| The Record from Recorded Future News therecord.media Suzanne Smalley
September 11th, 2025
Switzerland-based providers of secure email, VPNs and other digital services say a pending government proposal would be catastrophic to their ability to protect the privacy of users.
The Swiss government could soon require service providers with more than 5,000 users to collect government-issued identification, retain subscriber data for six months and, in many cases, disable encryption.
The proposal, which is not subject to parliamentary approval, has alarmed privacy and digital-freedoms advocates worldwide because of how it will destroy anonymity online, including for people located outside of Switzerland.
A large number of virtual private network (VPN) companies and other privacy-preserving firms are headquartered in the country because it has historically had liberal digital privacy laws alongside its famously discreet banking ecosystem.
Proton, which offers secure and end-to-end encrypted email along with an ultra-private VPN and cloud storage, announced on July 23 that it is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland due to the proposed law.
The company is investing more than €100 million in the European Union, the announcement said, and plans to help develop a “sovereign EuroStack for the future of our home continent.” Switzerland is not a member of the EU.
Proton said the decision was prompted by the Swiss government’s attempt to “introduce mass surveillance.”
Proton founder and CEO Andy Yen told Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) that the suggested regulation would be illegal in the EU and United States.
"The only country in Europe with a roughly equivalent law is Russia," Yen said.
One of the Swiss officials spearheading the effort told a Swiss news outlet that strict safeguards will be used to protect against mass surveillance. The official, Jean-Louis Biberstein, described the effort as necessary to fight cyberattacks, organized crime and terrorism.
It is unclear when the proposed regulation will be implemented. The Swiss government must give the public the right to comment during a “consultation” process before imposing the rule, NymVPN chief operating officer Alexis Roussel told Recorded Future News.
“There is a great worrying paradox, when the need for privacy tech is becoming so important to protect citizens to have a state that actively destroys its own local privacy industry," Roussel said.
Nym is among a coalition of industry players, politicians and digital-freedoms organizations opposing the measure.
Roussel believes the government will tweak the proposal in response to the intense backlash, but said he doesn’t think the changes will be significant enough to address his concerns.
The metadata the regulation would allow law enforcement to seize is “where most value for surveillance resides, in who you speak to and when,” Roussel said.
Internet users would no longer be able to register for a service with just an email address or anonymously and would instead have to provide their passport, drivers license or another official ID to subscribe, said Chloé Berthélémy, senior policy adviser at European Digital Rights (eDRI), an association of civil and human rights organizations from across Europe.
The regulation also includes a mass data retention obligation requiring that service providers keep users’ email addresses, phone numbers and names along with IP addresses and device port numbers for six months, Berthélémy said. Port numbers are unique identifiers that send data to a specific application or service on a computer.
All authorities would need to do to obtain the data, Berthélémy said, is make a simple request that would circumvent existing legal control mechanisms such as court orders.
“The right to anonymity is supporting a very wide range of communities and individuals who are seeking safety online,” Berthélémy said.
“In a world where we have increasing attacks from governments on specific minority groups, on human rights defenders, journalists, any kind of watchdogs and anyone who holds those in power accountable, it's very crucial that we … preserve our privacy online in order to do those very crucial missions.”
krebsonsecurity.com Krebs on Security September 11, 2025
In May 2025, the European Union levied financial sanctions on the owners of Stark Industries Solutions Ltd., a bulletproof hosting provider that materialized two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine and quickly became a top source of Kremlin-linked cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.…
Materializing just two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Stark Industries Solutions became a frequent source of massive DDoS attacks, Russian-language proxy and VPN services, malware tied to Russia-backed hacking groups, and fake news. ISPs like Stark are called “bulletproof” providers when they cultivate a reputation for ignoring any abuse complaints or police inquiries about activity on their networks.
In May 2025, the European Union sanctioned one of Stark’s two main conduits to the larger Internet — Moldova-based PQ Hosting — as well as the company’s Moldovan owners Yuri and Ivan Neculiti. The EU Commission said the Neculiti brothers and PQ Hosting were linked to Russia’s hybrid warfare efforts.
But a new report from Recorded Future finds that just prior to the sanctions being announced, Stark rebranded to the[.]hosting, under control of the Dutch entity WorkTitans BV (AS209847) on June 24, 2025. The Neculiti brothers reportedly got a heads up roughly 12 days before the sanctions were announced, when Moldovan and EU media reported on the forthcoming inclusion of the Neculiti brothers in the sanctions package.
In response, the Neculiti brothers moved much of Stark’s considerable address space and other resources over to a new company in Moldova called PQ Hosting Plus S.R.L., an entity reportedly connected to the Neculiti brothers thanks to the re-use of a phone number from the original PQ Hosting.
“Although the majority of associated infrastructure remains attributable to Stark Industries, these changes likely reflect an attempt to obfuscate ownership and sustain hosting services under new legal and network entities,” Recorded Future observed.
Neither the Recorded Future report nor the May 2025 sanctions from the EU mentioned a second critical pillar of Stark’s network that KrebsOnSecurity identified in a May 2024 profile on the notorious bulletproof hoster: The Netherlands-based hosting provider MIRhosting.
MIRhosting is operated by 38-year old Andrey Nesterenko, whose personal website says he is an accomplished concert pianist who began performing publicly at a young age. DomainTools says mirhosting[.]com is registered to Mr. Nesterenko and to Innovation IT Solutions Corp, which lists addresses in London and in Nesterenko’s stated hometown of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.
According to the book Inside Cyber Warfare by Jeffrey Carr, Innovation IT Solutions Corp. was responsible for hosting StopGeorgia[.]ru, a hacktivist website for organizing cyberattacks against Georgia that appeared at the same time Russian forces invaded the former Soviet nation in 2008. That conflict was thought to be the first war ever fought in which a notable cyberattack and an actual military engagement happened simultaneously.
Mr. Nesterenko did not respond to requests for comment. In May 2024, Mr. Nesterenko said he couldn’t verify whether StopGeorgia was ever a customer because they didn’t keep records going back that far. But he maintained that Stark Industries Solutions Inc. was merely one client of many, and claimed MIRhosting had not received any actionable complaints about abuse on Stark.
However, it appears that MIRhosting is once again the new home of Stark Industries, and that MIRhosting employees are managing both the[.]hosting and WorkTitans — the primary beneficiaries of Stark’s assets.
A copy of the incorporation documents for WorkTitans BV obtained from the Dutch Chamber of Commerce shows WorkTitans also does business under the names Misfits Media and and WT Hosting (considering Stark’s historical connection to Russian disinformation websites, “Misfits Media” is a bit on the nose).
The incorporation document says the company was formed in 2019 by a y.zinad@worktitans.nl. That email address corresponds to a LinkedIn account for a Youssef Zinad, who says their personal websites are worktitans[.]nl and custom-solution[.]nl. The profile also links to a website (etripleasims dot nl) that LinkedIn currently blocks as malicious. All of these websites are or were hosted at MIRhosting.
Although Mr. Zinad’s LinkedIn profile does not mention any employment at MIRhosting, virtually all of his LinkedIn posts over the past year have been reposts of advertisements for MIRhosting’s services.
ncsc.admin.ch Office fédéral de la cybersécurité OFCS 09.09.2025 -
L’OFCS enregistre actuellement de nombreux signalements concernant des SMS prétendant être des amendes de stationnement en Suisse romande. Il est frappant de constater que les personnes concernées par ces SMS de phishing se trouvent toujours au préalable dans des lieux similaires. Cela indique que les cybercriminels utilisent dans ces cas des outils techniques permettant de manipuler l’envoi de SMS. À l’aide de petites stations de téléphonie mobile portables et manipulées, qui tiennent dans un sac à dos, les fraudeurs peuvent par exemple capter le signal mobile des téléphones et envoyer ainsi des SMS aux appareils situés à proximité.
