[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$f3OwUHuTNUwWXC4N9l3Kes8aWOLq2Ot6shfTrcL4zKyM":3},{"article":4,"iocs":55},{"id":5,"title":6,"slug":7,"summary":8,"ai_summary":9,"brief":10,"full_text":11,"url":12,"image_url":13,"published_at":14,"ingested_at":15,"relevance_score":16,"entities":17,"category_id":32,"category":33,"article_tags":37},"060b4e56-bf49-42a1-8478-ca4985b17255","Warlock ransomware breach SharePoint in water, telecom operator attacks","warlock-ransomware-breach-sharepoint-in-water-telecom-operator-attacks-e611cb","The China-linked ransomware group Warlock targeted a water utility, a telecom provider, a regional government body, and a university by exploiting SharePoint vulnerabilities to gain initial access. [...]","The China-linked ransomware group Warlock has been observed exploiting SharePoint vulnerabilities to gain initial access to critical infrastructure, including a water utility, a telecom provider, a regional government body, and a university. The group, also known as Longlegs, has been active since mid-2025, notably using a chain of zero-day SharePoint vulnerabilities called ToolShell. In some attacks, they deploy tools to disable endpoint protection before deploying the Warlock ransomware.","China-linked Warlock ransomware group targets water, telecom, government, and university sectors.","Warlock ransomware breach SharePoint in water, telecom operator attacks By Ionut Ilascu October 2, 2026 02:33 PM 0 The China-linked ransomware group Warlock targeted a water utility, a telecom provider, a regional government body, and a university by exploiting SharePoint vulnerabilities to gain initial access. ​Over the past two months, the threat actor appears to have focused on countries speaking Portuguese and Spanish across Europe, Africa, and Latin America. The gang emerged in June 2025 and gained notoriety a month later after exploiting a chain of zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft SharePoint known as ToolShell (CVE-2025-49704, CVE-2025-49706, CVE-2025-53770, and CVE-2025-53771). By August, Microsoft observed state-backed hacking groups Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon using ToolShell exploits in attacks, along with a ransomware threat actor the company tracks as Storm-2603. EDR killer deployed to 40 hosts Cybersecurity company Symantec identifies the same actor as Longlegs and attributes the development of the Warlock ransomware to the group. According to the researchers, in one intrusion that started on July 22, the threat actor deployed a tool that disabled protection software on “at least 40 hosts within about two hours.” The attacker then launched Warlock ransomware on at least 33 hosts. After gaining access, typically by exploiting vulnerabilities in on-premises SharePoint deployments, the attacker drops a web shell designed to function across multiple SharePoint versions. Symantec and Carbon Black researchers say that in some attacks attributed to Longlegs, an AV\u002FEDR-killing tool was deployed via the bring your own vulnerable driver (BYOVD) technique using a signed K7RKScan driver vulnerable to CVE-2025-1055. Analysis of the intrusion on July 22 revealed that two days after gaining initial access, the threat actor engaged in reconnaissance activity and deleted what seemed like staging artifacts. Using VS Code's tunneling capability The ransomware payload was staged in the domain’s SYSVOL share, a location that stores public files and is replicated across every domain controller. This is “a known method of pushing a payload out for execution by a logon script or Group Policy object across an entire network at once, rather than one host at a time,” the researchers say. During the attack, the main executable file for Visual Studio Code Insiders was installed as a service to enable connecting remotely to compromised machines using VS Code's built-in tunneling capability. On one of the systems, the researchers found the open-source penetration testing framework NetExec, which helped the attacker with Active Directory enumeration, credential spraying, and remote command execution. The final stage of the attack occurred on July 31st, after deploying the AV\u002FEDR killer, with Warlock ransomware “appearing almost as soon as protection was disabled on each host.” The researchers warn that ToolShell and other SharePoint vulnerabilities remain viable initial access vectors, more than a year after Warlock first emerged exploiting SharePoint flaws. The report from the Symantec and Carbon Black threat hunters includes a set of indicators of compromise for files and infrastructure used in the attacks. Build your security blueprint for AI-powered attacks Join Mikko Hyppönen and security leaders from the NFL, CHANEL, and Atlassian for a two-hour digital summit on what AI-speed attacks change, what defenders should stop doing, and how to validate, decide, fix, and re-validate at machine speed. Save your seat Related Articles: Microsoft: Chinese hackers breached US govt Exchange email accountsChinese hackers use SparroWocky malware in govt espionage attacksHackers exploit Tencent app flaw to deploy GrayRabbit malwareUS says Chinese firms extracted billions of tokens from frontier AI modelsChinese Fire Ant hackers turn Cisco routers into spying platforms","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.bleepingcomputer.com\u002Fnews\u002Fsecurity\u002Fwarlock-ransomware-breach-sharepoint-in-water-telecom-operator-attacks\u002F","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.bleepstatic.com\u002Fcontent\u002Fhl-images\u002F2026\u002F08\u002F26\u002FMicrosoft-SharePoint.jpg","2026-10-02T18:33:01+00:00","2026-10-02T20:00:26.226714+00:00",9,[18,21,23,25,27,30],{"name":19,"type":20},"Warlock","threat_actor",{"name":22,"type":20},"Longlegs",{"name":24,"type":20},"Linen Typhoon",{"name":26,"type":20},"Violet Typhoon",{"name":28,"type":29},"SharePoint","product",{"name":31,"type":29},"Visual Studio Code Insiders","7d8b5ab8-ea0b-4ced-ae97-ec251b86993a",{"id":32,"icon":34,"name":35,"slug":36},null,"Ransomware","ransomware",[38,43,48,50],{"category":39},{"id":40,"icon":34,"name":41,"slug":42},"26b0b636-0e31-4db1-bffb-61bdf9f20a58","Supply Chain","supply-chain",{"category":44},{"id":45,"icon":34,"name":46,"slug":47},"6cbdd207-aaa1-4176-9534-e156b125e917","Nation-state","nation-state",{"category":49},{"id":32,"icon":34,"name":35,"slug":36},{"category":51},{"id":52,"icon":34,"name":53,"slug":54},"e7b231c8-5f79-4465-8d38-1ef13aea5a14","Threat Intelligence","threat-intelligence",[56,60,62,64,66],{"type":57,"value":58,"context":59},"cve","CVE-2025-49704","Part of the ToolShell exploit chain for SharePoint.",{"type":57,"value":61,"context":59},"CVE-2025-49706",{"type":57,"value":63,"context":59},"CVE-2025-53770",{"type":57,"value":65,"context":59},"CVE-2025-53771",{"type":57,"value":67,"context":68},"CVE-2025-1055","Vulnerability exploited by the K7RKScan driver for BYOVD technique."]