Article
Remote Access and IoT Search Engines
Arete Analysis
Recently, Arete Incident Response Tiger Teams (“Arete IR”) have responded to an increased volume of ransomware incidents involving the Sodinikibi, Phobos, and Dharma ransomware variants. The threat actors deploying these variants are known to use anti-forensics techniques to hide their tracks. Once access is gained, they usually delete artifacts which aid cyber investigators with reconstructing steps taken by the threat actors, revealing important information pertaining to the root cause for the computer security event. In most cases, Arete was able to recover critical artifacts to forensically reconstruct the various attacks to identify a single entry point consistent across the three variants: Remote Desktop.
Requirements Businesses have a need to enable workers to access files and business resources remotely from home, hotels, or business relationships. The cheapest way for businesses to allow remote access is to “expose” the Remote Desktop Protocol (“RDP”) to the public internet. The business’ firewall configuration is altered to allow inbound connectivity to the default port 3389, and any connections to that port are automatically forwarded to a specific computer on the network, which is usually a terminal services server. Using only an Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, anyone can attempt to connect to the RDP service.
Limitations on Protocol and Service Most businesses who implement remote access via RDP aren’t aware of the limitations of the service nor do they implement intrusion detection and prevention services. Lastly, many don’t require multi-factor authentication. The downside to allowing any connection into a network is exactly that: any connection can be allowed into the network. This connection can be from anywhere, at any time, for any reason and with any number of authentication attempts. The RDP service itself doesn’t monitor for bad credential combinations and automatically disable or block connection attempts. Port forwarding on firewalls doesn’t inspect the inbound traffic either. Essentially, once a port is exposed to the public internet, anyone, anywhere, can try an unlimited number of usernames and passwords to gain access to that system. Since any number of combinations can be attempted, this makes the configuration vulnerable to credential stuffing, dictionary, and brute force attacks.
Crime of Opportunity Quite often during our investigations, clients ask “was this a targeted attack or a crime of opportunity?” Nine out of 10 times, it’s a crime of opportunity. Then the follow up question “Why us?” Well, for starters, it’s your configuration. These threat actors have their attack mechanics down to a series of steps: 1. Identify target 2. Gain access to target 3. Cover tracks 4. Deploy ransomware 5. Repeat
While they most likely aren’t outright targeting your organization directly, they may be targeting exposed services which link them to your organization.
Internet of Things (IoT) Search Engines
Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo are three very popular search engines. They’re used to find all sorts of text information or images. These search engines aren’t designed to identify specific computers or services across the world. Rather a different set of search engines can be used to find computers that are connected directly to the internet along with their IP addresses and any other information about the computer involving their geo location, running services, and protocol history. Use caution when visiting these sites as unintended side effects can occur.
https://zoomeye.org
These sites can be used by anyone, anonymously, to identify internet attached devices, the services they’re running and any other information the IoT crawlers can index. The anonymous feature is obtained via the IoT indexer by allowing anyone to query the index stored by the IoT search engine, instead of scanning the node directly. Essentially, this search engine is the phone book, allowing anyone to find street addresses by person’s names or people by street addresses.
A search for “port:3389”, which is the default port for RDP services, can return several million devices. Again, this isn’t real time information because the query is run against the index of the IoT search engine. Once an IP address is identified, additional steps would be needed to test if the IP address is online. Additionally, the resulting information can be filtered by organization, operating system, and country.
Reviewing the results, there’s approximately 1,060 IP addresses that are detected as the Windows 2003 operating system. At face value, this is extremely alarming because Windows 2003 was discontinued during July of 2015. Microsoft officially stopped supporting the operating system as well as providing security updates. Given the information returned from shodan.io, businesses are still relying on it as a means for remote connectivity. Again, these results would need to be qualified as online and available. Regardless, the number is still alarming.
