Active exploitation of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vulnerabilities
Cisco Talos reports in-the-wild exploitation of critical FMC flaw CVE-2026-20079 by three clusters including a Sandworm-linked APT and Qilin ransomware affiliates.
Cisco Talos is tracking active exploitation of CVE-2026-20079 (CVSS 10.0), an authentication bypass in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center that lets unauthenticated remote attackers execute scripts and obtain root access, and CVE-2026-20316 (CVSS 5.3), which permits low-privileged logins and can be chained for privilege escalation. Talos identified three post-compromise clusters: UAT-12197 deploying JSP web shells and a JAR command executor for credential theft; UAT-11823, an APT overlapping with Sandworm, deploying a Netcat reverse shell and Cyclops Blink malware; and UAT-11988, assessed as a ransomware operator with TTPs consistent with Qilin affiliates. Hotfixes are available, with a comprehensive hardening release due the week of September 14, 2026.
Critical Cisco FMC Flaws Actively Exploited to Gain Root Access and Deploy Malware
Threat actors actively exploit Cisco FMC CVE-2026-20079 (CVSS 10.0) for root access, with clusters linked to Sandworm and Qilin ransomware.
Cisco Talos warns of active exploitation of CVE-2026-20079, a CVSS 10.0 authentication bypass in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center allowing unauthenticated root-level code execution, and CVE-2026-20316 (CVSS 5.3), which permits login via a low-privileged static account for privilege escalation. Hotfixes are available now, with a broader hardening release planned for the week of September 14. Three post-compromise activity clusters were identified: UAT-12197 deployed a home.jsp web shell and cmd.jar command executor; UAT-11823, attributed with high confidence to a Sandworm-linked APT, deployed a Netcat reverse shell and Cyclops Blink; and UAT-11988 showed Qilin ransomware tactics including Active Directory enumeration and credential theft before deploying Qilin ransomware.
14th September – Threat Intelligence Report
Check Point weekly digest: Microsoft's record 974-vuln Patch Tuesday ships two actively exploited Windows zero-days; IDScan.net, Mathspace, Revolut suffer breaches.
Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday addressed a record 974 vulnerabilities, including two actively exploited privilege-escalation zero-days, CVE-2026-85880 and CVE-2026-81963, plus 20 flaws allowing unauthenticated remote code execution. Disclosed breaches include IDScan.net (identity documents), Mathspace (over 1 million people via Metabase CVE-2026-72898), Revolut, and Florida DMV (ShinyHunters). GitLab fixed critical CVSS 10.0 path traversal CVE-2026-85706, and MikroTik fixed chainable RouterOS flaws CVE-2026-67276 and CVE-2026-86060. The report also covers the PuzzleMask LLM jailbreak technique, GoldFactory's Gigabud Android fraud, and the BlueMoon Chromium exploit chain (CVE-2026-85046).