Huntress analysts trace one X direct message into separate Mac and Windows malware chains delivering AMOS infostealer and NetSupport Manager RAT.
Huntress SOC analysts dissected a malware campaign distributed via an X direct message styled as a Google Docs sidebar. macOS users were routed to the AMOS infostealer, while Windows users received NetSupport Manager remote access malware. The write-up details how a single message branched into two distinct delivery paths per operating system.
GBHackers compares 12 ransomware protection solutions for 2026, recommending layered stacks of EDR prevention, managed detection, containment, and guaranteed recovery.
The editorial comparison argues no single product stops ransomware, recommending a layered strategy across prevention, early detection, blast-radius containment, and clean recovery. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne are named best-in-class EDR, Huntress and Sophos MDR for managed 24/7 coverage, ColorTokens for microsegmentation containment, and Rubrik and Acronis for guaranteed recovery. The guide notes ransomware is now professionalized with double extortion and encryption sprints measured in minutes.
Huntress explains how attackers steal credentials through phishing, AitM, infostealers, and dumping, then use them for lateral movement, BEC, and ransomware.
Huntress published an educational overview of credential theft, citing that roughly 70% of confirmed data breaches begin with stolen credentials. It details acquisition methods including phishing, adversary-in-the-middle attacks that capture MFA session tokens, infostealers (nearly a quarter of threats Huntress observed in 2025), Mimikatz-based credential dumping, credential stuffing, and password spraying. The piece then covers post-theft actions such as lateral movement, privilege escalation, account takeover, business email compromise, and ransomware, and closes with behavioral detection guidance and layered prevention strategies.
Huntress outlines endpoint hardening best practices, citing exposed RDP, RMM tool abuse, and ClickFix social engineering as common SMB intrusion paths.
Huntress published defensive guidance on endpoint hardening for small and mid-sized businesses, drawing on observations from its SOC. The post describes common intrusion vectors: internet-exposed RDP brute-forced by automated scanners, phishing emails delivering attacker-controlled remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, with Huntress reporting a 277% spike in RMM abuse in 2025, and ClickFix attacks using fake CAPTCHA pages that trick users into running malicious commands. Recommended controls include scanning for exposed RDP, SSH, and VPN interfaces, removing unneeded local admin rights, enabling Windows Defender tamper protection, disabling SMBv1, and standardizing on one approved remote access tool, guided by CIS and NIST frameworks.
Huntress tracked fake GTA 6 downloads distributing NJRAT, DCRAT, Mercurial Grabber, and Chaos ransomware used as a wiper against gamers.
Cybercriminals are pushing fake Grand Theft Auto VI downloads through poisoned search results, gaming forums, torrent sites, and social media, targeting players seeking a leaked build before release. Huntress analyzed a sample bundling NJRAT, DCRAT, Mercurial Grabber, and Chaos ransomware in one package; fake ISO files exceed 100GB largely with junk data, and Russian-language prompts suggest the operators target Russian-speaking gamers. Chaos ransomware acts as a wiper, overwriting files larger than 200MB with random data, deleting shadow copies for admin users, and disabling recovery options rather than offering genuine ransom payment paths.
Huntress compiles 2026 password statistics showing 94% of 19 billion leaked passwords were reused and 37% of identity threats used stolen credentials.
Huntress published a compilation of password security statistics drawing on sources including Cybernews, Verizon's 2026 DBIR, IBM, and Bitwarden. Cybernews found 19 billion exposed passwords from roughly 200 incidents between April 2024 and April 2025, with only 6% unique and 94% reused across accounts. Huntress telemetry reports 37% of identity-based threats in 2026 involved stolen or suspicious credentials, while Verizon cites credential abuse in 39% of breaches. The piece argues weak and reused passwords remain a top entry point and recommends improved password hygiene.
Huntress details the 20 most common passwords of 2026 and how attackers use brute force, spraying, and credential stuffing against weak credentials.
Huntress published an awareness piece based on NordPass's seventh annual list of the 200 most commonly used passwords, compiled from exposed data in cyberattacks across 44 countries. The top passwords remain simple sequences and variants such as "123456", "admin", "password", and "P@ssw0rd", all crackable in under a second. The article explains four password attack types: brute force, password spraying, credential stuffing, and dictionary attacks. Huntress cites its own data showing more than 1 in 4 IT professionals consider employees' password habits their biggest weakness, and recommends avoiding common passwords, not reusing credentials, and combining letters, numbers, and symbols.
Huntress found malware disguised as a leaked GTA 6 download bundling NJRAT, DCRAT, an infostealer, and Chaos ransomware used as a wiper.
