Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Threat Actor Silently Forwarded Sensitive Emails Matching Strategic TopicsGoogle says Chinese espionage group UNC6508 compromised REDCap environments at North American research institutions, deployed custom malware, stole credentials and covertly forwarded strategically relevant emails through abused compliance rules to support long-term intelligence collection.

Complaint Says Service Generated More Than 1.5 Million Malicious URLsGoogle has sued a Chinese phishing-as-a-service provider accused of teaching customers to use Gemini to generate and customize scam websites, a campaign linked to more than 1.59 million phishing URLs, over 100,000 victims, and widespread credential and financial theft.

Zero-Click Vulnerability Let Attackers Weaponize Enterprise AI AssistantGoogle patched a vulnerability in Gemini Enterprise that allowed attackers to steal corporate data through a shared document, calendar invitation or email without any user action or security alerts. No malware was executed, no credentials were phished and no data left through approved channels.

More Than 1M Victims Affected GloballyTech giant Google sued the Chinese-speaking operators of a phishing-as-a-service operation in what it hopes will be a first step to deterring the prolific service behind hundreds of thousands of fraudulent websites used to steal credentials from millions of victims.

Hacking Group UNC6148 Steals Credentials With New OVERSTEP Rootkit, Google SaysA cybercrime group used a backdoor in a fully patched SonicWall appliance to steal credentials and may have sold the stolen data to ransomware groups as part of an ongoing campaign, Google Threat Intelligence Group found. The firm attributed the campaign to a cybercrime group it tracks as UNC6148.

Also: Okta Alert on Credential Stuffing; Data Breaches in SpainThis week, Google AI search provided wrong answers, Internet Archive suffered DDos attack, Okta warned of credential stuffing, Canada shut down two tech firms, attackers delivered malware with Stack Overflow, Telefónica is probing breach, Iberdrola was breached and RansomHub said it hit Christie's.

Device Bound Session Credentials Tie Authentication Cookies to Specific ComputersGoogle is prototyping a method to stymie hackers who get around multifactor security by stealing authentication cookies from desktops. Google says its proposal for cryptographically tying authentication tokens to computers will succeed where previous attempts such as Token Binding failed.

'Coldriver' Has Been Sending Backdoors Embedded in PDFs Since November 2022A Russian domestic intelligence agency hacking group known for long-lasting logon credential phishing campaigns against Western targets is now deploying malware embedded into PDFs, say security researchers from Google. "Coldriver" is using a family of backdoors Google dubs Spica.

Zimbra Patched the Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability on July 25A zero-day flaw in the Zimbra Collaboration email server proved to be a bonanza for hackers as four distinct threat actors exploited the bug to steal email data and user credentials, says Google. Most of the exploit activity occurred after Zimbra had posted a hotfix on July 5.

Stolen and compromised credentials continue to be the crux of major health data security incidents involving cloud environments. But stronger credential management practices and a focused approach to "least privilege engineering" would help, said Taylor Lehmann of Google Cloud.