Search: “Nightmare-Eclipse”

Chaotic Eclipse Released ShieldCrash, A PoC For Microsoft Defender Zero-Day

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released ShieldCrash, a PoC showing Microsoft Defender's CVE-2026-69414 patch is incomplete, enabling arbitrary file reads as SYSTEM.

Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse published ShieldCrash, a proof-of-concept exploit for the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine privilege escalation vulnerability CVE-2026-69414 (ShieldBreak). The PoC performs arbitrary file reads with SYSTEM privileges on all supported Windows versions, including systems running the September 2026 security updates and Malware Protection Engine version 1.1.26080.3. The researcher claims Microsoft's patch fixed several exploit paths but missed a specific condition that still enables the attack. His recent releases also include zero-day PoCs targeting Nvidia, Kaspersky, Avast, and CrowdStrike Falcon.

Security Affairs·updated Sep 10, 12:18 UTC · 5d ago·first Sep 9, 07:53 UTC · 6d agoExploit / PoC 8 sourcesCVE-2026-69414

Chaotic Eclipse Released GreenSection, A PoC For NVIDIA Memory Corruption Zero-Day

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released GreenSection, a PoC exploiting an unpatched out-of-bounds write in NVIDIA Windows user-mode shared memory.

Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse disclosed an out-of-bounds write in NVIDIA's Windows user-mode components, which share a global memory section (\BaseNamedObjects\{52813408-3561-4705-820a-2b3b78be92ba}) with full read/write access to all users. The PoC crashes applications running Vulkan or OpenGL; the researcher says the bug could cross user boundaries or compromise dwm.exe but did not fully assess the impact. No CVE has been assigned and no patch is mentioned. The researcher recently released zero-day PoCs against Kaspersky, Avast, and CrowdStrike Falcon.

Security Affairs·Sep 7, 13:42 UTC · 8d agoExploit / PoC 2 sources

Anthropic Says Russian Hackers Used Claude AI to Automate Malware Evasion

Anthropic disrupted Midnight Blizzard campaigns where AI agents automatically rebuilt malware to evade detection, targeting 20+ government and defense organizations.

Anthropic's threat intelligence report documents the Russian state-nexus actor Midnight Blizzard using Claude to automatically monitor, modify, and redeploy malware until it evaded security products. The campaign hit more than 20 organizations, including Ukrainian and European government ministries, defense bodies, embassies, and think tanks, with mailbox theft from two drone component manufacturers and compromise of hotel guest Wi-Fi via DNS hijacking. The report also describes financially motivated groups GTG-50020 and GTG-50021 targeting AI credentials, including a prompt-injection attack on an automated evaluation sandbox that yielded production API keys and attempts to reach a pre-release Claude model across roughly 30 AI companies.

SecurityWeek·updated Sep 12, 10:30 UTC · 3d ago·first Sep 11, 08:47 UTC · 4d agoThreat actor in the wild 13 sources4

Nightmare-Eclipse Strikes Again with 'ShieldCrash' Windows Exploit

A researcher known as Nightmare-Eclipse published another zero-day exploit, dubbed ShieldCrash, targeting Windows Defender.

Dark Reading reports that the disgruntled researcher tracked as Nightmare-Eclipse continued a vendetta against Microsoft by publishing a new zero-day exploit named ShieldCrash for Windows Defender. The brief report does not detail affected versions, exploitation prerequisites, or whether exploitation has been observed.

Dark Reading·Sep 10, 15:29 UTC · 5d agoExploit / PoC1

ShieldBreak: New Windows Zero-Day Bypasses Microsoft’s RoguePlanet Patch

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse published a PoC bypassing Microsoft's CVE-2026-50656 Defender patch, enabling SYSTEM-level code execution on fully patched Windows systems.

Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse released a proof-of-concept for ShieldBreak, a Microsoft Defender zero-day that fully bypasses the patch for CVE-2026-50656 (RoguePlanet), a race condition in the Malware Protection Engine (mpengine.dll) allowing SYSTEM-level code execution. The PoC was tested on Windows 11 25H2 and Windows Server 2025 with a 100% success rate, and Windows 10 is also vulnerable though not supported by the PoC; the flaw may also leak 8 bytes of memory. Microsoft's MSRC had criticized the researcher's repeated uncoordinated disclosures, including YellowKey (BitLocker bypass), GreenPlasma, and LegacyHive (User Profile Service LPE).

Security Affairs·Aug 12, 08:08 UTC · Aug 12, 2026Exploit / PoCCVE-2026-50656

Chaotic Eclipse Releases Kaspersky Zero

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released HardBreacher, a PoC privilege-escalation exploit for Kaspersky Endpoint Security on fully patched Windows 11 25H2.

Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse, also known as INFINITE NIGHTMARE and Nightmare-Eclipse, released a PoC zero-day exploit named HardBreacher targeting Kaspersky Endpoint Security v14.0.0.504. The exploit achieves privilege escalation on fully patched Windows 11 25H2, creating a DLL in System32 with full user permissions and potentially disrupting Kaspersky's UI process and file-access controls. The PoC is unstable and may require repeated attempts; Kaspersky claims it has already addressed the vulnerability.

Security Affairs·Sep 1, 09:34 UTC · 14d agoExploit / PoC1

Chaotic Eclipse Releases GenDigital Avast Antivirus ZeroDay PrettyPrague

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released PrettyPrague, a PoC zero-day privilege escalation exploit against fully patched GenDigital Avast Antivirus.

Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse (also known as INFINITE NIGHTMARE or MSNightmare) published a PoC named PrettyPrague exploiting a zero-day privilege escalation flaw in Avast Antivirus. The PoC abuses a flaw in the Avast Sandbox to dump the Windows SAM database and spawn a SYSTEM-level shell, reportedly working on fully patched Avast and patched Windows 11 25H2. The researcher believes the flaw may also affect other GenDigital products such as AVG and Norton. It follows his recent HardBreacher PoC for a Kaspersky Endpoint Security privilege escalation flaw.

Security Affairs·Sep 1, 14:33 UTC · 14d agoExploit / PoC

Nightmare Eclipse Drops CrowdStrike, Nvidia, Avast Zero-Day Exploits

Researcher Nightmare Eclipse released working zero-day PoCs for Avast, CrowdStrike Falcon, and Nvidia, prompting a Gen patch, CrowdStrike mitigation, and Nvidia investigation.

Security researcher Nightmare Eclipse released three zero-day exploits within a short window: PrettyPrague targeting the Avast sandbox for full system privileges (possibly affecting other GenDigital products including AVG and Norton), FalconFlank exploiting CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor's Office malicious macros remediation feature for privilege escalation, and GreenSection targeting an out-of-bounds memory write in a shared global memory section used by Nvidia user-mode components. GenDigital said it has fixed the Avast issue; CrowdStrike advised disabling the Microsoft Office File Suspicious Macro Removal policy setting; Nvidia said it is actively investigating the PoC. Kevin Beaumont reported that the Avast, CrowdStrike, and Kaspersky exploits work. The researcher previously released the HardBreacher privilege escalation zero-day in Kaspersky endpoint security, patched August 31.

SecurityWeek·Sep 7, 12:15 UTC · 8d agoExploit / PoC

ShieldBreak Zero-Day PoC Claims Microsoft Defender Patch Bypass With SYSTEM Access

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released ShieldBreak PoC, a claimed patch bypass for Microsoft Defender flaw CVE-2026-50656, now tracked as CVE-2026-69414.

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released a PoC for ShieldBreak, a claimed full patch bypass of Microsoft Defender flaw CVE-2026-50656 (RoguePlanet), which can yield SYSTEM privileges. Independent researchers Kevin Beaumont and Will Dormann validated the exploit on Windows 11 25H2 and Windows Server 2025, noting it requires Defender to be enabled. Microsoft assigned CVE-2026-69414 (CVSS 7.8) with an 'Exploitation More Likely' assessment and is investigating, but has not yet released a patch. The article also notes CISA's KEV addition of the actively exploited Windows AFD.sys flaw CVE-2026-68820.

