IT News Analysis

1

MALFEX npm Package 'imgdecode' Hides Shellcode Loader in Windows Native Addon

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious npm package that's part of a recently disclosed software supply chain attack campaign dubbed MALFEX . The package, named " imgdecode ," was uploaded to the package registry on September 30, 2026, by a user named "malfexteste8." It has been downloaded 979 times as of writing and is still available on npm as of writing. The latest version of the package is 1.0.3. "The npm package imgdecode hides a malicious loader in a compiled Node.js addon," SafeDep said . "Its nine-line JavaScript file loads a Windows dynamic-link library (DLL). When a Node.js program calls require('imgdecode') from a Windows console, the DLL attempts to download encrypted shellcode from GitHub. It decrypts the response and injects the result into a new dllhost.exe process." First documented by both Checkmarx and CloudSEK, MALFEX is the name assigned to a long-running campaign in which an unknown threat...

Oct 17, 2026

2

Hackers Use Compromised ConnectWise Credential to Sign In to 173 Microsoft 365 Tenants

Cybersecurity researchers are sounding the alarm related to an active campaign in which unknown threat actors are abusing a compromised Microsoft 365 (M365) credential belonging to ConnectWise Cloud Backup (formerly SkyKick) to gain unauthorized access to customers' M365 environments. ConnectWise Cloud Backup is a cloud-based backup and recovery service built for managed service providers (MSPs) to secure their clients' Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace data. To accomplish its tasks, the application is granted broad access to mailboxes, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, and directory data in every tenant on which it's installed. Huntress said it has observed confirmed unauthorized sign-ins within 173 partner/customer tenants using the compromised vendor credential. The incident impacts every organization that has the app installed, and the credential works against every tenant the app is consented in. "The app's credential is in hostile hands," security r...

Oct 17, 2026

3

Researchers Demonstrate OpenBSD Root Exploit Chaining 37-Year-Old Shared-Memory Bug

A local privilege escalation exploit published today gains root on OpenBSD 7.9 by chaining a roughly 37-year-old integer overflow with a separate kernel flaw, bypassing OpenBSD's KARL kernel-address randomization and its SMAP and SMEP hardware protections. Security firm Calif, which found and reported the flaws, published a detailed writeup and full proof-of-concept code after OpenBSD shipped patches for both issues in September. The integer overflow in the shmat(4) attach function was fixed in errata 018 , shipped September 14 as a reliability fix. The reference-counting use-after-free that completes the chain was fixed separately in errata 026, shipped September 30 as a security fix. Both are available through syspatch and cover all architectures. OpenBSD 7.8 also received the integer-overflow fix. The integer overflow, the entry point for the full chain, is classified as a reliability fix, not a security fix. No CVE has been assigned for either flaw as of publication...

Oct 16, 2026

4

The AI for Security Virtual Summit (Oct 20)

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5

Attackers Tampered with AOMEI Backupper's Update Servers for Minutes to Deliver a Backdoor

Attackers repeatedly changed the files that AOMEI Backupper fetches from the vendor's own update servers, in windows of five to ten minutes at a time between May and July 2026, so that any copy of the Windows backup program that checked for an update during one of those windows would download and run a backdoor. Google Threat Intelligence Group, Mandiant , and  ManageEngine's Threat Analysis Lab , which disclosed the campaign this week, say AOMEI has reported fixing its servers, but that fix does not remove the backdoor from machines that were already hit. AOMEI Backupper is Windows backup and disk-cloning software made by AOMEI Technology, a vendor registered in Hong Kong. Like the company's remote-desktop tool AnyViewer, it runs background services that regularly check AOMEI's servers over HTTPS for software updates and promotional pop-ups. Two files drive that check. One, down_html.ini, names the update package to download and the checksum the program uses to ...

Oct 16, 2026

6

UAT-11985 Uses Fake Event Invites to Target Taiwan Research Affiliates With Google AitM Phishing

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of an advanced persistent threat (APT) spear-phishing campaign that has targeted individuals affiliated with Taiwan research organizations to direct victims to an adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) phishing framework designed to harvest their Google account credentials and multi-factor authentication (MFA) codes. The activity is being tracked by Cisco Talos under the moniker UAT-11985 , describing it as likely fueled by artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted content generation so as to quickly craft bespoke lures aimed at different targets within the confines of a common social engineering framework. The campaign was first observed in mid-2026. "The operation leveraged legitimate public event themes and impersonated reputable academic and policy institutions to establish credibility," Talos researcher Joey Chen said in an analysis. "Beyond traditional email phishing, the actor incorporated QR code phishing (quishing) te...

Oct 16, 2026

7

New: Analyzing 2026's Most Prevalent Browser Attack Techniques

4 in 5 ClickFix attacks are via search engines. 30+ device code phish kits this year. Get the latest analysis.

8

OpenAI Research Model Spent 3rd-Party Test ETH Without Permission to Deploy Smart Contract

OpenAI has disclosed seven new incidents in which its artificial intelligence (AI) models exhibited misaligned behavior, including one case where its research model, after not having funds on an Ethereum test network, spent test cryptocurrency from a third-party's wallet without authorization to complete a coding task. The incident, the AI company said, involved an internal research model part of the GPT-5.6 Sol family. The incident occurred on June 26, 2026, and was discovered by OpenAI three months later. "An internal research model asked to update a cryptocurrency trading application used funds from a wallet that the task had not supplied to pay for a deployment on Sepolia, an Ethereum test network," OpenAI said . "It derived wallet keys from publicly known developer recovery phrases, found an account with test-network funds, and used that account to pay for the requested contract deployment." The assignment allowed the model to deploy compatible cont...

Oct 16, 2026

9

AI Decision Models and Their Impact on AI SOC Platforms

In the space of a month, a new category of AI model went from nonexistent to everywhere. TypeSafe AI released Jev on September 15 and called it a System One model, a nod to Kahneman's fast, intuitive thinking . OpenAI announced its own Decisions API at DevDay and opened a public beta on October 6. Cribl published cribl-decision , an open LoRA adapter you can run locally. Others, like Laya, are already showing up in open source tooling. These models skip text generation entirely. You hand them some state and a set of typed questions. They hand back a choice, a score, or a yes/no with a probability attached. For security operations, I think this is some of the best news of the year. I also think most of the conversation is pointed at the wrong layer. Why a SOC should be excited Three properties make decision models a natural fit for alert triage. You get a number you can automate against. A typed answer with a calibrated probability is something you can put a thresho...

Oct 16, 2026

10

China-Linked Hackers Exploited BeyondTrust Zero-Day to Take Over Remote Support Servers

The China-nexus cyber espionage group tracked as Armory Castle (previously UNC5221 or Warp Panda) exploited a newly disclosed security flaw in BeyondTrust Remote Support (formerly Bomgar) as a zero-day in late August 2026. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-102764 (CVSS score: 9.3), is a case of improper origin validation in an internal messaging component that could be exploited by a remote attacker to perform file operations on an affected appliance. "The vulnerability exists within internal components of Remote Support," BeyondTrust said in a Thursday alert. "The components did not adequately validate the origin of the messages it received. Under the right conditions, this could be used to perform file operations on the appliance." Patches for the flaw have been pushed to all Remote Support SaaS customers as of October 9, 2026. Self-hosted customers of Remote Support running versions from 24.3.1 through 26.2.3 are advised to manually update to BT26-0...

Oct 16, 2026