CyberWire Daily - Shut it down before they do.

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Kiteworks urges customers pull the plug on vulnerable servers. CISA lays out its election security plan. Known vulnerabilities linger unpatched. Big AI labs consider a new standards body. Questions surround claims of an OpenAI Medicare hack. File notifications become a privacy leak. SectopRAT hides in audio software. A new Android banking trojan takes control. An attacker puts open-source AI agents to work hacking hundreds of organizations. A Rydox cybercrime marketplace operator pleads guilty. Our guest is Todd Thorsen, CISO of CrashPlan, with ways to prepare for and react to critical infrastructure campaigns. Americans give AI the side-eye. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you’ll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Todd Thorsen, CISO of CrashPlan, discusses ways to prepare for and react to critical infrastructure campaigns, and how AI is contributing to a bigger and more disruptive attack surface. Selected Reading Imminent Zero-Day Attack: KiteWorks Urges Customers to Shut Down Servers (Heise) CISA Election Security Plan Flags Patching Barriers, Voter Database Attacks (SecurityWeek) Only 26% of Detected CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Were Fully Remediated (Hackread) Google, OpenAI, Anthropic Plan Frontier AI Standards Body (GovInfo Security) Doubts grow over claims OpenAI agent hacked Australian Medicare portal (The Record) Windows, Linux, Android File Notification Systems Leak User Activity (SecurityWeek) SectopRAT Abuses Legitimate Audio Software Files to Steal PC Data (Hackread) RemControl Banking Trojan Gives Attackers Remote Control of Android Devices (Infosecurity Magazine) Crook used three open source agents to break into a Fortune 500 hospitality company, a major US airline and 25+ other orgs (The Register) Kosovar Owner of Rydox Marketplace Pleads Guilty in US Court (SecurityWeek) Americans Fear AI Will Make the World Worse, Love It Anyway (404 Media) Share your feedback. What do you think about CyberWire Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? N2K CyberWire helps you reach the industry’s most influential leaders and operators, while building visibility, authority, and connectivity across the cybersecurity community. Learn more at sponsor.thecyberwire.com. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyberwire Network, powered by N2K. Standard active directory migration tools don't move AES keys. They move NTLM hashes. That means when you cut over, your applications fail silently. In my recent conversation with Sempros' Mike Masquale, I asked him why standard migration tools miss these accounts and how identity teams can fix them before cutover day. Listen to our full conversation now at explore.thecyberwire.com slash Semperus. Hey, everybody, Dave here.

I want to let you know about a special gathering hosted by Zimperium at the Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. This invitation-only event will bring together federal cybersecurity and technology leaders to discuss some of the most pressing challenges facing government today, including mobile security, mission resilience, and the overall. evolving threat landscape. I'm always grateful for opportunities to spend time with smart people doing important work, and I'm excited to be part of these conversations. I hope to see some familiar faces there. If you're interested in attending, you can request an invitation. You'll find more information in our show notes. Our thanks to Zimperium for sponsoring this event.

We'll see you there. Kiteworks urges customers pull the plug on vulnerable servers. Sisa lays out its election security plan. Known vulnerabilities linger unpatched. Big AI labs consider a new standards body. Questions surround claims of an open AI Medicare hack. File notifications become a privacy leak. Sectop rat hides an audio software. A new Android banking Trojan takes control.

An attacker puts open source AI agents to work hacking hundreds of organizations. A Rydoc's cybercrime marketplace operator pleads guilty. Our guest is Todd Thorson, CEO. of Crash Plan with ways to prepare for and react to critical infrastructure campaigns. And Americans give AI the side eye. It's Friday, September 25th, 26. I'm Dave Bittner, and this is your Cyberwire Intel briefing. Thanks for joining us here today.

It is great as always to have you with us. Kiteworks is urging customers to immediately shut down affected servers after warning of an imminent attack exploiting an. undisclosed zero-day vulnerability. According to Heist, the company says it has evidence that attackers are preparing to target internet-accessible KiteWorks systems and that simply blocking external access may not provide sufficient protection. Kiteworks has not publicly disclosed technical details about the vulnerability in an effort to avoid giving attackers information they could use before a fix is available. The company is working on a security update and has advised

customers to keep affected systems offline until it can be installed. The unusual recommendation to completely shut down servers reflects the seriousness of the threat and the absence of an immediate mitigation. Customers are being directed to Kiteworks support channels for updates and instructions as the company works to release a patch. SISA has released its 2026 election infrastructure security plan, outlining cyber and physical risks facing election systems and the federal resources available to state and local officials. SISA says outdated certification requirements can slow security patching, while inconsistent vendor transparency and uneven cybersecurity maturity leaves some election networks exposed.

