps, up from 717 in Q1 2025 and 846 in Q2 2025. Some of the other notable trends observed in Q3 2025 are listed below -

The number of DDoS attacks that exceeded 100 million packets per second (Mpps) increased by 189% QoQ.
Most attacks, 71% of HTTP DDoS and 89% of network layer, end in under 10 minutes.
Seven out of the 10 top sources of DDoS are locations within Asia, including Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The other three sources are Ecuador, Russia, and Ukraine.
DDoS attacks against the mining, minerals, and metals industry surged, making it the 49th most attacked sector globally.
The automotive industry saw the largest increase in DDoS attacks, placing it as the sixth most attacked sector globally.
DDoS attack traffic against artificial intelligence (AI) companies spiked by 347% in September 2025
Information technology, telecommunications, gambling, gaming, and internet services topped the list of most attacked sectors.
China, Turkey, Germany, Brazil, the U.S., Russia, Vietnam, Canada, South Korea, and the Philippines were the most attacked countries.
Nearly 70% of HTTP DDoS attacks originated from known botnets.

Source:

https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/record-297-tbps-ddos-attack-linked-to.html?m=1

freeroute

Critical flaw in WordPress add-on for Elementor exploited in attacks

Attackers are exploiting a critical-severity privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2025–8489) in the King Addons for Elementor plugin for WordPress, which lets them obtain administrative permissions during the registration process.

The threat activity started on October 31, just a day after the issue was publicly disclosed. So far, the Wordfence security scanner from Defiant, a company that provides security services for WordPress websites, has blocked more than 48,400 exploit attempts.

King Addons is a third-party add-on for Elementor, a popular visual page builder plugin for WordPress sites. It is used on roughly 10,000 websites, providing additional widgets, templates, and features.

CVE-2025–8489, discovered by researcher Peter Thaleikis, is a flaw in the plugin’s registration handler that allows anyone signing up to specify their user role on the website, including the administrator role, without enforcing any restrictions.

According to observations from Wordfence, attackers send a crafted ‘admin-ajax.php’ request specifying ‘user_role=administrator,’ to create rogue admin accounts on targeted sites.
The researchers noticed a peak in the exploitation activity between November 9 and 10, with two IP addresses being the most active: 45.61.157.120 (28,900 attempts) and 2602:fa59:3:424::1 (16,900 attempts).

Wordfence provides a more extensive list of offensive IP addresses and recommends that website administrators look for them in the log files. The presence of new administrator accounts is also a clear sign of compromise.

Website owners are advised to upgrade to version 51.1.35 of King Addons, which addresses CVE-2025–8489, released on September 25.

Wordfence researchers are also warning of another critical vulnerability in the Advanced Custom Fields: Extended plugin, active on more than 100,000 WordPress websites, which can be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker to execute code remotely.

The flaw affects versions 0.9.0.5 through 0.9.1.1 of the plugin and is currently tracked as CVE-2025-13486. It was discovered and reported responsibly by Marcin Dudek, the head of the national computer emergency response team (CERT) in Poland.

The vulnerability is "due to the function accepting user input and then passing that through call_user_func_array(),” Wordfence explains.

“This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code on the server, which can be leveraged to inject backdoors or create new administrative user accounts.”

The security issue was reported on November 18, and the plugin vendor addressed it in version 0.9.2 of Advanced Custom Fields: Extended, released a day after receiving the vulnerability report.

Given that the flaw can be leveraged without authentication only through a crafted request, the public disclosure of technical details is likely to generate malicious activity.

Website owners are advised to move to the latest version as soon as possible or disable the plugin on their sites.

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/critical-flaw-in-wordpress-add-on-for-elementor-exploited-in-attacks/

cyclone

Massive 16 Terabyte Database With 4.3 Billion-Records Leaked

A massive unprotected MongoDB instance containing over 4.3 billion records and totaling roughly 16 TB of data was discovered exposed online. The dataset included highly structured professional and corporate intelligence data, much of it clearly scraped from LinkedIn and enriched through lead-generation pipelines. The exposed collections contained PII such as full names, emails, phone numbers, LinkedIn profile URLs, employment history, skills, education, location data, and even photographs.