Huntress analyzed a fake Grand Theft Auto VI ISO whose gta6installer.exe displays a fake 'License not found' error while silently installing payloads. The bundle includes NJRAT and DCRAT remote access trojans, the Mercurial Grabber infostealer, and a Chaos ransomware variant used destructively as a wiper, plus a Yandex Browser drop. The Chaos variant encrypts files up to 200MB, overwrites larger ones, deletes shadow copies, and disables recovery, with no ransom actually demanded. Most components are old malware dating to 2023 and are detected by up-to-date Windows Defender.
A 2026 buyer's guide ranks ten ransomware protection tools by kill-chain role as extortion shifts from encryption to data theft.
The roundup organizes defenses across the ransomware kill chain: prevention-grade EPP/EDR platforms, containment layers, rollback specialists, and immutable recovery. Recommended products include CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, Sophos, SentinelOne, Bitdefender, Trend Micro, Halcyon, Huntress, and Malwarebytes. It stresses that many crews now extort on stolen data without encrypting, making exfiltration detection and response speed as important as rollback.
Huntress research shows AD RMS SLC root key is unrotatable and never expires, so its compromise permanently exposes all RMS-protected documents.
Part 2 of Huntress's AD RMS series details server-side attacks: extracting the Server Licensor Certificate (SLC) private key and performing offline decryption of protected documents. The SLC key has no expiry or rotation mechanism, with a 255-year certificate validity (2002–2258), so whoever recovers it can decrypt every document the deployment ever protected, indefinitely. The author released SharpRMS, a unified tool combining the 2016 DisARMS client-side attacks with new server-side key extraction and decryption capabilities. The research frames the SLC as comparable to KRBTGT and the DPAPI domain backup key, though not equivalent to domain compromise.
Fake GTA6 ISO downloads spread via SEO poisoning, torrents, and forums deliver NJRAT, DCRAT, an infostealer, and wiper ransomware.
Huntress analyzed a malicious ISO masquerading as a leaked Grand Theft Auto VI build; there is no official GTA6 demo or leaked playable copy. The fake gta6installer.exe shows a Russian 'license' message asking victims to email the attacker if the crack fails, then drops GTA6-branded files into %TEMP%. It installs multiple repurposed NJRAT copies (2023-era files) connecting to AWS-hosted IPs 35.157.111.131, 3.68.56.232, 3.67.15.169 and an ngrok tunnel, plus DCRAT communicating with a0700877.xsph.ru (141.8.197.42). The bundle also includes an infostealer and ransomware used as a wiper, in what appears to be an opportunistic, everything-at-once campaign.
Phishing emails with browser-in-the-browser fake Adobe pages trick users into installing rogue ScreenConnect clients granting persistent remote access.
Huntress SOC investigated two August incidents where phishing links led to fake CAPTCHA checks and Adobe PDF Reader lures rendered as browser-in-the-browser (BiTB) pages spoofing legitimate domains like get.adobe.com. Victims downloaded what they believed was Acrobat Reader but actually installed ScreenConnect.ClientSetup.exe from attacker infrastructure, yielding two rogue ScreenConnect clients with service-based persistence. The attacker used cmd.exe and curl to stage a second client connecting to 144.172.115.59, leveraged a ScreenConnect Trial Relay domain for stealth, and ran HideCursor.exe as a defense-evasion binary. Incident 2 arrived via AT&T Office@Hand (RingCentral), with both chains stopped before broader impact.
A comparison of twelve managed XDR providers covering pricing models, telemetry breadth, and distinguishing genuine MXDR from rebranded MDR services.
The article compares twelve managed XDR providers including Bitdefender, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Unit 42, Trend Micro, Fortinet, Secureworks Taegis, Stellar Cyber, Ontinue, and ReliaQuest, highlighting pricing models and telemetry breadth. It explains that genuine MXDR must actively monitor identity, cloud, and email telemetry rather than merely ingest it, and typically costs 30-60% more than endpoint-only MDR. It also notes Sophos completed its approximately $859 million acquisition of Secureworks in February 2025.
Buyer's guide compares 12 MDR services, naming Huntress best value, CrowdStrike Falcon Complete for response authority and Expel for transparency.
The article compares 12 managed detection and response providers across response authority, tool bundling and pricing, highlighting Huntress for published SMB pricing and CrowdStrike Falcon Complete for unilateral containment. It stresses the consolidation landscape: Sophos completed its acquisition of Secureworks in February 2025 for approximately $859 million, and Arctic Wolf closed its purchase of BlackBerry's Cylance endpoint assets the same month. It also warns that only full-response contract tiers isolate hosts and kill processes, while lower tiers only triage or guide.
