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# The Innocent Until Proven Guilty Learning Framework Helps Overcome Benign Append Attacks

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  Published:September 1, 2021

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  * [Benign append attack](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/benign-append-attack/)
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## Executive Summary

Machine learning in security has a major challenge -- it can't make mistakes. A mistake in one direction can lead to a risky slip of malware falling through the cracks. A mistake in the other direction causes your security solution to block good traffic, which is exorbitantly expensive for cybersecurity companies and a massive headache for consumers. In general, the amount of good (benign) traffic vastly outnumbers the amount of malicious traffic. Thus, minimizing errors on good traffic (called false positives) is key to building a good solution that makes few mistakes. Malware authors understand this and try to disguise their malicious code to look more like benign code. The most straightforward way to accomplish this is what's known as an "append" attack (also known as an injection or bundling), wherein an attacker takes a (typically large) amount of benign content and injects malicious content into it. Since machine learning classifiers built with standard techniques are sensitive to their presence, the benign content added by benign append attacks can perturb a classification away from a positive malware verdict, sometimes causing the classifier to miss it entirely.

Our study, "[Innocent Until Proven Guilty (IUPG): Building Deep Learning Models with Embedded Robustness to Out-Of-Distribution Content](https://conferences.computer.org/sp/pdfs/spw/2021/893400a049.pdf)," which we [presented](https://youtu.be/fMN5EjIL9P0?t=5298) at the [4th Deep Learning and Security Workshop](https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2021/SPW2021/dls_website/) (co-located with the 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy), proposes a generic prototype-based learning framework for neural network classifiers designed to increase robustness to noise and out-of-distribution (OOD) content within inputs. In other words, that study addresses a broader issue than the problems of machine-learning classifiers aiming to identify malware. However, the original motivation to create the Innocent Until Proven Guilty (IUPG) learning framework was to overcome append attacks on malware classifiers. Here, we illustrate IUPG by placing it firmly in the context of how it can be used to identify malware.

In the following sections, we provide more detail about benign append attacks and how they can be successful against even highly accurate classifiers, and how IUPG specifically addresses the issue. We provide the results of our experiments with IUPG and how it fits in with existing work. We close with examples of how Palo Alto Networks uses IUPG-trained models to proactively detect malicious websites, and, in particular, JavaScript malware on web pages.

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall customers who use [Advanced URL Filtering](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/threat-detection-and-prevention/web-security), [DNS Security](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/threat-detection-and-prevention/dns-security), and [WildFire](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/secure-the-network/wildfire) security subscriptions are better protected against benign append attacks through the use of IUPG.

## What Is a Benign Append Attack?

Classification is an essential task in both machine learning and human intelligence. The idea is to correctly classify data points into a predefined set of possible classes. Malware classification is one common classification problem in which each input sample must be classified as either benign or malicious. A pervasive and largely unsolved problem in the space of deep learning-based malware classification is the tendency of classifiers to flip their verdict when malicious content is concatenated with benign content or even random noise. Content may be appended, prepended or injected somewhere in the middle, but the attack type is most often presented in the case of appends. Each of the three possibilities presents a similar challenge for a classifier. Thus, we treat them the same.
![The diagram shows how the addition of benign content in a benign append attack can flip the verdict of a deep learning-based malware classifier. In the top portion of the diagram, the classifier correctly recognizes malicious content as malware. In the bottom portion of the diagram, a blue box representing benign content is concatenated. When fed into the classifier, this now results in an incorrect verdict of benign.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image.png) Figure 1. Visual explanation of a benign append attack. "M" refers to malicious and "B" refers to benign.

This attack type is often seen in the real world in the form of benign library injections. In that case, malicious code is injected into a large benign file. Again, the challenge for a malware classifier remains the same: It must pick out the "needle in the haystack" of malicious code while properly ignoring benign content despite its relative volume. Classifiers that are built to recognize and use features that correspond to the benign class as depicted in the training set will struggle with this task.