The leak, uncovered by cybersecurity researcher Bob Diachenko on November 23rd, 2025, consisted of nine major collections. Three of those - profiles, unique_profiles, and people - alone contained nearly 2 billion individual PII-rich entries. The dataset also referenced an “Apollo ID”, suggesting potential linkage to Apollo-style sales intelligence ecosystems or enrichment tools.

The structured nature of the data, combined with its massive scale, makes it extremely attractive to threat actors. Attackers could weaponize the PII for targeted phishing, CEO fraud, corporate reconnaissance, credential stuffing, and AI-assisted social engineering at unprecedented volume. With up-to-date professional metadata, malicious operators can automatically craft convincing spear-phishing messages or build large internal mapping structures of corporate roles and contacts.

The exposed database was secured on November 25th, the day after responsible disclosure, but it is unknown how long it had been publicly accessible. Given the size and organization of the dataset, researchers warn that malicious parties may have already accessed it.

This exposure adds to a growing trend of massive, scraping-driven data leaks, which now routinely exceed billions of records and blur the line between legally scraped data and high-risk breach material.

Sources:

cyclone

SoundCloud Confirms Data Breach

SoundCloud has confirmed a security breach after users reported widespread outages and 403 errors when accessing the platform through VPNs. According to the company, the issues were caused by its incident response after detecting unauthorized access to an ancillary service dashboard.

SoundCloud stated that a threat actor accessed a limited database containing user email addresses and information already visible on public profiles. The company said no passwords, financial data, or other sensitive information were exposed.

Sources cited by BleepingComputer estimate the breach impacts roughly 20 percent of SoundCloud’s user base, potentially affecting around 28 million accounts. SoundCloud says all unauthorized access has been blocked and that there is no ongoing risk.

As part of its response, SoundCloud implemented security configuration changes that disrupted VPN connectivity. The company has not provided a timeline for restoring full VPN access. It also reported experiencing denial-of-service attacks following the incident, briefly affecting site availability.

While SoundCloud has not named the attackers, BleepingComputer reports that the ShinyHunters extortion group is allegedly behind the breach and is attempting to extort the company after stealing user data.

Sources:

cyclone

2025 Cybersecurity Predictions vs Reality

This article reviews 90+ predictions from 36 cybersecurity experts and compares them to what actually occurred in 2025. The main finding: most predictions were accurate, especially those focused on AI amplifying existing threats rather than creating new ones.

Key Outcomes

AI Amplified Existing Attacks

AI was widely adopted by attackers to scale and automate known techniques.
Observed uses included AI-assisted phishing, automated recon, and malware with runtime code mutation to evade detection.
Underground markets began selling configurable AI-powered attack tools.
AI reduced the skill barrier and increased attack speed and volume.

Result: Prediction confirmed. AI increased efficiency, not novelty.

SaaS, Cloud, and Identity Became the Main Attack Surface

SaaS misconfigurations, excessive permissions, insecure APIs, and third-party integrations were major breach drivers.
Identity and access failures eclipsed traditional perimeter security issues.
Large-scale cloud outages were often caused by configuration errors.

Result: Prediction confirmed. Identity and SaaS security became critical weaknesses.

Ransomware Fragmented Further

Law enforcement pressure led to more, smaller ransomware groups rather than fewer.
30 to 40 percent increase in active ransomware operators.
Affiliates increasingly moved between groups, complicating attribution.

Result: Prediction confirmed. Ransomware evolved into a fragmented ecosystem.

Supply Chain Attacks Increased

Enterprises were compromised through trusted vendors and enterprise software.
SaaS and third-party providers became common initial access vectors.

Result: Prediction confirmed. Vendor risk became a primary concern.

Data Became the Core Security Asset

Data protection and governance overtook infrastructure as the main security focus.
Large credential leaks and AI training on sensitive data accelerated this shift.
Data visibility and classification became prerequisites for AI use.

Result: Prediction confirmed. Data security underpins most modern risks.

