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Understanding Angler Exploit Kit

Unit 42 examines Angler EK operations, including rapid zero-day adoption, fileless Bedep infections, and ransomware payloads like TeslaCrypt and CryptXXX.

Unit 42 published the second part of its Angler EK analysis, covering the kit's history since 2013, its SaaS rental model, and its focus on Flash, Internet Explorer, and Silverlight exploits. Angler integrated the CVE-2015-5119 Flash zero-day from the Hacking Team leak within hours and later added exploits for CVE-2015-2419 and CVE-2016-0034 roughly a month after Microsoft patched them. Campaigns use Angler to deliver ransomware such as CryptoWall, TeslaCrypt, and CryptXXX, plus banking trojans and stealers via EITest. Since August 2014, Angler has used fileless, in-memory execution, most often for Bedep, which later downloads CryptXXX and click-fraud malware.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Research in the wildCVE-2015-5119CVE-2015-2419CVE-2016-0034

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

EITest Campaign Evolution: From Angler EK to Neutrino and Rig

Unit 42 details the EITest campaign's shift from Angler to Neutrino and Rig exploit kits while distributing ransomware, downloaders, and banking trojans.

Unit 42 updated its tracking of the EITest campaign, first identified in October 2014, which compromises websites with injected scripts that redirect victims through a gate to exploit kits. After Angler EK disappeared in June 2016, EITest switched to Neutrino and then primarily used Rig EK by August 2016. In September 2016 the campaign began using hex-obfuscated JavaScript and simplified gate URLs, while continuing to distribute payloads including Gootkit, Cerber, Bart, CryptFile2, Vawtrak, Ursnif, and Tinba. Gate infrastructure consistently reused IP blocks such as 85.93.0.0/24 even as domain names changed.

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

Afraidgate: Major Exploit Kit Campaign Swaps Locky Ransomware for CryptXXX

Unit 42 reports the Afraidgate campaign switched from Nuclear EK delivering Locky to Angler EK delivering CryptXXX via the Bedep downloader.

Unit 42 reported that the Afraidgate campaign, which uses gates registered through FreeDNS at afraid.org, switched in mid-April 2016 from Nuclear EK distributing Locky ransomware to Angler EK distributing CryptXXX. The Angler/Bedep/CryptXXX combination also spread from the pseudo-Darkleech campaign, with Bedep acting as a fileless, memory-resident downloader that also installs click-fraud malware. Recent Bedep updates detect virtual machines and alter behavior, complicating analyst investigation. Unit 42 published gate, EK, and post-infection indicators including gate IP 185.118.164.42 and associated domains.

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

Understanding Angler Exploit Kit

Unit 42 explains exploit kit fundamentals, describing how landing pages profile victims, deliver exploits, and install malware payloads on Windows hosts.

Unit 42 published a primer on exploit kit fundamentals, defining vulnerabilities, exploits, malware payloads, actors, and campaigns in EK-based attacks. It explains the infection chain: a landing page profiles the victim's Windows system for vulnerable applications such as Flash Player, Java, Silverlight, and Internet Explorer, then a matching exploit executes a downloader or final payload, often delivered encrypted with XOR or RC4. The post also describes the EK-as-a-Service business model, in which leading EKs are rented for a few thousand dollars per month while buyers supply campaign infrastructure.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Research

Decline in Rig Exploit Kit

Rig exploit kit activity dropped roughly 75% after the pseudo-Darkleech and EITest campaigns stopped using EKs, reflecting an overall decline in exploit kit activity.

Rig EK activity fell sharply in 2017: the pseudo-Darkleech campaign disappeared at the end of March, cutting Rig traffic about 50%, and the EITest campaign switched to tech support scams in late April, cutting another 50% in May. Broader causes include a shrinking browser target base, no major EK zero-day in over a year, and community takedowns of domain shadowing infrastructure. Criminals are shifting to malspam, social engineering schemes like fake HoeflerText notifications, and tech support scams.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wild1

Campaign Evolution: Darkleech to Pseudo

Unit 42 traces the pseudo-Darkleech campaign, which compromises websites to inject scripts redirecting visitors to exploit kits delivering ransomware.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 analyzed the evolution of the pseudo-Darkleech campaign, which injects malicious script into compromised Apache, IIS and WordPress sites to redirect visitors to exploit kits such as Angler and Neutrino. The original Darkleech Apache module infected thousands of servers starting in 2012 and delivered Blackhole EK until that kit disappeared after Paunch's 2013 arrest. From 2015 onward, pseudo-Darkleech delivered ransomware families like CryptoWall and TeslaCrypt, and by early 2016 its injected scripts added obfuscated numeric blocks with frequently changing separator characters. Unit 42 tracks these patterns to help defenders identify compromised websites.