Our results suggest this attack is significantly successful against even highly accurate classifiers. Our deep learning JavaScript malware classifiers, built with categorical cross-entropy (CCE) loss, achieve well over 99% accuracy on our test set. Despite this, it took just 10,000 characters of random benign content appended onto malicious samples to successfully flip the verdict \>50% of the time. This is particularly concerning given the extremely low cost of leveraging the attack. The adversary does not need to know *any* details about the victim classifier. At the same time, benign content is extremely plentiful and trivial to produce. If the adversary has access to sensitive information about the victim model, such as its loss function, the appended content can be designed with model-specific techniques, which generally increase the success rate further.

## How Is Deep Learning Supposed to Overcome This?

In theory, to solve this problem perfectly, all content that is not directly indicative of malware must have a small enough impact on a classification mechanism such that a verdict will never be flipped to benign. At a high level, the approach we take is to encourage a network to exclusively learn and recognize uniquely identifiable patterns of the malicious class while being explicitly robust to all other content. An important observation is that malware patterns are highly structured and uniquely recognizable compared to the limitless possible benign patterns you can encounter in data (illustrated in Figure 2).
![The diagram depicts "Everything You Can Possibly Do In Software" as a large circle. A small portion of the circle is colored red and labeled "Malicious Things You Can Do," while a majority is colored blue and labeled "Every Other Possible Thing Is Benign."](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-1.png) Figure 2. A visual argument explaining malicious versus benign class structure.

A key innovation of IUPG is to differentiate classes with and without uniquely identifiable structures (patterns) in their usage for learning. Here, the malware class has uniquely identifiable structures (we call it a "target" class), while the benign class is inherently random (we call it the "off-target\*"\* class). The IUPG learning framework is specifically designed to learn the uniquely identifiable structures within target classes. Off-target data helps to chisel down those learned features of target classes to that which is truly inseparable. This is all in an attempt to shrink the overall receptive field of a neural network (i.e. data patterns that are sensitive exclusively to malicious patterns). If no malicious patterns are found, only then is a benign verdict produced. This is to say, an unknown file is *innocent until proven guilty*.

Conventional, unconstrained learning is free to utilize benign patterns in the training data, which ultimately confers no information about the safety of a file as a whole. Owing to the near limitless breadth of possible benign patterns, we hypothesize these features of the benign class are unlikely to be useful outside of your train, validation and test splits (which often share the sampling strategy). At worst, they teach the classifier to be sensitive to benign content -- leading to successful append attacks.

## How Does IUPG Overcome Benign Append Attacks?

All the IUPG learning framework components are built around an abstracted network, N (pictured in Figure 3). Please reference [our study](https://conferences.computer.org/sp/pdfs/spw/2021/893400a049.pdf) for an in-depth explanation of each component.
![The diagram shows the IUPG learning framework components built around an abstracted network, N. More details are available in the authors' original paper, "Innocent Until Proven Guilty (IUPG): Building Deep Learning Models with Embedded Robustness to Out-Of-Distribution Content."](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-2.png) Figure 3. Illustration of all IUPG components augmented onto the abstract network, N.

The IUPG learning framework helps to build networks that are able to perform classification in a new way that, among other things, helps to prevent successful benign append attacks. With IUPG, we are specifically concerned with classification problems that feature mutually exclusive classes, meaning each data point belongs to one class only. In short, both an input sample and a library of *learned* prototypes are processed by an IUPG network with each inference. The prototypes are learned to encapsulate prototypical information about a class. They act as a representative input of a class of data such that all members of that class share an exclusive commonality. Samples and prototypes are mapped by the network to an output vector space paired with a specially learned distance metric. IUPG networks learn the prototypes, the variables of the network and the distance metric, such that the output vector space orients all entities as pictured in Figure 4.
![The diagram illustrates the ideal output vector space with IUPG. On the left, against a background of noise, are a class 1 common structure and a class 2 common structure. Once passed through the network, the result is a class 1 prototype and data and a class 2 prototype and data.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-3.png) Figure 4. Illustration of the ideal output vector space with IUPG. ![An illustration of how IUPG loss operates on inputs that are mapped to the output vector space. On the left is shown a target 1 sample with red arrows (indicating opposing forces) pointing to and from the target 2 and target 3 prototypes. A green arrow (indicating attractive forces) points to and from the target 1 prototype. On the right side of the diagram, an off-target sample is shown in contrast with red arrows pointing to and from all three prototypes.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-4.png) Figure 5. Illustration of how IUPG loss operates on inputs that are mapped to the output vector space.

