All news with #active exploitation tag

📰 This week’s recap highlights recurring attack patterns: abused integrations, poisoned websites, fake tools, and ransomware groups disabling security products. Notable incidents include the large-scale FortiBleed campaign compromising FortiGate devices, the Gentlemen RaaS developing the GentleKiller EDR-killing suite, and active exploitation of a critical Splunk flaw. Mobile and crypto-related malware campaigns also featured prominently.

🔍 QiAnXin XLab has identified a new malware family named AryStinger that has infected at least 4,300 legacy home routers, turning them into a distributed reconnaissance and proxy network rather than a typical DDoS botnet. The campaign targets routers using Realtek RTL819X chips via old vulnerabilities (CVE-2013-3307, CVE-2016-5681) and favors D-Link DIR-850L units, with infections concentrated in South Korea and China. A second strain targeting QNAP NAS devices via CVE-2025-11837 was also observed; both builds support scanning, tunneling, and remote task execution. Defenders are advised to check for C2 connections, suspicious binaries and processes, retire unsupported devices, and disable remote administration.

🔒 A recently patched information disclosure flaw in the Gravity SMTP WordPress plugin (CVE-2026-4020) allows unauthenticated attackers to retrieve sensitive configuration data and API credentials via a misconfigured REST API endpoint. Wordfence observed exploit attempts beginning in May 2026 and blocking over 17 million requests, with activity spiking in early June. Site owners should update to version 2.1.5, rotate exposed credentials, and review logs for suspicious access from listed IPs.

🔒 The U.S. CISA has ordered federal agencies to patch a critical Splunk Enterprise vulnerability (CVE-2026-20253) by Sunday after evidence of active exploitation. The flaw impacts Splunk Enterprise versions 10.2.0–10.2.3 and 10.0.0–10.0.6 and allows unauthenticated attackers to create or truncate arbitrary files via a PostgreSQL sidecar service endpoint. Splunk released patches and mitigation guidance, and Shadowserver has identified over 1,400 Internet-exposed Splunk instances that may be at risk.

🔔 CISA added one new vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog after confirming active exploitation. The alert underscores that such vulnerabilities are frequent attack vectors and pose significant risks to the federal enterprise. BOD 26-04 requires Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies to prioritize rapid remediation of high-risk KEV-listed CVEs on internet-exposed assets and to check for compromise before patching. CISA encourages all organizations to adopt risk-based vulnerability management and to submit candidate vulnerabilities via the KEV Nomination Form.

🔒 CISA warns that malicious actors have targeted internet-accessible Fortinet devices using compromised credentials, a campaign dubbed FortiBleed affecting roughly 74,000 devices including firewalls and VPN gateways. The agency urges immediate actions such as terminating active SSL VPN and administrative sessions, resetting credentials, enforcing strong password policies, and ensuring secure credential storage using PBKDF2. Organizations should review logs for suspicious activity, enable phishing-resistant MFA for remote and administrative access, and restrict management interfaces from public internet exposure.

🔍 New research from CloudSEK reveals Operation Escaneo, a coordinated campaign targeting government and financial entities across Latin America after attackers left a staging server exposed. The group exploited internet-facing appliances and known vulnerabilities in Fortinet and Ivanti devices, plus Apache Tomcat, Windows, and Log4Shell flaws. Attackers used custom reconnaissance (Kimera), webshells, reverse tunnels and a compromised Cisco router to exfiltrate large volumes of sensitive data.

🛡️ The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has ordered federal agencies to patch a maximum-severity vulnerability in the Widget Factory Joomla Content Editor (JCE) plugin, tracked as CVE-2026-48907, which is being actively exploited in the wild. The flaw allows unauthenticated attackers to upload and execute PHP code via new editor profiles in affected Joomla deployments. JCE released version 2.9.99.6 in early June and urged immediate updates, noting that updates do not remove existing compromises and outlining remediation steps for infected sites.

🛡️ Multiple npm packages under the @mastra/* namespace were mass-published with a malicious dependency on June 16–17, 2026, enabling a supply-chain campaign named easy-day-js. The injected library, easy-day-js, executes an obfuscated postinstall payload that downloads a second-stage trojan from attacker infrastructure and disables TLS validation. Victims should treat any systems that installed the affected versions as potentially compromised, roll back to safe releases, rotate secrets, and audit hosts for signs of the stealer.

🔒 The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added a maximum-severity flaw in Widget Factory's Joomla Content Editor (JCE) to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, citing active exploitation. Tracked as CVE-2026-48907 (CVSS 10.0), the improper access control bug allows unauthenticated creation of editor profiles and potential PHP code upload and execution. The flaw affects JCE versions 1.0.0 through 2.9.99.4 and was patched in 2.9.99.5 on June 3, 2026; FCEB agencies must apply fixes by June 19, 2026.