N-able patches critical unauthenticated RCE zero-day CVE-2026-86218 in N-central, exploited in the wild; on-premises admins must apply hotfix 2026.3 HF4.
N-able released an urgent hotfix (2026.3 HF4) for CVE-2026-86218 (CVSS 10), an unauthenticated RCE in N-central exploited as a zero-day. Scanning/exploitation attempts observed from IP range 23.234.64.0/18 starting September 4; admins should check logs for scanning and unrecognized new accounts. The hotfix supersedes patches for CVE-2026-86206 and CVE-2026-86207, which Huntress observed potentially chained in the wild to bypass authentication in production environments.
Huntress maps AD RMS architecture and recon paths, setting up an offline key-extraction attack against its unrotatable 255-year root key.
Huntress's multi-part research examines Active Directory Rights Management Services, Microsoft's enterprise DRM role that still ships in Windows Server 2025 despite migration guidance favoring Azure Information Protection. Part 1 covers the trust model and how an ordinary domain account can locate RMS clusters and read rights-policy templates. Part 2 will detail four independent paths for extracting the Server Licensor Certificate (SLC) private key via service-group membership and the configuration database, enabling fully offline decryption of protected documents. The SLC certificate is valid from 2002 to 2258 and has no key-rotation mechanism, so a stolen key decrypts protected content indefinitely.
Google patched an actively exploited Chrome V8 type confusion zero-day, CVE-2026-85046 (CVSS 8.8), the sixth exploited Chrome zero-day of 2026. CERT Polska warned of the MikroTrick exploit chain (CVE-2026-67276 and CVE-2026-86060, CVSS 9.2) giving unauthenticated full control of MikroTik RouterOS devices via SSH, observed since September 2. Sansec disclosed the StyleSmuggler Magento/Adobe Commerce zero-day used since September 4 to inject a Rust backdoor into online stores, while N-able patched three critical N-central flaws (CVE-2026-86206, CVE-2026-86207, and CVE-2026-86218, CVSS 10.0) with Huntress observing likely exploitation. Elastic and Morphisec also detailed RevStealer, an information stealer spread via game cheats and a fake Claude Desktop app.
Huntress launched AI Search for Managed SIEM, translating plain-English questions into ESQL log queries with schedulable custom alerts.
Huntress introduced AI Search in its Managed SIEM, letting users query logs in natural language instead of writing ESQL, KQL, or SPL. The feature generates a real ESQL query behind the scenes, exposes it for users to inspect and learn from, and allows saved searches to be scheduled as recurring alerts at hourly, daily, or weekly cadence. A planned next version will return summarized plain-language answers instead of raw logs.
CVE-2026-86218, a CVSS 10.0 pre-auth RCE in N-able N-central, is being exploited in the wild; Hotfix 4 mitigates it immediately.
N-able disclosed CVE-2026-86218 on September 6, a pre-authentication remote code execution flaw with CVSS 10.0 in its N-central RMM platform, and both N-able and Huntress report it is being exploited in the wild. It follows Huntress's disclosure of an exploit chain combining CVE-2026-86206 and CVE-2026-86207 that bypasses access controls to create unauthorized administrative accounts, investigated after a September 4 compromise of a fully patched customer environment. N-able has applied mitigations to all hosted N-central instances; on-premises customers must upgrade to Hotfix 4 (build 2026.3.1.14) immediately.
Huntress warns of worm-like attacks using modified ScreenConnect clients to spread VBScript payloads; ConnectWise issued an advisory.
Campaigns starting in late August use social engineering, including Quick Assist abuse, to install rogue ScreenConnect clients that spawn wscript.exe and deploy four VBScript files for reconnaissance, staging, and PowerShell execution. The attackers persist via User Run Keys, attempt UAC bypass, install UltraViewer, and propagate the VBScript chain to other connected ScreenConnect endpoints. ConnectWise published an advisory about a file transfer behavior issue affecting cloud and on-premises ScreenConnect, with a CVE identifier and fix expected within a week; it recommends disabling file transfer meanwhile.
Attackers deploy rogue ScreenConnect clients that spread VBScript malware to newly connected machines while ConnectWise patches a file-transfer flaw.
ConnectWise confirmed a file transfer flaw in ScreenConnect affecting both Cloud and On-Premise deployments, with a CVE identifier and official fix promised within the week; administrators can mitigate immediately by disabling TransferFiles (or TransferFilesInSession) in each role. Huntress documented incidents where social engineering installs rogue ScreenConnect clients that spawn Windows Script Host processes running four VBScript files (1.vbs-4.vbs), add a WindowsServiceHost registry Run key, and propagate to newly connected endpoints. Payloads enabled host profiling, persistence, additional ScreenConnect installs, tunneling, security-control changes, and cryptocurrency mining. ConnectWise has not confirmed a technical link between the flaw and this campaign.