In the ideal mapping, class members and their assigned prototype(s) map uniquely to a common point(s) with a margin of space such that any possible input that isn't a member of the class maps somewhere else. If a mapped sample is measured to be close enough to a prototype, it is predicted to be a member of the class to which that prototype was assigned. Pictured as a blue cloud in Figure 4, a background of noise, aka off-target data, helps to illuminate (and capture in the prototypes) what is truly inseparable about the target classes. IUPG can still be built without off-target data. We report stable or increased classification performance with several public datasets of this variety. However, certain problems with one or more structureless or inherently random classes are a natural fit to make use of this feature.
![Illustration of pushing and pulling forces in the output vector space with multiple prototypes per target class. From the target 1 sample, black arrows (indicating null) point to and from the target 1 prototype 1 and the target 2 prototype 2. A red arrow (indicating opposing force) points to and from target 2 prototype 1. A green arrow (indicating attractive force) points to and from target 1 prototype 1.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-5.png) Figure 6. Illustration of pushing and pulling forces in the output vector space with multiple prototypes per target class.

In deep learning, a network's loss function is used to calculate the error of a given model. Lower values of the loss function define what is the desired behavior compared to higher values. Minimizing a loss function (called training) updates the variables in the network to produce a lower loss value. Minimizing IUPG loss encourages the ideal mapping (illustrated in Figure 4) by orchestrating pushing and pulling forces between samples and every prototype in the output vector space, as illustrated in Figure 5. Note that off-target samples are pushed away from *every* prototype. Refer to our study for the full details on the mathematical structure of IUPG loss. As illustrated in Figure 6, when more than one prototype exists for a target class, we only operate on the *closest*prototype for that target class, as determined by the given distance metric.

Coming back to the question of classifying a sample as malware or benign, we specify several prototypes for the malicious class while defining the benign class as off-target. It is hopefully clear now why it is imperative to learn the uniquely identifying patterns of malware while encoding robustness to benign content. In the ideal case, the network exclusively captures the inseparable features of malware families, such that their activation is as strong an indicator of malware as possible and no other features lead to significant activation. In our experiments, the network and prototypes learn to recognize complex, high-level combinations of patterns that generalize across malware families and even orphan cases, yet still retain robustness to benign activation.

Below is a real-world example of the output vector space for a multiclass JavaScript malware family classifier, post-training. The network was trained to recognize nine different JavaScript malware families (listed in the legend), along with the off-target benign class. Each of the nine target malware family classes is grouped tightly around a single assigned prototype, while benign data is mapped more arbitrarily toward the center. This visualization was produced by using [t-SNE](https://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume9/vandermaaten08a/vandermaaten08a.pdf) on the mapped representations of validation data and the prototypes in the output vector space.
![A real-world example of the output vector space for a multiclass JS malware family classifier, post-training. The network was trained to recognize nine different JS malware families (ben, angler, decrypt, gnaeus, hea2p, liker, lololo, numcod, packed and trojan), along with the off-target benign class.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-6.png) Figure 7. A plot of the output vector space of a multiclass JavaScript classifier, after training was completed. Prototypes are denoted with gray circles.

## What Are the Experimental Results?

In our study, we explore multiple effects of using IUPG compared to the conventional CCE loss function. Note that all these effects are logically connected to the concept of building a network with increased embedded robustness to out-of-distribution (OOD) content. These are:

1. **Stable or increased classification performance across an interdisciplinary variety of datasets and models.** We hypothesize that this is primarily provided by building a network that is explicitly robust to noise. The prototyping mechanism also naturally deters the network from overfitting on small facets of training data samples.
2. **Up to 50% decreased false-positive responses on synthetic noise and, more generally, OOD content.** We hypothesize this is primarily provided by stricter, more "airtight" models of structured classes that are more robust to accidental activation on stray content.
3. **Decreased performance loss due to recency bias in the presence of distributional shift.** We hypothesize this is primarily due to defining the benign class as the off-target class. This builds a model that is less sensitive to distributional shifts in the benign class.
4. **Decreased vulnerability to some noise-based adversarial attacks.** Similar to what is mentioned above, we hypothesize this is primarily due to lessened activation on and modeling of the benign class. For our benign append attack simulations, the networks trained with IUPG flip their verdict up to *a full order of magnitude* times less than the network trained with CCE.

