CISA gives federal agencies two weeks to patch Microsoft bug exploited in DPRK campaign
CISA orders federal agencies to patch exploited Windows Winsock zero-day CVE-2026-68820 by August 25, used by Lazarus in Operation Dream Job.
CISA ordered federal agencies to patch Windows Winsock vulnerability CVE-2026-68820, rated 7/10, by August 25 after confirming exploitation; no workaround exists and a restart is required. Check Point found Lazarus Group hackers impersonated Lockheed Martin and Enveil recruiters on LinkedIn, sent malicious PDFs enabling long-term remote access, then used the zero-day to escalate from limited access to full system control. Targets spanned defense sectors including surveillance, drones and robotics in France, Germany, Brazil and India, as part of Operation Dream Job tracked since 2020.
GitLab CVSS 10 File-Read Flaw Draws In-the-Wild Probes After Disclosure
GitLab patched CVE-2026-85706, a CVSS 10.0 unauthenticated path traversal enabling arbitrary file reads, already probed in the wild.
GitLab released patches for a maximum-severity path traversal flaw (CVE-2026-85706, CVSS 10.0) in the repository commits API, caused by improper path confinement and missing authentication enforcement, allowing unauthenticated arbitrary file reads. watchTowr observed active in-the-wild probes starting 06:00 UTC on September 11, 2026; exploitation requires at least one public project and enables theft of credentials, secrets, and configuration data. GitLab also patched CVE-2026-87719 (CVSS 9.9), an insecure deserialization bug in Enterprise Edition allowing authenticated Duo Chat users to access Advanced Search configurations and sensitive credentials via crafted GraphQL subscription arguments. Affected versions include 18.7 before 19.1.8, 19.2 before 19.2.6, and 19.3 before 19.3.2, and the flaw follows the recently exploited GraphQL code injection bug CVE-2026-19478.
Attackers Exploit PaperCut Flaws to Steal Credentials From Schools and Universities
Attackers exploit newly disclosed PaperCut auth bypass CVE-2026-81578 and RCE CVE-2026-82078 to steal credentials from schools and universities in the US and Europe.
Arctic Wolf observed threat actors chaining CVE-2026-81578 (authentication bypass) and CVE-2026-82078 (remote code execution) in PaperCut to execute commands, perform reconnaissance, and create privileged accounts on servers at K-12 schools and universities in the US and Europe. Post-exploitation includes registry hive collection with lsa_collect.exe delivered via certutil, Meterpreter Java payloads from 194.180.48.134, and searches of PaperCut config files for passwords, LDAP bindings, and tokens. Stolen logins could provide a pathway into other critical systems across compromised environments.
Hackers Mass-Scan Exposed Vite Servers to Steal AWS and Azure Cloud Credentials
F5 honeypots record mass scanning of exposed Vite dev servers exploiting CVE-2026-39364 to harvest AWS and Azure cloud credentials.
F5 honeypots recorded 807 session-grouped attacks and roughly 32,000 raw events in August 2026 against internet-exposed Vite development servers, up from 1,732 events in the previous three months. Scanners abused CVE-2026-39364 (Vite 7.1.0-7.3.1, 8.0.0-8.0.4), bypassing server.fs.deny via @fs routes with ?raw/?import query parameters and double encoding to read .env files, AWS SSO caches, Azure tokens, and Terraform state. The same infrastructure also probed CVE-2025-29927 (Next.js), CVE-2025-30208, CVE-2025-31125 (KEV-listed January 2026), and CVE-2024-45811. Most traffic originated from Google Cloud IP ranges, with the US accounting for 17,297 events.
Critical Gitea RCE Actively Exploited as Reported Attack Drops Miner
CISA added actively exploited Gitea RCE CVE-2026-60004 (CVSS 9.8) to the KEV catalog as attackers deploy a cryptojacking dropper.
CVE-2026-60004 is a critical remote code execution flaw affecting Gitea versions 1.17 through 1.27.0, abused via the diffpatch endpoint to install a Git hook and execute shell commands as the Gitea OS user. Default open registration lets unauthenticated attackers obtain the required repository write access. CISA added the flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, giving federal agencies until August 28, 2026 to patch; version 1.27.1 fixes it. A developer reported their HOSTKEY-hosted VPS was exploited to run a miner-like dropper, driving CPU usage above 70% and killing competing processes.
Off Guard: Breaking LiteLLM from authentication bypass to cloud compromise
Wiz found LiteLLM auth bypass (CVE-2026-59822) and post-auth RCE (CVE-2026-59821) chainable to cloud compromise; the bypass is in CISA KEV with in-the-wild exploitation.
Wiz scanned roughly 3,074 internet-facing LiteLLM deployments and found 9.6% accepted the default master key sk-1234 or required no authentication, making post-auth attacks effectively pre-auth. The MCP endpoint accepts any Bearer token and grants a valid session (CVE-2026-59822), confirmed exploited in the wild via honeypots and added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Custom code guardrails allow post-auth root-level RCE via exec(compile(...)) (CVE-2026-59821), while pass-through endpoints lack URL validation, enabling cloud credential theft in post-auth scenarios. All assigned vulnerabilities have been patched; the research was presented at DEF CON 34.
⚡ Weekly Recap: VMware Exploits, Windows 0-Day, MCP Attacks, Browser Hijacks and More
Weekly recap: suspected China-nexus APT exploited VMware vCenter CVE-2026-59310, Lazarus used Windows zero-day CVE-2026-68820, and macOS flaw dropped Monero miners.
The week's top stories included a suspected China-nexus APT exploiting VMware vCenter CVE-2026-59310 (CVSS 9.8), a directory-traversal flaw enabling arbitrary code execution, with backdoors, reverse SSH and Babuk-derived ransomware deployed, per QUIRSO. NCSC-NL reported active exploitation of macOS Screen Sharing flaw CVE-2026-65400 (CVSS 9.8) to install Monero miners on systems with port 5900 exposed. Lazarus Group exploited Windows zero-day CVE-2026-68820 (CVSS 7.0) in Operation Dream Job, delivering ForestTiger and Troy backdoors to defense and aerospace targets. GeoServer patched a critical SQL injection flaw exploited within hours of disclosure, and Jamf analyzed the new Amnesia Stealer for macOS with live browser control.