Au cours des dernières semaines, le service de signalement de l’OFCS a reçu de nombreux signalements concernant des tentatives d’hameçonnage par SMS envoyés à des personnes en Suisse romande. Les tentatives d’hameçonnage par le biais de prétendues amendes de stationnement sont un phénomène connu et sont régulièrement signalées à l’OFCS. Les personnes concernées reçoivent des e-mails ou des SMS de cybercriminels se faisant passer pour des policiers, leur indiquant qu’elles ont un retard de paiement d’une amende. Le message contient un lien vers une fausse page de paiement qui ressemble à s’y méprendre au portail officiel des autorités. Les demandes sont délibérément formulées de manière vague afin de toucher le plus grand nombre possible de destinataires. L’objectif des malfaiteurs est de récupérer les données de cartes de crédit ou d’autres informations personnelles.
Alors que les fausses contraventions ont principalement été envoyées par e-mail ces dernières semaines, elles sont désormais envoyées par SMS.
SMS avec la fausse amende de stationnement (à gauche). Le lien renvoie vers un faux site web sur lequel il faut payer l’amende et saisir les données de sa carte de crédit.
SMS avec la fausse amende de stationnement (à gauche). Le lien renvoie vers un faux site web sur lequel il faut payer l’amende et saisir les données de sa carte de crédit.
Tous les destinataires en Suisse romande
Les nouveaux signalements présentent en outre un élément commun notable. Tous les destinataires se trouvaient dans la même zone géographique dans la romandie, peu avant la réception du SMS. Cette constatation laisse supposer l’existence d’une méthode permettant aux fraudeurs d’envoyer des SMS de manière ciblée à leurs victimes. Un signalant a fourni une autre information précieuse : la norme de téléphonie mobile de son smartphone est passée de la 4G à la 2G peu avant la réception du SMS. Il a ensuite reçu le SMS contenant le lien frauduleux, après quoi le standard est repassé à la 4G. Tous ces indices suggèrent que les attaquants utilisent ce qu’on appelle un « SMS Blaster ».
Une nouvelle dimension : le phishing via SMS Blaster
Un SMS Blaster permet d’envoyer des messages texte (SMS) à plusieurs personnes simultanément. Il s’agit d’un appareil mobile, de la taille d’un boîtier d’ordinateur, qui se fait passer pour une antenne-relais de téléphonie mobile. Les cybercriminels cachent ces appareils dans des coffres de voiture, des sacs à dos ou les transportent à vélo. L’appareil émet un signal puissant et demande à tous les smartphones situés dans un rayon de 500 à 1 000 mètres de se connecter à lui.
L’astuce perfide : l’appareil se fait passer pour la meilleure station de base disponible. Dès que votre smartphone se connecte, vous recevez automatiquement un faux SMS, sans que les fraudeurs aient besoin de connaître votre numéro de téléphone. Il existe également des mécanismes qui garantissent qu’un appareil ne se connecte qu’une seule fois à la fausse station de base mobile pendant une période donnée et ne reçoit le SMS qu’une seule fois, de sorte que l’attaquant peut circuler plusieurs fois autour du même site.
Comment fonctionne ce type d’attaque ?
Les SMS Blaster sont une évolution des IMSI Catcher. Les IMSI Catcher sont des appareils qui permettent de lire l’International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) enregistrée sur la carte SIM d’un téléphone portable et de localiser un téléphone portable à l’intérieur d’une cellule radio. Les SMS Blaster exploitent cette technologie en combinaison avec une faille dans la norme de téléphonie mobile 2G obsolète : les IMSI Catcher associés à cette faille sont utilisés pour envoyer des SMS aux appareils des utilisatrices et utilisateurs à l’insu de leur opérateur mobile. Cela permet de contourner les filtres SMS mis en place et étendus par l’opérateur, seuls les filtres installés sur l’appareil (le cas échéant) restant actifs.
Sur le plan technique, il s’agit de fausses stations de base de téléphonie mobile (FBS) qui se connectent à un réseau mobile et se font passer pour des cellules radio légitimes.
Une séquence typique :
Les appareils envoient un signal puissant pour inciter les téléphones portables situés à proximité à se connecter à eux.
L’appareil force le téléphone portable à passer en 2G, un réseau obsolète présentant des failles connues.
Une autre faille permet d’envoyer directement à l’appareil n’importe quel SMS avec un expéditeur falsifié.
Le numéro de l’expéditeur ne peut être ni vérifié ni bloqué, car il peut être choisi librement.
La lutte contre ces menaces passe par la coopération
L’OFCS est conscient de la menace que représente SMS Blaster et collabore étroitement avec les polices cantonales, les entreprises de télécommunication, le Service de renseignement de la Confédération (SRC) et l’Office fédéral de la communication (OFCOM) afin de contrer ce phénomène.
Recommandations
Méfiez-vous des SMS qui vous demandent d’effectuer un paiement, en particulier ceux qui font état d’amendes de stationnement.
Ne cliquez pas sur les liens contenus dans des SMS suspects.
Ne saisissez jamais vos données personnelles ou vos numéros de carte de crédit sur des sites inconnus.
Vérifiez toujours les demandes directement auprès des autorités officielles.dans des lieux similaires. Cela indique que les cybercriminels utilisent dans ces cas des outils techniques permettant de manipuler l’envoi de SMS. À l’aide de petites stations de téléphonie mobile portables et manipulées, qui tiennent dans un sac à dos, les fraudeurs peuvent par exemple capter le signal mobile des téléphones et envoyer ainsi des SMS aux appareils situés à proximité.
san.com straightarrownews Sep 08, 2025 at 06:20 PM GMT+2
Mikael Thalen (Tech Reporter)
Summary
Sensitive data leaked
More than 2,000 files linked to former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson were stolen by hackers and leaked online.
‘Devastating’ breach
Cybersecurity experts describe the leak as a serious exposure of data belonging to a world leader.
‘High-priority target’
A former U.K. official says the breach could be related to an influence campaign by a foreign adversary.
Full story
Leaked computer files tied to former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson offer an unprecedented glimpse into a scandal over COVID-19 protocols, his response to the Ukraine war and his private views on world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. The hack also found documents pitching a reality television show.
Taken together, the files paint an intimate portrait of the former politician’s day-to-day activities, including during his time as prime minister from 2019 to 2022.
Straight Arrow News obtained the more than 2,000 files from the nonprofit leak archiver DDoSecrets. Unidentified hackers quietly posted the data online last year, according to DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best, but it has not been previously reported.
SAN sent an inquiry to Johnson’s office, where the data appears to have originated, as well as to Johnson’s personal email address, but did not receive a reply.
Little is known about the details surrounding the breach and those responsible. But cybersecurity experts describe the data leak as a serious exposure of information in the hands of a world leader.
“It’s obviously a devastating compromise if personal emails, documents and the like have been collected and breached,” Shashank Joshi, visiting fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, told SAN.
World leaders are regularly targeted by both criminal and nation-state hackers. In 2020, according to researchers at Citizen Lab, the University of Toronto-based group that specializes in spyware detection, multiple phones at Johnson’s office and the foreign office were compromised.
That attack, which Citizen Lab linked to the United Arab Emirates, was carried out with the advanced Israeli-made spyware known as Pegasus. Both the UAE and NSO Group, the company behind the spyware, denied involvement.