*Please refer to our study for a thorough breakdown of these results and more.* In particular, we also consider the opportunity to combine IUPG with existing adversarial learning and OOD detection techniques. We discover favorable performance upon the use of IUPG compared to conventional techniques. *We want to emphasize this combinatory potential. We feel that this is the strongest path toward successfully thwarting real-life attacks on malware classifiers in future work.*

## Examples of Live IUPG Detections in Palo Alto Networks Products and Services

Palo Alto Networks uses IUPG-trained models to proactively detect malicious websites, and, in particular, JavaScript malware on web pages. From mid-April to mid-May, we detected over 130,000 malicious scripts and flagged over 240,000 URLs as malicious. Palo Alto Network customers attempted to visit those URLs at least 440,000 times, but were protected by [Advanced URL Filtering](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/network-security/advanced-url-filtering).

Among others, we do see many cases of malicious redirectors or droppers injected into benign JavaScript on compromised websites. Those are usually small pieces of code that use various obfuscation techniques to hide the code intent from signature analysis or inspection by a human. Benign libraries are often minimized, which makes it hard to separate the malicious piece automatically. We've found that IUPG does a notably good job of it.

Attackers leverage the append attack technique either by injecting malicious scripts into popular JavaScript libraries (Figures 8 and 9) or by adding more white spaces (Figure 10). Popular choices for injection among attackers are various jQuery plugins and custom bundled files with website dependencies.

Figures 8a and 8b show a good illustration of why signature or hash matching is not enough and we have to deploy advanced machine learning and deep learning models to protect against "patient zero" malicious scripts. Both 8a and 8b are examples of the same malicious campaign, which is hard to catch as it generates many unique scripts and uses different obfuscation techniques for the injected piece. While the SHA256 of 8b was already known to VirtusTotal at the time of writing, the SHA256 of 8a, was new -- in other words, previously undetected.
![Figure 8a. One example of a malicious campaign that injects malicious redirectors into a large jQuery Easing library. Two malicious injections are shown prepended to the file. Usually, such malicious scripts are observed on URL paths mimicking legitimate jQuery (wp-content/themes/marchie/js/jquery.easing.1.X.js?ver=1.X). SHA256: a248259f353533b31c791f79580f5a98a763fee585657b15013d1bb459734ba8](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-7.png) Figure 8a. One example of a malicious campaign that injects malicious redirectors into a large jQuery Easing library. Two malicious injections are shown prepended to the file. Usually, such malicious scripts are observed on URL paths mimicking legitimate jQuery (wp-content/themes/marchie/js/jquery.easing.1.X.js?ver=1.X). SHA256: a248259f353533b31c791f79580f5a98a763fee585657b15013d1bb459734ba8 ![Figure 8b. One example of a malicious campaign that injects malicious redirectors into a large jQuery Easing library. Two malicious injections are shown prepended to the file. Usually, such malicious scripts are observed on URL paths mimicking legitimate jQuery (wp-content/themes/marchie/js/jquery.easing.1.X.js?ver=1.X). SHA256: cf9ac8b038e4a6df1c827dc31420818ad5809fceb7b41ef96cedd956a761afcd](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-8.png) Figure 8b. One example of a malicious campaign that injects malicious redirectors into a large jQuery Easing library. Two malicious injections are shown prepended to the file. Usually, such malicious scripts are observed on URL paths mimicking legitimate jQuery (wp-content/themes/marchie/js/jquery.easing.1.X.js?ver=1.X). SHA256: cf9ac8b038e4a6df1c827dc31420818ad5809fceb7b41ef96cedd956a761afcd ![Figure 9. Malware injection mixed in a file with the legitimate Sidr and Superfish jQuery plugins. SHA256: a7007a7b89e5114cd1b532e5bcdaa1dfbe8b0c50ad30c3dbb4eb8fbfec18a746](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-9.png) Figure 9. Malware injection mixed in a file with the legitimate Sidr and Superfish jQuery plugins. SHA256: a7007a7b89e5114cd1b532e5bcdaa1dfbe8b0c50ad30c3dbb4eb8fbfec18a746 ![Figure 10. Malware injection with added white spaces and paddings aiming to fool machine learning classifiers. SHA256: e25953bd6701d196fc7f372476db2ce8b1c80a2714ca7fc075073609f0d0f919](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-10.png) Figure 10. Malware injection with added white spaces and paddings aiming to fool machine learning classifiers. SHA256: e25953bd6701d196fc7f372476db2ce8b1c80a2714ca7fc075073609f0d0f919