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

Afraidgate: Major Exploit Kit Campaign Switches from CryptXXX Ransomware Back to Locky

The Afraidgate exploit kit campaign stopped distributing CryptXXX and now delivers the .zepto Locky variant exclusively through Neutrino EK since July 2016.

By mid-July 2016, the Afraidgate campaign switched from CryptXXX ransomware to consistently delivering the .zepto (Zepto) variant of Locky, using the Neutrino exploit kit after Angler EK disappeared in early June 2016. The campaign starts from compromised websites with injected scripts that redirect to Afraidgate domains and then Neutrino EK landing pages on .top domains. Zepto emerged after the Necurs botnet returned from a three-week outage, bringing new anti-sandboxing and evasion techniques.

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

Tracking OceanLotus’ new Downloader, KerrDown

Unit 42 identifies KerrDown, a new OceanLotus (APT32) downloader active since 2018 targeting Vietnamese speakers via malicious macros and DLL side-loading.

Unit 42 tracks KerrDown, a previously undocumented downloader family used by OceanLotus (APT32) since at least early 2018, primarily targeting Vietnam or Vietnamese-speaking individuals. Delivery uses macro-laced Microsoft Office documents embedding base64-encoded 32-bit and 64-bit DLLs, and RAR archives containing a legitimate program abused for DLL side-loading. KerrDown is dropped as main_background.png, downloads a DES-encrypted payload from a URL, and executes it directly in memory. Researchers used Jaccard-index similarity analysis to identify the new family, connect campaign samples, and infer patterns in the group's working hours and days.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Malware in the wild1

Campaign Evolution: pseudo

Unit 42 traces the pseudo-Darkleech campaign's 2016 shift from Angler to Neutrino to Rig exploit kits and rotating ransomware payloads.

Unit 42 documents how the pseudo-Darkleech exploit kit campaign evolved through 2016, switching from Angler EK to Neutrino EK in June and to Rig EK in September after Neutrino ceased operations. Payloads rotated from TeslaCrypt to CryptXXX, CrypMIC, and finally Cerber ransomware by October 2016. Injected script on compromised websites changed from 12,000-18,000 character obfuscated blocks to short, unobfuscated hidden iframes starting July 1, 2016.

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

CVE-2026-80352: Apache Camel K: Camel K Master trait serviceAccountName YAML injection lets CR author apply arbitrary objects

Apache Camel K CVE-2026-80352 lets CR authors inject arbitrary Kubernetes objects via Master trait serviceAccountName YAML injection.

Apache disclosed a critical YAML injection vulnerability (CVE-2026-80352, improper control of code generation) in Apache Camel K's Master trait serviceAccountName setting. An authorized custom resource author can inject arbitrary Kubernetes objects, potentially enabling unauthorized resource manipulation. Affected versions are 2.0.0 before 2.9.3 and 2.10.1 before 2.10.2; fixes are available in 2.9.3 and 2.10.2.

oss-security · 6d agoVulnerability 3 sourcesCVE-2026-803521

A Deep Dive Into Attempted Exploitation of CVE-2023

Mirai-like botnet scans exploit TP-Link EOL router flaw CVE-2023-33538 after CISA KEV addition, though observed exploit code is flawed.

Unit 42 observed large-scale automated scans attempting to exploit CVE-2023-33538 in end-of-life TP-Link TL-WR940N, TL-WR740N and TL-WR841N routers after CISA added the flaw to its KEV catalog in June 2025. HTTP GET requests inject commands via the ssid1 parameter at the /userRpm/WlanNetworkRpm endpoint to download and execute an arm7 ELF binary, a Mirai variant related to the Condi IoT botnet. Firmware emulation and reverse engineering showed the observed exploits are flawed and would fail, but the underlying vulnerability is real and successful exploitation requires authentication to the router's web interface. TP-Link confirmed the devices are end-of-life with no patches available and recommends replacing units and eliminating default credentials.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 28d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2023-335381

Expert-Space Exploration in MoE Reinforcement Learning

ESRL explores MoE expert-routing space during RL, lifting Qwen3-30B-A3B Pass@1 by 3.2 points over GRPO at no extra cost.