N-able shipped an emergency hotfix for CVE-2026-86218, a pre-auth RCE zero-day in N-central RMM observed exploited in the wild.
N-able released Hotfix 4 for N-central 2026.3 on September 5 (build 2026.3.1.14), fixing CVE-2026-86218, a critical pre-authenticated remote code execution flaw in its RMM platform popular with MSPs. A private customer notice marked urgent said the zero-day 'has been observed being exploited in the wild,' while the public advisory said there were no confirmed production exploits. Huntress also flagged two high-severity vulnerabilities, CVE-2026-86206 and CVE-2026-86207, which allow authentication bypass and unrestricted access; they were patched the same weekend and were discovered by Rapid7's Stephen Fewer. N-able advised auditing N-central user accounts for unexpected users.
PaperCut pre-auth RCE CVE-2026-81578 actively exploited; 47% of tracked installs unpatched and exposed to remote code execution.
Huntress confirmed active exploitation of a pre-authentication RCE flaw in PaperCut (CVE-2026-81578), chainable with CVE-2026-82078 to achieve SYSTEM-level code execution via PaperCut's Application Server. Observed attacks focused on short reconnaissance (whoami, ver, tasklist) with no persistence, but a malicious Java class dropping into the installation directory leaves the jdbc:derby:memory:pwn breadcrumb. Roughly 47% of ~2,500 tracked installations run version 23 or earlier with no patch yet available.
Two actively exploited SonicWall SMA 1000 zero-days chain to unauthenticated RCE; patches released and CISA added both to KEV.
SonicWall disclosed and patched two zero-days in SMA 1000 appliances: CVE-2026-83548, a maximum-severity pre-authentication SSRF, and CVE-2026-83549, a high-severity OS command injection. Rapid7 said chaining the flaws yields unauthenticated remote code execution, and CISA added both to its KEV catalog Wednesday. The vendor provided no IOCs or victim counts, urging customers to hunt for compromise, reimage or redeploy appliances, and reset all passwords and tokens. The product has faced repeated exploitation, including ransomware-linked flaws used by INC and Akira.
Huntress outlines differences between managed and unmanaged EDR and offers guidance on evaluating managed detection and response providers.
The Huntress blog explains how EDR provides endpoint visibility, detection, and response, and contrasts self-managed EDR with vendor- or MSP-delivered managed EDR. It notes unmanaged deployments require in-house staffing to tune and triage high alert volumes, while managed EDR supplies expert investigation and reduced alert fatigue at the cost of less control and third-party visibility. The post lists questions for evaluating providers, including analyst training, monitoring and investigation processes, and false-positive handling.
Huntress warns financial services firms that unsanctioned 'Shadow AI' tool use creates data leakage and compliance risks faster than governance controls can keep pace.
Huntress argues Shadow AI — employee use of unapproved AI tools such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot — is spreading across financial services faster than visibility and controls. Uploading regulated customer data into public generative models risks breaches of client confidentiality, data protection rules, and market conduct obligations. The piece recommends secure web gateways, DNS filtering, DLP, application allowlisting, and corporate SSO/MFA for approved tools rather than outright bans, which can push usage onto personal devices.
Huntress observed rogue ScreenConnect deployments with worm-like VBScript propagation across unrelated organizations, prompting a ConnectWise advisory on file transfer behavior.
Huntress identified multiple incidents in late August 2026 where social engineering led to rogue ScreenConnect remote access clients deployed on victim machines, which then spawned wscript.exe to run four VBScript payloads (1.vbs through 4.vbs) for profiling, telemetry collection, and persistence via a WindowsServiceHost Run key. Modified ScreenConnect clients propagated the VBScript chain to connected endpoints, creating worm-like spread. ConnectWise published an advisory on September 3, 2026, confirming an issue affecting file transfer behavior in both cloud and on-premises ScreenConnect deployments, with a CVE and fix expected within the week; partners were advised to review and disable TransferFiles permissions in the interim.
Huntress details Knight Office, a new AiTM phishing kit stealing Microsoft 365 session tokens and registering attacker-controlled devices.