Regulation Added Complexity Without Reducing Attacks

Increased compliance and reporting requirements did not deter attackers.
Regulatory burden primarily impacted internal operations, not threat actors.

Result: Prediction confirmed. Regulation did not materially change the threat landscape.

Bottom Line
2025 validated long-standing warnings rather than introducing new threat classes.
The biggest risks were known problems amplified by AI, automation, and scale, not futuristic scenarios.

Source:

https://cybernews.com/news/did-cybersecurity-expert-predictions-2025-come-true/

cyclone

Verizon Nationwide Outage (Jan. 14, 2026)

Verizon Communications experienced a major nationwide wireless network outage beginning around midday on January 14, 2026, disrupting voice, text, and mobile data services across the United States for approximately ten hours. Customers reported their phones showing “SOS” or “SOS-only” status in place of normal signal bars, indicating loss of cellular connectivity.

Outage monitoring sites such as DownDetector logged hundreds of thousands of reports at the peak, with impacts reported coast-to-coast in major metropolitan areas including New York City, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, and others. Some local officials warned that emergency calls (911) for Verizon users could be unreliable during the disruption, recommending alternatives such as landlines or other carriers where possible.

Verizon acknowledged the outage via social media and later confirmed that service was restored late Wednesday night. The company apologized for the interruption and stated it will issue account credits to affected customers. Verizon did not immediately disclose a specific technical cause, though internal reviews are expected.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) indicated it would review the outage’s impact on network reliability and public safety communications.

Sources:

cyclone

Atomic Wallet - Where Did My XMR Go?

Many Atomic Wallet users recently logged in to find their Monero (XMR) balances missing or incorrect, causing understandable concern.

According to Atomic Wallet support, this is a display and synchronization issue specific to Monero, not a loss of funds. Atomic states that all XMR remains safe on-chain and that their development team is working on a fix. Once synchronization is corrected, balances and transaction history should update normally.

Users can independently confirm their funds by restoring their XMR wallet in another trusted Monero wallet using their existing keys or seed phrase. Multiple users report that their full balances appear correctly when checked outside Atomic, confirming the issue is isolated to Atomic’s wallet interface.

Given Atomic Wallet’s 2023 security breach, users are understandably cautious. While this situation appears unrelated and no theft has been reported, verifying balances independently is recommended.

Summary

Issue affects XMR balance display in Atomic Wallet
Funds are still on-chain and under user control
Atomic says a fix is in progress
Users can verify funds using another Monero wallet
Use caution, verify independently, and never share your private keys or seed phrase with anyone

Sources:

@cyclone (independent verification with Atomic)
https://x.com/AtomicWallet/status/2011796132112826643

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cyclone

Ivanti EPMM Zero-Day RCE - CVE-2026-1281 & CVE-2026-1340

Ivanti has disclosed two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM), tracked as CVE-2026-1281 and CVE-2026-1340. Both flaws are unauthenticated code injection issues that allow remote attackers to achieve arbitrary code execution on affected EPMM appliances. Active exploitation has been confirmed, and CVE-2026-1281 has been added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

The vulnerabilities affect EPMM 12.x versions prior to 12.8.0.0 and are tied to In-House Application Distribution and Android File Transfer Configuration features. Successful exploitation grants full control over the EPMM appliance, enabling attackers to establish persistence, access sensitive mobile device management data, and potentially pivot into connected enterprise environments.

Ivanti has released interim RPM-based patches, though these must be reapplied after upgrades. A permanent fix is scheduled for EPMM 12.8.0.0. Organizations are strongly advised to apply mitigations immediately, review logs for signs of exploitation, and treat exposed EPMM instances as high-risk assets.

Source:

https://thehackernews.com/2026/01/two-ivanti-epmm-zero-day-rce-flaws.html

cyclone

Notepad++ Supply Chain Compromised

What Happened

Notepad++ was involved in a supply chain compromise where parts of its update delivery infrastructure were breached. The application’s source code was not modified, but attackers were able to tamper with the update distribution path for a limited period. In targeted cases, users running older versions and using the built-in updater could have been redirected to malicious installer binaries hosted on attacker-controlled infrastructure.