Attack Methodologies
After the threat actor identifies a target, any number of steps can be performed to initiate an attack. Typically, the threat actor will profile the target to gain as much information as possible in order to increase the success of the attack. Profiling can occur in any of the following ways:
Verifying the IP address is online and attempting to brute force access automatically.
Attempting to resolve the IP address to a domain name or company name in order to:
Construct phishing emails for obtaining credentials.
Employ social engineering of employees for obtaining credentials
Research running services against known vulnerabilities to identify pre-built payloads to exploit the services.
Whichever approach the threat actor takes, there’s a good chance they will be successful with gaining unauthorized access to your network.
Preventative Actions
While it’s a waiting game to become the next victim, there are steps you can take to mitigate or prolong falling prey to these threat actor methodologies. Successful mitigation of unauthorized access can be achieved through the proper implementation of layered computer and network security controls. The following steps, while not exhaustive, can be taken to mitigate the exposure of services used by your organization.
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (“MFA”) on any third party accounts or remote access on any third party accounts or remote access accounts. accounts.
Disable RDP services and port forwarding on firewalls.
Implement VPN services to remotely connect to your organization’s network or leverage to your organization’s network or leverage remote
connection technologies that remote connection technologies that support MFA. support MFA.
Research open source intelligence to develop a public footprint of your organization. a public footprint of your organization.
Train employees on social engineering and phishing email tactics and techniques. phishing email tactics and techniques.
Purchase a cyber insurance policy and familiarize yourself with the preferred vendors yourself with the preferred vendors within your policy. within your policy.
Build a close working relationship with a cyber advisory company.
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Article
FortiGate Exploits Enable Network Breaches and Credential Theft
A recent security report indicates that threat actors are actively exploiting FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) appliances as initial access vectors to compromise enterprise networks. The activity leverages recently disclosed vulnerabilities or weak credentials to gain unauthorized access and extract configuration files, which often contain sensitive information, including service account credentials and detailed network topology data.
Analysis of these incidents shows significant variation in attacker dwell time, ranging from immediate lateral movement to delays of up to two months post-compromise. Since these appliances often integrate with authentication systems such as Active Directory and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), their compromise can grant attackers extensive access, substantially increasing the risk of widespread network intrusion and data exposure.
What’s Notable and Unique
The activity involves the exploitation of recently disclosed security vulnerabilities, including CVE-2025-59718, CVE-2025-59719, and CVE-2026-24858, or weak credentials, allowing attackers to gain administrative access, extract configuration files, and obtain service account credentials and network topology information.
In one observed incident, attackers created a FortiGate admin account with unrestricted firewall rules and maintained access over time, consistent with initial access broker activity. After a couple of months, threat actors extracted and decrypted LDAP credentials to compromise Active Directory.
In another case, attackers moved from FortiGate access to deploying remote access tools, including Pulseway and MeshAgent, while also utilizing cloud infrastructure such as Google Cloud Storage and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Analyst Comments
Arete has identified multiple instances of Fortinet device exploitation for initial access, involving various threat actors, with the Qilin ransomware group notably leveraging Fortinet device exploits. Given their integration with systems like Active Directory, NGFW appliances remain high-value targets for both state-aligned and financially motivated actors. In parallel, Arete has observed recent dark web activity involving leaked FortiGate VPN access, further highlighting the expanding risk landscape. This aligns with the recent reporting from Amazon Threat Intelligence, which identified large-scale compromises of FortiGate devices driven by exposed management ports and weak authentication, rather than vulnerability exploitation. Overall, these developments underscore the increasing focus on network edge devices as entry points, reinforcing the need for organizations to strengthen authentication, restrict external exposure, and address fundamental security gaps to mitigate the risk of widespread compromise.
Sources
FortiGate Edge Intrusions | Stolen Service Accounts Lead to Rogue Workstations and Deep AD Compromise
Article
Vulnerability Discovered in Anthropic’s Claude Code
Security researchers discovered two critical vulnerabilities in Anthropic's agentic AI coding tool, Claude Code. The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2025-59536 and CVE-2026-21852, allowed attackers to achieve remote code execution and to compromise a victim's API credentials. The vulnerabilities exploit maliciously crafted repository configurations to circumvent control mechanisms. It should be noted that Anthropic worked closely with the security researchers throughout the process, and the bugs were patched before the research was published.