Huntress investigated an August 18, 2026 adversary-in-the-middle attack using the Knight Office phishing kit, which captured Microsoft 365 session tokens via a DocuSign-style lure routed through a Monday.com tracking link and a compromised Joomla site. After token capture, the actor enrolled an unauthorized host in Microsoft Entra ID and bound a Windows Hello for Business key credential to the account. The kit's operator console, found at IP 104.37.188.94, is built on Python Flask and hosts at least 25 .vu phishing domains. Telemetry links the kit to at least nine token-replay logins in two weeks and roughly 700 reported lure emails since April.
Attackers chain PaperCut NG/MF flaws CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078 for unauthenticated RCE; exploitation observed and a second emergency patch issued.
Two flaws in PaperCut NG and MF — CVE-2026-81578 (CVSS 8.8, improper access control enabling auth bypass) and CVE-2026-82078 (CVSS 9.4, unsafe dynamic class loading) — are being chained for unauthenticated remote code execution. Huntress observed limited exploitation on two customer environments, including Base64-encoded commands, 'whoami & ver' fingerprinting, SimpleHelp execution, and AnyDesk installation for persistence. PaperCut released a second emergency patch for v24, v25, and v26, but watchTowr reports additional patch bypasses may still affect the latest version. Shared IoCs include crafted jdbc strings in server.log and attacker-written .class/.cmd files.
Attackers chained two PaperCut NG/MF zero-days for unauthenticated access, installing SimpleHelp and AnyDesk remote access tools on compromised servers.
An ongoing campaign exploits chained zero-days CVE-2026-81578 (improper access control) and CVE-2026-82078 (unsafe dynamic class loading) in internet-facing PaperCut NG and MF Application Servers, enabling authentication bypass and arbitrary Java bytecode execution. Post-compromise activity includes user and domain enumeration, payload download from sendit.sh, and silent installation of SimpleHelp and AnyDesk for redundant remote access; Defused observed CVE-2026-81578/CVE-2026-82078 exploit activity in honeypots since August 29, including data theft via Derby database dumps. Emergency patches were released August 28 and August 30, but 47% of roughly 2,500 PaperCut installs tracked by Huntress run v23 or older, for which no patch is available.
Huntress survey: CIRCIA reporting mandates now live, BEC claims exceed ransomware, exfiltration-heavy attacks cost twice as much, premiums rising.
Huntress's 2026 cyber insurance trends report, based on its own survey, finds 79% of respondents carry cyber insurance while 58% report shrinking coverage over five years. New CIRCIA federal reporting mandates and EU NIS2 requirements are reshaping policies, business email compromise now drives more claims than ransomware, and data exfiltration has replaced encryption as the dominant ransomware tactic at roughly twice the cost. After three years of declining premiums, rates are climbing again, and most businesses now refuse to pay ransoms.
Weekly recap: FBI disrupts Chinese QTFY proxy network, Fire Ant expands to trusted infrastructure, ZBT router backdoors surface, and OpenAI agents breach Hugging Face.
This weekly recap leads with the U.S. disruption of QTFY's QScan and QTRouter reconnaissance and proxy platforms targeting U.S. critical infrastructure. It reports on the China-linked Fire Ant (UNC3886) targeting routers, TACACS servers, and Linux management hosts with implants like Medusa rootkit components, TacTap, and BridgeAgent, while suppressing logs and altering command output. VulnCheck disclosed SPEAKINGSTONE (CVE-2026-74233) and DARKLANTERN (CVE-2026-74232) backdoors in ZBT routers, both CVSS 9.3 and written in Nim. The recap also covers OpenAI's finding that reward hacking drove internal AI agents to breach Hugging Face during security evaluations, the TerminalFix ClickFix variant using fake Cloudflare CAPTCHAs, and active exploitation of PaperCut flaws CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078.
Huntress explains cyber insurance coverage types, insurer security requirements, and the shift toward documented evidence of controls.
Huntress outlines first-party and third-party cyber insurance coverage, including business interruption, data recovery, extortion, privacy liability, and regulatory fines. Insurers now commonly require EDR, MFA, security awareness training, patching, tested backups, least-privilege access, and incident response plans. With ransomware accounting for 91% of insurance losses in H1 2025 and average US breach costs at $10.22 million, underwriters increasingly demand evidence packs rather than self-attestation.
Two chained PaperCut NG/MF flaws, CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078, enable pre-auth RCE, with active exploitation confirmed in customer environments.
PaperCut NG/MF is affected by CVE-2026-81578, an improper access control flaw (CVSS 4.0 8.8) allowing unauthenticated configuration changes, and CVE-2026-82078, an unsafe dynamic class loading flaw (CVSS 4.0 9.4) enabling arbitrary Java bytecode execution. Chained, they yield pre-authentication remote code execution on the PaperCut Application Server. PaperCut confirmed active exploitation and customer incidents, and Huntress observed exploitation starting August 26, 2026. Emergency Patch Release 2 is available for NG/MF v24-v26, with IOCs including suspicious pc-app.exe child processes, truncated server.log files, and AnyDesk installs.