The Hacker News·Aug 17, 17:57 UTC · 29d agoExploit / PoCCVE-2026-50656CVE-2026-62832CVE-2026-68820+2 CVEs

Researcher Releases FalconFlank PoC Showing Privilege Escalation in CrowdStrike Falcon

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released FalconFlank, a zero-day privilege escalation PoC abusing CrowdStrike Falcon's Office macro remediation; CrowdStrike is investigating and issued a tech alert.

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse published FalconFlank, a proof-of-concept zero-day local privilege escalation in CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor that abuses the Microsoft Office malicious macros remediation feature, tested on fully updated Windows 11 25H2 and Windows Server 2025. CrowdStrike said it is investigating, advised disabling the Microsoft Office File Suspicious Macro Removal policy, and pointed customers to a FalconFlank tech alert, noting cloud anti-malware protection remains active. The article also covers related PoCs from the same researcher: HardBreacher against Kaspersky (fixed via update), ShieldBreak (CVE-2026-69414) against Microsoft Defender, an unpatched patch bypass of CVE-2026-50656, GreenSection against NVIDIA, and PrettyPrague against Avast, which Gen Digital patched in versions 26.7.11086 and 26.8.11125.

The Hacker News·Sep 3, 06:26 UTC · 13d agoExploit / PoCCVE-2026-69414CVE-2026-50656

⚡ Weekly Recap: Rogue AI Models, $88M Bitcoin Theft, Water

The Hacker News·Aug 3, 14:03 UTC · Aug 3, 2026Data breachCVE-2026-42897CVE-2026-66066

Shattering the Dream – When a Job Offer Becomes a Zero-Day Attack

Check Point details an Operation Dream Job wave using trojanized PDF viewers to hit defense, aerospace, and aviation targets since early 2026.

Since early 2026, Check Point Research has tracked a wave of the Operation Dream Job campaign primarily targeting the global defense sector, with emphasis on aerospace and aviation companies. The threat actor distributes modified PDF viewers that execute malicious payloads embedded in specially crafted files, delivered under fake job-offer pretexts. Check Point characterizes the operation as a zero-day attack.

Check Point Research·Aug 11, 17:30 UTC · Aug 11, 2026Threat actor in the wild

Hackers Turn Windows Shadow Copies Into a Tool for Credential Theft and Ransomware

Attackers abuse Windows VSS shadow copies to delete recovery points before ransomware and to extract NTDS.dit/SAM credentials, demanding context-aware detection.

Threat actors are weaponizing the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) for two purposes: destroying local recovery points via vssadmin.exe, wmic.exe, diskshadow.exe, wbadmin.exe, and bcdedit.exe before encryption, and accessing static copies of locked files such as NTDS.dit and SAM for credential theft. Ransomware families tied to shadow-copy removal include Akira, Black Basta, BlackCat, Conti, LockBit, Qilin, RansomHub, REvil, Ryuk, and WannaCry. Huntress's analysis of the Nightmare-Eclipse tool showed the BlueHammer technique chaining a Windows Defender timing issue with a VSS snapshot to dump the SAM database and decrypt NT hashes. Defenders should correlate VSS operations with parent process, hive access, and subsequent encryption activity, and maintain immutable off-host backups.

GBHackers·Sep 15, 05:51 UTC · 1d agoResearch in the wild

Untracked Nightmares: The Threats Hiding Behind Commodity Infrastructure

Unit 42 exposes CL-CRI-1171, a pay-per-install network spreading malware like Insomnia RAT via YouTube channels and SEO poisoning for over two years.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 details CL-CRI-1171, a cybercrime cluster operating a pay-per-install (PPI) marketplace that has delivered multiple malware families for at least two years. The group used at least eleven YouTube gaming channels with hundreds of thousands of followers, plus SEO poisoning promoting trojanized software such as a Bluetooth driver and WinDirStat, infecting gamers and corporate endpoints including critical infrastructure and government entities. A single shared loader delivered payloads including Insomnia RAT, ARKTunnel, Docro Hijacker, GCleaner and Socks5Systemz between July 2025 and April 2026, with more than 10,000 distinct loader samples and over 200 rotating C2 domains identified. YouTube terminated the malicious channels after Unit 42 notified the platform.

