ZeroHour

Search: “format string”

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Re: Retrospective by 'gpg.fail' authors

GnuPG's Werner Koch says gpg.fail samples only crash GnuPG via DER-as-printf format string in --debug x509; RCE claim remains unproven.

Werner Koch replied to the gpg.fail retrospective, noting that GnuPG versions above 2.2 produce garbled stderr or crash when the project's certificates are used with --debug x509 because DER data is passed as a printf format string. Testing the certificates from the researchers' Git repo yielded only a segfault, not demonstrated code execution. Koch states how remote code execution would be achieved is unclear and asks for a real reproducer.

oss-securityupdated · 1h agofirst · 1d agoVulnerability 7 sources

Re: Retrospective by 'gpg.fail' authors

GPG exploitation talk author clarifies a format-string 0day enabling code execution via printf %n writes and a polyglot PEM certificate payload.

Lexi Groves, author of the gpg.fail talk, clarified on oss-security that the first finding was an actual zero-day: a classic printf injection using %n for memory writes, with multiple X.509 certificates in one PEM file to re-enter and defeat ASLR before calling execv@plt. The payload executed the certificate itself, a polyglot file made by inserting a shebang and bash command into the PEM. A second finding was hash-collided by another party before the author could exploit it.

oss-securityupdated · 1h agofirst · 15h agoResearch 7 sources

How the EITest Campaign's Path to Angler EK Evolved Over Time

Unit 42 documents how the EITest campaign's gate URLs and infrastructure evolved since 2014 while still routing victims to Angler EK and diverse malware.

Unit 42 traced network traffic changes in the EITest campaign, which Malwarebytes identified in October 2014 across thousands of compromised websites. The campaign's injected script patterns have remained consistent, but its gate URLs changed repeatedly, and since January 2016 gates used the 85.93.0.0/24 IP block, often with .tk domains. The gate returns a Flash file that redirects victims to Angler EK, which delivered malware including Vawtrak, Tinba, TeslaCrypt, Bedep, Kovter, Ursnif, and Zeus variants from 2014 through 2016.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild

The Gopher in the Room: Analysis of GoLang Malware in the Wild

Unit 42 analysis of 10,700 Go-compiled malware samples shows steady growth in the wild, with 92% targeting Windows and top families including Veil, GoBot2, and HERCULES.

Unit 42 collected roughly 10,700 unique Go-compiled malware samples and found that Go usage by malware developers has steadily risen in recent months. About 92% of samples targeted Windows and 75% were attributed to known families, led by Veil, GoBot2, and HERCULES. The most prevalent groupings were penetration testing tools, remote access Trojans, and backdoors. Statically linked Go binaries average 4.65MB, which can complicate phishing delivery but sometimes causes antivirus products to skip or fail scanning.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Research1