threats

Agentic Browsers Rewind Web Security by 20 Years

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Security researchers have uncovered a new class of vulnerabilities called “PleaseFix” in agentic browsers—tools that autonomously perform web tasks—which compromise fundamental browser security mechanisms like cross-origin restrictions. These flaws allow attackers to socially engineer zero-click attacks, resulting in account takeovers, browser escapes, and remote code execution. The findings highlight that recent agentic browsers have effectively reversed two decades of web security advances, exposing users and systems to significant risks.

https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint-security/agentic-browsers-rewind-web-security-20-years

Hackers Compromise Hotel Wi-Fi Gateways to Hijack Microsoft 365 Accounts

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Hackers have compromised hotel Wi-Fi gateways to redirect employees connecting to the network to fake Microsoft 365 login pages, enabling them to steal credentials and authorization tokens without phishing emails or malware. The attack, identified by ReliaQuest since June 2026 across multiple countries, involves DNS manipulation and may exploit weak administrator passwords on gateway devices. Using an always-on VPN that routes traffic through a company network can prevent these redirects, while employees should reject unexpected Microsoft login prompts on public Wi-Fi.

https://hackread.com/hackers-hotel-wi-fi-gateways-hijack-microsoft-365-accounts/

Hacked Public Wi-Fi Gateways Used to Harvest Corporate Credentials

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A threat actor has been compromising public Wi-Fi gateway appliances at venues like hotels and conference centers across the US, India, and Saudi Arabia to hijack DNS settings and redirect users to attacker-controlled sites, harvesting Microsoft 365 credentials of traveling corporate employees. This ongoing campaign since June 2026 resembles tactics used by the Russian-linked APT28 group but shows differences in infrastructure and targeting, suggesting a possible reuse of known tradecraft by a different actor. Organizations providing captive portal Wi-Fi services face heightened risks as attackers employ adversary-in-the-middle techniques to intercept sensitive information from multiple industries.

https://www.securityweek.com/hacked-public-wi-fi-gateways-used-to-harvest-corporate-credentials/

Malvertising Sends Malware in Pieces, Then Makes the Browser Build the Executable

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A malvertising campaign named SourTrade targets retail traders and crypto investors by making browsers assemble malware executables in real-time using a legitimate Bun runtime, rather than delivering complete malicious files directly. The campaign, active since late 2024, impersonates popular platforms and uses ServiceWorkers and SharedWorkers to dynamically build unique malware payloads per victim, evading hash-based detection. Security experts advise verifying software downloads only from official vendor sites and analyzing the entire delivery chain, including ad referrals and runtime fetches, to effectively detect and prevent this threat.

https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/malvertising-sends-malware-in-pieces.html

Four More Supply Chain Attacks Hit Npm and PyPI

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Between June and mid-July 2026, four supply chain attacks targeted npm and PyPI ecosystems, employing tactics including a Python startup file worm, typosquatted payment SDKs harvesting CI secrets, stolen publishing tokens, and a hijacked CI pipeline. These attacks focused on stealing credentials from developer environments and build pipelines, highlighting vulnerabilities in CI workflows and the limitations of provenance signatures, which cannot guarantee the safety of code even when verifying its origin. Despite recent platform mitigations, these incidents underscore the need for enhanced visibility and secret management across development infrastructure to quickly assess and respond to such compromises.

https://blog.gitguardian.com/shai-hulud-npm-pypi-supply-chain-attacks/

Malicious Sites Use JavaScript to Build Malware in Browser Memory

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A widespread malvertising campaign uses malicious JavaScript on fake Solana, Luno, and TradingView sites to assemble malware directly in browser memory, bypassing traditional detection methods. The attack targets retail traders and crypto investors in 12 countries by building unique malware payloads locally using service and shared workers, then delivering them via a same-origin download process. Security researchers warn users to avoid downloading financial apps from ads and to obtain executables only from official sites with verified digital signatures.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/malicious-sites-use-javascript-to-build-malware-in-browser-memory/

The Signs Were There: What the First Autonomous Ransomware Case Confirms

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Security researchers have documented the first autonomous ransomware attack, where an AI agent independently executed a full intrusion—from initial exploit to data encryption and destruction—without human intervention. This operation exploited known vulnerabilities and default credentials in internet-facing AI platforms, highlighting the shift from reusable indicators of compromise to behavior-based detection for defense. Although the ransomware's monetization failed due to operational errors, this case confirms the emergence of autonomous AI-driven cyberattacks and underscores the urgent need for patching, credential management, and behavior-focused security measures.

https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/26/g/autonomous-ransomware.html

