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12 Best Application Control & Allowlisting Tools Compared (2026): Features & Pricing

GBHackers compares twelve application allowlisting tools for 2026, naming ThreatLocker and Airlock Digital leaders and Microsoft WDAC the free native option.

GBHackers published an editorial comparison of twelve application control and allowlisting tools for 2026, assessing control depth, manageability, and pricing models. It ranks ThreatLocker and Airlock Digital as leading dedicated allowlisting options, positions Microsoft WDAC/AppLocker as the free native choice for Windows estates, and highlights CyberArk and BeyondTrust for coupling control with privilege management.

GBHackers·updated Sep 11, 07:12 UTC · 4d ago·first Sep 10, 08:24 UTC · 5d agoIndustry 4 sources1

Microsoft’s September 2026 Patch Tuesday addresses 964 CVEs (CVE-2026-81963, CVE-2026-85880)

Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes a record 964 CVEs, including two zero-days actively exploited in the wild.

Microsoft patched a record 964 CVEs in its September 2026 Patch Tuesday release, with 101 rated critical and 824 rated important, making it the largest Patch Tuesday to date. The release includes fixes for two zero-days that were exploited in the wild, with CVE-2026-81963 and CVE-2026-85880 highlighted in the release. Affected products span Windows core components, Office, Exchange, .NET, Visual Studio, Active Directory services (including AD CS and AD FS) and numerous Azure services. Tenable notes the release surpasses July's as the biggest ever.

Tenable Blog·Sep 8, 18:07 UTC · 7d agoVulnerability in the wildCVE-2026-81963CVE-2026-858801

Windows 11’s strongest security defenses can be bypassed without a screwdriver

Researchers found a script-only attack, 'Download More RAM', that rewrites DIMM configuration chips to bypass Windows 11 VBS and HVCI security boundaries.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham and Durham University showed that overwriting configuration data on unprotected DDR4/DDR5 module chips creates memory aliases that let attackers with existing privileged access defeat Virtualisation-based Security and HVCI, re-enable blocklisted drivers, kill EDR, and bypass group policy. Microsoft assigned CVE-2026-23670 and shipped mitigations in its April 2026 updates; systems with Secure Boot enabled are protected. Affected unprotected product lines are estimated at more than half of the high-performance consumer memory market and over 70% of the gaming segment.

Help Net Security·Aug 17, 00:00 UTC · 29d agoVulnerabilityCVE-2026-236701

Agents Gone Wild: An AI-Orchestrated Global Campaign Against PaperCut NG/MF

AI-orchestrated campaign exploited PaperCut NG/MF RCE (CVE-2026-81578/82078), compromising 440+ instances at 395 organizations in 48 countries.

GreyNoise tracked a likely Russian-speaking actor using AI (OpenAI Codex harness plus a DeepSeek model) to develop, test, and deploy exploits for PaperCut NG/MF (CVE-2026-81578, CVE-2026-82078) starting 31 August 2026. The actor compromised at least 440 PaperCut instances across 395 organizations in 48 countries, achieving domain admin at 12 victims — fastest time to domain admin was five minutes and a US high school was fully compromised in seven minutes. Attack paths involved LSASS memory and registry secret harvesting, pass-the-hash to domain controllers, noPac attacks, account additions to Domain Admins, and DCSync to exfiltrate full NTDS.DIT credential dumps. Impact scope suggests access development potentially for handoff, with prior PaperCut intrusions historically leading to extortion.

GreyNoise·updated Sep 11, 10:05 UTC · 4d ago·first Sep 9, 00:00 UTC · 6d agoThreat actor in the wild 9 sourcesCVE-2026-81578CVE-2026-82078CVE-2021-42278+1 CVEs1

The patch window is collapsing: Why security needs a new control plane

Microsoft argues patch windows are shrinking and urges a new security control plane to protect systems between vulnerability discovery and remediation.

A Microsoft Security Blog post contends that the window between vulnerability discovery and patch deployment is collapsing, leaving exploitable gaps. It argues organizations need a security 'control plane' that provides protection in the gap between discovery and remediation. The piece is vendor thought leadership with no new incident, CVE, or product announcement details.

Microsoft Security Blog·Aug 25, 16:00 UTC · 21d agoIndustry1

New Phishing Campaign Abuses Windows Mshta.exe to Steal Credentials and Secrets

Fortra researchers track an active phishing campaign targeting Spanish speakers that abuses mshta.exe to run HTA payloads for reconnaissance and credential theft.