ESRL (Expert-Space Exploration Reinforcement Learning) is an architecture-aware framework that treats expert routing in Mixture-of-Experts models as an additional source of rollout diversity. It preserves high-confidence experts as anchors, restricts stochastic routing to a plausible candidate pool, adapts perturbation strength to router entropy, and replays recorded expert paths during policy optimization. ESRL achieves the best performance across top-K, top-1, and shared-expert routing backbones on mathematics, science, and code tasks; on Qwen3-30B-A3B it improves average Pass@1 and Pass@8 over GRPO by 3.2 and 4.5 percentage points respectively, without additional sampling or compute.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 4d agoAI research 2 sources

DeepZero: Open-source hunting for vulnerable Windows drivers

DeepZero, a new open-source engine, automates discovery of exploitable Windows kernel drivers for BYOVD attacks using Ghidra, Semgrep, and an LLM.

DeepZero is a free, open-source Python pipeline orchestrator that automates hunting for exploitable Windows kernel drivers relevant to BYOVD (bring your own vulnerable driver) attacks. Its seven-stage YAML pipeline parses PE headers, filters for kernel-mode drivers with IOCTL surfaces, excludes drivers listed on loldrivers.io, then runs headless Ghidra decompilation, Semgrep scanning, and an LLM-based exploitability assessment. The maintainer reports multiple verified vulnerabilities in the Snappy Driver Installer corpus, some still in the disclosure process, and notes findings involving plug-and-play-created device objects may need physical hardware to confirm.

Help Net Security · 9h agoTools

Chaotic Eclipse Releases Kaspersky Zero

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released HardBreacher, a PoC privilege-escalation exploit for Kaspersky Endpoint Security on fully patched Windows 11 25H2.

Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse, also known as INFINITE NIGHTMARE and Nightmare-Eclipse, released a PoC zero-day exploit named HardBreacher targeting Kaspersky Endpoint Security v14.0.0.504. The exploit achieves privilege escalation on fully patched Windows 11 25H2, creating a DLL in System32 with full user permissions and potentially disrupting Kaspersky's UI process and file-access controls. The PoC is unstable and may require repeated attempts; Kaspersky claims it has already addressed the vulnerability.

Security Affairs · 15d agoExploit / PoC1

[Control Systems] Siemens security advisory (AV26-890)

Canada's Cyber Centre relayed a Siemens advisory affecting Reyrolle 7SR5, Teamcenter, Siveillance Control, Desigo CC and other products.

Advisory AV26-890, dated September 8, 2026, flags Siemens vulnerabilities in Reyrolle 7SR5 (versions prior to V2.70), Teamcenter, Siveillance Control, SIMATIC AX Runtime, Desigo CC, Industrial Edge Management, and SIMOVE Fleetmanager and SIPLANT across multiple versions and models. The Cyber Centre encourages users and administrators to review the Siemens advisory and apply available updates. No specific CVEs or exploitation details are provided in the relayed advisory.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security · 7d agoAdvisory

JFrog security advisory (AV26-867) – Update 1

CISA added actively exploited CVE-2026-82329 in JFrog Artifactory to its KEV catalog; administrators of affected versions should patch.

Canada's Cyber Centre (advisory AV26-867, Update 1) relays a JFrog security advisory covering Artifactory, where open-source reporting indicates CVE-2026-82329 is being exploited in the wild. CISA added the flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on September 2, 2026. Multiple Artifactory release lines prior to fixed versions (e.g., prior to 7.111.21 through 7.161.20) are affected; users and administrators are urged to apply available updates.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security · 13d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-82329

Erlang security advisory (AV26-870)

Canada's Cyber Centre warns that multiple Erlang/OTP versions are affected by vulnerabilities and urges administrators to apply updates.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security issued advisory AV26-870 on September 1, 2026, noting vulnerabilities affecting Erlang OTP across multiple versions. The bulletin contains no CVE identifiers or exploitation details and directs users and administrators to Erlang's own security advisories to apply necessary updates.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security · 14d agoAdvisory

Emerald AI, Google and NVIDIA Launch Alliance to Advance Flexible AI Data Centers

Emerald AI, Google, and NVIDIA launched the AI Energy Management Alliance to promote power-flexible, grid-responsive AI data centers.

Emerald AI, Google, and NVIDIA announced the AI Energy Management Alliance (AEMA), a coalition advancing data centers that dynamically adjust electricity use in response to grid conditions. The technology-neutral, performance-based alliance will standardize flexibility requirements, define ride-through and curtailment obligations, and create faster interconnection pathways for facilities making verifiable flexibility commitments. It plans to convene AI platforms, data center operators, utilities, power producers, and grid operators to support US AI infrastructure growth.

