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By Mick Baccio
Thursday, August 20, 2026 14:00
_Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. _
Hello friend.
I’m Mick.
This is my first Threat Source newsletter, so I should probably introduce myself before I start telling you all the things I think you should be paying attention to. With assistance from an unnamed LLM, my bio reads like this:
_Mick Baccio is a globally recognized security strategist with a career spanning offensive operations, threat intelligence, and national-level incident response. He currently advises organizations around the world through his role at Talos, helping security leaders improve operations through data-informed approaches. Mick was the first-ever Chief Information Security Officer for a U.S. presidential campaign (2020) and previously served in multiple White House administrations as Threat Intelligence Branch Chief. _ _In his spare time, Mick is the Founder and President of THRUNT® Corp, IANS Faculty, and a KC7 Cyber Foundation board member. _ **_DEFCon Goon and Purveyor of Fine Experience. _ **Veteran. I also have a cat named qwerty and own too many Air Jordans.
I’ve spent most of my career somewhere in the intersection of threat intelligence, cybersecurity, government, and the people trying to make sense of all of it. These days, i spend a lot of time thinking about the decisions we make about security ripple outward, often in ways we didn't consider. Most of my ramblings will probably center around that. There will be threats. There will be intelligence. Occasionally something weird, but always something that caught my eye, and maybe worth checking out.
Which brings us this week. I picked a hell of a week to start.
Last Wednesday, the White House issued a presidential memorandum titled “Expanding Capabilities to Combat Transnational Cyber-Enabled Crime.” You should probably read it. The memorandum directs the DOJ and DHS to establish a program that can use private companies to conduct cyber operations against transnational criminal organizations outside the United States — beyond providing intelligence and assisting in the investigation. The memorandum explicitly envisions private companies conducting cyber surveillance and cyber effects operations under the direction and delegated authority of the U.S. government.
This is a pretty big thing.
For years, this industry has debated where line should exist between defending a network and reaching through the wire. We’ve debated hack back, active defense, attribution, proportional response, collateral damage, and what roles private companies have in offensive cyber operations. This is absolutely not “hack back" and calling it that misses important oversight built into the memorandum.
At the same time, let’s be clear about what we are reading. The United States is creating a mechanism for private companies to participate directly in government-authorized offensive cyber operations against systems outside the United States. There will be plenty of debate whether this is good or bad policy; I will leave that for someone else. I’m much more interested in the operational questions it creates.
Who establishes attribution strongly enough to authorize an operation? What happens when criminal and state infrastructure overlap? What happens when infrastructure is compromised and used as an ORB? Who owns access discovered during one of these operations? How is intelligence collected by a private company handled? What happens when a company conducting these operations also provides security services in that country?
Most importantly (in my head): What happens when another country discovers that employees of an American cybersecurity company are conducting offensive operations against infrastructure inside its borders?
This is not an argument against disrupting cybercrime. I’m all for it. These are questions about what happens when we fundamentally change who gets to do the disrupting.
Seriously.
What we have today is a framework. In 60 days, we should have a much better idea of what this will look like in practice, so circle that on your calendar. The memorandum gives DOJ and DHS 60 days to establish the operating procedures for the program, and no operation can be approved until those procedures are in place.
In the area between “private cybersecurity company” and “authorized participant in U.S. offensive cyber operations,” the threat model for that company and its employees just changed considerably.
The biggest question isn’t “Does this work?”
It’s whether we’ve fully considered what happens if it does.
And in 60 days, come back and ask again.
Talos posted two blogs on UAT-10147, a recently discovered Chinese-speaking cybercrime group that uses agentic AI to orchestrate sophisticated post-compromise operations across global web servers. UAT-10147 uses AI to generate operational playbooks, automate exploits, and develop custom malware. This includes the newly identified SPECTRE implant, a cross-platform backdoor featuring a custom Linux kernel rootkit and Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) capabilities designed to completely blind endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions.
The integration of agentic AI into offensive workflows means threat actors can now scale complex attacks with ruthless efficiency. UAT-10147 is using AI to dynamically troubleshoot, validate exploit paths, and generate custom rootkits that neutralize organizations' security stacks from the kernel level up. When an adversary can automate their reconnaissance and seamlessly blind your EDR, your window for detection shrinks drastically.
Defenders need to prioritize patching known one-day vulnerabilities in internet-facing applications like Zimbra, Nacos, and Telerik UI. Since UAT-10147 relies heavily on stolen ASP.NET MachineKeys for ViewState deserialization attacks, locking down your key material is an absolute must. You should also block known vulnerable drivers to shut down their BYOVD attacks, and tune your network monitoring to catch the anomalous HTTP 500 errors they use to silently validate exploits. Read both blogs for comprehensive coverage and indicators of compromise (IOCs).
