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In this article Attack chain overview Initial access: Exploiting edge appliances Discovery and reconnaissance Lateral movement and identity compromise Mitigation and protection guidance Microsoft Defender XDR detections Advanced hunting Indicators of compromise (IOC) MITRE ATT CK techniques observed References Learn more A growing trend in modern intrusions is the compromise of internet-facing edge appliances such as firewalls and VPN gateways. Systems traditionally deployed as security boundaries are increasingly becoming initial access points due to the continued discovery and exploitation of critical vulnerabilities. Because these devices are externally exposed, lightly monitored, and highly trusted inside enterprise environments, compromise can provide a durable foothold with limited visibility. Edge appliances often store credentials, certificates, session material, authentication tokens, and identity integrations with directories, cloud services, and identity providers. Once compromised, these trust relationships can enable lateral movement that bypasses traditional security controls. In this incident, the threat actor compromised an internet-facing firewall appliance and used trusted relationships to pivot to an internal Linux host. From there, the threat actor compromised a vulnerable SaaS application and leveraged its credentials to conduct relay-style authentication attacks against Active Directory. This incident reflects a broader shift toward identity-centric, multi-domain attack chains that span network infrastructure, endpoints, SaaS platforms, cloud workloads, and identity systems. Organizations should treat edge devices, non-Windows systems, and cloud identities as security-critical assets, prioritize monitoring across these environments, and use attack path analysis to identify where threat actors are most likely to establish initial access. Attack chain overview Figure 1. Multi-stage Linux intrusion via F5 and Confluence Attack flow. Figure 2. Multi-stage Linux intrusion via F5 and Confluence – Threat actor activities. Initial access: Exploiting edge appliances The threat actor established SSH access to the first Linux host from a network device identified as an F5 BIG-IP load balancer. Device inventory confirmed the source as an Azure-hosted appliance running version 15.1.201000. This is a specific BIG-IP Virtual Edition (VE) image version deployed primarily in cloud environments and commonly used in Azure ARM templates and Terraform modules for deploying F5 BIG-IP instances. This version of BIG-IP reached end-of-life (EOL) on December 31, 2024. Retiring deprecated firewalls is a security imperative, as unsupported hardware might leave the network exposed to modern threats. This aligns with a broader pattern observed in recent high‑impact incidents, where internet‑facing edge devices such as routers, firewalls, and gateways are compromised through N‑day vulnerabilities. Operational constraints, including the availability

Lawmakers in both houses of Congress are demanding answers from the U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) after KrebsOnSecurity reported this week that a CISA contractor intentionally published AWS GovCloud keys and a vast trove of other agency secrets on a public GitHub account. The inquiry comes as CISA is still struggling to contain the breach and invalidate the leaked credentials. On May 18, KrebsOnSecurity reported that a CISA contractor with administrative access to the agency’s code development platform had created a public GitHub profile called “ Private-CISA ” that included plaintext credentials to dozens of internal CISA systems. Experts who reviewed the exposed secrets said the commit logs for the code repository showed the CISA contractor disabled GitHub’s built-in protection against publishing sensitive credentials in public repos. CISA acknowledged the leak but has not responded to questions about the duration of the data exposure. However, experts who reviewed the now-defunct Private-CISA archive said it was originally created in November 2025, and that it exhibits a pattern consistent with an individual operator using the repository as a working scratchpad or synchronization mechanism rather than a curated project repository. In a written statement, CISA said “there is no indication that any sensitive data was compromised as a result of the incident.” But in a May 19 a letter (PDF) to CISA’s Acting Director Nick Andersen , Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) said the credential leak raises serious questions about how such a security lapse could occur at the very agency charged with helping to prevent cyber breaches. “This reporting raises serious concerns regarding CISA’s internal policies and procedures at a time of significant cybersecurity threats against U.S. critical infrastructure,” Sen. Hassan wrote. A May 19 letter from Sen. Margaret Hassan (D-NH) to the acting director of CISA demanded answers to a dozen questions about the breach. Sen. Hassan noted that the incident occurred against the backdrop of major disruptions internally at CISA, which lost more than a third of it workforce and almost all of its senior leaders after the Trump administration forced a series of early retirements, buyouts, and resignations across the agency’s various divisions. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, echoed the senator’s concerns. “We are concerned that this incident reflects a diminished security culture and/or an inability for CISA to adequately manage its contract support,” Thompson wrote in a May 19 letter to the acting CISA chief that was co-signed by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill), the ranking member of the panel’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection. “It’s no secret that our adversaries — like China, Russia, and Iran — seek to gain access to an

According to users on X, the website was hijacked by hackers in an attempt to trick visitors into installing malware.

The Belarus-aligned threat actor known as Ghostwriter (aka UAC-0057 and UNC1151Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council) has been observed using lures related to Prometheus, a Ukrainian online learning platform, to target government organizations in the country. The activity, per the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA), involves sending phishing emails to government