The agency also warns that attackers who compromise ordinary business systems can potentially move laterally into election infrastructure. The plan calls for stronger vulnerability management, multi-factor authentication, network monitoring, restricted access, paper ballots, and manual post-election audits. SISA also recommends that vendors assign CVEs to vulnerabilities, disclose source code theft, and provide software bills of materials. Other concerns include attacks on voter registration databases and insider threats involving staff, volunteers, contractors, and vendors. Physical threats remain significant as well. SISA says 96 of 107 election-related security incidents tracked since January 2022 were bomb threats. The agency is offering election

officials free security assessments, scanning, penetration testing, and information sharing services. Verizon says vulnerability exploitation has become the most common initial access vector in breaches, accounting for 31% of cases, but the problem isn't necessarily new vulnerabilities. Many organizations are struggling to fix flaws that are already well known. Verizon found just 26% of detected vulnerabilities in SISA's known exploited vulnerabilities catalog were fully remediated down from 38% a year earlier. Median remediation time also climbed from 32 to 43 days. Other research suggests attackers are happy to exploit that lag.

Trend AI found more than 70% of requested exploits targeted vulnerabilities disclosed at least two years earlier. Meanwhile, vulnerability volume continues to grow as many security teams remain dependent on manual processes. Automox found 42% still track patching and vulnerability status in spreadsheets or dashboards. The result is a widening window between the same. disclosure and remediation, giving attackers plenty of time to exploit known weaknesses. Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic are reportedly nearing an agreement to create an independent organization for monitoring frontier AI models. According to the information, the Standards Authority for Frontier AI, or Safa, could launch by the end of 2026 or early 2027. The proposed

organization would develop common standards for assessing advanced models and conduct benchmark testing. The labs have reportedly approached former government officials and AI researchers about potential roles. Modeled in part on the financial industry's FINRA, SAFA would operate as a self-regulatory organization and wouldn't require congressional or presidential approval to form, although gaining legal authority could require government registration. The effort comes amid heightened scrutiny of AI safety, including recent agent-related security incidents and broader debate over whether AI development should slow enough for safeguards to catch up. Security researchers are questioning claims that an OpenAI agent hacked an Australian government

Medicare statistics portal. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the agent gained unauthorized access to non-public files after bypassing repeated blocks, while OpenAI acknowledged its models took unintended actions. Neither has released activity logs. But recorded future news found archived JavaScript showing the portal itself directed visitors to an unauthenticated guest endpoint. The same code may also explain supposedly internal file names, while files written to the server may have been temporary chart images routinely generated by the site. That evidence raises questions about whether this incident constituted hacking at all. However, separate research from Transluse found agents linked to the same OpenAI swarms

using genuine attack techniques, including SQL injection and path traversal against other sites while performing ordinary data retrieval tasks. OpenAI says its investigation could take months. Researchers at Austria's Graz University of Technology have, shown that file change notification features built into Linux, Android, Windows, and MacOS can leak information about other users. These mechanisms normally alert applications when files change, but researchers found that file names and event timing alone can reveal activity without exposing file contents. On Linux, they could detect keystroke timing with up to 100% accuracy

and fingerprint websites loaded in Firefox with nearly 88% accuracy. An Android app requiring no permissions could monitor WhatsApp media activity, including file names. Windows leaked full file paths across user accounts, allowing researchers to identify Firefox browsing activity with nearly 98% accuracy. MacOS exposed less information but still revealed application activity. Linux has partially addressed the most serious issue. Researchers list no fixes for Android or MacOS, while Microsoft says the Windows behavior isn't considered a vulnerability.