The campaign appears to have been highly targeted rather than mass exploitation, consistent with espionage-style activity. The issue was identified and remediated after the Notepad++ team migrated infrastructure and tightened update security.

Impact

Risk was limited primarily to older Notepad++ versions using legacy update mechanisms.
Users who did manual downloads from trusted mirrors were unlikely to be affected.
No evidence suggests the official source repository itself was compromised.

What Users Should Do

Update immediately to the latest Notepad++ version using a fresh manual download from the official site or trusted mirrors.
Verify digital signatures and hashes of the installer before execution.
If Notepad++ was updated automatically during the affected timeframe:
- Treat the system as potentially exposed.
- Run endpoint security scans.
- Review network logs for suspicious outbound connections.
Enterprise environments should audit systems where Notepad++ is installed and consider blocking auto-updaters that lack strict signature validation.

Sources:

cyclone

Windows Notepad Remote Code Execution - CVE-2026-20841

Summary

Not to be outdone by the recent Notepad++ RCE, the Windows Notepad CVE-2026-20841 is a high-severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability affecting the modern Windows Notepad application. The issue was introduced after Microsoft added Markdown and rich link support to Notepad.

The vulnerability stems from improper sanitation of special elements within commands, effectively allowing command injection via crafted Markdown links.

Technical Details

An attacker can craft a malicious .md file containing a specially constructed link. When a user opens the file in Notepad and Ctrl-clicks the link, the application may invoke external protocols or executables without sufficient validation or security warnings.

Successful exploitation allows arbitrary code execution in the context of the logged-in user.

Key Characteristics

Type: Remote Code Execution
Vector: Malicious Markdown file with crafted link
User Interaction Required: Yes (file open + link click)
Privileges Gained: Same as current user
Attack Surface: Expanded via Markdown rendering and clickable links

Impact

If exploited, an attacker could:

Execute arbitrary binaries
Download and run malware
Establish persistence
Perform lateral movement (depending on user privileges)

However, there were no confirmed in-the-wild exploits at the time of disclosure.

Remediation

Microsoft addressed the vulnerability in the February 2026 Patch Tuesday updates for the Windows 11 Notepad flaw by displaying warnings when clicking a link if it does not use the http:// or https:// protocol.

Sources:

cyclone

Chrome CSS Zero-Day (CVE-2026-2441) – Active Exploitation Confirmed

Google has released an emergency security update for Chrome after confirming active exploitation of a high-severity zero-day vulnerability in the browser’s CSS handling engine.

The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-2441, is a use-after-free memory corruption issue in Chrome’s CSS parsing/rendering component. Although CSS is generally considered non-executable, improper memory management allows attackers to craft malicious webpages that can trigger arbitrary code execution within the Chrome renderer process.

Key Details:

Type: Use-after-free (memory corruption)
Component: Chrome CSS engine
Severity: High (CVSS ~8.8)
Exploitation: Confirmed in the wild
Impact: Remote code execution via malicious webpage

Successful exploitation requires a victim to visit a specially crafted website. While Chrome’s sandbox limits direct system access, attackers often chain renderer bugs with sandbox escapes for full compromise.

Google has patched the issue in the latest stable release. All users, especially enterprise environments and those running Chromium-based browsers (Edge, Brave, Opera), should update immediately.

Sources:

freeroute

New AirSnitch attack breaks Wi-Fi encryption in homes, offices, and enterprises
That guest network you set up for your neighbors may not be as secure as you think.

To prevent malicious Wi-Fi clients from attacking other clients on the same network, vendors have introduced
client isolation, a combination of mechanisms that block direct communication between clients. However, client isolation is not a standardized feature, making its security guarantees unclear.

Source: New AirSnitch attack breaks Wi-Fi encryption in homes, offices, and enterprises
Github: https://github.com/vanhoefm/airsnitch
AirSnitch: Demystifying and Breaking Client Isolation in Wi-Fi Networks

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Key Findings

Impact

Recommendations

What Happened

Impact

What Users Should Do

Summary

Technical Details

Key Characteristics

Impact

Remediation

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