Palo Alto Unit 42·updated Sep 11, 12:24 UTC · 4d ago·first Sep 9, 10:00 UTC · 6d agoMalware in the wild 2 sources1

Microsoft patches 400+ vulnerabilities, one zero-day under attack (CVE-2026-68820)

Microsoft's August 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 400+ vulnerabilities, including an actively exploited Windows zero-day (CVE-2026-68820) used by North Korean attackers.

Microsoft's August 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes over 400 vulnerabilities, including CVE-2026-68820, a use-after-free in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver exploited in the wild by North Korean actors deploying a kernel-mode rootkit in Operation Dream Job. Critical unauthenticated remote code execution flaws in Microsoft QUIC (CVE-2026-62815) and Windows DNS (CVE-2026-62878) were also patched, alongside a SharePoint RCE chain combining CVE-2026-63520 with CVE-2026-55040. Researcher Nightmare-Eclipse released ShieldBreak, a PoC bypassing the July RoguePlanet Microsoft Defender patch (CVE-2026-50656), confirmed working by Will Dormann on Windows 11.

Help Net Security·Aug 12, 00:00 UTC · Aug 12, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-68820CVE-2026-62832CVE-2026-72971+6 CVEs

Researcher Publishes CrowdStrike Privilege Escalation Zero Day

Researcher NightmareEclipse published FalconFlank, a zero-day local privilege escalation in CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor abusing its Office malicious macro remediation feature.

A researcher known as Nightmare Eclipse published details of FalconFlank, a zero-day privilege escalation that abuses the Microsoft Office malicious macro removal feature in CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor, verified working on fully updated Windows 11 25H2 and Windows Server 2025 with Falcon Phase 3 Optimal Protection. CrowdStrike urged customers to disable the Office File Suspicious Macro Removal policy while it investigates, noting customers remain protected via Cloud Anti-malware for Microsoft Office Files; no CVE has been assigned. The same researcher previously released the Exploitarium dump of over 30 PoC exploits, and researcher Kevin Beaumont confirmed FalconFlank works.

Infosecurity Magazine·Sep 7, 08:28 UTC · 8d agoExploit / PoC

Prolific Microsoft 0-day hunter drops CrowdStrike Falcon exploit PoC

Researcher Nightmare Eclipse released a PoC for FalconFlank, a privilege escalation zero-day in CrowdStrike Falcon's Office macro remediation feature.

Researcher Nightmare Eclipse published a zero-day PoC dubbed FalconFlank targeting CrowdStrike Falcon's Microsoft Office malicious macro removal feature, achieving privilege escalation on fully updated Windows 11 25H2 and Windows Server 2025 with Optimal Protection and macro removal enabled. Kevin Beaumont independently confirmed the exploit works. The same researcher also released HardBreacher, an elevation-of-privilege bug in Kaspersky Endpoint (since fixed via update), PrettyPrague, an Avast Sandbox flaw that dumps the SAM database for a SYSTEM shell (Gen Digital is developing a patch), and GreenSection, an Nvidia memory corruption bug that crashes systems. CrowdStrike advises customers to disable the Suspicious Macro Removal Windows policy while it investigates.

The Register · Security·Sep 3, 18:08 UTC · 12d agoExploit / PoC

Most of the bugs Claude Mythos found have never been checked by a human

Echo's analysis found only 1,900 of 23,019 Claude Mythos-found vulnerabilities were externally reviewed, 90.8% held up, but the model overstated most severities.

