All news with #exploit tag

⚡ This week’s roundup highlights multiple active exploit chains, supply-chain ripple effects, and opportunistic attacks that abused exposed services and old vulnerabilities. Notable incidents include exploitation of a severe VMware vCenter directory-traversal flaw linked to a suspected China-nexus APT, a macOS Screen Sharing flaw used to drop crypto miners, and a Windows privilege-escalation zero-day deployed by Lazarus. The report emphasizes how access already present and weak assumptions about visibility continue to amplify small gaps into large intrusions.

🛡️ A researcher known as Nightmare Eclipse published a proof-of-concept called ShieldBreak that appears to bypass Microsoft’s recent patch for CVE-2026-50656, enabling attackers with any initial access to escalate to system-level privileges. Security experts warn the PoC could erode trust in patches and stress defense-in-depth measures such as application allowlisting, tightened admin rights, and hunting for MsMpEng.exe spawning system shells. Independent confirmations and community detections are emerging, though Microsoft has not yet provided a formal response.

🛡️ Censys has identified a campaign run by an unknown Chinese-linked actor using a leaked version of the DarkSword exploit kit to target Apple iOS devices. The actor operated over 100 web properties, many impersonating AWS sign‑in pages, to host the toolkit and lure victims into watering‑hole attacks. Successful exploitation of iOS 18.4–18.7 triggers the DarkSword chain and deploys GHOSTBLADE modules to exfiltrate credentials and files. The infrastructure spans Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, the US, Europe, and includes multiple admin panels and exposed tooling.

🔒 STAR Labs published a local privilege-escalation exploit for CentOS Stream 9 that abuses a use-after-free race in the kernel traffic-control subsystem (CVE-2026-53264, CVSS 7.8). Researcher Lee Jia Jie says AI aided discovery and exploit development; the exploit requires specific kernel options, unprivileged user namespaces, and a kernel-specific ROP chain. Upstream fixes landed June 1, 2026 and have been backported to multiple stable branches, but distribution coverage remains uneven.

🛡️ A public proof-of-concept is available for CVE-2026-55200, a critical libssh2 flaw that allows a malicious SSH server to trigger memory corruption on connecting clients, potentially enabling code execution without credentials or user interaction. The bug affects all releases up to 1.11.1 and scores 9.2 (CVSS 4.0). It stems from an unbounded packet_length parsed during the SSH handshake, producing a 32-bit wrap and an out-of-bounds heap write. A patch was merged on June 12 and the CVE published June 17; distributions are backporting fixes while a tagged release is prepared.

🔍 New research from ESET reveals that The Gentlemen ransomware-as-a-service platform now supplies affiliates with an advanced EDR killer framework called GentleKiller, alongside third-party tools like HexKiller, ThrottleBlood and HavocKiller. The leak shows affiliates can deploy bring-your-own vulnerable driver (BYOVD) techniques to gain kernel privileges and disable hundreds of EDR processes across many vendors. ESET warns this lowers the bar for less skilled attackers and urges organizations to enforce protections such as HVCI and KMCI, apply strict driver allow/block policies, and regularly audit drivers.

🔒 Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse disclosed a new BitLocker bypass named GreatXML that leverages files placed on the recovery partition and booting into Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). The researcher says the issue is tied to using Windows Defender Offline Scan and can result in a shell with unrestricted access to a BitLocker volume if specific XML files are copied to the recovery partition and WinRE is invoked. GreatXML follows other recent disclosures from the same researcher, including a Defender zero-day and the earlier YellowKey bypass.

🔍 At Infosecurity Europe 2026, Bugcrowd unveiled ExploitBench, a graded benchmark assessing AI models' ability to chain vulnerability discovery into staged exploits against a vulnerable V8 build. Anthropic’s Claude Mythos outperformed OpenAI’s GPT‑5.5 in head‑to‑head runs, achieving higher average scores and more top‑tier exploits, often with occasional human nudges. The report highlights rising offensive potential of frontier LLMs and urges defenders to adopt automated remediation and prioritization.

🔒 A critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw in Gogs, a self-hosted Git service, enables any authenticated user to execute arbitrary commands by creating a pull request with a malicious branch name that injects the --exec flag into git rebase. Rated 9.4 by Rapid7, the bug requires only a registered account on default instances and can be abused without admin privileges or other user interaction. Rapid7 published an exploit module and advises restricting registration and repository creation and auditing rebase merge settings.

🔒 A security report details how a group used Anthropic’s Mythos AI model to discover a kernel memory corruption vulnerability and develop an exploit targeting Apple’s M5 platform. The article summarizes the incident and notes it was posted on May 21, 2026. It highlights implications for macOS security and the role of advanced AI tools in vulnerability discovery. The piece is concise and focused on the exploit’s origin and significance.

🔒 A public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit has been released for the recently patched local privilege escalation flaw dubbed PinTheft, which targets an RDS zerocopy double-free in the Linux kernel. The issue can lead to a page-cache overwrite via io_uring fixed buffers and allow a local attacker to obtain a root shell. Exploitation requires the RDS kernel module, io_uring enabled, a readable SUID-root binary and x86_64 support, so the impact is limited in practice and Arch Linux defaults make it the most exposed. Administrators are advised to apply kernel updates or unload and blacklist the RDS modules as an interim mitigation.