AI is reshaping how work gets done—and how risks emerge across cloud, data, identity, and more. Many organizations want AI-powered productivity, but their security foundations aren’t yet built for it. As organizations move toward AI-powered operating models, security becomes the critical enabler to allow innovation to scale responsibly. In this new era of agentic AI, 1 protections can’t be layered on after the fact; they must be built into the fabric of how AI systems are developed, governed, and used—grounded in strong cloud security posture , clear data governance , and Zero Trust principles that assume breach and verify continuously. We’re sharing two customer spotlights that explore how global organizations are putting that approach into practice. Why security has become a strategic enabler for AI‑powered growth These customer stories highlight how security is no longer a supporting function—it’s a strategic enabler of growth, speed, and trust. As AI accelerates decision-making and reshapes how work gets done, leaders must modernize without increasing risk or slowing the business. The experiences of these forward-looking organizations reflect the realities many companies face: gaining consistent visibility across complex environments, moving faster while maintaining trust, meeting governance and compliance expectations that expand with AI adoption, and driving operational efficiency through automation. These examples will show how the right security foundation allows organizations to scale AI with confidence—turning protection into a competitive advantage, not a constraint. First, we’ll take a closer look at St. Luke’s University Health Network. How St. Luke’s is accelerating efficiency and threat response with AI St. Luke’s identified a critical gap in unified, real-time visibility across its security tools, limiting its ability to detect and stop threats early. The organization needed a way to see across their entire landscape and respond to threats as they emerge. To modernize and unify security operations, St. Luke’s turned to Microsoft Security Copilot to supercharge analyst productivity and help its Security Operations Center (SOC) teams operate at scale. Learn more about Microsoft Security Copilot By connecting Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Sentinel, St. Luke’s gains a single, AI-powered view across endpoints, identity, email, and cloud workloads—helping analysts move faster, correlate cyberthreats more effectively, and shift from reactive response to proactive, predictive defense. With AI embedded directly into daily workflows, teams can identify risks in real time, uncover gaps in visibility, and make more informed decisions with greater precision. Streamlining workflows and automating protection At the same time, Security Copilot agents are transforming how the SOC operates by automating time-consuming tasks like alert triage and vulnerability remediation. This reduces noise, accelerates investigations, and frees analysts to focu

Two former executives of a call-tracking and analytics company pleaded guilty to concealing a years-long tech support fraud scheme that victimized individuals worldwide. [...]

President Trump’s branded cell phone maker and cell provider said the exposure was linked to a third-party platform, and was evaluating whether it needs to notify customers.

Crazy story : Until this past weekend, a contractor for the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintained a public GitHub repository that exposed credentials to several highly privileged AWS GovCloud accounts and a large number of internal CISA systems. Security experts said the public archive included files detailing how CISA builds, tests and deploys software internally, and that it represents one of the most egregious government data leaks in recent history. News article .

SafeDep uncovered the Megalodon attack targeting 5,561 GitHub repositories with malicious CI workflows and cloud credential theft.

Japanese cybersecurity software company Trend Micro has addressed an Apex One zero-day vulnerability exploited in attacks targeting Windows systems. [...]

Drupal is warning that hackers are attempting to exploit a "highly critical" SQL injection vulnerability announced earlier this week. [...]

Fraud losses don't stop at chargebacks. False declines, account takeovers, and abuse also damage revenue and trust. IPQS breaks down why fraud teams need broader visibility into risk and customer impact. [...]

Ubiquiti has released security updates to patch three maximum severity vulnerabilities in Unify OS that can be exploited by remote attackers without privileges. [...]

p CISA has added one new vulnerability to its a href="https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="79453b83-86b9-4e2f-b1ec-abf73c6eb291" data-entity-substitution="canonical" title="Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog" Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog /a , based on evidence of active exploitation. /p ul li a href="https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-9082" target="_blank" CVE-2026-9082 /a Drupal Core SQL Injection Vulnerability /li /ul p This type of vulnerability is a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and poses significant risks to the federal enterprise. /p p a href="https://www.cisa.gov/binding-operational-directive-22-01" Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities /a established the KEV Catalog as a living list of known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) that carry significant risk to the federal enterprise. BOD 22-01 requires Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to remediate identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect FCEB networks against active threats. See the a href="https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Reducing_the_Significant_Risk_of_Known_Exploited_Vulnerabilities_211103.pdf" BOD 22-01 Fact Sheet /a for more information. /p p Although BOD 22-01 only applies to FCEB agencies, CISA strongly urges all organizations to reduce their exposure to cyberattacks by prioritizing timely remediation of a href="https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="79453b83-86b9-4e2f-b1ec-abf73c6eb291" data-entity-substitution="canonical" title="Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog" KEV Catalog vulnerabilities /a as part of their vulnerability management practice. CISA will continue to add vulnerabilities to the catalog that meet the a href="https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities" specified criteria /a . nbsp; /p

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new automated campaign called Megalodon that has pushed 5,718 malicious commits to 5,561 GitHub repositories within a six-hour window. "Using throwaway accounts and forged author identities (build-bot, auto-ci, ci-bot, pipeline-bot), the attacker injected GitHub Actions workflows containing base64-encoded bash payloads that exfiltrate CI

1 Introduction This article provides a technical analysis of how many Windows kernel mode drivers can be interacted with from user mode without the hardware they were developed for. This work was motivated by driver-oriented vulnerability research and the need to evaluate the exploitability of individual findings, which frequently affect code whose reachability is hardware-gated. The

The infostealer payload in this campaign collect a vast amount of data, from collaboration authentication keys to cryptocurrency wallets

Total figure for fraudulent transactions Apple has blocked since 2020 now stands at over $11bn

U.S. and Canadian authorities arrested and charged a Canadian man with operating the KimWolf distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) botnet, which infected nearly two million devices worldwide. [...]

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday announced the arrest of a Canadian man in connection with allegedly operating a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) botnet known as Kimwolf. In tandem, Jacob Butler (aka Dort), 23, Ottawa, Canada, has been charged with offenses related to the development and operation of the botnet. Kimwolf is assessed to be a variant of AISURU. "Kimwolf