🛡️ Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 disclosed a flaw in the Google Cloud Vertex AI Python SDK that let an attacker with only their own Google Cloud project and a victim's project ID hijack model uploads and execute code in Vertex AI serving containers. Google fixed the issue; users must update to google-cloud-aiplatform version 1.148.0 or later and explicitly set a staging_bucket. The bug arose from predictable default bucket names and lack of ownership checks, enabling an attacker to precreate the bucket, swap uploaded model files (often pickled), and run malicious code when Vertex AI loaded the model.

🔔 CISA has added one new vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog after confirming evidence of active exploitation. This vulnerability type remains a common attack vector and presents significant risk to the federal enterprise. BOD 26-04 reinforces rapid remediation of KEV-listed CVEs for federal agencies and updates prior guidance. CISA encourages all organizations to adopt risk-based vulnerability management and may add further vulnerabilities that meet KEV criteria.

🔒 Google warns that a China-associated threat actor, UNC6508, ran a prolonged espionage campaign targeting US and Canadian research environments by abusing legacy versions of REDCap. The attackers trojanized upgrade processes with modular malware called INFINITERED to achieve persistence, harvest credentials, and maintain a backdoor. GTIG recommends inspecting REDCap files, validating upgrades, and enforcing stronger authentication and DLP controls.

⚠️ CISA has ordered federal agencies to secure servers against an actively exploited LiteSpeed cPanel user-end plugin flaw (CVE-2026-48172 / CVE-2026-54420) that can allow privilege escalation to root on shared hosting with CloudLinux/CageFS. The vulnerability affects plugin versions prior to 2.4.8 and stems from a UNIX symlink following weakness; LiteSpeed released urgent updates and provided a command to check for compromises. Agencies must comply with BOD 26-04 and remediate systems within three days per the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog.

🔍 Threat intelligence firm Defused Cyber reports active exploitation of three high-severity Fortinet FortiSandbox vulnerabilities observed within 24 hours. The flaws — CVE-2026-39813, CVE-2026-39808, and CVE-2026-25089 — are high-severity (CVSS 9.1) issues involving path traversal and OS command injection that can enable unauthenticated attackers to bypass authentication or execute commands. Fortinet issued patches for the first two in April 2026 and fixed the third last week; defenders are cautioned to apply updates promptly.

🛡️ Fortinet's FortiSandbox platform is being actively targeted by attackers exploiting multiple recently patched critical vulnerabilities. The flaws (CVE-2026-39813, CVE-2026-39808, CVE-2026-25089) enable unauthenticated privilege escalation and remote code execution through low-complexity command injection, requiring no user interaction. Administrators are urged to upgrade affected systems to the latest releases to block ongoing attacks and reduce exposure.

🔒 Cisco has released updates fixing a medium‑severity flaw in Cisco Catalyst SD‑WAN Manager (CVE‑2026‑20262) that is being actively exploited. The bug allows an authenticated attacker with write access to create or overwrite files via a vulnerable web UI file upload API, which can be leveraged to escalate privileges. Affected on‑prem and cloud SD‑WAN deployments have fixes available across multiple release tracks; customers are urged to apply patches and audit logs for suspicious WAR uploads.

🛡️ Cisco has released patches for a zero-day in Catalyst SD-WAN Manager (formerly SD-WAN vManage), tracked as CVE-2026-20262, which was exploited to escalate to root privileges. The flaw affects all deployment types and results from insufficient validation of user-supplied file uploads, allowing authenticated low-privilege attackers to create or overwrite files via a crafted HTTP request. Cisco PSIRT confirmed active exploitation, provided IOCs, and strongly urged customers to upgrade to fixed releases.

🔒 Google Threat Intelligence Group attributes a long-running espionage campaign to UNC6508, a China-linked actor, which exploited exposed REDCap servers to deploy the custom Infinitered malware and exfiltrate sensitive medical research. The intrusion began in September 2023 and persisted through November 2025, with attackers harvesting credentials, maintaining persistent backdoors, and using enterprise email compliance rules to siphon data. Administrators are urged to update REDCap, enable MFA/2SV, and apply provided YARA rules and IoCs to detect infections.

⚠️ Google issued fixes for 74 Chrome flaws, including an actively exploited V8 out-of-bounds memory access (CVE-2026-11645). This week's recap highlights exploited enterprise bugs like Oracle PeopleSoft and Check Point VPN, large-scale supply-chain and package abuse in Arch's AUR, and the takedown of a major phishing-as-a-service operation. Practical guidance and trending CVEs round out the update.