Critical GitLab zero-click flaw poses mitigation challenges GitLab wants organizations running self-managed versions of its software development and DevOps platform to immediately upgrade to new versions released Monday, but patching is not going to eliminate the risk to enterprises and others managing projects there. (Dark Reading)
SANS 2026 AI Survey reveals cybersecurity AI adoption outpaces governance The survey found that 61% of cybersecurity practitioners now use AI in red team activities, while 76% have an enterprise AI governance role. Yet more than half said formal audit frameworks are not in place, and only 27% described their AI deployment as mature production. (Industrial Cyber)
“Unprecedented” number of Apple users received recent spyware alert, say investigators Several people publicly and privately reported receiving Apple’s spyware alerts over the weekend, after Apple sent out a new wave of notifications on Friday alerting customers in 110 countries that they had been targeted with powerful spyware. (TechCrunch)
Critical macOS, SharePoint, vCenter, and Microsoft IKE flaws under active exploitation The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added four critical vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, stating they are being exploited in the wild. (The Hacker News)
Describing attacks with crime script analysis Martin explores how using crime script analysis to describe an attack with everyday language makes the situation accessible to non-technical audiences and identify points where the crime can be disrupted.
Beers with Talos: For the record, no comment Kaitlin Acharya joins the crew to take us inside what happens when Talos spots something that could become a major threat, how her team tracks changes in threat actor behavior, and how intelligence moves from an investigation into detection content.
Don't scan that! QR code phishing and cloud-native threats What happens when a QR code leads to a major security incident? In this episode, Amy sits down with Senior Incident Response Consultant Terryn Valikodath to break down a recent, high-stakes breach at an Australian medical center.
International European Cyber Threat Intelligence Conference (IECTIC) (Sept. 9) Kassel, Germany
Secure Iowa (Sept. 9) Altoona, IA
.conf26 (Sept. 14 – 17) Denver, CO
LABSCon (Sept. 16 – 19) Scottsdale, AZ
VB (Oct. 14 – 16) Seville, Spain
CAMLIS (Oct. 21 – 23) Arlington, VA
SHA256: 9f1f11a708d393e0a4109ae189bc64f1f3e312653dcf317a2bd406f18ffcc507 MD5: 2915b3f8b703eb744fc54c81f4a9c67f Talos Rep: https://talosintelligence.com/talos_file_reputation?s=9f1f11a708d393e0a4109ae189bc64f1f3e312653dcf317a2bd406f18ffcc507 Example Filename: VID001.exe Detection Name: W32.9F1F11A708-100.SBX.TG**
SHA256: a31f222fc283227f5e7988d1ad9c0aecd66d58bb7b4d8518ae23e110308dbf91 MD5: 7bdbd180c081fa63ca94f9c22c457376 Talos Rep: https://talosintelligence.com/talos_file_reputation?s=a31f222fc283227f5e7988d1ad9c0aecd66d58bb7b4d8518ae23e110308dbf91 Example Filename: d4aa3e7010220ad1b458fac17039c274_62_Exe.exe Detection Name: Win.Dropper.Miner::95.sbx.tg**
SHA256: 24fa02c3f6ab460648f2c1274aefffb3e25569b5afdcb0d4a5918c7c742780f1 MD5: 8ef476fa2322d063896830f85bac2e7f Talos Rep: https://talosintelligence.com/talos_file_reputation?s=24fa02c3f6ab460648f2c1274aefffb3e25569b5afdcb0d4a5918c7c742780f1 Example Filename: WebCompanion.exe Detection Name: W32.24FA02C3F6-95.SBX.TG
SHA256: 90b1456cdbe6bc2779ea0b4736ed9a998a71ae37390331b6ba87e389a49d3d59 MD5: c2efb2dcacba6d3ccc175b6ce1b7ed0a Talos Rep: https://talosintelligence.com/talos_file_reputation?s=90b1456cdbe6bc2779ea0b4736ed9a998a71ae37390331b6ba87e389a49d3d59 Example Filename: tmp00055df5.dll Detection Name: Auto.90B145.282358.in02
SHA256: c4dd71e347a076ba24bdd2d0ee532ef991c1ef25a2431a19f850942ba2ab16b2 MD5: 9a47c4d379998ade2f8f99e23a630c06 Talos Rep: https://talosintelligence.com/talos_file_reputation?s=c4dd71e347a076ba24bdd2d0ee532ef991c1ef25a2431a19f850942ba2ab16b2 Example Filename: WCInstaller_NonAdmin.exe Detection Name: W32.C4DD71E347-95.SBX.TG
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