Echo analyzed results from Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview vulnerability sweep across 281 open-source projects, which produced 23,019 candidate vulnerabilities, of which only 1,900 were externally reviewed. Of those, 90.8% held up as real, 1,451 of 1,596 maintainer reports were acknowledged, 97 fixes landed upstream, and 88 became advisories, but 14 of the 27 CVE-assigned severity ratings mismatched independent scoring, mostly overstated. On Anthropic's SpiderMonkey benchmark, Claude Mythos turned known crashes into working code execution exploits in 72.4% of 250 trials, versus below 1% for Claude Opus 4.6. Echo cautions the reviewed sample likely was not randomly drawn, so the accuracy figure may not generalize to the other 21,119 unreviewed candidates.

Help Net Security·Sep 4, 00:00 UTC · 12d agoAI research

'Sandworm' Chains Cisco Vulnerabilities to Deploy Cyclops Blink

Russia-linked Sandworm chains Cisco vulnerabilities to deploy an upgraded Cyclops Blink botnet variant the FBI disrupted in 2022.

Dark Reading reports that Sandworm, the notorious Russia-linked threat group, is chaining Cisco vulnerabilities to deploy an upgraded version of the Cyclops Blink botnet malware. The FBI previously disrupted the Cyclops Blink botnet in 2022. The activity signals renewed botnet infrastructure building by the group despite prior law-enforcement action.

Dark Reading·Sep 14, 21:37 UTC · 1d agoThreat actor in the wild

Claude Mythos Executes End-to-End Intrusion From Initial Access to Full Domain Compromise

Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview, its most cyber-capable model, autonomously completed an end-to-end enterprise intrusion simulation in restricted-access testing.

Anthropic's April 2026 system card describes Claude Mythos Preview as the first model to solve a private cyber range end to end and finish a corporate-network attack simulation an expert would need 10+ hours to complete. It scored 100% pass@1 on a 35-challenge Cybench subset and 0.83 on CyberGym versus 0.67 for Claude Opus 4.6. The model is limited to vetted partners under Project Glasswing; it failed an OT cyber range and could not find novel exploits in a fully patched sandbox.

GBHackers·Sep 8, 11:31 UTC · 7d agoModel release1

Mythos has made 2026 patching hell. It might make 2027 a breeze

Gartner analyst Craig Lawson argues AI bug-hunters like Anthropic's Mythos have audited major codebases so thoroughly that 2027 could see fewer severe vulnerabilities.

Speaking at Gartner's IT Symposium in Australia, research VP Craig Lawson said AI-driven bug hunting, exemplified by Anthropic's Mythos, is uncovering flaws at unprecedented scale, citing Microsoft shipping over 970 patches in one week and a recent series of CVEs in historically secure OpenBSD. He argued vendors are also using AI to find bugs before release, retiring technical debt and shrinking future zero-day avenues. Lawson predicts 2027 may be the first year with a net drop in vulnerability severity, if not aggregate counts. He also expects AI to enable near-continuous red-teaming and faster fixes, such as generating F5 iRule syntax for virtual patches via Gemini.

The Register · Security·05:54 UTC · 1h agoIndustry

North Korean Lazarus Group Uses Windows Zero

Check Point links Lazarus Group's Operation Dream Job to a new Windows zero-day, CVE-2026-68820, targeting defense workers with fake Lockheed Martin job offers.

Check Point Research documented a new wave of Operation Dream Job, a North Korean Lazarus Group campaign targeting defense and aerospace professionals in France, Germany, Brazil, and India with fake Lockheed Martin job offers. The attacks chain a previously unknown Windows privilege escalation flaw in AFD.sys, CVE-2026-68820, which Microsoft patched on August 11, 2026, to deploy the MISTPEN downloader, ForestTiger backdoor, and updated FudModule 3.1 kernel rootkit. Check Point also discovered a new Troy backdoor DLL with 17 operator commands and a RelayShell PHP webshell deployed on compromised Roundcube and WordPress servers used as command relays, some infected via CVE-2025-49113 or leaked credentials. Defenders are urged to apply the August 2026 Patch Tuesday update and review Check Point's indicators of compromise.

Security Affairs·Aug 13, 07:05 UTC · Aug 13, 2026Threat actor in the wildCVE-2026-68820CVE-2025-491131