IT News Analysis

1

Hackers Spend Nearly $7 Million on Expired Domains to Redirect Traffic to Scams and Malware

Threat actors are acquiring expired domains to inherit website traffic and reputation to redirect victims to scams and malware on a large scale. DNS threat intelligence firm Infoblox has given the name dropcatch domains to those that get a second chance, where an expired domain becomes available for registration and is then snapped up by another party. During the first half of 2026, 50,400 dropcatch domains were re-registered each day in the generic top-level domains (gTLDs) like ".com" alone, a figure that jumps to around 65,000 when country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) are taken into consideration. These account for nearly 20$ of all daily gTLD and ccTLD registrations, meaning one out of five newly registered domains is a dropcatch domain. "These domains can be particularly interesting, even dangerous, because they inherit reputation and sometimes connections from their previous life," Infoblox said in an exhaustive three-part report shared with The Ha...

Aug 14, 2026

2

IAM Compliance Requirements and Best Practices

IAM compliance is the practice of demonstrating that identity and access controls are not only documented but actually enforced across users, applications, infrastructure, and non-human identities. This guide explains what IAM compliance requires, which regulations matter, and how organizations move from periodic access reviews toward continuous, evidence-backed verification that auditors can trust. Understanding IAM Compliance and Why It Matters Identity and Access Management (IAM) governs who can access what, under which conditions, and for how long. IAM compliance measures whether those access decisions match your stated policies and regulatory obligations, and whether you can produce evidence to prove it. The critical distinction is between policy intent and runtime execution. IAM platforms express how access should work. Applications and infrastructure reveal how access actually works. The gap between the two is where compliance failures, unmanaged access, and audit surp...

Aug 14, 2026

3

Mustang Panda Adds Signed Windows Rootkit to CoolClient Backdoor for Stealth

The threat actor known as HoneyMyte (aka  Mustang Panda ) has been observed deploying an updated version of the CoolClient backdoor with a signed Windows kernel-mode rootkit that can hide and protect malicious processes, files, registry objects, and command-and-control (C2) network information. Russian cybersecurity vendor Kaspersky said it identified victims in Myanmar, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Russia, including confirmed government entities, with CoolClient consistently deployed as a secondary backdoor following a  PlugX  infection. The kernel component is deployed when CoolClient has full access to the Service Control Manager (SCM) and the SeTcbPrivilege privilege. If those conditions are not met, the malware skips driver deployment and proceeds to the final-stage implant. Kaspersky has also published file hashes, paths, and C2 domains as indicators of compromise (IoCs). "Our analysis confirms that the investigated malware is a new CoolClient variant ...

Aug 14, 2026

4

AI Is Flooding Security with Bugs Nobody Proved

Stephen Sims on why unproven AI findings pile up as a triage burden. Read the full SANS blog.

5

Chrome DevTools Technique Enables Authenticated Session Hijacking in Live Windows Browsers

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a post-exploitation technique that enables the  Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP)  inside a running Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge process on Windows, allowing an operator to access cookies, saved data, and authenticated browser sessions. The technique assumes that an operator already has code execution on the Windows host and does not involve exploiting a Chrome or Edge security vulnerability. The requirement for prior code execution and sufficient access to manipulate the target process places the technique in a narrower post-compromise scenario than a remotely exploitable browser flaw. SpecterOps said defenders can look for signs of process injection targeting chrome.exe and msedge.exe using Sysmon Event IDs 8 and 10. "Since App-Bound Encryption was enabled, we've seen an increase in attackers using Chrome Remote Debugging to extract cookies," Google said in a  March 2025 post . Google  changed C...

Aug 14, 2026

6

CTM360 Uncovers Over 3,000 Recruitment Phishing URLs Using Browser-in-the-Browser (BitB) Credential Traps

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a large-scale, global recruitment-themed phishing campaign that uses fake interview scheduling pages and Browser-in-the-Browser (BitB) windows to steal Google and Facebook credentials and, in more advanced cases, relay multi-factor authentication (MFA) prompts in real time. CTM360, which detailed the activity in a new report titled RecruitTrap , said it identified more than 3,000+ phishing URLs over two months. The campaign impersonated real recruiters and recruitment processes associated with more than 50 organizations across 14 sectors . Marketing professionals accounted for the majority of observed targets. The focus on marketing roles appears deliberate. Compromised marketing accounts can provide access to advertising platforms, corporate social media profiles, customer data, email, and other business-critical services. Read the full report here: https://www.ctm360.com/reports/recruittrap-browser-in-the-browser-bitb-recruitment-scam...

Aug 14, 2026

7

Exploit Time Just Dropped From 30 Days to 30 Minutes

Download the 11-step checklist CISOs use to close exposure windows first.

8

Apple Warns Users in 110 Countries They May Be Targets of Mercenary Spyware

Apple on Thursday sent a fresh batch of notifications to customers whom it suspects may have been targeted by mercenary spyware attacks. In a statement shared with TechCrunch, the iPhone maker said it alerted an unspecified number of users targeted in 110 countries and that it has notified customers in over 150 countries to date. Apple began sending threat notifications to users in late 2021. "The extreme cost, sophistication, and worldwide nature of mercenary spyware attacks make them some of the most advanced digital threats in existence today," the tech giant said . "As a result, Apple does not attribute the attacks or resulting threat notifications to any specific attackers or geographical regions." Typically, such notifications are sent to people who may have been individually targeted because of "who they are or what they do," including journalists, activists, politicians, and diplomats. They tend to focus on a very small number of speci...

Aug 14, 2026

9

Trump Memo Paves Way for U.S. Firms to Hack and Disrupt Foreign Crime Groups

A new White House memo signed by U.S. President Donald Trump has instructed the National Coordination Center (NCC) to establish a program that would allow private sector companies to take advantage of their "innovative capabilities" to break into foreign Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and disrupt them. "By partnering with vetted United States companies subject to the direction and oversight of the Federal Government, we will enhance our ability to counter TCO threats and combat transnational cybercrime, fraud, and other predatory schemes against American citizens," the memo reads . To that end, the NCC has been tasked with setting up a program within 60 days that allows authorized companies to conduct two types of operations against TCOs upon obtaining approval: cyber surveillance operations, which can access sensitive data without authorization from the owner or operator, and cyber effects operations, which can result in disruption, denial, degrad...

Aug 14, 2026

10

China-Linked Jewelbug Uses XG-Web for Government Espionage and Crypto Fraud

The China-linked threat actor known as Jewelbug has been observed carrying out cyber espionage operations targeting governments and militaries, while simultaneously engaging in cryptocurrency fraud. "Both missions are administered from a single control panel, XG-Web , a browser-centric remote-access and information-stealing framework that turns a victim's browser into a full remote-control channel and reaches from there into the host and the internal network behind it," Broadcom's Symantec and Carbon Black Threat Hunter Team said . Jewelbug is assessed to be a China-based hackers-for-hire group that runs parallel operations, including espionage against governments and militaries across the Middle East, Southeast Asia and South Asia, and a for-profit cryptocurrency fraud business. "The group has developed five generations of command-and-control (C&C) code and a family of implants spanning browsers, Windows endpoints, Linux servers and network devices,...

Aug 14, 2026