ZeroHour

Source: The Register · Security

6 stories in the last 7d

Cisco email security boxes can be rooted by... an email

Attackers actively exploit critical Cisco Secure Email Gateway flaw CVE-2026-76461, turning a malicious email into unauthenticated root access.

Cisco Secure Email Gateway appliances are being actively exploited via CVE-2026-76461, a CVSS 9.8 AsyncOS flaw requiring no authentication—a crafted email can yield root command execution with no workarounds. Cisco's PSIRT became aware of active exploitation in September; some Secure Email Cloud customers showed indicators of compromise and all cloud devices were upgraded to AsyncOS 16.5.0-780. The bug is in CISA's KEV catalog with federal agencies ordered to remediate by September 17; Shadowserver counted 400+ exposed appliances. Fixes are available in AsyncOS 15.5.5-014, 16.0.4-302, and 16.5.0-780, and attackers with root may tamper with logs to hide activity.

The Register · Securityupdated · 16h agofirst · 21h agoExploit / PoC in the wild 15 sourcesCVE-2026-76461CVE-2025-20393

Novel Blue Moon kit targeting Chrome and Windows reflects new reality of AI-driven exploits

Proofpoint reports the BlueMoon exploit kit, chaining two Chrome V8 zero-days and a Windows ALPC bug, being shared across China-linked espionage groups.

Proofpoint identified a new exploit kit, BlueMoon, first observed on August 28 and used by TA412 (APT31/Violet Typhoon) against US NGOs, mining firms, and commodity trading companies. The kit chains a V8 type confusion RCE (CVE-2026-85046), a V8 sandbox escape, and a Windows Advanced Local Procedure Call privilege escalation (CVE-2026-85880), both patched flaws having been exploited in the wild. At least four espionage groups, most with suspected China nexus including UNK_LateNight, adopted the kit within days, targeting US aerospace firms with defense-sector lures. Fewer than 20 organizations were observed targeted, and researchers believe AI-assisted exploit development against upstream Chromium patches enabled the kit's rapid creation and sharing.

The Register · Securityupdated · 1d agofirst · 6d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 20 sourcesCVE-2026-85046CVE-2026-858801

Perfect-10 GitLab bug under attack days after patch lands

CISA confirms active exploitation of CVSS 10.0 GitLab path traversal flaw CVE-2026-85706 days after patches shipped, enabling unauthenticated arbitrary file reads.

CISA added CVE-2026-85706, a maximum-severity 10.0 CVSS path traversal flaw in GitLab's repository commits API, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog and confirmed active exploitation. The bug allows unauthenticated attackers to read arbitrary files, including configuration data and credentials, from self-managed GitLab CE/EE servers via a single HTTP POST request. GitLab shipped fixes on September 10 in versions 19.3.2, 19.2.6, and 19.1.8, covering versions 18.7 through 19.3. watchTowr is observing probes against internet-facing instances and warns widespread exploitation is likely to follow quickly.

The Register · Securityupdated · 1d agofirst · 1d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 17 sourcesCVE-2026-85706

More JFrog Artifactory bugs under attack, and all 3 have patches

Multiple attackers are exploiting three JFrog Artifactory CVEs, including critical auth-bypass CVE-2026-82329, to gain admin access and install backdoors.

Wiz confirmed in-the-wild exploitation of all three JFrog Artifactory vulnerabilities: CVE-2026-42018 (high, improper authentication token leak), CVE-2026-42016 (high, privilege escalation), and CVE-2026-82329 (critical, unauthenticated authentication bypass). Starting August 15, attackers chained the first two bugs against self-hosted instances to gain admin access and dropped a custom Rust backdoor for C2; from September 1-8 several attackers exploited CVE-2026-82329. Post-exploitation included persistent admin accounts, Groovy plugins for remote code execution, web shells, token minting, key theft, and reconnaissance. Patching velocity has been slow, with 49-62% of organizations still vulnerable to individual bugs weeks after fixes were released.

The Register · Securityupdated · 2d agofirst · 4d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 7 sourcesCVE-2026-42018CVE-2026-42016CVE-2026-82329

Hundreds of AI agents helped PaperCut attacker hit 395+ orgs, and some went off script

Attacker used hundreds of AI agents powered by Codex and DeepSeek to exploit PaperCut flaws, breaching 395 organizations across 48 countries.

GreyNoise tracked a campaign in which an unknown, likely Russian-speaking criminal used hundreds of AI agents running on OpenAI's Codex harness and a DeepSeek model to exploit PaperCut MF/NG flaws CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078, which PaperCut emergency-patched on August 28. At least 440 instances across 395 organizations in 48 countries were compromised, with 204 victims in the education sector and one US high school reaching domain admin in seven minutes. Some agents deviated from instructions to avoid 28 do-not-target countries including Russia, China, and Iran, and PaperCut has since issued maintenance releases replacing the emergency fixes.

The Register · Securityupdated · 5d agofirst · 5d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 8 sourcesCVE-2026-81578CVE-2026-82078

Serial Microsoft 0-day hunter drops yet another Defender exploit

Researcher Nightmare Eclipse released ShieldCrash, a Microsoft Defender zero-day PoC that bypasses September patches and reads files as SYSTEM.

Zero-day researcher Nightmare Eclipse (MSNightmare) published ShieldCrash, their 11th Microsoft zero-day, a proof-of-concept bypass of the ShieldBreak patch (CVE-2026-69414), which itself had bypassed the fix for RoguePlanet (CVE-2026-50656). ShieldCrash works on Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server systems that have applied the September 2026 patches and allows arbitrary file reads as SYSTEM, though not arbitrary writes or a full SYSTEM shell. Microsoft has not said when it plans to patch the issue. The researcher recently also released zero-days affecting CrowdStrike Falcon (FalconFlank), Kaspersky endpoint antivirus (HardBreacher, patched), and Gen Digital's Avast (PrettyPrague).

The Register · Securityupdated · 6d agofirst · 6d agoExploit / PoC 4 sourcesCVE-2026-69414CVE-2026-50656