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
Ransomware Trends & Data Insights: October 2026
Although Akira once again emerged as the most active ransomware group in October, overall ransomware and extortion activity was not dominated by any single threat group and instead remained widely distributed among a variety of threat actors, continuing the trend that began around August. Arete identified 31 unique named threat groups in October, the most observed in a single month so far in 2026. In addition to Akira, Settra, and The Gentlemen were among the three most active groups. Several new threat actors also emerged, including BYOD, Kubera Team, QWCrypt, AoQin, Emperador, Osiris Team, and Cinder, with Cinder assessed as possibly part of a threat actor cluster affiliated with the former BlackFile group.
Figure 1. Activity from the top 10 threat groups in October 2026
Throughout the month, analysts at Arete identified several trends behind the threat actors perpetrating cybercrime activities:
PHP2Shell emerged as one of the most significant threats in October, with increasing exploitation of the critical PHP vulnerabilities CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. Other notable vulnerabilities included CVE-2026-104286 affecting FortiMail, and CVE-2026-102255, a critical pre-authentication Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability affecting SonicWall SMA1000 appliances, highlighting continued threat actor interest in internet-facing enterprise infrastructure.
International law enforcement operations against cybercriminal groups continued to make headlines in October. German authorities announced the arrest of 28-year-old Russian national Vladimir K., suspected of being a senior operator within the Qilin Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) group. Separately, the FBI arrested an individual with suspected links to ShinyHunters, adding to recent law enforcement activity targeting ransomware and extortion groups, including the disruption of KillSec. While Vladimir K.’s arrest has not yet had a notable impact on Qilin’s operational activity, it could provide law enforcement with greater insight into the group’s infrastructure and affiliate network, potentially supporting further disruption efforts.
In early October, “The Luna Moth Files” exposed several files containing alleged internal communications associated with Luna Moth, also known as Silent Ransom Group, revealing insights into the group’s social engineering, data extortion, and victim negotiation operations. However, several claims remain unverified, and the exposure has not notably disrupted the group’s activity thus far, as it was among the top threat actors Arete observed throughout the month.
Sources
Arete Internal
Article
PHP2Shell Exploitation Update
PHP2Shell exploitation activity continues to increase globally, with threat actors targeting the critical PHP remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. Researchers recently identified low-volume scanning targeting unpatched or partially mitigated hosts across multiple countries and sectors, and the activity is assessed with moderate confidence as linked to a Korean-speaking operator associated with the Lazarus Group ecosystem. While PHP2Shell (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619) has been patched in PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35, the separately identified CVE-2026-115560 remains unpatched.
What’s Notable and Unique
PHP2Shell vulnerabilities can cause memory corruption due to improper error handling, potentially allowing threat actors to achieve remote code execution on vulnerable PHP servers.
Observed activity includes mass scanning, PHP environment fingerprinting, exploitation attempts, credential and secret theft attempts, and attempts to deliver second-stage payloads and malware.
Successful in-the-wild exploitation has also been reported against honeypots, resulting in shell command execution and the retrieval of additional payloads, demonstrating the potential for follow-on malicious activity.
Mitigations
Organizations should prioritize upgrading internet-facing PHP deployments to patched versions, migrating unsupported PHP versions, updating embedded and containerized PHP runtimes, and implementing available Web Application Firewall (WAF) protections as a temporary defense-in-depth measure.
Analyst Comments
PHP2Shell poses a significant security concern due to its potential to enable unauthenticated remote code execution on vulnerable PHP servers. The progression from mass scanning and exploitation attempts to reports of successful command execution demonstrates the potential for these vulnerabilities to support initial access and subsequent malicious activity. Arete has been closely monitoring PHP2Shell exploitation activity and regularly reviewing and updating related indicators to support detection and blocking efforts. Given the potential for remote exploitation and follow-on activity, PHP2Shell represents a high-priority initial-access risk, emphasizing the importance of timely patching and remediation of affected PHP environments.
