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New GPUThor Rowhammer Defeats ECC on NVIDIA RTX A6000 to Gain Host Root Access
University of Toronto researchers present GPUThor, a Rowhammer attack that defeats ECC on NVIDIA RTX A4000-A6000 GDDR6 GPUs and achieves host root access.
GPUThor uses non-uniform hammering to bypass Target Row Refresh and overcome SECDED ECC on NVIDIA Ampere workstation GPUs with GDDR6 memory, inducing 72,000 to 377,552 bit flips per gigabyte across RTX A6000, A5000, A4500, and A4000 cards. Triple-bit silent data corruption enables host privilege escalation to root with the IOMMU enabled, reusing GPUBreach page-table corruption techniques, and double-bit DUEs allow escalation when the IOMMU is disabled during a ~10 ms lazy-service window. The attack cut end-to-end escalation time on the A6000 from 21.9 hours to 1.1 minutes. Reported to NVIDIA, Google, Microsoft, and AWS on April 29, 2026; findings were embargoed until August 25, 2026, and no CVE identifier was assigned.
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⚡ Weekly Recap: Chrome 0-Day, AI Hacking Tools, DDR5 Bit
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GPUThor: Amplifying Rowhammer Attacks via Non-Uniform Patterns to Exploit ECC-Protected GPUs
GPUThor uses non-uniform hammering to amplify Rowhammer on NVIDIA GPUs, achieving 500X-23,500X more bit flips and first exploits of ECC-protected GPUs.
GPUThor is a Rowhammer attack on NVIDIA GPUs that reverse-engineers memory-access coalescing behavior to enable non-uniform hammering patterns activating aggressor rows more intensely than decoy rows. By identifying refresh instances where in-DRAM mitigations apply, it constructs longer patterns that escape mitigation across refresh intervals. It yields 500X to 23,500X more bit flips than prior GPU Rowhammer attacks across NVIDIA A4000, A4500, A5000, and A6000 GPUs, and enables the first Rowhammer exploits on ECC-protected GPUs via uncorrectable double and triple bit flips, making denial-of-service and privilege-escalation attacks practical.
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Rogue ScreenConnect Installations Across Unrelated Hosts Suggest Worm-Like Activity
Huntress observed rogue ScreenConnect deployments with worm-like VBScript propagation across unrelated organizations, prompting a ConnectWise advisory on file transfer behavior.
Huntress identified multiple incidents in late August 2026 where social engineering led to rogue ScreenConnect remote access clients deployed on victim machines, which then spawned wscript.exe to run four VBScript payloads (1.vbs through 4.vbs) for profiling, telemetry collection, and persistence via a WindowsServiceHost Run key. Modified ScreenConnect clients propagated the VBScript chain to connected endpoints, creating worm-like spread. ConnectWise published an advisory on September 3, 2026, confirming an issue affecting file transfer behavior in both cloud and on-premises ScreenConnect deployments, with a CVE and fix expected within the week; partners were advised to review and disable TransferFiles permissions in the interim.
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Critical Cisco Nexus 9000 Flaw Lets Unauthenticated Remote Attackers Run Code as Root
Cisco patches critical CVE-2026-20212 (CVSS 9.8) in Nexus 9000 switches allowing unauthenticated remote root code execution, plus IOS XR hardening release.
Cisco released fixes for CVE-2026-20212 (CVSS 9.8), a flaw in 10 Silicon One-based Nexus 9000 switch models that binds a service to an unrestricted IP, leaving TCP ports 43210/43211 reachable in the default Layer 3 VRF and allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to execute code as root; exploitation attempts can also crash the S1HAL process. 45 NX-OS releases (10.3(1) through 10.6(3s)) are affected, with mitigations including infrastructure ACLs, the Live Protect shield lp00031, and fixed releases identified via Cisco's Software Checker. Cisco simultaneously issued an IOS XR hardening release bundling 7 umbrella CVEs, two rated 9.8 (CVE-2026-20274 for memory-safety bugs and CVE-2026-20279 for access-control bugs), affecting all releases with SMUs available for 14 releases and upgrades required for 93 of 111 listed releases. No malicious exploitation was reported as of the September 2 disclosure.
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Sandworm-Linked Cyclops Blink Returns With Network Scanning and Packet-Sniffing Capabilities
Sophos uncovers a 64-bit Cyclops Blink variant on hacked Cisco FMC appliances, adding internal network scanning and selective packet capture; linked to Sandworm.
Sophos CTU analyzed a new 64-bit x86-64 Cyclops Blink implant (timezone_check) deployed on Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center appliances compromised via CVE-2026-20079 authentication bypass and CVE-2026-20316 low-privileged login. The activity is assessed with high confidence as Russian-nexus, with a moderate-confidence link to Sandworm (IRON VIKING, also tracked as Seashell Blizzard). The implant runs a parent controller plus five worker modules, masquerades as [kworker/0:1], persists via SysV init scripts at /lib/tz/timezone_check, and beacons to hard-coded C2 89.34.96.56 over a custom TLS protocol on ports 43856 and 49172. New module 0x11 scans internal IPv4 networks for SSH, SMB, LDAP, VMware, HTTP/HTTPS and VPN services, while module 0x12 performs filtered packet capture that can expose cleartext credentials, cookies and tokens.
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