Cyber warfare

Pierluigi Paganini October 08, 2026
Italy’s Foreign Ministry Under Cyberattack as Embassy Sites Come Under Review

Italy’s Foreign Ministry is defending its website against a cyberattack, checking embassy sites and pushing for EU action to identify attackers. On the morning of October 8, Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said its website was being attacked. According to the ministry’s own statement, its protection systems have mitigated the attack so far, with no […]

Pierluigi Paganini October 05, 2026
MI5 Raises Alarm Over Chinese Funding of UK Academic Research

MI5 warns UK universities that over 100 academics may have unknowingly worked on research funded by a Chinese institute linked to the MSS. On September 30, MI5 published a formal warning naming the China General Technology Research Institute, CGTRI, also called CAGT in some translations, as an outfit with very strong ties to China’s Ministry […]

Pierluigi Paganini October 03, 2026
Antino Backdoor Lets China-Linked UAT-11587 Turn Microsoft 365 Into a C2 Channel

Cisco Talos details UAT-11587, a China-linked group using the Antino backdoor and Microsoft 365 as cover to spy on Asian governments. Cisco Talos has been tracking a cluster of espionage activity since September 2025 that it calls UAT-11587, and by July 2026 the group had hit at least 16 government and policy organizations across eight […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 25, 2026
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget Says North Korea-Linked Hackers Stole $351.6 Million

Bitget says suspected North Korea-linked actors stole $351.6M from hot and warm wallets. Withdrawals were suspended while Mandiant investigates. Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget says suspected North Korea-linked threat actors stole $351.6 million from a limited number of hot and warm wallets. The company detected unauthorized transfers on September 24 and temporarily suspended withdrawals. Bitget said customer […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 20, 2026
AI Hallucinations Nearly Triggered a US-China Military Confrontation

An AI-generated intelligence report falsely identified weapons on a Chinese ship, nearly triggering a US military operation during the Iran war. According to CNN, four sources familiar with the episode say an intelligence report circulated through the military claiming a Chinese vessel in the Middle East was carrying components for a nuclear weapons program. The […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 17, 2026
SilkParasite Infrastructure Links SpiceRAT to Central Asian Targets

Hunt.io links SpiceRAT, NodeEdgeRAT and NomadRAT to a four-year SilkParasite campaign targeting governments and critical sectors in Central Asia. Hunt.io and researcher Guy Yasur have traced a tight cluster of SpiceRAT command‑and‑control servers that predate and extend Bitdefender’s August 2026 SilkParasite report. The work doesn’t dissect malware samples; it maps the network side of the […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 10, 2026
Four Nation-State Actors Used the Same Chrome Zero-Day Exploit Kit Within 12 Days

Four espionage groups used the BlueMoon Chrome+Windows exploit kit within 12 days. Researchers suspect AI development. Proofpoint published a detailed analysis of a Chrome-and-Windows exploit kit it tracks as BlueMoon that four nation-state actors adopted within roughly two weeks of the first observed use. Google’s Threat Intelligence Group, Microsoft’s MSTIC, and Volexity all contributed to […]

Pierluigi Paganini September 08, 2026
North Korea-linked Hackers Hide a Backdoor Inside HAProxy

North Korea-linked hackers hid a backdoor inside HAProxy, masking C2 traffic and stealing data while keeping the load balancer working normally. North Korean-linked hackers found a genuinely clever hiding spot for their malware: inside the actual source code of HAProxy, the load balancing software running at the edge of two South Korean companies’ networks. Rapid7’s […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 28, 2026
Russian APT BlueDelta Uses HOOKEDGE to Target Defense and Diplomatic Organizations

BlueDelta (APT28) uses webhook.site and Microsoft Edge to hide HOOKEDGE espionage traffic targeting European governments. Recorded Future’s Insikt Group documented a campaign by BlueDelta, the Russian GRU-linked group that overlaps with the group APT28, running an entire espionage operation against European government targets using webhook.site, a service built for developers to test HTTP requests, as […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 27, 2026
OpenAI banned Russian ChatGPT accounts backing covert influence operation

OpenAI banned Russian ChatGPT accounts backing a fake think tank, IBI, that used AI posts and a fake “sovereignty” index to push pro‑Russia narratives. OpenAI says it has banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts that likely originated in Russia and were used to support a covert influence operation. The campaign promoted an organisation called the […]