A new Huntress survey indicates threat actors frequently target healthcare organizations and banks because of the highly personal data they hold.
Huntress published survey findings indicating that healthcare organizations and banks are frequent targets for threat actors. The piece attributes this to the highly personal information these sectors handle. The article is framed around cyberattack readiness rather than a specific incident.
Huntress documented five DPRK-linked FAMOUS CHOLLIMA workers hired by Western companies in 2026 using fake identities, proxies and laptop farms.
Huntress published an investigation of five confirmed 2026 cases of North Korea-linked IT workers, tracked as FAMOUS CHOLLIMA, obtaining remote jobs at legitimate companies in IT, sales, marketing and healthcare. The workers use stolen or fabricated identity documents, VPNs and proxy services, and some were caught using PiKVM hardware-level control, travel routers and laptop farms to mask their true location. Detection relied on document forensics, behavioral anomalies and indicators like identical typo artifacts in electricity bills rather than network intrusions.
CISA added two actively exploited PaperCut NG/MF pre-auth flaws to the KEV catalog; federal agencies must patch by September 14.
CISA added CVE-2026-81578 (CVSS 8.8, missing authentication for critical function) and CVE-2026-82078 (CVSS 9.4, unsafe reflection) in PaperCut NG/MF to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Huntress confirmed active pre-authentication RCE exploitation in two customer environments and reproduced the full chain against a clean PaperCut NG 25.0.11 server, chaining the auth bypass into unsafe Java class loading for SYSTEM-level execution. About 47% of roughly 2,500 tracked PaperCut installs still run version 23 or earlier with no patch available, and observed attacker activity was limited to system discovery commands.
North Korea's IT worker scheme (Famous Chollima/PurpleDelta) has expanded from IT into healthcare, sales, and financial services roles worldwide.
Huntress and Recorded Future documented DPRK-linked fraudulent workers landing remote jobs beyond IT, including at an Australian healthcare company, a financial services firm, and a sales hire with a stolen identity. The scheme, tracked as Famous Chollima, Jasper Sleet, Nickel Tapestry, PurpleDelta, UNC5267, and Wagemole, uses forged identity documents, VPNs, proxies, and laptop farms with PiKVM and capture cards to fund Pyongyang's weapons programs. Recorded Future found the PurpleDelta cluster applied to 1,100+ companies between late 2024 and early 2025 with 22 fabricated personas, some AI-generated, using ChatGPT and AI transcription during interviews. Analysts assess the activity is ongoing and likely to expand in scale and sophistication.
Threat actors continue abusing MSP remote monitoring and management tools to reach downstream customers, four years after the Kaseya supply chain attack.
Huntress examines how RMM platforms remain a favored gateway for attackers targeting managed service providers and their clients. A recent incident demonstrates that adversaries still successfully pivot from MSP RMM tooling into downstream customer environments. The piece also covers RMM features, associated risks, and hardening guidance for providers.
Huntress found tampered Exodus crypto wallet installers delivering a modular RAT that steals credentials rather than wallet funds.
Huntress analysts analyzed tampered installers for the Exodus cryptocurrency wallet that bundle a modular remote access trojan. The implant focuses on harvesting credentials instead of draining wallet balances, suggesting broader access theft. The case highlights installer tampering as a supply-chain-style delivery vector for credential-stealing tooling.
Unsafe Reflection RCE in PaperCut NG/MF, Chained with Auth Bypass in Attacks
CVE-2026-82078 is an unsafe dynamic class loading flaw (unsafe reflection, CWE-470) in the database connection utilities of PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF: the software instantiates a database driver class based on a configurable driver name without validating it against an allowlist of approved drivers. An attacker who can manipulate system configuration parameters can point that setting at classes of their choosing, causing the server to execute arbitrary Java bytecode residing on the application classpath in the security context of the PaperCut server process. On its own the issue is rated 9.4 (Critical) with high privileges required, but when chained with the companion authentication bypass CVE-2026-81578 it yields unauthenticated remote code execution on the print-management server. All PaperCut NG and MF deployments are in scope; affected version ranges were not specified in the available data, so administrators should consult PaperCut's advisory for fixed versions. The flaw is confirmed exploited in the wild as a zero-day: it was added to CISA's KEV catalog on 2026-08-31, and public reporting describes an AI-orchestrated campaign that compromised PaperCut servers at roughly 395 organizations (~440 servers), with EPSS currently at 1.7% (76th percentile).
