In this week’s news: Johann Rehberger talk on Exploiting AI Computer-Use and Coding Agents, Viral Claude ?Banned and reported to authorities? message isn?t real, AI-Powered Truman Show Operation Industrializes Investment Fraud, new campaign that uses WhatsApp for a Windows banking trojan, A critical vulnerability (CVE-2026-21877) found by Upwind affects n8n automation tools, unauthenticated RCE in Trend Micro Apex Central, California bans data broker reselling health data of millions, Cisco switches hit by reboot loops due to DNS client bug and Deepfake Face-Swapping Tools Are Creating Critical Security Risks

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Exploiting AI Computer-Use and Coding Agents, talk demonstrates end-to-end prompt injection exploits that compromise agentic systems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pbz5y7_WkM

A critical vulnerability (CVE-2026-21877) found by Upwind affects n8n automation tools.A major security flaw has been found in the platform, and it's about as serious as it gets. The firm Upwind recently put out an analysis on this problem, which is a ?critical authenticated remote code execution vulnerability.
https://hackread.com/n8n-users-patch-full-system-takeover-vulnerability/

Security researchers have uncovered a highly sophisticated, AI-assisted investment fraud operation in which victims are drawn into a personalized Truman Show-style controlled reality. Check Point discovered the scam in October 2025 after observing victims being targeted via SMS and messaging apps.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ai-truman-show-industrializes/

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of multiple critical-severity security flaws affecting Coolify, an open-source, self-hosting platform, that could result in authentication bypass and remote code execution:
https://thehackernews.com/2026/01/coolify-discloses-11-critical-flaws.html

Trend Micro has released a critical patch fixing several remotely exploitable vulnerabilities in Apex Central (on-premise), including a flaw (CVE-2025-69258) that may allow unauthenticated attackers to achieve code execution on affected installations.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2026/01/08/trend-micro-apex-central-cve-2025-69258-rce-poc/

Multiple Cisco switch models are suddenly experiencing reboot loops after logging fatal DNS client errors, according to reports seen by BleepingComputer. Starting at approximately 2 AM, what appears to be a firmware bug in the switches' internal DNS client service began treating DNS lookup failures as fatal errors, causing affected devices to reboot repeatedly.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cisco-switches-hit-by-reboot-loops-due-to-dns-client-bug/

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered three malicious npm packages that are designed to deliver a previously undocumented malware called NodeCordRAT. The names of the packages, all of which were taken down as of November 2025, are listed below. They were uploaded by a user named "wenmoonx."
https://thehackernews.com/2026/01/researchers-uncover-nodecordrat-hidden.html

The North Korean state-sponsored hacker group Kimsuki is using malicious QR codes in spearphishing campaigns that target U.S. organisations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation warns in a flash alert.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fbi-warns-about-kimsuky-hackers-using-qr-codes-to-phish-us-orgs/

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new campaign that uses WhatsApp as a distribution vector for a Windows banking trojan called Astaroth
https://thehackernews.com/2026/01/whatsapp-worm-spreads-astaroth-banking.html

The rapid advancement of deepfakes is becoming a major challenge for sustaining trust in digital identity systems, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has warned. Deepfake-generating technologies, and especially face-swapping tools are enabling malicious actors to bypass know-your-customer (KYC) and remote verification processes
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/wef-deepfake-faceswapping-security/

The California Privacy Protection Agency (CalPrivacy) has taken action against the  Datamasters marketing firm that sold the health and personal data of millions of users without being registered as a data broker. As per the California Delete Act, businesses buying and selling information about consumers are required to register their data brokerage activity by January 31st following each year.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/legal/california-bans-data-broker-reselling-health-data-of-millions/

Instagram says it fixed a bug that allowed threat actors to mass-request password reset emails, amid claims that data from more than 17 million Instagram accounts was scraped and leaked online.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/instagram-denies-breach-amid-claims-of-17-million-account-data-leak/

The latest incarnation of the notorious BreachForums hacking forum has suffered a data breach, with its user database table leaked online. BreachForums is the name of a series of hacking forums used to trade, sell, and leak stolen data, as well as sell access to corporate networks and other illegal cybercrime services.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/breachforums-hacking-forum-database-leaked-exposing-324-000-accounts/

Europol on Friday announced the arrest of 34 individuals in Spain who are alleged to be part of an international criminal organization called Black Axe.
https://thehackernews.com/2026/01/europol-arrests-34-black-axe-members-in.html

The Iranian threat actor known as MuddyWater has been attributed to a spear-phishing campaign targeting diplomatic, maritime, financial, and telecom entities in the Middle East with a Rust-based implant codenamed RustyWater.
https://thehackernews.com/2026/01/muddywater-launches-rustywater-rat-via.html

Anthropic has denied reports of banning legitimate accounts after a viral post on X claimed the creator of Claude had banned a user.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-viral-claude-banned-and-reported-to-authorities-message-isnt-real/

A surge in phishing attacks which exploit email routing settings and misconfigured domain spoofing protections to spoof domains and make malicious emails appear as if they were sent from within the organization are targeting Microsoft 365 accounts.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/phishing-exploits-misconfigured/

China-linked UAT-7290 has targeted South Asia and Southeastern Europe since 2022, conducting espionage and deploying RushDrop, DriveSwitch, and SilentRaid.
https://securityaffairs.com/186698/security/china-linked-uat-7290-spies-on-telco-in-south-asia-and-europe-using-modular-malware.html

Chinese-speaking attackers used a hacked SonicWall VPN to deploy ESXi zero-days that were likely exploited over a year before public disclosure.
https://securityaffairs.com/186709/hacking/chinese-speaking-hackers-exploited-esxi-zero-days-long-before-disclosure.html