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A Microsoft-linked application called Vibing has been accused of covertly collecting sensitive user data, including screenshots, raw microphone audio, clipboard contents, window titles, application names, selected words, and keystroke-related activity, then transmitting it to a Microsoft-owned Azure tenant through an Azure Front Door endpoint. Reporting tied the software to Microsoft Research Asia and the VibeVoice project, with OSINT pointing to Microsoft-branded assets, a binary reportedly signed by Microsoft researcher Yaoyao Chang, and infrastructure associated with GenAI research activity in Beijing.
Researchers said the Windows app persists at login, begins collection without clear user prompts, and tags exfiltrated data with a per-device hardware GUID, raising concerns about device tracking, privacy, and undisclosed telemetry over WebSockets that may bypass some proxy controls. The reports also alleged the project bypassed Microsoft’s normal security, privacy, and AI governance reviews, that Microsoft Store privacy disclosures were misleading, and that internal and public complaints on GitHub were closed without remediation or a public response from Microsoft.
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Additional reporting said OSINT linked Vibing.exe to Microsoft GenAI research activity in Beijing through a Microsoft-owned Azure tenant, Microsoft-branded assets, and a binary signed by a Microsoft researcher. It also alleged misleading Microsoft Store privacy disclosures and noted that Microsoft had not publicly responded despite GitHub issue reports and community pressure.
TechCrunch detailed the reported Morpheus infection chain, including telecom-assisted mobile data disruption, SMS lures, abuse of Android accessibility features, and a fake WhatsApp biometric prompt. The report said researchers believed the spyware was used against targets connected to political activism in Italy.
Kevin Beaumont reported that a GitHub project called Vibing, associated with Microsoft Research Asia and linked to VibeVoice, appeared to bypass Microsoft's normal governance and review processes. He alleged the Windows app persists at login, captures screenshots, clipboard contents, window and app metadata, selected words, keystroke-related data, and raw microphone audio, then sends the data with a hardware GUID to a Microsoft-owned Azure endpoint.
Osservatorio Nessuno published a report describing Android spyware it calls Morpheus, a surveillance tool allegedly delivered through fake phone update apps. The report linked the malware to Italian lawful interception company IPS based on infrastructure and code clues.
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Security reporting warned that **browser extensions** (including free add-ons marketed for ad blocking or VPN functionality) may be overriding browser `XMLHttpRequest()` and `fetch()` calls to capture and monetize users’ full conversations with popular AI chatbots (e.g., *ChatGPT*, *Claude*, *Gemini*, *DeepSeek*). An AI expert reported the captured content was stored in a searchable database and sold via **API access**; while users were assigned pseudonymized IDs, the prompts and responses were retained in full and frequently contained highly sensitive data, including medical details, immigration status, and other personal identifiers—raising significant privacy, compliance, and data-handling risk, particularly where healthcare staff paste real patient data into chat tools. Separately, Microsoft reported a manipulation technique targeting “**Summarize with AI**” features where companies embed **hidden prompt-injection instructions** in URLs or page elements so that, when a user clicks to summarize, the AI assistant is prompted to “remember” a company as trusted or preferentially recommend it in the future. Microsoft identified **50+ unique prompts from 31 companies across 14 industries**, noting that readily available tooling makes this easy to deploy and that the impact can be subtle, persistent bias in AI recommendations on high-stakes topics (including security) without user awareness.
Jun 29, 2026
Researchers released **TotalRecall Reloaded**, a proof-of-concept attack that targets Microsoft Windows Recall by injecting into `AIXHost.exe`, the process that handles Recall content after Windows Hello authentication. The report says Recall’s advertised protections—**VBS enclaves**, **AES-256-GCM encryption**, **TPM-backed keys**, and secure handling in `aihost.exe`—remain in place, but decrypted screenshots, OCR text, metadata, named entities, and activity descriptions become accessible once they are passed to the less-protected rendering process. According to the researchers, malware running in the same user context can use DLL injection and internal COM interfaces to extract a detailed history of user activity, including messages, emails, documents, browsing context, timestamps, and AI-generated summaries, without administrator privileges or kernel exploits. The findings add to long-running privacy and security concerns around Recall, which Microsoft had previously delayed after criticism that the feature continuously captures on-screen activity and stores searchable local history. Earlier reporting highlighted fears that Recall could collect sensitive content such as passwords and maintain it in locally accessible databases, even as Microsoft defended the design as on-device and privacy-conscious. In the new case, researchers also reported pre-authentication exposure of recent thumbnails, deletion of Recall history without Windows Hello checks, and alternate COM paths that allegedly bypass intended restrictions; they said the issues were disclosed to Microsoft in March 2026, but Microsoft closed the case as **"Not a Vulnerability"**, stating the demonstrated behavior matched Recall’s documented security model rather than crossing a security boundary.
Jun 29, 2026
Microsoft reported a campaign of **malicious Chromium-based browser extensions** masquerading as legitimate AI assistant tools to **harvest LLM chat histories and browsing data**, with reporting suggesting ~**900,000 installs** and Microsoft Defender telemetry indicating activity across **20,000+ enterprise tenants**. The extensions collected full URLs and chat content from services including **ChatGPT** and **DeepSeek**, creating a high-risk data leakage path for proprietary code, internal workflows, and strategic discussions; Microsoft also noted cases where “agentic” browsers auto-downloaded these extensions, reducing user friction and increasing exposure. Separately, Socket documented a **fake imToken** Chrome extension (`bbhaganppipihlhjgaaeeeefbaoihcgi`) that posed as a benign “hex color visualizer” but functioned as a **phishing redirector**: on install and on click it opened attacker-controlled pages, pulling a destination URL from `jsonkeeper[.]com/b/KUWNE` and sending victims to `chroomewedbstorre-detail-extension[.]com` to solicit **12/24-word seed phrases** or **private keys** for wallet takeover. A Kaspersky post focused on consumer guidance for disabling unwanted AI features and broadly warned about privacy/security risks from pervasive AI assistants (including mention of insecure third-party “personal agent” setups), but it did not provide corroborated details tied to the specific malicious-extension campaigns described by Microsoft and Socket.
Jun 29, 2026