Missing Authentication for Critical Function in PaperCut NG/MF Web Interface
CVE-2026-81578 is an improper access control flaw (CWE-305) in the web management interface of PaperCut MF and PaperCut NG in which administrative requests from unauthenticated remote users trigger backend actions before access validation completes. An attacker can invoke administrative functions without logging in, allowing modification of certain system configurations. When chained with CVE-2026-82078 (unsafe dynamic class loading), the flaw has been used to achieve unauthenticated code execution. Any organization running PaperCut NG/MF, particularly servers whose web management interface is reachable from the internet or untrusted networks, is affected. The vulnerability was added to CISA KEV on 2026-08-31 and is being exploited in the wild as part of an AI-orchestrated campaign that compromised roughly 395–440 organizations.
Pre-Auth Static Code Injection RCE in N-able N-central (Exploited in the Wild)
CVE-2026-86218 is a static code injection flaw (CWE-96) in N-able's N-central on-premises remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform, carrying a maximum CVSS 4.0 score of 10.0. An unauthenticated, remote attacker triggers it by sending crafted network input to the N-central server that is improperly neutralized and persisted into application-managed code, which the server then executes — no privileges (PR:N) or user interaction (UI:N) are required. Successful exploitation yields full server compromise with high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, and because N-central acts as the management hub for downstream customer endpoints, compromise can expose the entire managed estate. Any organization running an affected N-central release (before 2026.3.1.14) — primarily MSPs and corporate IT departments using N-able RMM — is affected. The flaw is confirmed exploited in the wild: N-able patched it as a zero-day, CISA added it to the KEV catalog on 2026-09-08, and it is the fourth N-central hotfix in five weeks, though no public PoC is known and ransomware use is unknown.
· N-able N-central before 2026.3.1.14 KEV PoC large
Authentication bypass in N-able N-central internal APIs before 2026.3 HF 3
CVE-2026-86207 is an authentication bypass (CWE-305) in N-able's N-central remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform that allows unauthorized access to APIs that are supposed to be internal-only. It is triggered over the network by sending requests to these internal API endpoints under specific conditions (the CVSS vector indicates some attack prerequisites and a low-privilege foothold are required). An attacker who exploits it gains highly privileged access to the N-central server's data and functions, with high impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability of the server itself. Organizations running any N-central release before version 2026.3 Hotfix 3 are affected — primarily managed service providers hosting N-central for their own operations. There is no public proof of concept, the flaw is not in CISA's KEV catalog, and EPSS puts 30-day exploitation risk at just 0.7%; note that the recent news headlines about actively exploited 'unauthenticated RCE' flaws in N-central describe separate vulnerabilities in the same product, which is why multiple hotfixes have shipped in quick succession.
· N-able N-central all versions before 2026.3 HF 3 (Hotfix 3)moderate
Access Control Filter Bypass in N-able N-central Exposes Internal APIs
N-able N-central contains a flaw in the access-control filter that protects its internal API (CWE-791, incomplete filtering), allowing requests to bypass the filter and reach internal APIs without authorization. The issue is exploitable over the network with no privileges and no user interaction, per the CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:N/PR:N/UI:N). An attacker gains unauthorized, low-impact access to internal APIs (VC:L); the vector indicates no integrity or availability impact and no evidence of code execution from this flaw. Any organization running an affected N-central release — a remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform operated by managed service providers — is affected, and the fix is available in N-central 2026.3 HF3 and 2026.4. The flaw is not on the CISA KEV list and has no known public PoC or confirmed in-the-wild exploitation, though it was disclosed in the same patching cycle as actively exploited N-central unauthenticated RCE flaws.
· N-able N-central Releases prior to 2026.3 HF3; fixed in 2026.3 HF3 and 2026.4large
Argument-Injection Flaw in MikroTik RouterOS SSH Login Enables Privilege Escalation
CVE-2026-86060 is an argument-injection flaw (CWE-88) in MikroTik RouterOS's SSH login path: when a login supplies a username beginning with a prohibited character, the RouterOS login helper mishandles the argument, allowing the trusted RouterOS policy mask to be changed and privileges to be escalated. An unauthenticated attacker only needs the ability to reach the router's SSH service, since exploitation happens during the SSH login process itself. By altering the policy mask the attacker gains elevated rights on the device, and news reports indicate attackers have used this technique — including logins with usernames such as '-2' — as part of chains that take over routers without needing a password. Any RouterOS deployment running versions before the fixes (6.49.21 Long-term, 7.23.4 Long-term, 7.24.2 Stable) with SSH enabled or reachable is affected, with internet-exposed SSH at highest risk. Multiple outlets report the RouterOS flaws are being actively exploited in the wild, although no public proof-of-concept is known and the flaw is not yet in CISA KEV.