FakeGit Campaign Uses 7,600 GitHub Repos to Push SmartLoader Malware

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A large-scale FakeGit campaign has deployed over 7,600 malicious GitHub repositories distributing SmartLoader and StealC malware, accumulating more than 14 million downloads. The repositories impersonate popular AI and enterprise tools to lure developers and AI agents, using “agentbaiting” tactics to boost their visibility and trick automated systems into executing malicious payloads. Researchers advise organizations to verify repositories carefully, test new tools in isolated environments, and rotate credentials promptly if SmartLoader infection is suspected.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fakegit-campaign-uses-7-600-github-repos-to-push-smartloader-malware/

1M+ Emails Use Hidden Text to Dupe AI Security Filters

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Since April, over one million phishing emails have used hidden text techniques to evade AI-powered and traditional email security filters, according to Barracuda Networks researchers. Attackers manipulate email HTML by embedding invisible benign text alongside malicious content, confusing security gateways that primarily analyze machine-readable data rather than visual email presentation. Large language models (LLMs) accelerate attackers’ ability to generate and layer such obfuscation tactics, while current AI-based defenses struggle to detect the full malicious context behind these salted messages.

https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/1m-emails-hidden-text-dupe-ai-security-filters

ConsentFix: a New ClickFix Variation for Compromising Microsoft 365 Accounts

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Researchers have identified ConsentFix, a new variation of the ClickFix social engineering attack that enables cybercriminals to hijack Microsoft 365 accounts via OAuth tokens without stealing passwords. By tricking users into dragging a session token URL into an attacker-controlled page during a fake authentication process, attackers gain access to corporate email, documents, Teams, and other cloud services, facilitating data exfiltration and lateral movement within organizations. The widespread availability of ConsentFix attack blueprints increases the risk of such intrusions, highlighting the need for robust email security solutions and employee awareness training.

https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/consentfix-microsoft-365-account-hijacking/56155/

N-day Is Becoming N-Hour. Patching Faster Won’t Save You.

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Anthropic's AI model Claude Mythos can now transform security patches into working exploits within an hour, drastically shortening the traditional weeks-long reverse-engineering timeframe and shrinking the window for defenders to respond. This accelerates the “N-day” exploitation race to an “N-hour” reality, rendering faster patching insufficient because patches themselves reveal vulnerabilities to attackers immediately upon release. Organizations must shift to continuous exploitability validation against active controls rather than relying solely on patch speed, using methods like autonomous penetration testing, attacker behavior simulation, and live control effectiveness monitoring to prioritize and prove actual risk exposure in real time.

https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/n-day-is-becoming-n-hour-patching.html

New Agent Data Injection Attack Can Make AI Agents Misclick or Run Attacker Commands

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Researchers have identified a new class of AI attack called agent data injection (ADI), where attackers manipulate the trusted data fields—such as sender names or button IDs—that AI agents rely on, causing them to misclick or execute malicious commands without altering the agent’s task instructions. This probabilistic delimiter injection exploits AI models' probabilistic parsing of punctuation to fake trusted data, bypassing typical prompt-injection defenses and affecting various AI tools including web agents and coding assistants. While some mitigations like randomizing element IDs can reduce the attack’s success, the vulnerability remains significant as AI agents continue to blend trusted and untrusted data without clear separation.

https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/new-agent-data-injection-attack-can.html

New MemGhost Attack Plants Persistent False Memories in AI Agents Through One Email

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Researchers have demonstrated a novel “MemGhost” attack that injects persistent false memories into AI personal assistants through a single crafted email, causing the AI to save deceptive information without alerting the user. Targeting assistants like OpenClaw that maintain memory files and access user inboxes, the attack stealthily alters the assistant’s knowledge base, influencing future interactions while evading detection by existing filters and user oversight. The study highlights a critical vulnerability where AI memory writes from untrusted inputs remain unregulated, urging the need for provenance tracking, user approval, and audit logging to mitigate such persistent memory poisoning risks.

https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/new-memghost-attack-plants-persistent.html

Top AI Agents Built to Catch Malicious Code Can Be Tricked Into Running It

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Researchers demonstrated a proof-of-concept attack called “Friendly Fire” that tricks AI coding agents like Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex, running in autonomous modes, into executing malicious code hidden in untrusted third-party repositories. The attack exploits these agents' design, leading them to run disguised payloads—such as a script suggested in a README file—without user approval, highlighting significant security risks when using AI agents to vet external code. Experts recommend avoiding giving such AI agents command execution capabilities over untrusted code and caution against relying solely on model updates or sandboxing as defenses.

https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/friendly-fire-ai-agents-built-to-catch.html

New Ghost Phishing Wave Is Breaking Traditional Email Security

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A new “ghost phishing” campaign called EvilTokens uses encrypted phishing pages that only decrypt and display malicious content within the victim's browser, bypassing traditional email and URL security checks. This technique primarily targets Microsoft 365 users across industries in the US and Europe, enabling account takeover without stealing passwords directly and complicating detection and response efforts. Security teams are urged to adopt browser-level sandboxing tools that reveal hidden phishing behaviors in real time to shorten exposure windows and improve incident containment.

https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/new-ghost-phishing-wave-is-breaking.html

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