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H1 2026 Malware Vulnerability Trends

Recorded Future's H1 2026 report finds 215 actively exploited CVEs, RAT dominance, NFC payment fraud, and AI-augmented but not autonomous tradecraft.

Recorded Future's Insikt Group identified 215 actively exploited CVEs in H1 2026, up 34% from 161 in H1 2025, with the most impactful flaws combining network reachability, no authentication, and code execution. AsyncRAT was the top malware family, with AsyncRAT, Cobalt Strike, XWorm, Stealc, and REMCOS remaining top-ten staples; Android NFC malware like NFCShare and NGate enabled payment card theft and ATM cash-outs. AI-enabled attacks remained additive to established tradecraft, concentrated in Levels 1-3 of Recorded Future's AIM3 maturity model, with AI-assisted vulnerability research (e.g., Claude Mythos fixing 271 Firefox bugs in Firefox 150) inflating NVD disclosure volumes 43% above the prior six-month average. The report urges defenders to prioritize remotely exploitable RCE flaws, behavioral detection, developer credential security, and third-party oversight.

Recorded Future · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild1

GTIG AI Threat Tracker: From Prompting to Autonomy – The Evolution of Adversarial AI

GTIG's Q2 2026 tracker shows adversaries adopting agentic AI workflows, including credential harvesting in under six hours and supply chain attacks by UNC6780.

Google Threat Intelligence Group's Q2 2026 report documents adversaries moving from basic prompting to agentic AI workflows and automation, including a cloud compromise followed by agent-enabled mass credential harvesting executed in under six hours. It tracks financially motivated actor UNC6780 (TeamPCP) conducting large-scale open source supply chain compromises across PyPI, npm, and Docker Hub since March 2026, deploying credential stealers. The report also highlights growing targeting of proprietary AI models, source code, prompts, and API credentials, plus LLMJacking practices where adversaries steal developer credentials or hijack cloud infrastructure to run unauthorized AI workloads.

Google Threat Intelligence · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Lazarus hackers pair fake job offers with Windows zero-day exploit

Lazarus' Operation Dream Job targets the defense sector with fake job offers, a Windows LPE zero-day (CVE-2026-68820), and new Troy and RelayShell backdoors.

Check Point documented two parallel infection chains in Lazarus' Operation Dream Job: a digitally signed PDF viewer with DLL sideloading delivering the MISTPEN in-memory downloader, and a trojanized SecurityPDF viewer, distributed via fake Enveil websites, installing the newly documented Troy backdoor. A component exploits CVE-2026-68820, a local privilege escalation zero-day in the Windows AFD.sys driver used since at least early July, which Microsoft patched on August 11, 2026, enabling deployment of the FudModule kernel-mode rootkit. Lazarus also compromised Roundcube webmail servers vulnerable to CVE-2025-49113 to deploy the RelayShell PHP web shell and relay C2 traffic, targeting defense-sector organizations primarily in Western Europe and India. Separately, CERT-UA documented Sandworm's UAC-0145 using fake job offers against IT professionals since May 2026.

Help Net Security · Aug 12, 2026Threat actor in the wildCVE-2026-68820CVE-2025-49113

Attackers Expose Ongoing AI Tool Use Targeting Organizations in Latin America

Unit 42 documents two AI-assisted intrusion campaigns against Latin American government, utility, and financial organizations using LLM-orchestrated tooling.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 tracks two ongoing intrusion clusters, CL-CRI-1131 (Mexican transportation, federal ministries, municipal water utilities) and CL-CRI-1163 (Brazilian financial sector), both using living-off-the-land techniques, SOCKS5 relays, and custom RATs. The attackers appear to orchestrate operations via commercial LLMs like Claude and GPT-4.1, evidenced by iterative batch scripts and AI-generated tunneling tool naming. The Mexican campaign (also reported as Operation Escaneo by CloudSEK) exfiltrated sensitive data via dynamic-DNS infrastructure with rotated multi-SAN TLS certificates between February and June 2026. This signals broader adoption of AI-enhanced operations by diverse threat groups in the region.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 13d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Lazarus Exploits Windows Zero-Day to Gain SYSTEM Access and Deploy Backdoor

Lazarus exploits Windows AFD.sys zero-day CVE-2026-68820 in Operation Dream Job to deploy Troy backdoor at defense firms.

Check Point attributes Operation Dream Job attacks to Lazarus Group exploiting CVE-2026-68820 (CVSS 7.0), a privilege escalation flaw in Windows AFD.sys patched in August 2026 Patch Tuesday. The campaign targets defense and aerospace firms in France, Germany, Brazil, and India via trojanized PDF viewers and DLL side-loading, deploying backdoors Troy, ForestTiger, and the FudModule 3.1 kernel rootkit. Attackers also compromise WordPress, SharePoint, and Roundcube servers as C2, using CVE-2025-49113 and the RelayShell PHP web shell.

The Hacker News · Aug 15, 2026Threat actor in the wildCVE-2026-68820CVE-2025-491132