Breach Roundup: Android RAT Hides Behind Hugging Face

Also, SmarterMail Flaw, Nike Breach Probe, Empire Market Co-Creator Pleads Guilty Pooja Tikekar (@PoojaTikekar) • January 29, 2026

Every week, ISMG rounds up cybersecurity incidents and breaches around the world. This week, researchers exposed an Android RAT abusing Hugging Face infrastructure. Attackers exploited a critical SmarterMail authentication bypass after reverse-engineering a patch. Automakers boosted cyber spending as supply chain risks linger. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned of active exploitation of a VMware vCenter flaw. Microsoft patched an Office security bypass under attack. An Empire Market co-creator pleaded guilty to U.S. federal drug charges. Nike probed a breach tied to a 1.4 terabyte data theft.

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Cybercriminals are abusing Hugging Face's machine learning hosting infrastructure to deliver Android remote access Trojans, using trusted cloud services and aggressive polymorphism to sidestep mobile security controls ...