Researchers Built a Fake Crypto Startup and Hired Three Suspected North Korean IT Workers

Security researchers invented a cryptocurrency startup, advertised developer jobs, and hired three people they believe were North Korean operatives. Every virtual machine the company issued was recording. The onboarding paperwork is the part hiring teams can use. The first hire claimed to live in...

Trojanized npm Packages Employ NullReceiver Tactic to Decode C2 IP from Blockchain

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged an evolution of the EtherHiding blockchain-based command-and-control C2 technique that conceals the C2 server IP address inside a made-up destination address of a completely empty Ethereum transfer. The new dead drop resolver approach, observed in two...

MAL-2026-11416 Malicious code in ailaunchkit (PyPI)

--- -= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=- Source: amazon-inspector 998620f0a5d4d55fb3afccbaa210f7822a002db4b8ad09d5dae4954723264fb7 Package ailaunchkit version 0.1.2 on PyPI was scanned across 6 files with no static-rule matches and no traced behaviors indicating exfiltration,...

Malicious code in ailaunchkit (PyPI)

--- -= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=- Source: amazon-inspector 998620f0a5d4d55fb3afccbaa210f7822a002db4b8ad09d5dae4954723264fb7 Package ailaunchkit version 0.1.2 on PyPI was scanned across 6 files with no static-rule matches and no traced behaviors indicating exfiltration,...

Malicious code in catalogai (PyPI)

--- -= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=- Source: amazon-inspector ccb9ff2c71a85c2bac770a874ed3c811e963ba9b3da37417fb600678d8119991 catalogai 0.1.2 presents itself as a semantic-search / AI-catalog library but the shipped modules perform browser credential theft and...

Amazon Links Debug and Chalk npm Hijack to North Korea’s Sapphire Sleet

Amazon has tied the September 2025 hijack of the npm packages debug and chalk to North Korea. For ten months, the incident sat in the public record as crypto theft: a maintainer phished through a lookalike npm domain and a wallet-draining script pushed into at least 18 packages carrying more than...

Fake Coding Tests Deliver OtterCookie-Aligned Malware Hidden in SVG Flag Images

North Korean threat actors linked to the Contagious Interview campaign have been observed employing steganography in SVG image files to conceal malicious payloads as part of a campaign using fake job postings and coding challenges. "Any user who ran the project ended up with a four-stage payload...

Embedded Malicious Code

Overview Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Embedded Malicious Code. This package contains malicious code and was identified as part of the PolinRider supply chain campaign, linked to North Korean threat actors associated with the Contagious Interview/Famous Chollima activity...

Embedded Malicious Code

Overview Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Embedded Malicious Code. This package contains malicious code and was identified as part of the PolinRider supply chain campaign, linked to North Korean threat actors associated with the Contagious Interview/Famous Chollima activity...

North Korea-Linked npm Packages Mimic Rollup Polyfills to Steal Developer Secrets

Threat actors with ties to North Korea have been linked to a fresh set of malicious npm packages that masquerade as Rollup polyfill tooling to facilitate remote access and data theft. According to JFrog, the packages "rollup-packages-polyfill-core" and "rollup-runtime-polyfill-core" mimic the...

Malicious Package

Overview express-initial is a malicious package. that installs "socket io" as a remote access trojan RAT, then fetch a second-stage payload 0001.dat from the same command-and-control C2 server and execute it. The C2 is linked to FAMOUS CHOLLIMA, a North Korean DPRK group behind the "Contagious...

Analyzing Void Dokkaebi’s Cython-Compiled InvisibleFerret Malware

Void Dokkaebi, a North Korea-aligned intrusion set, has updated its information-stealing malware, InvisibleFerret, shifting its delivery format to evade script-based detections...

ScarCruft Hacks Gaming Platform to Deploy BirdCall Malware on Android and Windows

The North Korea-aligned state-sponsored hacking group known as ScarCruft has compromised a video game platform in a supply chain espionage attack, trojanizing its components with a backdoor called BirdCall to likely target ethnic Koreans residing in China. While prior versions of the backdoor hav...

Malicious code in graphicctx (PyPI)

--- -= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=- Source: kam193 8867133b18f35132bf0096bdbd5d1891e87f8a07bbba09f6dffe21c8b048596e Packages in this campaign are used to exfiltrate data from users installing code from prepared Github repositories. Packages contain code to exfiltrate files...

MAL-2026-3222 Malicious code in graphicsctxs (PyPI)

--- -= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=- Source: kam193 4786ca298bffb09916e622e06411ae44cb51c842a6eb9bf7bcf445c051463888 Packages in this campaign are used to exfiltrate data from users installing code from prepared Github repositories. Packages contain code to exfiltrate files...

ThreatsDay Bulletin: $290M DeFi Hack, macOS LotL Abuse, ProxySmart SIM Farms +25 New Stories

You scroll past one incident and see another that feels familiar, like it should have been fixed years ago, but it still works with small changes. Same bugs. Same mistakes. The supply chain is messy. Packages you did not check are stealing data, adding backdoors, and spreading. Attacking the...

[Podcast] It's not you, it's your printer: State-sponsored and phishing threats in 2025

!\Podcast\ It's not you, it's your printer: State-sponsored and phishing threats in 2025https://storage.ghost.io/c/af/a0/afa04ee3-414f-4481-8d23-7e7c146f192e/content/images/2026/04/YiR2025cover2x1-2-1.jpg In this episode, we unpack state-sponsored and phishing trends from the 2025 Talos Year in...

Dissecting Sapphire Sleet’s macOS intrusion from lure to compromise

In this article 1. Sapphire Sleet’s campaign lifecycle 2. Defending against Sapphire Sleet intrusion activity 3. Microsoft Defender detection and hunting guidance 4. Indicators of compromise Executive summary Microsoft Threat Intelligence uncovered a macOS‑focused cyber campaign by the North Kore...

ThreatsDay Bulletin: Defender 0-Day, SonicWall Brute-Force, 17-Year-Old Excel RCE and 15 More Stories

You know that feeling when you open your feed on a Thursday morning and it's just... a lot? Yeah. This week delivered. We've got hackers getting creative in ways that are almost impressive if you ignore the whole "crime" part, ancient vulnerabilities somehow still ruining people's days, and enoug...

State-sponsored threats: Different objectives, similar access paths

Across the Talos 2025 Year in Review, state-sponsored threat activity from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran all had varying motivations, such as espionage, disruption, financial gain, and geopolitical influence. But when you look at how these operations actually unfold, similar tactics,...