Rob Pritchard, the former deputy head of the U.K.’s Cyber Security Operations Centre and founder of the consulting firm The Cyber Security Expert, told SAN that it is entirely possible that the hack of Johnson could be tied to an influence operation from a foreign adversary.
“I think this really highlights the importance of ensuring good practices when it comes to cybersecurity, especially for high-profile individuals,” Pritchard said. “Ex-prime ministers will undoubtedly still be very high-priority targets for a range of countries, and their private office will hold sensitive information, if not actually classified information in the strict sense.”
‘Security briefing: Nuclear’
A folder titled “Travel” underscores the hack’s intrusiveness.
It includes photos of Johnson’s passport and driver’s license, as well as his visa information for Australia, Canada, Kurdistan, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Identifying documents for family and staff are also present.
Itineraries outlining visits to numerous countries offer insight into Johnson’s routine. One U.S. visit, which does not include a date but appears to have been during President Donald Trump’s first term, shows efforts by Johnson to meet prominent politicians, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Other itineraries, including one for a November 2023 visit to Israel, mention Johnson’s security measures. The document states that although Johnson did not bring a protection force of his own, “4 Israeli private security agents” would look after his group while “on the ground.”
Documents related to a November 2022 visit to Egypt show the names and phone numbers of two individuals tasked with protecting Johnson while in the city of Sharm El-Sheikh. The travel folder also contains documents related to VIP suite bookings at London Gatwick Airport and COVID-19 vaccination records for those traveling with Johnson.
Another folder called “Speeches” contains dozens of notes and transcripts for talks by Johnson both during and after his tenure. Invoices show how much Johnson charged for several speaking engagements in 2024 after leaving office, including $350,000 for a speech to Masdar, a clean energy company in the UAE. After deductions, however, Johnson appears to have pocketed $94,459.08.
The usernames, passwords, phone numbers and email addresses used for Johnson’s accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Threads are exposed as well in a file marked “confidential.”
Another folder, labeled “DIARY,” includes Johnson’s daily schedules, marked as both “sensitive” and “confidential,” during his time as prime minister. One schedule from July 2019 simply states, “Security briefing: Nuclear.” Another entry from that month: “Telephone call with the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.”
‘Partygate’
A folder titled “Notebooks” includes scans of hundreds of pages of Johnson’s handwritten notes. Many sections have been redacted with “National Security” warnings.
SAN confirmed that the documents are related to the U.K.’s independent public inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic, which required Johnson to hand over copies of his diaries and notebooks. Although many of the documents related to the inquiry were made public, those obtained by SAN were not.
The investigation found that Johnson attended numerous social gatherings during the pandemic in breach of COVID-19 lockdown regulations. The ensuing scandal, known as “Partygate,” ultimately led to Johnson’s resignation.
In one notebook entry dated March 19, 2020, Johnson writes that “some very difficult rationing decisions” would be required because of the pandemic’s strain on the U.K.’s medical system.
Another entry regarding the 2021 G7 summit in Cornwall, England, highlights the issues Johnson planned to discuss with numerous world leaders, including former President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
‘It would only take one missile’
The data cache contains 160 emails from the first 22 months following Johnson’s tenure as prime minister. They appear to have come from the account of Johnson’s senior adviser.
These emails discuss Johnson’s private endeavors, including a document pitching a reality TV show to popular streaming platforms, complete with AI-generated photos of the former world leader.
One of the later emails contained in the breach, dated June 10, 2024, shows attempts by the U.K.’s National Security Secretariat to schedule a meeting with Johnson regarding “a sensitive security issue” almost two years after he left office.
The email, sent on behalf of Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Collins, noted a “strong preference” for an in-person meeting with the former prime minister. It’s unclear what spurred the meeting request and whether it was related to the breach.
The final folder from the leaked data involves the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Notes on a widely reported phone call between Johnson and Russian President Vladimir Putin from February 2022 offer insight into the former prime minister’s thinking. The conversation is described by Johnson, who makes specific mention of Putin’s use of profanity, as “weirdly intimate in tone.”
Johnson also claims that Putin said, “I don’t want to hurt you boris but it would only take one missile.”
Johnson later revealed the threat in a 2023 documentary by the BBC. A Kremlin spokesperson responded by calling the claim a “lie.”
In another entry dated “25 October,” Johnson reminds himself to “call Putin” with an invite to a United Nations Climate Change Conference. Johnson notes that such events are “not really his bag since it is all about moving beyond hydrocarbons and he is paranoid about covid.”
The leak also contains a U.K. Defense Intelligence document dated December 2022 regarding the status of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The document includes numerous classification labels, such as sensitive, which denotes that it is not intended for public release. Other markings show that the document may only be shared with international partners in the European Union, NATO, Australia and New Zealand.
The U.K.’s Cabinet Office, which supports the prime minister, did not provide a statement when contacted by SAN.
Alan Judd (Content Editor) and Devin Pavlou (Digital Producer) contributed to this report.
databreaches.net Posted on September 8, 2025 by Dissent
Some data breaches make headlines for the number of people affected globally, such as a Facebook scraping incident in 2019 that affected 553 million people worldwide. Then there are breaches that affect a country’s entire population or much of it, such as a misconfigured database that exposed almost the entire population of Ecuador in 2019, an insider breach that compromised the information of almost all Israelis in 2006, a misconfigured voter database that exposed more than 75% of Mexican voters in 2016, and the UnitedHealth Change Healthcare ransomware incident in 2024 that affected more than 190 million Americans.
And now there’s Vietnam. ShinyHunters claims to have successfully attacked and exfiltrated more than 160 million records from the Credit Institute of Vietnam, which manages the country’s state-run National Credit Information Center. Vietnam National Credit Information Center is a public non-business organization directly under the State Bank of Vietnam, performing the function of national credit registration; collecting, processing, storing and analyzing credit information; preventing and limiting credit risks; scoring and rating the credit of legal entities and natural persons within the territory of Vietnam; and providing credit information products and services in accordance with the provisions of the State Bank and the law.
While those affiliated with ShinyHunters bragged on Telegram that Vietnam was “owned within 24 hours,” ShinyHunters listed the data for sale on a hacking forum, and provided a large sample of data from what they described as more than 160 million records with “very sensitive information including general PII, credit payment, risks analysis, Credit cards (require you’re own deciphering of the FDE algorithm), Military ID’s, Government ID’s Tax ID’s, Income Statements, debts owed, and more.”
DataBreaches asked ShinyHunters for additional details about the incident, including how many unique individuals were in the data, because the country’s entire population is slightly under 102 million. ShinyHunters responded that the data set included historical data. They stated that they did not know how many unique individuals were involved, but were pretty sure they got the entire population.
Because this incident did not seem to be consistent with ShinyHunters’ recent campaigns, DataBreaches asked how they picked the target and how they gained access. According to ShinyHunters, they picked the target because it held a massive amount of data. The total amount or records (line) across all tables was like 3 billion or more, they said, and they gained access by an n-day exploit. On follow-up, DataBreaches asked whether this was an exploit that CIC could have been able to patch. There was no actual patch available, Shiny stated, as the software was end-of-life.
In response to a question as to whether the CIC had responded to any extortion or ransom demands, ShinyHunters stated that there had been no ransom attempt at all because ShinyHunters assumed they would not get any response at all.
DataBreaches emailed the CIC to ask them about the claims, but has received no reply by publication. If CIC responds to DataBreaches’ inquiries, this post will be updated, but it is important to note that there is no confirmation of ShinyHunters’ claims at this point, however credible their claims may appear.