Sources
PHP shares mitigation for new RCE vulnerability with no patch
PHP2Shell Exploitation Attempts Continue Amid Suspected N. Korea Global Scanning Activity
PHP2Shell Exploit Attempts Hit Millions as Attackers Try to Deploy Mirai Malware
Advisory: PHP2Shell Vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-109618, CVE-2026-109619)
Article
LiteLLM Supply-Chain Compromise
A software supply-chain attack compromised the release pipeline of LiteLLM, a widely used open-source Python SDK and AI gateway. Attackers leveraged the compromised pipeline on October 21st to publish a malicious LiteLLM version through PyPI and associated Docker registries. The affected release, LiteLLM 1.107.0, contained malware designed to steal credentials, sensitive configuration data, private keys, browser information, and other secrets from compromised systems.
What’s Notable and Unique
The incident is particularly significant because LiteLLM provides a common API for applications to interact with AI models from multiple providers. It is reported that the project had approximately 61,800 GitHub stars and 92 million monthly PyPI downloads.
Rather than modifying the core LiteLLM application source code, the threat actors reportedly tampered with the installation package itself. The malware was designed for broad credential and information theft and encrypted the collected data before uploading it to the attacker's endpoint.
The compromise went beyond one-time credential theft. A malicious Python component launched a detached loader that checked a GitHub-hosted pointer every hour and could download Python code from an external server for execution on the compromised machine. This provided threat actors with a mechanism for subsequent remote code execution.
Analyst Comments
Although the malicious packages were subsequently removed, simply uninstalling or deleting the affected LiteLLM package may not be sufficient, because malicious Python startup files or the detached loader could remain on the host. All exposed information should be rotated immediately, and infected systems should be isolated and rebuilt from clean backups. The most recent clean release prior to the attack, LiteLLM 1.106.2, is currently the suggested recovery version.
Sources
LiteLLM release pipeline hacked to distribute info-stealer malware
LiteLLM 1.107.0 Compromised: Python Startup Hooks Steal Cloud, AI, and Proxy Credentials
The Collector Reaches Beyond Provider API Keys
Article
French Supermarket Cyberattack Highlights Risks in Exposed Refrigeration Controllers
Hundreds of French supermarkets were reportedly affected by a cyberattack in which threat actors compromised internet-connected refrigeration controllers and manipulated temperature and defrost settings, which caused refrigeration units to overheat, resulting in widespread food spoilage and significant financial loss. Impacted refrigeration systems were associated with Danfoss, Copeland, and Dixell, and demonstrated how vulnerabilities in industrial control systems (ICS) can disrupt physical operations without relying on conventional data theft or encryption. The attack also raised concerns about the wider exposure of similar devices, as thousands of refrigeration management interfaces remain accessible from the public internet. The incident highlights the growing risk posed by insecure operational technology (OT), particularly where legacy equipment and remote-management interfaces lack adequate security controls.
What’s Notable and Unique
Researchers identified approximately 2,765 internet-accessible Danfoss AK-SM 800A interfaces during assessment. This figure reflects the scope of that research and should not be interpreted as a current count of exposed devices. Publicly accessible management interfaces increase the opportunity for unauthorized access to industrial equipment.
Research also identified several security flaws in the Danfoss AK-SM 800A platform, including an authentication bypass command injection that could enable remote code execution and a weakness involving web-server configuration changes. Danfoss addressed these findings through firmware updates.
Authorities reported compromised Danfoss AK-SM and AK-SC systems, alongside Copeland XWEB and Dixell XWEB monitoring platforms.
Analyst Comments
The incident demonstrates the business consequences of insufficiently secured industrial infrastructure and reinforces the need to integrate OT security into enterprise risk management. Organizations operating connected facility systems should establish clear ownership of industrial assets, enforce secure remote-access policies, and prioritize remediation based on exposure and operational criticality. The findings also highlight the importance of coordinating security teams with facilities and engineering personnel to ensure that protective measures do not compromise essential operations. A risk-based approach to OT security can help organizations reduce exposure while maintaining the availability and reliability of critical equipment.
Sources
France Supermarket Hacks Expose Risks of Internet-Facing Refrigeration Systems
Freeze the Controller, Defrost the Food: Uncovering Vulnerabilities in Danfoss Refrigeration Controllers
Attackers Heat French Supermarket Fridges Up to 50°C by Hijacking Danfoss Controllers