What’s Notable and Unique
The configuration files .claude/settings.json and .mcp.json were repurposed to execute malicious commands. Because the configurations could be applied immediately upon starting Claude Code, the commands ran before the user could deny permissions via a dialogue prompt, or they bypassed the authentication prompt altogether.
.claude/settings.json also defines the endpoint for all Claude Code API communications. By replacing the default localhost URL with a URL they own, an attacker could redirect traffic to infrastructure they control. Critically, the authentication traffic generated upon starting Claude Code included the user's full Anthropic API key in plain text and was sent before the user could interact with the trust dialogue.
Restrictive permissions on sensitive files could be bypassed by simply prompting Claude Code to create a copy of the file's contents, which did not inherit the original file's permissions. A threat actor using a stolen API key could gain complete read and write access to all files within a workspace.
Analyst Comments
The vulnerabilities and attack paths detailed in the research illustrate the double-edged nature of AI tools. The speed, scale, and convenience characteristics that make AI tools attractive to developer teams also benefit threat actors who use them for nefarious purposes. Defenders should expect adversaries to continue seeking ways to exploit configurations and orchestration logic to increase the impact of their attacks. Organizations planning to implement AI development tools should prioritize AI supply-chain hygiene and CI/CD hardening practices.
Sources
Caught in the Hook: RCE and API Token Exfiltration Through Claude Code Project Files | CVE-2025-59536 | CVE-2026-21852
Article
Ransomware Trends & Data Insights: February 2026
After a slight lull in January, Akira and Qilin returned to dominating ransomware activity in February, collectively accounting for almost half of all engagements that month. The rest of the threat landscape remained relatively diverse, with a mix of persistent threats like INC and PLAY, older groups like Cl0p and LockBit, and newer groups like BravoX and Payouts King. Given current trends, the first quarter of 2026 will likely remain relatively predictable, with the top groups from the second half of 2025 continuing to operate at fairly consistent levels month to month.
Figure 1. Activity from the top 5 threat groups in February 2026
Throughout the month of February, analysts at Arete identified several trends behind the threat actors perpetrating cybercrime activities:
In February, Arete observed Qilin actively targeting WatchGuard Firebox devices, especially those vulnerable to CVE-2025-14733, to gain initial access to victim environments. CVE-2025-14733 is a critical vulnerability in WatchGuard Fireware OS that allows a remote, unauthenticated threat actor to execute arbitrary code. In addition to upgrading WatchGuard devices to the latest Firebox OS version, which patches the bug, administrators are urged to rotate all shared secrets on affected devices that may have been compromised and may be used in future campaigns.
Reports from February suggest that threat actors are increasingly exploring AI-enabled tools and services to scale malicious activities, demonstrating how generative AI is being integrated into both espionage and financially motivated threat operations. The Google Threat Intelligence Group indicated that state-backed threat actors are leveraging Google’s Gemini AI as a force multiplier to support all stages of the cyberattack lifecycle, from reconnaissance to post-compromise operations. Separate reporting from Amazon Threat Intelligence identified a threat actor leveraging commercially available generative AI services to conduct a large-scale campaign against FortiGate firewalls, gaining access through weak or reused credentials protected only by single-factor authentication.
The Interlock ransomware group recently introduced a custom process-termination utility called “Hotta Killer,” designed to disable endpoint detection and response solutions during active intrusions. This tool exploits a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2025-61155) in a gaming anti-cheat driver, marking a significant adaptation in the group’s operations against security tools like FortiEDR. Arete is actively monitoring this activity, which highlights the growing trend of Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) attacks, in which threat actors exploit legitimate, signed drivers to bypass and disable endpoint security controls.
Sources
Arete Internal