It is also important to note that this post has referred to this as an attack by ShinyHunters and has not attributed it to Scattered Spider or Lapsus$. When DataBreaches asked which group(s) to attribute this to, ShinyHunters had replied, “It wasn’t a Scattered Spider type of hack … so ShinyHunters.” ShinyHunters acknowledged that they need to deal with the name situation, but said, “I don’t know how to fix the name problem considering for years everyone thought both are completely different groups.”
oxfordmail.co.uk | Oxford Mail By Madeleine Evans
Digital reporter
The Clarkson's Farm presenter said The Farmer's Dog pub in Burford has been the latest victim of cyber criminals, the same ones who launched massive attacks on M&S and Co-op in recent months.
Writing in his Sun column, the TV presenter-turned-farmer explained that the popular country pub had been hit too.
The former journalist wrote: "So, Jaguar Land Rover had to shut down its production lines this week after systems were breached by computer hackers. And we are told similar attacks were launched in recent months on both M&S and the Co-op.
"But no one thought to mention that my pub, The Farmer’s Dog, has been hit too. It was though.
"Someone broke into our accounting system and helped themselves to £27,000."
The former Top Gear host purchased The Windmill pub in Asthall near Burford for around £1,000,000.
The pub reopened to the public one year ago on August 22, 2024, at midday after being renamed The Farmer’s Dog.
Since it's opening, the 65-year-old celebrity owner has described running it as "more stressful" than running the farm.
The cyber attack comes as the latest set back in a string of difficulties facing the Diddly Squat farmer, as he's come up against local councils, Oxfordshire residents and farming issues all documented in his hit Amazon Prime series Clarkson's Farm.
Series four of the documentary show was released across May and June this year, with eight new episodes dropping on Prime Video.
therecord.media The Record from Recorded Future News, Jonathan Greig
September 9th, 2025
New York Blood Center submitted documents to regulators in Maine, Texas, New Hampshire and California that confirmed the cyberattack, which they said was first discovered on January 26.
One of the largest independent blood centers serving over 75 million people across the U.S. began sending data breach notification letters to victims this week after suffering a ransomware attack in January.
New York Blood Center submitted documents to regulators in Maine, Texas, New Hampshire and California that confirmed the cyberattack, which they said was first discovered on January 26.
The organization left blank sections of the form in Maine that says how many total victims were affected by the attack but told regulators in Texas that 10,557 people from the state were impacted. In a letter on its website, New York Blood Center said the information stolen included some patient data as well as employee information.
The information stolen during the cyberattack includes names, health information and test results. For some current and former employees, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses or government ID cards and financial account information were also leaked.
An investigation into the attack found that hackers accessed New York Blood Center’s network between January 20 and 26, making copies of some files before launching the ransomware.
Founded in 1964, New York Blood Center controls multiple blood-related entities that collect about 4,000 units of blood products each day and serve more than 400 hospitals across dozens of states.
The organization also provides clinical services, apheresis, cell therapy, and diagnostic blood testing — much of which requires receiving clinical information from healthcare providers. The organization said some of this information was accessed by the hackers during the cyber incident.
The investigation into the ransomware attack was completed on June 30 and a final list of victims that needed to be notified was compiled by August 12.
New York Blood Center began mailing notification letters on September 5 but also posted a notice on its website and created a call center for those with questions.
Multiple blood donation and testing companies were attacked by ransomware gangs over the last year including OneBlood, Synnovis and South Africa’s national lab service.
The Record from Recorded Future News Jonathan Greig
September 10th, 2025
Nearly 200,000 Solana coins were stolen from SwissBorg, or about 2% of its assets, according to the platform's CEO. The company pledged to pay users back.
The SwissBorg platform said about $41 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen during a cyber incident affecting a partner company this week.
The Switzerland-based company confirmed industry reports of an incident but said its platform was not hacked. CEO Cyrus Fazel explained that an external decentralized finance wallet held by a partner was breached on Monday.
The stolen funds represent 2% of SwissBorg’s total assets, according to Fazel, and about 1% of users had cryptocurrency stolen. In total, 192,600 Solana (SOL) coins were stolen — which is worth more than $41 million as of Tuesday afternoon.
In an update on Tuesday, the company pledged to make all affected customers whole and is still investigating the incident.
SwissBorg officials said they are working with several blockchain security firms to investigate the incident and thanked Chainalysis as well as cryptocurrency investigator ZachXBT and others for their assistance in addressing the issue.
The partner company that was attacked, Kiln, released its own statement confirming that it was suffering from a cyberattack and said the root cause has been discovered. Kiln is a cryptocurrency infrastructure company.
“SwissBorg and Kiln are investigating an incident that may have involved unauthorized access to a wallet used for staking operations. The incident resulted in Solana funds being improperly removed from the wallet used for staking operations,” Kiln said in a blog post.
“Upon detection, SwissBorg and Kiln immediately activated an incident response plan, contained the activity, and engaged our security partners. SwissBorg has paused Solana staking transactions on the platform to ensure no other customers are impacted.”
Experts explained that the attack was sourced back to Kiln’s application programming interface (API) — which is used by SwissBorg to communicate with Solana. The hackers breached the API and stole funds through it.
Swissborg said it is also working with law enforcement on the incident and is trying to recover the stolen funds.
Fazel published a video about the incident, telling users that the platform has dealt with multiple cyberattacks in the past.
“We have all the agencies around the world that are really helping us to make sure that we are looking at every transaction. Some of the transactions actually have been blocked. All the different exchanges around the world are helping us,” he said.
“We have enough funds, and we'll find a compensation that will match your expectation. We are doing everything in our effort to make sure that this incident, as big as it is, will eventually be a small drop in the ocean of SwissBorg.”
The attack comes less than a month after a popular cryptocurrency platform in Turkey temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals following the theft of $49 million worth of coins.
Overall, more than $2 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen by hackers in the first half of 2025, according to the blockchain security firm Chainalysis.
by Sansec Forensics Team - sansec.io
Published in Threat Research − September 08, 2025
Adobe released an out-of-band emergency patch for SessionReaper (CVE-2025-54236). The bug may hand control of a store to unauthenticated attackers. Automated abuse is expected and merchants should act immediately.
Article updated: Sep 9th, 2025 13:48 UTC
Adobe broke their regular release schedule to publish a fix for a critical (9.1) flaw in all versions of Adobe Commerce and Magento. The bug, dubbed SessionReaper and assigned CVE-2025-54236, allows customer account takeover and unauthenticated remote code execution under certain conditions. Sansec was able to simulate the attack and so may less benign parties. It does not help that the Adobe patch was accidentally leaked last week, so bad actors may already be working on the exploit code.
Adobe's official advisory describes the impact as "an attacker could take over customer accounts," which does not mention the risk of remote code execution. The vulnerability researcher who discovered CVE-2025-54236 confirmed this on Slack:
"Blaklis
BTW, this is a potential preauth RCE, whatever the bulletin is saying.
Please patch ASAP"
SessionReaper is one of the more severe Magento vulnerabilities in its history, comparable to Shoplift (2015), Ambionics SQLi (2019), TrojanOrder (2022) and CosmicSting (2024). Each time, thousands of stores got hacked, sometimes within hours of the flaw being published.
Timeline
Aug 22nd: Adobe internally discusses emergency fix
Sep 4th: Adobe privately announces emergency fix to selected Commerce customers
Sep 9th: Adobe releases emergency patch for SessionReaper - CVE-2025-54236 in APSB25-88What merchants should do
If you are already using Sansec Shield, you are protected against this attack.