🔒 A proof-of-concept exploit is available for the recently patched DirtyDecrypt (aka DirtyCBC) local privilege escalation in the Linux kernel's rxgk module, enabling attackers to gain root on systems built with CONFIG_RXGK enabled. The flaw, independently reported by the V12 team on May 9, aligns with CVE-2026-31635, which was patched in late April. The PoC has been tested against Fedora and mainline kernels and mainly affects distributions that track upstream releases, such as Fedora, Arch, and openSUSE Tumbleweed. Users should apply kernel updates or use recommended mitigations until patches are deployed.

⚠️ Rapid7's Cyber Threat Landscape Report shows confirmed exploitation of newly disclosed high- and critical-severity vulnerabilities surged 105% year-over-year, while median time to CISA KEV inclusion fell to 5.0 days and mean time-to-exploit dropped to 28.5 days. Industry observers cite the industrialization of cybercrime and the use of AI to speed discovery and exploit development. Experts warn that patches increasingly act as roadmaps for attackers, and urge adoption of secure-by-design, aggressive pre-release testing, and faster isolation or rebuild capabilities to counter the collapsing patch window.

🚨 A security researcher published exploit code for an unpatched Windows privilege escalation vulnerability dubbed BlueHammer, citing dissatisfaction with how Microsoft's Security Response Center handled the report. The public proof-of-concept reportedly combines a TOCTOU and path confusion to access the SAM database and escalate to SYSTEM or elevated administrator privileges. The PoC contains bugs and is not reliably successful across all Windows editions, and Microsoft had not issued a patch at publication, leaving the flaw classified as a zero-day.

🔓 Google researchers released a report describing Coruna, a sophisticated iPhone exploitation toolkit that chains 23 distinct iOS vulnerabilities into five full exploit techniques capable of bypassing device defenses and silently installing malware when a user visits a crafted website. Analysts note the code’s professional, English-language provenance and say it bears hallmarks of previously attributed US government modules. Reporting from TechCrunch cites former L3Harris employees who say the company’s Trenchant surveillance division helped develop parts of the toolkit and that an insider may have sold components to foreign actors, raising urgent questions about loss of control over offensive cyber capabilities.

🔒 Proofpoint disclosed a targeted email campaign by Russia-linked TA446 that leverages the leaked DarkSword iOS exploit kit to target iPhones. The group used spoofed "discussion invitation" messages impersonating the Atlantic Council to deliver the GHOSTBLADE dataminer and, in some instances, the MAYBEROBOT backdoor via password-protected ZIPs. Proofpoint noted sharply increased message volume and server-side filtering that routes only iPhone browsers to the exploit chain. Apple has issued lock-screen warnings urging immediate updates to block the threat.

🛡️ CISA has ordered federal agencies to patch three iOS vulnerabilities targeted by the Coruna exploit kit, which bundles multiple chains for at least 23 iOS flaws. Google researchers say Coruna provides PAC bypass, sandbox and PPL escapes, WebKit remote code execution and kernel elevation. Exploits are mitigated on recent iOS releases and can be blocked by private browsing or Lockdown Mode. CISA added the flaws to its KEV list and set a March 26 remediation deadline under BOD 22-01, urging organizations to prioritize fixes.

🔒Researchers at Google’s Threat Intelligence Group uncovered Coruna, a sophisticated iOS exploit kit composed of five exploit chains and 23 individual exploits that migrated from a commercial surveillance customer to suspected state and criminal operators within months. The framework resurfaced with UNC6353 on compromised Ukrainian sites and later powered mass attacks by China-based UNC6691 on fake financial pages. Its payload, tracked as Plasmagrid, injects into the root powerd daemon to exfiltrate cryptocurrency wallets, seed phrases and QR codes. GTIG urges immediate iOS updates, enabling Lockdown Mode where updates are impossible, and has published IoCs on VirusTotal.

🔐 Researchers at Google's Threat Intelligence Group disclosed the Coruna exploit kit, a complex toolkit that compromises Apple iPhones running iOS 13.0 through 17.2.1 using multiple chained vulnerabilities. The framework contains five full exploit chains and 23 distinct flaws, and includes device fingerprinting, automatic WebKit exploit selection and mitigation bypasses. A final-stage loader called PlasmaLoader focuses on extracting financial data such as QR codes and cryptocurrency recovery phrases. Google recommends updating to the latest iOS release or enabling Lockdown Mode when updates aren’t possible.

🔒 Google researchers disclosed a previously undocumented iOS exploit kit named Coruna, comprising 23 exploits and five full exploit chains that target iOS 13.0 through 17.2.1. Observed by the Google Threat Intelligence Group in 2025, the framework fingerprints devices, avoids targets in Lockdown Mode or private browsing, and delivers a stager loader called PlasmaLoader that injects into the iOS root daemon. Post-exploitation modules specifically target cryptocurrency wallets to extract BIP39 recovery phrases and other sensitive text, encrypting stolen data and using a DGA seeded with "lazarus" for resilience.