It’s been a week of chaos in code and calm in headlines. A bug that broke the internet’s favorite framework, hackers chasing AI tools, fake apps stealing cash, and record-breaking cyberattacks — all within days. If you blink, you’ll miss how fast the threat map is changing.
New flaws are being found, published, and exploited in hours instead of weeks. AI-powered tools meant to help developers are quickly becoming new attack surfaces. Criminal groups are recycling old tricks with fresh disguises — fake apps, fake alerts, and fake trust.
Meanwhile, defenders are racing to patch systems, block massive DDoS waves, and uncover spy campaigns hiding quietly inside networks. The fight is constant, the pace relentless.
For a deeper look at these stories, plus new cybersecurity tools and upcoming expert webinars, check out the full ThreatsDay Bulletin.
⚡ Threat of the Week
Max Severity React Flaw Comes Under Attack — A critical security flaw impacting React Server Components (RSC) has come under extensive exploitation within hours of publication disclosure. The vulnerability, CVE-2025-55182 (CVSS score: 10.0), relates to a case of remote code execution that could be triggered by an unauthenticated attacker without requiring any special setup. It’s also tracked as React2Shell. Amazon reported that it observed attack attempts originating from infrastructure associated with Chinese hacking groups like Earth Lamia and Jackpot Panda within hours of public disclosure of the flaw. Coalition, Fastly, GreyNoise, VulnCheck, and Wiz have also reported seeing exploitation efforts targeting the flaw, indicating that multiple threat actors are engaging in opportunistic attacks. The Shadowserver Foundation said it has detected 28,964 IP addresses vulnerable to the React2Shell flaw as of December 7, 2025, down from 77,664 on December 5, with approximately 10,100 located in the U.S., 3,200 in Germany, and 1,690 in China.
🔔 Top News
- Over 30 Flaws in AI-Powered IDEs — Security researcher Ari Marzouk disclosed details of more than 30 security vulnerabilities in various artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) that combine prompt injection primitives with legitimate features to achieve data exfiltration and remote code execution. The vulnerabilities have been collectively dubbed IDEsaster. “All AI IDEs (and coding assistants that integrate with them) effectively ignore the base software (IDE) in their threat model,” Marzouk said. “They treat their features as inherently safe because they’ve been there for years. However, once you add AI agents that can act autonomously, the same features can be weaponized into data exfiltration and RCE primitives.” Patches have been released to address the issues, with Anthropic acknowledging the risk via a security warning.
- Chinese Hackers Use BRICKSTORM to Target U.S. Entities — China-linked threat actors, including UNC5221 and Warp Panda, are using a backdoor dubbed BRICKSTORM to maintain long-term persistence on compromised systems, according to an advisory from the U.S. government. “BRICKSTORM is a sophisticated backdoor for VMware vSphere and Windows environments,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said. “BRICKSTORM enables cyber threat actors to maintain stealthy access and provides capabilities for initiation, persistence, and secure command-and-control. The activity has once again revived concerns about China’s sustained ability to tunnel deeper into critical infrastructure and government agency networks undetected, often for extended periods. The attacks have also amplified enduring concerns about China’s cyber espionage activity, which has increasingly targeted edge networks and leveraged living-off-the-land techniques to fly under the radar.
- GoldFactory Targets Southeast Asia with Bogus Banking Apps — Cybercriminals associated with a financially motivated group known as GoldFactory have been observed staging a fresh round of attacks targeting mobile users in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam by impersonating government services. The activity, observed since October 2024, involves distributing modified banking applications that act as a conduit for Android malware. Group-IB said it has identified more than 300 unique samples of modified banking applications that have led to almost 2,200 infections in Indonesia. The infection chains involve the impersonation of government entities and trusted local brands and approaching prospective targets over the phone to trick them into installing malware by instructing them to click on a link sent on messaging apps like Zalo. The links redirect the victims to fake landing pages that masquerade as Google Play Store app listings, resulting in the deployment of a remote access trojan like Gigabud, MMRat, or Remo, which surfaced earlier this year using the same tactics as GoldFactory. These droppers then pave the way for the main payload that abuses Android’s accessibility services to facilitate remote control.
- Cloudflare Blocks Record 29.7 Tbps DDoS Attack — Cloudflare detected and mitigated the largest ever distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that measured at 29.7 terabits per second (Tbps). The activity originated from a DDoS botnet-for-hire known as AISURU, which has been linked to a number of hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks over the past year. The attack lasted for 69 seconds. It did not disclose the target of the attack. The botnet has prominently targeted telecommunication providers, gaming companies, hosting providers, and financial services. Also tackled by Cloudflare was a 14.1 Bpps DDoS attack from the same botnet. AISURU is believed to be powered by a massive network comprising an estimated 1-4 million infected hosts worldwide.
- Brazil Hit by Banking Trojan Spread via WhatsApp Worm — Brazilian users are being targeted by various campaigns that leverage WhatsApp Web as a distribution vector for banking malware. While one campaign attributed to a threat actor known as Water Saci drops a Casbaneiro variant, another set of attacks has led to the deployment of the Astaroth banking trojan. Sophos is tracking the second cluster under the moniker STAC3150 since September 24, 2025. “The lure delivers a ZIP archive that contains a malicious VBS or HTA file,” Sophos said. “When executed, this malicious file launches PowerShell to retrieve second-stage payloads, including a PowerShell or Python script that collects WhatsApp user data and, in later cases, an MSI installer that delivers the Astaroth malware.” Despite the tactical overlaps, it’s currently not clear if they are the work of the same threat actor. “In this particular campaign, the malware spreads through WhatsApp,” K7 Security Labs said.