If you are not using Sansec Shield, you should test and deploy the patch as soon as possible. Because the patch disables internal Magento functionality, chances are that some of your custom/external code will break. Adobe published a developer guide with instructions.
If you cannot safely apply the patch within the next 24 hours, you should activate a WAF for immediate protection. Only two WAFs block this attack right now: Adobe Fastly and Sansec Shield.
If you did deploy the patch but not within 24 hours of publication, we recommend to run a malware scanner like eComscan to find any signs of compromise on your system. We also recommend to rotate your secret crypt key, as leaking it would allow attackers to update your CMS blocks indefinitely.
How the attack works
Our security team successfully reproduced one possible avenue to exploit SessionReaper, but there are likely multiple vectors. While we cannot disclose technical details that could aid attackers, the vulnerability follows a familiar pattern from last year's CosmicSting attack. The attack combines a malicious session with a nested deserialization bug in Magento's REST API.
The specific remote code execution vector appears to require file-based session storage. However, we recommend merchants using Redis or database sessions to take immediate action as well, as there are multiple ways to abuse this vulnerability.
Active exploitation
Sansec tracks ecommerce attacks in real-time around the globe. We have not seen any active abuse yet but will update this section when we do.
Follow live ecommerce attacks here.Acknowledgements
Credits to Blaklis for discovering the flaw.
Thanks to Scott Robinson, Pieter Hoste and Tu Van for additional research.
Sansec is not affiliated with Adobe and runs unbiased security research across the eCommerce ecosystem. Sansec protects 10% of all Magento stores worldwide.
SAP has addressed 21 new vulnerabilities affecting its products, including three critical severity issues impacting the NetWeaver software solution.
SAP NetWeaver is the foundation for SAP's business apps like ERP, CRM, SRM, and SCM, and acts as a modular middleware that is broadly deployed in large enterprise networks.
In its security bulletin for September, the provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software lists a vulnerability with a maximum severity score of 10 out of 10 that is identified as CVE-2025-42944.
The security issue is an insecure deserialization vulnerability in SAP NetWeaver (RMIP4), ServerCore 7.50.
An unauthenticated attacker could exploit it to achieve arbitrary OS command execution by sending to an open port a malicious Java object through the RMI-P4 module.
RMI-P4 is the Remote Method Invocation protocol used by SAP NetWeaver AS Java for internal SAP-to-SAP communication, or for administration.
Though the P4 port is open on the host, some organizations may inadvertently expose it to wider networks, or the internet, due to firewall or other misconfigurations.
According to the security bulletin, the second critical flaw SAP fixed this month is CVE-2025-42922 (CVSS v3.1 score: 9.9), an insecure file operations bug impacting NetWeaver AS Java (Deploy Web Service), J2EE-APPS 7.50.
An attacker with non-administrative authenticated access can exploit a flaw in the web service deployment functionality to upload arbitrary files, potentially allowing full system compromise.
The third flaw is a missing authentication check in NetWeaver, tracked under CVE-2025-42958 (CVSS v3.1 score: 9.1).
This vulnerability allows unauthorized high-privileged users to read, modify, or delete sensitive data and access administrative functionality.
SAP also addressed the following new high-severity flaws:
CVE-2025-42933 (SAP Business One SLD): Insecure storage of sensitive data (e.g., credentials) that could be extracted and abused.
CVE-2025-42929 (SLT Replication Server): Missing input validation allowing malicious input to corrupt or manipulate replicated data.
CVE-2025-42916 (S/4HANA): Missing input validation in core components, risking unauthorized data manipulation.
SAP products, deployed by large organizations and often handling mission-critical data, are often targeted by threat actors seeking high-value compromises.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that hackers were exploiting a critical code injection vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-42957, impacting S/4HANA, Business One, and NetWeaver products.
System administrators are recommended to follow the patching and mitigation recommendations for the three critical flaws, available here (1, 2, 3) for customers with a SAP account.
forums.plex.tv Important Notice of Security Incident - Announcements - Plex Forum
We have recently experienced a security incident that may potentially involve your Plex account information. We believe the actual impact of this incident is limited; however, action is required from you to ensure your account remai
What happened
An unauthorized third party accessed a limited subset of customer data from one of our databases. While we quickly contained the incident, information that was accessed included emails, usernames, securely hashed passwords and authentication data.
Any account passwords that may have been accessed were securely hashed, in accordance with best practices, meaning they cannot be read by a third party. Out of an abundance of caution, we recommend you take some additional steps to secure your account (see details below). Rest assured that we do not store credit card data on our servers, so this information was not compromised in this incident.
What we’re doing
We’ve already addressed the method that this third party used to gain access to the system, and we’re undergoing additional reviews to ensure that the security of all of our systems is further strengthened to prevent future attacks.
What you must do
If you use a password to sign into Plex: We kindly request that you reset your Plex account password immediately by visiting https://plex.tv/reset. When doing so, there’s a checkbox to “Sign out connected devices after password change,” which we recommend you enable. This will sign you out of all your devices (including any Plex Media Server you own) for your security, and you will then need to sign back in with your new password.
If you use SSO to sign into Plex: We kindly request that you log out of all active sessions by visiting https://plex.tv/security and clicking the button that says ”Sign out of all devices”. This will sign you out of all your devices (including any Plex Media Server you own) for your security, and you will then need to sign back in as normal.
Additional Security Measures You Can Take
We remind you that no one at Plex will ever reach out to you over email to ask for a password or credit card number for payments. For further account protection, we also recommend enabling two-factor authentication on your Plex account if you haven’t already done so.
Lastly, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this situation may cause you. We take pride in our security systems, which helped us quickly detect this incident, and we want to assure you that we are working swiftly to prevent potential future incidents from occurring.
For step-by-step instructions on how to reset your password, visit:https://support.plex.tv/articles/account-requires-password-reset
securityweek.com ByIonut Arghire| September 2, 2025 (11:02 AM ET)
Updated: September 3, 2025 (2:45 AM ET)
Cloudflare on Monday said it blocked the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack ever recorded, at 11.5 Tbps (Terabits per second).
In a short message on X, Cloudflare only shared that the attack was a UDP flood mainly sourced from Google Cloud infrastructure, which lasted approximately 35 seconds.
“Cloudflare’s defenses have been working overtime. Over the past few weeks, we’ve autonomously blocked hundreds of hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks, with the largest reaching peaks of 5.1 Bpps and 11.5 Tbps. The 11.5 Tbps attack was a UDP flood that mainly came from Google Cloud,” the company said.
In a Tuesday update, Cloudflare said that Google Cloud was one source of attack, but not the majority, and that several IoT and cloud providers were used to launch the assault.
“Defending against this class of attack is an ongoing priority for us, and we’ve deployed numerous strong defenses to keep users safe, including robust DDoS detection and mitigation capabilities,” a Google Cloud spokesperson told SecurityWeek.
“Our abuse defenses detected the attack, and we followed proper protocol in customer notification and response. Initial reports suggesting that the majority of traffic came from Google Cloud are not accurate,” the spokesperson said.
A UDP flood attack consists of a high volume of UDP (User Datagram Protocol) packets being sent to a target, which becomes overwhelmed and unresponsive when attempting to process and respond to them.
Because UDP packets are small and the receiver spends resources trying to process them, the attackers also increased the packet rate to 5.1 Bpps (billion packets per second) to deplete those resources and take down the target.
