UK Council Attack Linked to Mass Exploitation of SonicWall Flaw
Hunt.io links a UK council attack to mass exploitation of SonicWall SMA1000 flaw CVE-2026-15409 (CVSS 10.0), enabling credential and Active Directory theft.
Hunt.io links, with moderate confidence, the July 17, 2026 attack on the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk to mass exploitation of SonicWall SMA1000 appliances via CVE-2026-15409, an unauthenticated SSRF in the WorkPlace portal WebSocket proxy with CVSS 10.0. The operator adapted Rapid7's July 15 PoC into a 50-thread mass scanner within days and stole LDAP credentials for 534 Active Directory accounts across 160 domains, with nine environments losing SAM/LSA secrets and five losing full AD databases via DCSync. CISA added the flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog and noted use in ransomware campaigns; targeting of ~200,000 Shodan-derived SonicWall addresses spanned government, healthcare, finance, universities, and manufacturing worldwide.
Another Apache Log4j Vulnerability Is Actively Exploited in the Wild (CVE-2021
Apache Log4j 2 RCE CVE-2021-44228 is actively exploited via crafted JNDI lookups; Palo Alto Unit 42 urges upgrading to Log4j 2.17.1.
Unit 42 details CVE-2021-44228, an easily exploited remote code execution flaw in Apache Log4j 2 where attacker-supplied JNDI lookups in logged user input cause payload download and execution. Massive internet-wide scanning for unpatched systems has begun, with observed follow-on activity including information stealing, Cobalt Strike delivery, and coinmining. The recommended fix is Log4j 2.17.1, which also patches CVE-2021-45046, CVE-2021-45105, and CVE-2021-44832. Widely used Java software including Apache Struts, Solr, Druid, Flink, ElasticSearch, and Spring Boot is affected.
Artifactory Under Attack: In-the-Wild Exploitation of CVE-2026-42016, CVE-2026-42018 & CVE-2026-82329
Wiz Research confirms in-the-wild exploitation of three JFrog Artifactory vulnerabilities, chained to gain administrative control, deploy Groovy plugins, and install Rust backdoors.
Wiz Research identified active exploitation of CVE-2026-42016, CVE-2026-42018, and CVE-2026-82329 in JFrog Artifactory between August 15 and September 8, 2026. Attackers chain the anonymous-token exposure (CVE-2026-42018) with the token scope-validation flaw (CVE-2026-42016) to obtain admin-scoped tokens, while CVE-2026-82329 allows unauthenticated administrative access in default configurations. Observed post-exploitation includes persistent administrator accounts created in under five minutes, malicious Groovy plugin deployment, ad-hoc command execution, Rust-based C2 backdoors dropped to writable paths, and webshell uploads. Wiz measured that 59-62% of organizations running Artifactory remained vulnerable to the chained CVEs weeks after disclosure, and the vulnerabilities were already included in CISA KEV.
Attackers Exploit Critical Cisco FMC Flaw to deploy Qilin ransomware
Three threat groups, including Qilin ransomware operators, exploit critical Cisco FMC flaws CVE-2026-20079 and CVE-2026-20316 for root access, credential theft, and ransomware.
Cisco Talos identified three post-compromise clusters exploiting recently patched Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center flaws. UAT-12197 deploys JSP web shells and harvests credentials; UAT-11823 (with Sandworm-overlapping tooling) installs Cyclops Blink for persistence; UAT-11988 (Qilin) uses static credentials, extensive reconnaissance, SOCKS5 proxies, reverse-SSH tunnels, AV killers, and ransomware deployment. CISA added CVE-2026-20079 to the KEV catalog with a September 12, 2026 patch deadline for federal agencies; Cisco urges immediate hotfix application.
Hackers Actively Exploiting FortiGate Firewalls to Deploy Custom Node.js Malware
Attackers actively exploit CVE-2025-25249 in FortiGate firewalls to deploy PivotC2, a Node.js RAT that decrypts VPN and admin credentials.
SOCRadar assesses with high confidence that threat actors are actively exploiting CVE-2025-25249, a CVSS 9.8 heap buffer overflow in the cw_acd daemon (CAPWAP, UDP 5246) affecting FortiOS 6.4-7.6.3 and FortiSwitchManager 7.0.x/7.2.x. Attackers deploy fortirun.bin and PivotC2, a Node.js post-exploitation framework that harvests configurations and decrypts SSL-VPN, wireless, and admin credentials using AES-256-CBC and AES-128-GCM. Over 30,000 FortiGate IPs were scanned and 178 devices compromised, including two confirmed full intrusions of US organizations with Exchange mailbox exfiltration to Wasabi storage. STRU attributes the campaign to a Russian-speaking, financially motivated cybercrime operator.
PaperCut Flaws Exploited in Attacks on U.S. and European Schools
Attackers are chaining recently disclosed PaperCut flaws CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078 to steal credentials and create privileged accounts at US and European schools.
Arctic Wolf researchers observed threat actors exploiting PaperCut servers via CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078, chaining an authentication bypass with remote code execution. Post-exploitation included creating a privileged account named Administrator17, downloading credential-harvesting tools with certutil, Meterpreter Java payloads, and registry hive collection to recover the Windows BootKey and reach the SAM database. PaperCut disclosed active exploitation on August 27, 2026, and CISA added both flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on August 31. PaperCut has a history of exploitation, including attacks that delivered LockBit ransomware.
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.