NVIDIA Blog · 2h agoAI industry

Sparks Fly: NVIDIA Accelerates Local AI at IFA 2026

NVIDIA announces local AI push at IFA 2026 with faster llama.cpp/vLLM inference, PAIR routing tool, and October RTX Spark PCs.

At IFA 2026, NVIDIA announced simplified local AI support for agents in Hermes Agent, OpenClaw, and Perplexity Portable Computer, plus new llama.cpp and vLLM optimizations delivering up to 1.9x faster local inference. NVIDIA also unveiled PAIR, a Personal AI Router for distributing inference across a local network's PCs, and compact RTX Spark Windows PCs from Lenovo and Acer arriving in October. The post recaps recent local-capable model releases including Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B), Qwen3.8-Flash-Next and Qwen3.8-27B, DeepSeek v4 Flash (284B MoE, 13B active), Meta Muse Glimmer (30B), Z.ai GLM-5.3-Flash, LTX 2.5, and MiniMax-H3 with the FastH3 distilled variant.

NVIDIA Blog · 12d agoAI industry

[webapps] Probo 0.222.2 - IDOR

A public proof-of-concept exploit was released for an IDOR vulnerability in web application Probo 0.222.2.

Exploit-DB published exploit #52650 targeting Probo version 0.222.2. The flaw is an Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) in this web application. No exploitation in the wild is reported in the disclosure text.

Exploit-DB · Aug 17, 2026Exploit / PoC

CryptoBit: Another Ransomware Family Gets an Update

Palo Alto Unit 42 analyzes updated CryptoBit ransomware distributed via the Rig exploit kit, documenting IOCs, eight sample hashes, and disguise tactics from June 2016.

Unit 42 observed an updated CryptoBit ransomware variant (also tracked as CriptoBit or Mobef) delivered through the Rig exploit kit via the gate domain realstatistics.info between June 17-27, 2016. Infections targeted Windows hosts with out-of-date Flash plugins, and post-infection callbacks used fake user-agents and referrers to disguise traffic to laoismacau.com. At least eight samples were collected, and by June 27 the campaign had begun distributing other malware.

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

Elementor Pro RCE Flaw Under Active Attack

A critical Elementor Pro Forms module flaw allowing unauthenticated file uploads is under active attack against widely used WordPress sites.

A critical vulnerability in Elementor Pro, a widely used WordPress page builder plugin, allowed unauthenticated attackers to upload arbitrary files through the plugin's Forms module. The SOCRadar report indicates the flaw is being actively exploited in the wild. No CVE identifier was provided in the available text.

SOCRadar · 12d agoExploit / PoC in the wild

Import AI 470: No rights for machines; automating environment generation with SPADE; and building better GPU kernels with Hawkeye

METR analysis finds AI accelerating cyber vulnerability discovery, while SPADE self-play environment generation improves Qwen3 reasoning benchmark scores at 30B scale.

Import AI 470 discusses a METR research note reporting differential acceleration from AI: major acceleration in reported cyber vulnerabilities (cURL, OpenSSL, Firefox, Microsoft, NVD, OSV), minor acceleration in mathematics, and no measurable acceleration in AI-research optimization benchmarks. It also covers SPADE, a self-play framework from a multi-university team (University of Washington, Stanford, MIT, CMU, and others) that co-evolves executable training environments and agent capability using Environment Designer and Reasoning Agent roles with hint-based regret rewards. Trained on Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507, Qwen3-8B, and Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 via GRPO (400 rollouts of 25 environments), SPADE lifted the 30B-A3B game-environment suite average to 58.3, +8.1 over base, and improved tool-use results across backbones. The issue also references Hawkeye for building better GPU kernels.

Import AI · 23d agoAI research

Akira Affiliate Crashes Ransomware After Attempting EDR Evasion

Huntress documented an Akira ransomware affiliate attack that failed after its anti-EDR tool crashed legitimate software and stopped encryption before completion.

Infosecurity Magazine reports on Huntress research into a failed Akira ransomware affiliate attack. The affiliate attempted EDR evasion using an anti-EDR tool, but the tool interfered with legitimate software on the client's system. The interference crashed the ransomware before encryption completed, sabotaging the attack; no completed encryption was reported.