This record-setting DDoS attack takes the lead as the largest in history roughly three months after Cloudflare blocked a 7.3 Tbps DDoS attack.
Seen in mid-May, the assault targeted a hosting provider and lasted for only 45 seconds. Approximately 37.4 Tb of traffic, or the equivalent of over 9,000 HD movies, was delivered in the timeframe.
The same as the newly observed attack, the May DDoS assault mainly consisted of UDP floods. It originated from over 122,000 IP addresses.
Cloudflare mitigated 27.8 million DDoS attacks in the first half of 2025, a number that surpassed the total observed in 2024 (21.3 million HTTP and Layer 3/4 DDoS attacks).
*Updated with statement from Google Cloud Cloudflare
techcrunch.com
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
9:11 AM PDT · September 2, 2025
The Israeli spyware maker now faces the dilemma of whether to continue its relationship with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and help fuel its mass deportations program.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed a contract last year with Israeli spyware maker Paragon worth $2 million.
Shortly after, the Biden administration put the contract under review, issuing a “stop work order,” to determine whether the contract complied with an executive order on commercial spyware, which restricts U.S. government agencies from using spyware that could violate human rights or target Americans abroad.
Almost a year later, when it looked like the contract would just run out and never become active, ICE lifted the stop work order, according to public records.
“This contract is for a fully configured proprietary solution including license, hardware, warranty, maintenance, and training. This modification is to lift the stop work order,” read an update dated August 30 on the U.S. government’s Federal Procurement Data System, a database of government contracts.
Independent journalist Jack Poulson was the first to report the news in his newsletter.
Paragon has for years cultivated the image of being an “ethical” and responsible spyware maker, in contrast with controversial spyware purveyors such as Hacking Team, Intellexa, and NSO Group. On its official website, Paragon claims to provide its customers with “ethically based tools, teams, and insights.”
The spyware maker faces an ethical dilemma. Now that the contract with ICE’s Information Technology Division is active, it’s up to Paragon to decide whether it wants to continue its relationship with ICE, an agency that has dramatically ramped up mass deportations and expanded its surveillance powers since Donald Trump took over the White House.
Emily Horne, a spokesperson for Paragon, as well as executive chairman John Fleming, did not respond to a request for comment.
In an attempt to show its good faith, in February of this year, Fleming told TechCrunch that the company only sells to the U.S. government and other unspecified allied countries.
Paragon has already had to face a thorny ethical dilemma. In January, WhatsApp revealed that around 90 of its users, including journalists and human rights workers, had been targeted with Paragon’s spyware, called Graphite. In the following days and weeks, Italian journalist Francesco Cancellato and several local pro-immigration activists came forward saying they were among the victims.
In response to this scandal, Paragon cut ties with the Italian government, which had in the meantime launched an inquiry to determine what happened. Then, in June, digital rights research group Citizen Lab confirmed that two other journalists, an unnamed European and a colleague of Cancellato, had been hacked with Paragon’s spyware.
An Italian parliament committee concluded that the spying of the pro-immigration activists was legal, but it also claimed that there was no evidence that Italy’s intelligence agencies, former Paragon customers, had targeted Cancellato.
John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, who has investigated cases of spyware abuse for more than a decade, told TechCrunch that “these tools were designed for dictatorships, not democracies built on liberty and protection of individual rights.”
The researcher said that even spyware is “corrupting,” which is why “there’s a growing pile of spyware scandals in democracies, including with Paragon’s Graphite. Worse, Paragon is still shielding spyware abusers. Just look at the still-unexplained hacks of Italian journalists.”
bleepingcomputer.com
By Sergiu Gatlan
September 3, 2025
Update September 04, 06:27 EDT: Updated the list of cybersecurity companies whose Salesforce instances were breached in the Salesloft supply chain attack.
Workiva, a leading cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) provider, notified its customers that attackers who gained access to a third-party customer relationship management (CRM) system stole some of their data.
The company's cloud software helps collect, connect, and share data for financial reports, compliance, and audits. It had 6,305 customers at the end of last year and reported revenues of $739 million in 2024.
Its customer list includes 85% of the Fortune 500 companies and high-profile clients such as Google, T-Mobile, Delta Air Lines, Wayfair, Hershey, Slack, Cognizant, Santander, Nokia, Kraft Heinz, Wendy's, Paramount, Air France KLM, Mercedes-Benz, and more.
According to a private email notification sent to affected Workiva customers last week and seen by BleepingComputer, the threat actors exfiltrated a limited set of business contact information, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, and support ticket content.
"This is similar to recent events that have targeted several large organizations. Importantly, the Workiva platform and any data within it were not accessed or compromised," the company explained. "Our CRM vendor notified us of unauthorized access via a connected third-party application."
Workiva also warned impacted customers to remain vigilant, as the stolen information could be used in spear-phishing attacks.
"Workiva will never contact anyone by text or phone to request a password or any other secure details. All communications from Workiva come through our trusted official support channels," it said.
Salesforce data breaches
While Workiva didn't share more details regarding this attack, BleepingComputer has learned that this incident was part of the recent wave of Salesforce data breaches linked to the ShinyHunters extortion group that impacted many high-profile companies.
Most recently, Cloudflare disclosed that it was forced to rotate 104 Cloudflare platform-issued tokens stolen by ShinyHunters threat actors, who gained access to the Salesforce instance used for customer support and internal customer case management in mid-August.
ShinyHunters has been targeting Salesforce customers in data theft attacks using voice phishing (vishing) since the start of the year, impacting companies such as Google, Cisco, Allianz Life, Farmers Insurance, Workday, Qantas, Adidas, and LVMH subsidiaries, including Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany & Co.
More recently, the extortion group has shifted to using stolen OAuth tokens for Salesloft's Drift AI chat integration with Salesforce to gain access to customer Salesforce instances and extract sensitive information, such as passwords, AWS access keys, and Snowflake tokens, from customer messages and support tickets.
Using this method, ShinyHunters also gained access to a small number of Google Workspace accounts in addition to stealing Salesforce CRM data and breaching the Salesforce instances of multiple cybersecurity companies, including Zscaler, Tenable, CyberArk, Elastic, BeyondTrust, Proofpoint, JFrog, Rubrik, Cato Networks, and Palo Alto Networks.
Huawei has already ‘built an ecosystem entirely independent of the United States’, according to a senior executive.
South China Morning Post scmp.com Coco Fengin Guangdong
Published: 9:00pm, 29 Aug 2025
China has virtually overcome crippling US tech restrictions, according to a senior executive at Huawei Technologies, as mainland-developed computing infrastructure, AI systems and other software now rival those from the world’s largest economy.
Shenzhen-based Huawei, which was added to Washington’s trade blacklist in May 2019, has already “built an ecosystem entirely independent of the United States”, said Tao Jingwen, president of the firm’s quality, business process and information technology management department, at an event on Wednesday in Guiyang, capital of southwestern Guizhou province.
Tao highlighted the privately held company’s resilience at the event, as he discussed some of the latest milestones in its journey towards tech self-sufficiency.
That industry-wide commitment to tech self-reliance would enable China to “surpass the US in terms of artificial intelligence applications” on the back of the country’s “extensive economy and business scenarios”, he said.
His remarks reflected Huawei’s efforts to surmount tightened US control measures and heightened geopolitical tensions, as the company pushes the boundaries in semiconductors, computing power, cloud services, AI and operating systems.