Researchers at Fortegarde found a sectop rat variant concealed inside modified components of legitimate digital audio software on a compromised Windows PC. Researchers found no evidence the software vendor distributed the tempered files, and they couldn't determine how they reached the victim. Once present, Windows Task Scheduler launched a legitimate component that loaded a modified DLL, beginning a multi-stage process that decrypted and executed Sectop Rat in memory. The layered approach helped keep the final remote access Trojan from appearing as an obvious executable. SETOPRat connected to command and

control infrastructure using encrypted communications and supported 29 commands, including screenshots, file management, remote command execution, and data theft. An additional module could steal browser credentials, cookies, payment card details, auto-fill data, and information from email, gaming, and cryptocurrency applications. Forta Guard recommends scrutinizing scheduled tasks that launch software from unusual locations. Group IB researchers have identified a new Android-banking Trojan called REM Control, which has targeted customers of more than 30 banks across six countries since July. Victims are lured through fake Google Play pages impersonating the TV Tap IPTV app. The malware's dropper attempts to suppress Google Play protect before installing the payload.

Once victims grant accessibility service permissions, REM Control can effectively take control of the device. It uses full-screen overlays to impersonate banking. apps and steel pins, mobile banking codes, and card details. It can also capture screens, keystrokes, and unlock patterns, while blocking attempts to uninstall it or perform a factory reset. Researchers say the suspected Russian-speaking developer appears to have manipulated an AI assistant into helping build portions of the command and control backend and fishing overlays by presenting the project as parental monitoring software. Researchers at Gambit say a Chinese-speaking attacker used three open-source AI tools

to conduct near-autonomous attacks against hundreds of organizations. Between September 10th and 15th, the campaign launched at least 105 attacks and compromised at least 27 companies to varying degrees, including a Fortune 500 hospitality company and a major U.S. airline. The operator used Stricks to discover vulnerabilities, Cairn to autonomously pursue objectives, such as gaining administrator access, and Hermes to orchestrate the campaign. Successful attacks often took only hours. In two cases, the agents exfiltrated more than 600,000 credit card records, while payment card skimmers were confirmed

on 19 websites. The economics were striking. The attackers calculated an average AI cost of just $25.46 per completed scan. Gambit says the campaign demonstrates how AI automation can dramatically compress the time defenders have to detect and respond to intrusions. Kosovoire National Ardit Kusleshi has pleaded guilty in the U.S. to charges tied to operating the Rydok's cybercrime marketplace. Authorities disrupted Rydocs in December 2024, seizing its domain, server. and roughly $225,000 in cryptocurrency.

The marketplace allegedly had about 18,000 users and offered more than 321,000 products, including stolen personal and payment card data, credentials, fishing kits, and cybercrime tools. Kluetshi pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and money laundering conspiracy. Sentencing is scheduled for February 27. Coming up after the break,

My conversation with Todd Thorson's Sissau of Crash Plan. We're discussing ways to prepare for and react to critical infrastructure campaigns. And Americans give AI the side eye. And here, the Mona Lisa gazed into Mona's eyes in perfect health, with no undiagnosed problems and her optic nerve in excellent condition. Anyone here got eyes like Mona? Mine are brownish. Not enough people know about their eye health.

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Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Todd Thorson is Sissau of Crash Plan. We got together to discuss ways to prepare for and react to critical infrastructure campaigns. I would say it's probably a number of things, and it's probably investment, aging technology are probably some of the chief ones. And also, you know, there's external factors that make those critical infrastructure providers

become targets to do damage to, you know, regions or nations. What are some of the specific things that they're dealing with when it comes to staying up and running? Outages, attacks disruptions. And so I think about like critical infrastructure campaigns. It's really needing to prepare for the business impact of the attack. And it's not simply whether an attacker gets into the network. Because the objective might be to disrupt operations, degrade trust, create uncertainty,

or force the organization into making decisions quickly under pressure. Can we talk about incident response plans and how people should both put them into play and be ready to use them when needed? Yeah, absolutely. They're super important. And I can take it back to really understanding within the environment, what absolutely has to keep running. So security teams should work within the business and with business partners, operational

leaders to identify the systems, the identities, the third parties, and data that are really mission critical. understanding those dependencies leading to a foundation for defensive priorities and recovery strategies. So that's kind of really understanding the environment, what's critical, what needs to be protected, what needs to be backed up, those types of things within the organization. And then build resilience posture before the incident happens, right? So having all of the underpinning strong identity controls, segmentation, tested backup, immutable recovery points, endpoint protection, logging, vulnerability management, and then incident response

holistically around all of that. So the layers really that determine how well an organization is able to absorb an attack and respond to it quickly. Are there common areas where you see people are coming up short here? I would say a couple of the areas where I sort of think it, get overlooked because we've all got day jobs and these are sort of things that have to happen. But really taking the time to conduct tabletop exercises at the least, sort of walking through scenarios where we've had an outage and pulling the appropriate teams and subject matter experts into those conversations and walking through scenarios that help recover operations and go through that.