Infosecurity Magazine · Aug 13, 2026Ransomware

Docker security advisory (AV26-925)

Canadian Cyber Centre advisory AV26-925 flags a vulnerability in Docker Sandboxes versions prior to 0.43.0 and urges users to apply updates.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security issued advisory AV26-925 on September 15, 2026, stating Docker is affected by a vulnerability in Docker Sandships prior to version 0.43.0. The advisory directs users and administrators to review Docker sbx-releases and security announcements and apply updates as they become available. No exploitation or technical details are provided.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security · 20h agoAdvisory

The Router Within: Eliciting Native Skill Routing from a Frozen LLM

Gavel reads native skill-routing signals from a frozen LLM's forward passes with two linear maps, beating retrieve-and-rerank pipelines by up to 21.9 points on Qwen3-32B.

Gavel (Glance And Verdict from a frozen LLM) elicits skill routing from a frozen agent LLM using two trained linear maps that read mid-layer states, keeping all skill text out of context. A glance step scores the full library against compact per-skill banks built in one forward pass at installation; a verdict step resumes shortlisted skills' forward passes and fuses likelihood and yes/no judgments as a product of experts. It transfers zero-shot to three public benchmarks plus SkillTraj, a new benchmark of 372 simulated agent trajectories. On Qwen3-32B it beats progressive disclosure and retrieve-and-rerank pipelines adding 1.2B–16B external parameters by up to 13.4 points on written tasks and 21.9 when skills are needed mid-rollout.

Hugging Face daily papersupdated · 1d agofirst · 2d agoAI research 2 sources

Arm Mali G2-Ultra NX GPU: desktop-class mobile gameplay with AI-native graphics

Arm unveiled Mali G2-Ultra NX, its first AI-native mobile GPU with in-shader neural acceleration, third-gen ray tracing, and up to 24% higher benchmark performance.

Arm announced the Mali G2-Ultra NX, the first AI-native Mali GPU, integrating neural accelerators directly into shader cores alongside a new execution engine and third-generation hardware ray tracing. It introduces Neural Super Sampling (NSS), Neural Frame Rate Upscaling (NFRU), and Neural Super Sampling and Denoising (NSSD); the Neural Dawn demo with Sumo Digital showed up to 4x performance efficiency and 70% lower external memory traffic versus native rendering. Arm claims up to 24% higher benchmark performance, 13% lower DRAM traffic on ray tracing benchmarks, and up to 120 FPS with NFRU. Over 14 billion Mali GPUs have shipped to date.

Hacker News · AI · 8d agoAI industryHN 71↑ · 53 comments1

Elementor Pro Flaw Could Let Unauthenticated Attackers Upload PHP and Execute Code

Patchstack disclosed CVE-2026-32475 (CVSS 9.0), an unauthenticated file-upload flaw in Elementor Pro enabling PHP upload and RCE; fixed in version 4.2.2.

Patchstack researcher Tin Pham reported an unrestricted file upload flaw in Elementor Pro's Forms module (CVE-2026-32475, CVSS 9.0), affecting all versions up to and including 4.2.1. Submitting two file parts for one field bypasses the extension blocklist and writes attacker-controlled PHP into a public uploads directory, yielding unauthenticated remote code execution when a published Elementor page uses a Form widget with a File Upload field. A patched version 4.2.2 shipped August 19, 2026, a day after WordPress 7.0.4 fixed CVE-2026-65640 (CVSS 8.8), an RCE via Postscript file upload when Imagick and Ghostscript are in use.

The Hacker News · 27d agoVulnerabilityCVE-2026-32475CVE-2026-656401

JetBrains security advisory (AV26-891)

Canada's Cyber Centre relayed a JetBrains advisory covering vulnerabilities in GoLand, Hub, IntelliJ IDEA and YouTrack.

Advisory AV26-891, dated September 8, 2026, notes JetBrains vulnerabilities affecting GoLand prior to 2026.2.2.1, Hub prior to 2026.2.52442, IntelliJ IDEA prior to 2026.2.2, and multiple YouTrack versions. Users and administrators are encouraged to review JetBrains' advisory and apply any necessary updates. No specific CVEs or exploitation details are provided in the relayed advisory.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security · 7d agoAdvisory

GNU security advisory (AV26-923)

Canadian Cyber Centre advisory AV26-923 flags a stack overflow in GNU libextractor before v1.15 via OLE2 files.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security issued advisory AV26-923 on September 15, 2026, covering CVE-2026-91752, a stack overflow vulnerability in GNU libextractor versions prior to 1.15 triggered via OLE2 file parsing. The Cyber Centre encourages users and administrators to review the provided links and apply necessary updates as they become available.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security · 1d agoAdvisoryCVE-2026-91752