Tao’s presentation was made on the same day that Huawei said users of token services on its cloud platform had access to its CloudMatrix 384 system, which is a cluster of 384 Ascend AI processors – spread across 12 computing cabinets and four bus cabinets – that delivers 300 petaflops of computing power and 48 terabytes of high-bandwidth memory. A petaflop is 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
Une activité malveillante a été détectée sur le site de la CGN. Les clients ayant effectué des opération durant cette période ont été alertés.
Le site internet de la CGN a été victime d’une cyberattaque, rapporte l’entreprise dans un communiqué de presse ce jeudi. «Mardi 2 septembre 2025, en milieu d’après-midi, une activité suspecte a été détectée» sur celui-ci. «Le site a été aussitôt mis hors service», détaille la compagnie.
Les analyses menées ont montré que «le script malveillant a été actif cinq jours avant sa détection», précise le communiqué. «L’attaque a été stoppée immédiatement et des mesures de sécurité renforcées ont été mises en place. Les mesures correctives ayant été faites, le site a été réactivé aujourd’hui (ndlr: ce jeudi)», ajoute la CGN.
Plusieurs centaines de clients concernés
Par mesure de précaution, «les quelque 400 clients ayant réalisé des opérations durant la période identifiée ont été informés et invités à vérifier leur relevé de transaction et à contacter leur banque». L’entreprise affirme que la probabilité que des données puissent être utilisées est faible, «notamment si la société émettrice de la carte de crédit utilise la double authentification ou d’autres mesures de sécurité avancées».
L’entreprise rapporte qu’aucun «système interne de la CGN n’a été mis en danger ou exposé lors de cette attaque». Une plainte pénale sera déposée.
salesforce.com Eoghan Casey
August 27, 2025
Learn how to detect, investigate, and respond to Salesforce security incidents with logs, permissions, and backups.
A guide to investigating Salesforce security incidents with logs, permissions, and backups to strengthen response and resilience.
I am increasingly asked by customers how to investigate potential security incidents in their Salesforce environments. Common questions are: What did a specific user do during that time? and What data was impacted? Every organization and incident is unique, and the answer to these questions depends on the specific situation, but there is some general guidance I can provide.
Three key sources of information for investigating a security incident in Salesforce environments are activity logs, user permissions, and backup data.
bbc.com Chris VallanceSenior Technology Reporter andTheo Leggett International Business Correspondent 3.09.2025
Staff were sent home and the company shut down its IT systems in an effort to minimise the damage done.
A cyber-attack has "severely disrupted" Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) vehicle production, including at its two main UK plants.
The company, which is owned by India's Tata Motors, said it took immediate action to lessen the impact of the hack and is working quickly to restart operations.
JLR's retail business has also been badly hit at a traditionally a popular time for consumers to take delivery of a new vehicle - but there is no evidence any customer data had been stolen, it said.
The attack began on Sunday as the latest batch of new registration plates became available on Monday, 1 September.
The BBC understands that the attack was detected while in progress, and the company shut down its IT systems in an effort to minimise any damage.
Workers at the company's Halewood plant in Merseyside were told by email early on Monday morning not to come into work while others were sent home, as first reported by the Liverpool Echo.
The BBC understands the attack has also hit JLR's other main UK manufacturing plant at Solihull, with staff there also sent home.
The company said: "We took immediate action to mitigate its impact by proactively shutting down our systems. We are now working at pace to restart our global applications in a controlled manner."
It added: "At this stage there is no evidence any customer data has been stolen but our retail and production activities have been severely disrupted."
It is not yet known who is responsible for the hack, but it follows crippling attacks on prominent UK retail businesses including Marks & Spencer and the Co-op.
In both cases, the hackers sought to extort money.
While JLR's statement makes no mention of a cyber-attack, a separate filing by parent company Tata Motors to the Bombay Stock Exchange referred to an "IT security incidence" causing "global" issues.
The National Crime Agency said: "We are aware of an incident impacting Jaguar Land Rover and are working with partners to better understand its impact."
In 2023, as part of an effort to "accelerate digital transformation across its business", JLR signed a five-year, £800m deal with corporate stablemate Tata Consultancy Services to provide cybersecurity and a range of other IT services.
The halt in production is a fresh blow to the firm which recently revealed a slump in profits attributed to increasing in costs caused by US tariffs.
helpnetsecurity.com Zeljka Zorz, Editor-in-Chief, Help Net Security
September 2, 2025
Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks, PagerDuty, Tanium, and SpyCloud say their Salesforce instances were accessed following the Salesloft breach.
The companies noted that attackers had only limited access to Salesforce databases, not to other systems or resources. They warned, however, that the stolen customer data could be used for convincing phishing and social engineering attacks.
The Salesloft breach
Salesloft is the company behind a popular sales engagement platform of the same name.
The company’s Drift application – an AI chat agent – can be integrated with many third-party platforms and tools, including Salesforce.
On August 26, Salesloft stated that from August 8 to August 18, 2025, attackers used compromised OAuth credentials to exfiltrate data from the Salesforce instances of customers that have set up the Drift-Saleforce integration.
Several days later, the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) confirmed that the compromise impacted other integrations, as well.
“On August 28, 2025, our investigation confirmed that the actor also compromised OAuth tokens for the ‘Drift Email’ integration. On August 9, 2025, a threat actor used these tokens to access email from a very small number of Google Workspace accounts,” GTIG analysts shared.
Astrix Security researchers have confirmed that the attackers used the Drift Email OAuth application for Google Workspace to exfiltrate emails and that – at least in one case – they tried to access S3 buckets whose names have been likely extracted from compromised Salesforce environments.
Similarly, WideField threat researchers have observed suspicious log event activity across multiple customers using its security platform, pointing to attackers rifling through Salesforce databases and Gmail accounts.
Salesloft breach victims Zscaler
How UNC6395 accessed emails (Source: WideField)
Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks and the other companies mentioned above are just some of the 700+ companies impacted by this breach.
While the stolen customer information can be valuable, GTIG analysts say that the attackers were focused on searching for AWS access keys, passwords, and Snowflake-related access tokens, which can (and likely have been) further misused by the attackers.
What to do if your organization is on the victims list?
Salesloft has yet to reveal how the attackers managed to get their hands on the OAuth tokens they used, but the company has engaged cybersecurity experts from (Google’s) Mandiant and Coalition to help them investigate and remediate the compromise.
“We are recommending that all Drift customers who manage their own Drift connections to third-party applications via API key, proactively revoke the existing key and reconnect using a new API key for these applications. This only relates to API key-based Drift integrations. OAuth applications are being handled directly by Salesloft,” the company said on August 27, and outlined the process for updating the API keys.
Salesforce has, for the moment, disabled all integrations between Salesforce and Salesloft technologies, including the Drift app.
“Disabling the connection is a precautionary measure to help safeguard customer environments while we continue to assess and address the situation. We recognize this change may cause disruption and will provide further updates as more information becomes available,” the company noted.
Likewise, Google has disabled the integration functionality between Google Workspace and Salesloft Drift pending further investigation, and has advised organizations to “review all third-party integrations connected to their Drift instance, revoke and rotate credentials for those applications, and investigate all connected systems for signs of unauthorized access.”
Google Mandiant incident responders have provided extensive advice on how organizations can investigate for compromise and scan for exposed secrets and hardcoded credentials.
Astrix researchers have shared additional indicators of compromise and described AWS-specific activity to look out for. WideField threat analysts have provided guidance useful to both their customers and other affected organizations.
blog.checkpoint.com ByAmit Weigman | Office of the CTO September 2, 2025
Researchers analyze Hexstrike-AI, a next-gen AI orchestration framework linking LLMs with 150+ security tools—now repurposed by attackers to weaponize Citrix NetScaler zero-day CVEs in minutes.