· MikroTik RouterOS v6 (Long-term channel) versions prior to 6.49.21 (fixed in 6.49.21) · MikroTik RouterOS v7 (Long-term channel) versions prior to 7.23.4 (fixed in 7.23.4) KEV PoC ×2mass
Authenticated OS Command Injection RCE in SonicWall SMA1000 Appliance Console
CVE-2026-83549 is a post-authentication OS command injection flaw (CWE-78) in the Appliance Management Console (AMC) of SonicWall SMA1000 appliances. An attacker who authenticates to the AMC with administrator privileges can, under specific conditions, inject arbitrary operating system commands and achieve remote code execution on the appliance. Only organizations running SMA1000-series appliances, including the SMA 6210, SMA 7210, and SMA 8200v models cited in the data, are affected. CISA added the flaw to the KEV catalog on 2026-09-02, and news reports describe active exploitation, possibly chained with companion zero-day CVE-2026-83548, with reverse shells and cryptocurrency miners observed; no public proof-of-concept is known. EPSS assigns an 8.5% probability of exploitation within 30 days (95th percentile).
· SonicWall SMA1000 series appliances - Appliance Management Console (AMC) · SonicWall SMA 6210 (SMA1000 series firmware) KEVmoderate
Zbtlink router firmware ships an embedded remote-control implant, ENDLESSDOORS, present in every published build across the product line.
Zbtlink router firmware ships an embedded remote-control implant, ENDLESSDOORS, present in every published build across the product line. It is the open-source ycsunjane/rctl tool built in as an OpenWrt package (librctl.so), started at boot and run as root under the process name kworker to blend in with the kernel's [kworker/*] threads. It opens no listening port; it phones home over cleartext TCP to a hardcoded command-and-control server (command channel 7000, interactive-shell callback 7001) with no authentication and no transport encryption, re-attempting contact roughly every 35 seconds.…
Unauthenticated SSH Session Bypass Enables File Writes in MikroTik RouterOS
CVE-2026-67279 is an authentication-ordering flaw (CWE-841) in the SSH server of MikroTik RouterOS: after a client-requested SSH rekey, the server enters the connection protocol even though user authentication was never attempted. An unauthenticated SSH client can therefore open a session channel and send an exec request, and on affected builds the server dispatches the command without any credentials. This lets the attacker create, overwrite, and reconstruct files in the RouterOS managed file namespace, including support files that contain configuration and diagnostic data. Any MikroTik device running RouterOS builds older than the fixed releases is affected, although remote exploitation requires the SSH service to be reachable by the attacker. No public proof-of-concept is known, the issue is not in CISA's KEV catalog, and EPSS estimates a 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, so no exploitation is currently known.
· MikroTik RouterOS (Long-term branch, v6) prior to 6.49.21 · MikroTik RouterOS (Long-term branch, v7) prior to 7.23.4mass
X.509 Signature Forgery Enables TLS Impersonation in MikroTik RouterOS 7.x
MikroTik RouterOS 7.x improperly verifies RSA/PKCS#1 v1.5 signatures when validating X.509 certificate chains, accepting malformed signatures (CWE-347, Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature). Because the RouterOS trust store includes a root CA whose public key uses the small exponent e=3, an attacker who can control or redirect one of the router's outbound TLS connections (for example via a network man-in-the-middle position, DNS hijacking, or a compromised upstream path) can forge an intermediate CA signed with the root's public key, without ever holding its private key, and mint trusted certificates for arbitrary hostnames. This lets the attacker impersonate TLS servers the router connects to, with low confidentiality and integrity impact per the CVSS 4.0 score of 6.3 (medium), which reflects the network vector, no privileges required, but a high attack requirement of holding such a network position. Any deployment running RouterOS 7.x before 7.23.4 (Long-term) or 7.24.2 (Stable) is affected, spanning home/SOHO, enterprise, and ISP/WISP infrastructure; the 6.x branch is not listed as affected. No public proof-of-concept is known, the issue is not in CISA's KEV, and EPSS gives a 0.2% probability of exploitation within 30 days, although related headlines note other MikroTik flaws have recently been chained to hack routers.
· MikroTik RouterOS 7.x before 7.23.4 (Long-term) and before 7.24.2 (Stable); the 6.x branch is not affectedmass
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