In addition to redirectors and droppers, IUPG is efficient in detecting JavaScript malware, such as phishing kits, clickjacking campaigns, malvertising libraries or exploit kits. For example, a similar script as the one shown in Figure 11 was found on over 60 websites, such as regalosyconcurso2021.blogspot.{al, am, bg, jp, com, co.uk}. Note that the script is using heavy obfuscation techniques, but can nevertheless be accurately detected by an IUPG-trained model.
![Figure 11. Obfuscated phishing JavaScript in HTML that generates a fake social media login page. SHA256: 3b3dcd8fbf6b359d4d72573441583712f259b54d6a2b59a15f50178fbf0567f5](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/word-image-11.png) Figure 11. Obfuscated phishing JavaScript in HTML that generates a fake social media login page. SHA256: 3b3dcd8fbf6b359d4d72573441583712f259b54d6a2b59a15f50178fbf0567f5

## Conclusion

We've introduced the Innocent Until Proven Guilty (IUPG) learning framework, explained how it's designed to overcome the benign append attack, summarized results from our study presented at the 4th Deep Learning and Security Workshop and shared some interesting examples of using IUPG on real-world traffic. Palo Alto Networks continues to improve state-of-the-art malicious JavaScript detection. Our Next-Generation Firewall customers who use [Advanced URL Filtering](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/threat-detection-and-prevention/web-security), [DNS Security](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/threat-detection-and-prevention/dns-security), and [WildFire](https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/secure-the-network/wildfire) security subscriptions are better protected against benign append attacks through the use of IUPG.

## Additional Resources

[Innocent Until Proven Guilty (IUPG): Building Deep Learning Models with Embedded Robustness to Out-of-Distribution Content](https://conferences.computer.org/sp/pdfs/spw/2021/893400a049.pdf)
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### Tags

* [Benign append attack](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/benign-append-attack/ "benign append attack")
* [Deep learning](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/deep-learning/ "deep learning")
* [Malicious injection attack](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/malicious-injection-attack/ "malicious injection attack")
* [Neural networks](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/neural-networks/ "neural networks")  
  [Threat Research Center](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com "Threat Research") [Next: DNS Rebinding Attack: How Malicious Websites Exploit Private Networks](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/dns-rebinding/ "DNS Rebinding Attack: How Malicious Websites Exploit Private Networks")

### Table of Contents

* 

### Related Articles

* [One Step Ahead in Cyber Hide-and-Seek: Automating Malicious Infrastructure Discovery With Graph Neural Networks](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/graph-neural-networks/ "article - table of contents")
* [The Contrastive Credibility Propagation Algorithm in Action: Improving ML-powered Data Loss Prevention](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/contrastive-credibility-propagation/ "article - table of contents")
* [Parrot TDS: A Persistent and Evolving Malware Campaign](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/parrot-tds-javascript-evolution-analysis/ "article - table of contents")

