Ethical Hacking News
Severe security threats are looming on the horizon, with malicious actors exploiting critical vulnerabilities in Ivanti EPMM, PDF engine software, cloud services, and RMM tools. Organizations must take extra precautions to secure their infrastructure and ensure that sensitive data is properly protected.
Malicious actors have been exploiting vulnerabilities in software applications, cloud services, and other systems, affecting organizations across multiple industries. The exploitation of critical vulnerabilities in Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) has led to a significant increase in attacks targeting government agencies, healthcare providers, financial institutions, and technology companies. Large language models (LLMs) are fundamentally insecure due to their design, making them susceptible to prediction attacks and not recommended for password generation. PDF engine vulnerabilities have been discovered in popular platforms from Foxit and Apryse, potentially allowing attackers to exploit them for account takeover and session hijacking. Training labs exposing cloud backdoors pose a risk of unauthorized access to cloud resources, prompting organizations to take extra precautions to secure their cloud infrastructure. The rise of Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software has led to an increase in malicious activities, making it challenging for defenders to detect and respond to RMM-related threats. CISA has added CVE-2021-22175 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies to apply the patch by March 11, 2026. A new phishing campaign targeting Fortune 500 companies uses legitimate invoices and dispute notifications from trusted vendors to bypass email security controls and harvest credentials via Telegram bots. New malware variants, including Remcos RAT, have emerged with direct online command-and-control (C2) communication, enabling real-time access and control over infected systems.
The recent months have seen a significant increase in severe security threats, as malicious actors continue to exploit vulnerabilities in various software applications, cloud services, and other systems. The latest context data reveals that several high-profile exploitation efforts have been reported, affecting organizations across multiple industries, including government agencies, healthcare providers, financial institutions, and technology companies.
One of the most notable examples is the exploitation of critical vulnerabilities in Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM), a popular mobile device management software used by many organizations. The two identified vulnerabilities, CVE-2026-1281 and CVE-2026-1340, allow unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code on target servers, granting them full control over mobile device management infrastructure without requiring user interaction or credentials. This has led to a significant increase in attacks targeting state and local government, healthcare, manufacturing, professional and legal services, and high technology sectors in the U.S., Germany, Australia, and Canada.
Another major security concern is the use of large language models (LLMs) to generate passwords, which have been found to be fundamentally insecure due to their design. LLMs are optimized to predict tokens rather than securely and uniformly sampling random characters, making them susceptible to prediction attacks. This has led researchers to warn that people and coding agents should not rely on LLM-generated passwords and instead use secure password generation methods.
The exploitation of PDF engine vulnerabilities has also been a significant concern in recent months. Researchers have discovered over 16 vulnerabilities in popular PDF platforms from Foxit and Apryse, potentially allowing attackers to exploit them for account takeover, session hijacking, data exfiltration, and arbitrary JavaScript execution. The issues cluster around recurring architectural failures in how PDF platforms handle untrusted input across layers.
In addition to these software-based vulnerabilities, there have been reports of training labs exposing cloud backdoors, which can be used by attackers to gain unauthorized access to cloud resources. This has led organizations to take extra precautions to secure their cloud infrastructure and ensure that sensitive data is properly protected.
Furthermore, the rise of Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software has also led to an increase in malicious activities. Threat actors have begun to increasingly favor these tools because they are ubiquitous in enterprise environments and offer increased stealth, persistence, and operational efficiency. This has made it more challenging for defenders to detect and respond to RMM-related threats.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has also been actively working to address several critical vulnerabilities, including a server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in GitLab. The agency has added CVE-2021-22175 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies to apply the patch by March 11, 2026.
In the realm of phishing attacks, researchers have discovered a new campaign targeting Fortune 500 companies using legitimate invoices and dispute notifications from trusted vendors. The attackers abuse these platforms to bypass email security controls and harvest credentials via Telegram bots. This has led organizations to take extra precautions to secure their email infrastructure and ensure that sensitive data is properly protected.
Lastly, the recent months have seen the emergence of new malware variants, including Remcos RAT, which has been observed exhibiting a significant change in behavior compared to previous versions. The latest variant establishes direct online command-and-control (C2) communication, enabling real-time access and control over infected systems. This shift from local data exfiltration to live, online surveillance represents an evolution in malware capabilities.
In conclusion, the recent months have seen a significant increase in severe security threats, as malicious actors continue to exploit vulnerabilities in various software applications, cloud services, and other systems. Organizations are advised to take extra precautions to secure their infrastructure, ensure that sensitive data is properly protected, and stay vigilant against emerging threats.
Related Information:
https://www.ethicalhackingnews.com/articles/Severe-Security-Threats-Loom-A-Growing-Landscape-of-Exploited-Vulnerabilities-and-Malicious-Activities-ehn.shtml
https://thehackernews.com/2026/02/threatsday-bulletin-openssl-rce-foxit-0.html
https://www.area51net.com/HOME/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/5901714/ThreatsDay-Bulletin-OpenSSL-RCE-Foxit-0-Days-Copilot-Leak-AI-Password-Flaws-20-Stories
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-1281
https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2026-1281/
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-1340
https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2026-1340/
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-22175
https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2021-22175/
Published: Thu Feb 19 13:59:50 2026 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