And so by going through those exercises, is organizations are going to understand where they have maybe process gaps, things that need to be addressed. And so there's remedial action that can come out of there, all within the mindset of really positioning yourself into a state of muscle memory. So when you're in a live fire event, you know what to do. People are practiced, rehearsed. They know what their roles and responsibilities are within the organization with a goal of getting back to operational capacity as quickly as possible. Let me flip the question upside down. And in your experience, when you and your colleagues have been called in to help folks with these sorts of things, the ones who are on a good footing are

there common elements for them? Really clear understanding of the environment, the systems that are impacted, having a plan in place. If you have to reconstitute or rebuild operational capacity, is there an order of operations that needs to happen? So do certain systems, need to come online first before you can introduce other ones and having sort of that practice muscle memory that comes into play. And then I think it's really, you know, teams that invest the time in sort of understanding what that landscape looks like, criticality, tabletop exercises and what the environment looks like are much better position. So they're not, everybody's not just running around like a chicken with their head cut off when something

goes wrong. Is it really easy for organizations to kind of pay this stuff, lip service, kind of hand-wave it away and think, well, you know, let's kick that can down the road. It is easy to do. You know, you've got, you know, partners throughout the organization that are focused on their day-to-day operations and responsibilities, whether that's, you know, marketing or finance or operations or engineering teams, really carving out time and asking them to be present in the moment for that tabletop exercise. is really important, but it does take away from others. So it's easy to truncate those and sort of just, hey, we had a 30-minute meeting. Here's all the things we talked about, but there really wasn't an end-stake goal of really testing resilience, so to speak. And I suppose a part of this is getting buy-in from the powers that be within the organization so that everybody is on board with this being a priority. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, buy-in and alignment with the culture of the organization is really important because it does take time. And so in the security space, I never want to look at it as like, hey, we've got a bunch of boxes that we need to check so we can get through our next audit or to prove this. But there should be meaning and a risk-based approach behind it. And so helping to tell those stories with leaders and business partners across the organization helps to, get that buy-in, I think, at the end of the day. How has AI changed things? What are the new approaches as we're making our way through all these changes? Yeah, it's in a number of ways, both on the offense and defensive perspective.

So, you know, traditionally security programs have been built around sort of knowing what assets exist and then who has access to them within the environment. So things like agentic AI is challenging that model because agents can interact with multiple systems, invoke tools, make decisions, and potentially create downstream actions at exponentially fast speeds. Attackers are using AI to improve fishing attacks, reconnaissance, social engineering, vulnerability research in an automated fashion. Conversely, defenders can use the same technology to improve things like detection, investigation, documentation, response capabilities. So that's a high level on what the landscape looks like there. That's Todd Thorson, Sissau of Crash Plan. Yes, you can have an enterprise network that's secure and reliable and high performance.

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only three countries, along with Egypt and Palestine, where negative feelings outweighed positive ones. Other Western countries also ranked high in worry, prompting Gallup to dub the phenomenon the paradox of the worried West. Researchers caution that optimism and trust aren't the same thing. People may believe AI has enormous potential while remaining skeptical of its accuracy, safety, or reliability. So humanity's emerging consensus on AI appears to be promising technology, interesting possibilities, please keep an eye on it. And that's The Cyberwire.

For links to all of today's stories, check out our daily briefing at thecyberwire.com. Be sure to check out this weekend's research Saturday in my conversation with NCWire, Sars Secker, VP of Research and SISO at SOC radar. The research we're discussing is titled Exposing Anonymous Kit, AI-powered FASS supply chain. That's Research Saturday. Check it out. And hello, Maria Vermazza is here on Sunday's T-minus Space Cyber Briefing. Mielenko Starchick and Andy Olkawa of Vision Space on the fundamentals of space for the Infosec Professional.

That is Sunday on T-minus. Don't miss it. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Please also fill out the survey and the show notes or send an email to Cyberwire at N2K.com. N2K's lead producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Trey Hester with original music and sound design by Elliot Peltzman.

Our contributing host is Maria Vermazza. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ivan. Peter Kilby is our publisher, and I'm Dave Bittner. Thanks for listening. We'll see you back here next week. Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money.

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