## Related Malware Resources

![Pictorial representation of post-exploitation identity misuse in SPIFFE/SPIRE. Close-up of a person wearing glasses, with computer code reflected in the lenses.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/12_Security-Technology_Category_1920x900-786x368.jpg)  
[![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/icon-threat-research.svg)Threat Research](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/threat-research/) September 10, 2026 [#### The Machine With Many Faces: Post-Exploitation Identity Misuse in SPIFFE/SPIRE](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/kubernetes-spiffe-spire-identity-spoofing/)

* [API](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/api/ "API")

* [Cryptographic](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/cryptographic/ "cryptographic")

* [JSON](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/json/ "JSON")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/kubernetes-spiffe-spire-identity-spoofing/ "The Machine With Many Faces: Post-Exploitation Identity Misuse in SPIFFE/SPIRE")  
  ![Pictorial representation of a pay-per-install threat group campaign prodiving infection service for spreading malware. A close-up of a computer circuit board with a central microchip is depicted. Red digital data streams in the form of glowing binary numbers and arrows appear to flow in and out of the chip, symbolizing data processing and transfer. The scene is illuminated with a futuristic blue and red glow.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/04_Malware_Category_1920x900-6-786x368.jpg)  
  [![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/icon-threat-research.svg)Threat Research](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/threat-research/) September 9, 2026 [#### Untracked Nightmares: The Threats Hiding Behind Commodity Infrastructure](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ppi-network-malware-campaign-analysis/)

* [ARKTunnel](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/arktunnel/ "ARKTunnel")

* [C2](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/c2/ "C2")

* [CL-CRI-1171](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/cl-cri-1171/ "CL-CRI-1171")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ppi-network-malware-campaign-analysis/ "Untracked Nightmares: The Threats Hiding Behind Commodity Infrastructure")  
  ![Pictorial representation of attackers using AI tools to target Latin American organizations. A vibrant cityscape with silhouettes of numerous people walking along a bustling street. The scene is illuminated by bright urban lights and digital-like particles, creating a dynamic and futuristic atmosphere.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/AdobeStock_768915868-2-1-786x373.jpg)  
  [![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/icon-threat-research.svg)Threat Research](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/threat-research/) September 3, 2026 [#### Attackers Expose Ongoing AI Tool Use Targeting Organizations in Latin America](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ai-tool-use-targeting-latam-orgs/)

* [Agentic AI](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/agentic-ai/ "Agentic AI")

* [ChatGPT](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/chatgpt/ "ChatGPT")

* [CL-CRI-1131](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/cl-cri-1131/ "CL-CRI-1131")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ai-tool-use-targeting-latam-orgs/ "Attackers Expose Ongoing AI Tool Use Targeting Organizations in Latin America")  
  ![Pictorial representation of vishing campaigns in Microsoft Teams. A digital image of a skull formed by blue binary code on a black background, with scattered ones and zeros and digital noise, symbolizes how stealthy prompt injection attacks can exploit AI logic to bypass security controls.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/01_Malware_Category_1920x900-5-786x368.jpg)  
  [![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/icon-threat-research.svg)Threat Research](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/threat-research/) August 31, 2026 [#### Spring Ring: An Inside Look at Voice Phishing Campaigns in Microsoft Teams](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/spring-ring-voice-phishing-campaigns/)

* [Cloaked Ursa](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/cloaked-ursa/ "Cloaked Ursa")

* [Entra ID](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/entra-id/ "Entra ID")

* [Microsoft Teams](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/microsoft-teams/ "Microsoft Teams")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/spring-ring-voice-phishing-campaigns/ "Spring Ring: An Inside Look at Voice Phishing Campaigns in Microsoft Teams")  
  ![Pictorial representation of AI-enabled malware. A vibrant digital interface displaying various icons and graphs, resembling a futuristic network or data analysis dashboard. The scene is illuminated with glowing lights and patterns.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/AdobeStock_1270203474-2-1-786x368.png)  
  [![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/icon-threat-research.svg)Threat Research](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/threat-research/) August 25, 2026 [#### The State of AI-Enabled Malware August 2026: From Brand Abuse to Agentic Execution](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ai-enabled-malware-analysis/)

* [Backdoor](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/backdoor/ "backdoor")

* [Bitcoin](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/bitcoin/ "Bitcoin")