Key Findings:
The emergence of Hexstrike-AI now provides the clearest embodiment of that model to date. This tool was designed to be a defender-oriented framework: “a revolutionary AI-powered offensive security framework that combines professional security tools with autonomous AI agents to deliver comprehensive security testing capabilities”, their website reads. In this context, Hexstrike-AI was positioned as a next-generation tool for red teams and security researchers.
But almost immediately after release, malicious actors began discussing how to weaponize it. Within hours, certain underground channels discussed application of the framework to exploit the Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway zero-day vulnerabilities disclosed last Tuesday (08/26).
This marks a pivotal moment: a tool designed to strengthen defenses has been claimed to be rapidly repurposed into an engine for exploitation, crystallizing earlier concepts into a widely available platform driving real-world attacks.
Figure 1: Dark web posts discussing HexStrike AI, shortly after its release.
The Architecture of Hexstrike-AI
Hexstrike-AI is not “just another red-team framework.” It represents a fundamental shift in how offensive cyber operations can be conducted. At its heart is an abstraction and orchestration layer that allows AI models like Claude, GPT, and Copilot to autonomously run security tooling without human micromanagement.
Figure 2: HexStrike AI MCP Toolkit.
More specifically, Hexstrike AI introduces MCP Agents, an advanced server that bridges large language models with real-world offensive capabilities. Through this integration, AI agents can autonomously run 150+ cyber security tools spanning penetration testing, vulnerability discovery, bug bounty automation, and security research.
Think of it as the conductor of an orchestra:
The AI orchestration brain interprets operator intent.
The agents (150+ tools) perform specific actions; scanning, exploiting, deploying persistence, exfiltrating data.
The abstraction layer translates vague commands like “exploit NetScaler” into precise, sequenced technical steps that align with the targeted environment.
This mirrors exactly the concept described in our recent blog: an orchestration brain that removes friction, decides which tools to deploy, and adapts dynamically in real time. We analyzed the source code and architecture of Hexstrike-AI and revealed several important aspects of its design:
MCP Orchestration Layer
The framework sets up a FastMCP server that acts as the communication hub between large language models (Claude, GPT, Copilot) and tool functions. Tools are wrapped with MCP decorators, exposing them as callable components that AI agents can invoke. This is the orchestration core; it binds the AI agent to the underlying security tools, so commands can be issued programmatically.
Tool Integration at Scale
Hexstrike-AI incorporates core network discovery and exploitation tools, beginning with Nmap scanning and extending to dozens of other reconnaissance, exploitation, and persistence modules. Each tool is abstracted into a standardized function, making orchestration seamless.
Figure 3: the nmap_scan tool is exposed as an MCP function.
Here, AI agents can call nmap_scan with simple parameters. The abstraction removes the need for an operator to run and parse Nmap manually — orchestration handles execution and results.
Automation and Resilience
The client includes retry logic and recovery handling to keep operations stable, even under failure conditions. This ensures operations continue reliably, a critical feature when chaining scans, exploits, and persistence attempts.
Figure 4: Hexstrike-AI’s automated resilience loop
Intent-to-Execution Translation
High-level commands are abstracted into workflows. The execute_command function demonstrates this. Here, an AI agent provides only a command string, and Hexstrike-AI determines how to execute it, turning intent into precise, repeatable tool actions.
Figure 5: Hexstrike-AI’s execute_command function.
Why This Matters Right Now
The release of Hexstrike-AI would be concerning in any context, because its design makes it extremely attractive to attackers. But its impact is amplified by timing.
Last Tuesday (08/26), Citrix disclosed three zero-day vulnerabilities affecting NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway appliances, as follows:
CVE-2025-7775 – Unauthenticated remote code execution. Already exploited in the wild, with webshells observed on compromised appliances.
CVE-2025-7776 – A memory-handling flaw impacting NetScaler’s core processes. Exploitation not yet confirmed, but high-risk.
CVE-2025-8424 – An access control weakness on management interfaces. Also unconfirmed in the wild but exposes critical control paths.
Exploiting these vulnerabilities is non-trivial. Attackers must understand memory operations, authentication bypasses, and the peculiarities of NetScaler’s architecture. Such work has historically required highly skilled operators and weeks of development.
With Hexstrike-AI, that barrier seems to have collapsed. In underground forums over the 12 hours following the disclosure of the said vulnerabilities, we have observed threat actors discussing the use of Hexstrike-AI to scan for and exploit vulnerable NetScaler instances. Instead of painstaking manual development, AI can now automate reconnaissance, assist with exploit crafting, and facilitate payload delivery for these critical vulnerabilities.
Figure 6: Top Panel: Dark web post claiming to have successfully exploited the latest Citrix CVE’s using HexStrike AI, originally in Russian;
Bottom Panel: Dark web post translated into English using Google Translate add-on.
Certain threat actors have also published vulnerable instances they have been able to scan using the tool, which are now being offered for sale. The implications are profound:
A task that might take a human operator days or weeks can now be initiated in under 10 minutes.
Exploitation can be parallelized at scale, with agents scanning thousands of IPs simultaneously.
Decision-making becomes adaptive; failed exploit attempts can be automatically retried with variations until successful, increasing the overall exploitation yield.
The window between disclosure and mass exploitation shrinks dramatically. CVE-2025-7775 is already being exploited in the wild, and with Hexstrike-AI, the volume of attacks will only increase in the coming days.
Figure 7: Seemingly vulnerable NetScaler instances curated by HexStrike AI.
Action Items for Defenders
The immediate priority is clear: patch and harden affected systems. Citrix has already released fixed builds, and defenders must act without delay. In our technical vulnerability report, we have listed technical measures and actions defenders should take against these CVEs, mostly including hardening authentications, restricting access and threat hunting for the affected webshells.
However, Hexstrike-AI represents a broader paradigm shift, where AI orchestration will increasingly be used to weaponize vulnerabilities quickly and at scale. To defend against this new class of threat, organizations must evolve their defenses accordingly:
Adopt adaptive detection: Static signatures and rules will not suffice. Detection systems must ingest fresh intelligence, learn from ongoing attacks, and adapt dynamically.
Integrate AI-driven defense: Just as attackers are building orchestration layers, defenders must deploy AI systems capable of correlating telemetry, detecting anomalies, and responding autonomously at machine speed.
Shorten patch cycles: When the time-to-exploit is measured in hours, patching cannot be a weeks-long process. Automated patch validation and deployment pipelines are essential.
Threat intelligence fusion: Monitoring dark web discussions and underground chatter is now a critical defensive input. Early signals, such as the chatter around Hexstrike-AI and NetScaler CVEs, provide vital lead time for professionals.
Resilience engineering: Assume compromise. Architect systems with segmentation, least privilege, and robust recovery capabilities so that successful exploitation does not equate to catastrophic impact.
Conclusion
Hexstrike-AI is a watershed moment. What was once a conceptual architecture – a central orchestration brain directing AI agents – has now been embodied in a working tool. And it is already being applied against active zero days.
For defenders, we can only reinforce what has already been said in our last post: urgency in addressing today’s vulnerabilities, and foresight in preparing for a future where AI-driven orchestration is the norm. The sooner the security community adapts, patching faster, detecting smarter, and responding at machine speed, the greater our ability to keep pace in this new era of cyber conflict.
The security community has been warning about the convergence of AI orchestration and offensive tooling, and Hexstrike-AI proves those warnings weren’t theoretical. What seemed like an emerging possibility is now an operational reality, and attackers are wasting no time putting it to use.