* [DLL hijacking](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/dll-hijacking/ "DLL hijacking")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ai-enabled-malware-analysis/ "The State of AI-Enabled Malware August 2026: From Brand Abuse to Agentic Execution")  
  ![Pictorial representation of identity abuse through trusted communication channels. Close-up view of a digital screen displaying a glitched and pixelated image of a skull-like shape.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/02_Malware_Category_1920x900-2-786x368.jpg)  
  [![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/icon-threat-research.svg)Threat Research](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/threat-research/) August 20, 2026 [#### Identity Abuse Through Trusted Communication Channels](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/communication-channel-identity-risks/)

* [Authentication](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/authentication/ "authentication")

* [Identity theft](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/identity-theft/ "identity theft")

* [Malware](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/malware/ "malware")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/communication-channel-identity-risks/ "Identity Abuse Through Trusted Communication Channels")  
  ![Pictorial representation of Kimwolf botnet malware family. Digital screen with a warning sign reading "Malware." The background features lines of computer code and graphics, creating a sense of cybersecurity threat.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/07_Malware_Category_1920x900-3-786x368.jpg)  
  [![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/icon-threat-research.svg)Threat Research](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/threat-research/) August 11, 2026 [#### Kimwolf v7: An Evolution of the Kimwolf Botnet](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/kimwolf-v7-botnet-malware/)

* [Android APK](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/android-apk/ "Android APK")

* [Ethereum](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/ethereum/ "Ethereum")

* [HTTP](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/http/ "HTTP")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/kimwolf-v7-botnet-malware/ "Kimwolf v7: An Evolution of the Kimwolf Botnet")  
  ![Pictorial representatiom pf Aeternum's blockchain C2. A close-up of a computer circuit board with a central microchip is depicted. Red digital data streams in the form of glowing binary numbers and arrows appear to flow in and out of the chip. The scene is illuminated with a futuristic blue and red glow.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/04_Malware_Category_1920x900-4-786x368.jpg)  
  [![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/icon-threat-research.svg)Threat Research](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/threat-research/) August 10, 2026 [#### The Permanent Threat: Analyzing Aeternum's Blockchain-Based C2 Operations and Communications](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/aeternum-blockchain-c2-analysis/)

* [Aeternum](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/aeternum/ "Aeternum")

* [Infection chain](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/infection-chain/ "infection chain")

* [JSON](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/json/ "JSON")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/aeternum-blockchain-c2-analysis/ "The Permanent Threat: Analyzing Aeternum’s Blockchain-Based C2 Operations and Communications")  
  ![Pictorial representation of ChainDrop, a self-propagating npm worm. An artistic depiction of a digital workspace featuring an open laptop with a red virus on the screen.](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/03_Malware_Category_1920x900-7-786x368.jpg)  
  [![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/top-threats.svg)High Profile Threats](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/top-cyberthreats/) August 6, 2026 [#### ChainDrop: Inside a Self-Propagating npm Worm](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/chaindrop-npm-worm-analysis/)

* [Blockchain](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/blockchain/ "blockchain")

* [ChainDrop](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/chaindrop/ "ChainDrop")

* [Claude code](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/claude-code/ "Claude code")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/chaindrop-npm-worm-analysis/ "ChainDrop: Inside a Self-Propagating npm Worm")  
  ![Pictorial representation of Token-jacking. A person types on a laptop with multiple digital interface elements projected, including an "AI" icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/AdobeStock_1246251272-2-786x369.jpg)  
  [![category icon](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/icon-threat-research.svg)Threat Research](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/category/threat-research/) August 6, 2026 [#### Token Jacking: Cybercriminals Could Be Stealing Your AI Resources](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ai-token-jacking/)

* [AI API](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/ai-api/ "AI API")

* [AI gateway](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/ai-gateway/ "AI gateway")

* [API keys](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/tag/api-keys/ "API keys")  
  [Read now ![Right arrow](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/wp-content/themes/unit42-v6/dist/images/icons/icon-right-arrow-withtail.svg)](https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/ai-token-jacking/ "Token Jacking: Cybercriminals Could Be Stealing Your AI Resources")

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