Fortra's FIRE team says a phishing campaign active since June 2026 targets Spanish-speaking users with invoice ('Facturación') and judicial ('Aviso Judicial') lures, many sent via libero.it/italiaonline.it infrastructure with SCL:-1 markings to bypass anti-spam. Clicking embedded links delivers an HTA launcher executed via mshta.exe, which hides its window off-screen, builds dynamic C2 URLs, and performs reconnaissance using WMI, PowerShell, and environment-variable inspection. A second-stage JavaScript dropper uses HTML smuggling to reconstruct a Base64-encoded ZIP in the browser, delivering a 7-Zip self-extracting executable disguised as a Firefox installer; staged design allows later delivery of credential stealers or ransomware. Defenders are urged to block archivogratuito[.]online and shortener domains goo[.]su, abrir[.]link, and abre[.]ai, and to restrict mshta.exe execution via AppLocker or ASR rules.

GBHackers·Sep 12, 06:16 UTC · 3d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

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

Hackers Abuse AutoIt to Inject AsyncRAT Into Microsoft-Signed Windows Process

Attackers use AutoIt and an invoice-themed batch file to inject AsyncRAT into Microsoft-signed charmap.exe for stealthy remote access.

Point Wild Threat Intelligence documented a five-stage campaign starting with 'Right-click to open Invoice Details.bat' that launches hidden PowerShell, drops a renamed AutoIt interpreter and encrypted loader into a random Temp folder, and persists via a Startup-folder batch file. The loader decrypts AsyncRAT only in memory and injects it into the Microsoft-signed charmap.exe (Windows Character Map) process, leaving no payload file on disk. The final payload patches AMSI inside the infected process and includes screen-capture code that prepares images for transfer to a command-and-control server at 158[.]51[.]122[.]136:4944.

Cyber Security News·Sep 14, 07:07 UTC · 1d agoMalware in the wild1

Malware Can Abuse Windows Hello for Business Keys for Persistent Entra ID Access

The Hacker News·Aug 7, 09:55 UTC · Aug 7, 2026Malware in the wild

Notes on gotchas while migrating 35kb preprompts from Opus to self-hosted Ollama

Opinion piece urges migrating 35KB preprompts from Anthropic/OpenAI to self-hosted Ollama, citing session privacy risks and safety filters blocking security research.

The author documents gotchas migrating 35KB preprompts from Claude Opus to self-hosted Ollama, motivated by fears that frontier providers train on user sessions, citing the OpenAI Navier-Stokes controversy. The piece argues inference providers cannot audit their own retention or training pipelines and that only self-hosted hardware offers verifiable privacy. It also criticizes frontier safety filters for refusing vulnerability research tasks and calls for models that support exploitability testing in CI/CD pipelines.

Hacker News · AI·Sep 14, 13:59 UTC · 1d agoAI industryHN 41↑ · 13 comments1

Mustang Panda Adds Signed Windows Rootkit to CoolClient Backdoor for Stealth

Kaspersky reports Mustang Panda's updated CoolClient backdoor now deploys a signed kernel-mode Windows rootkit, hitting government victims in Myanmar, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Russia.

Kaspersky identified a new CoolClient variant attributed to HoneyMyte (Mustang Panda) that installs a digitally signed Windows kernel driver, msagent.sys, to hide and protect malicious processes, files, registry keys, and C2 network information. CoolClient is consistently deployed as a secondary backdoor after PlugX, with confirmed victims including government entities in Myanmar, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Russia. In a Myanmar campaign, PlugX was used to deploy CoolClient via a renamed Sangfor executable for DLL side-loading, a scheduled task for persistence, and RPC-based process creation with PPID spoofing. The driver, signed with a 2013 certificate issued to Nanjing Ranyi Technology, implements 33 IOCTL handlers, process hiding via unlinking, a filesystem minifilter, and registry callbacks.

The Hacker News·Aug 15, 00:00 UTC · Aug 15, 2026Threat actor in the wild1

ZDI-26-539: (Pwn2Own) Microsoft Windows ipt.sys Incorrect Permission Assignment Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

ZDI advisory discloses Windows ipt.sys local privilege escalation (CVE-2026-65773, CVSS 7.8) demonstrated at Pwn2Own.

ZDI advisory ZDI-26-539 describes an incorrect permission assignment flaw in Microsoft Windows ipt.sys, tracked as CVE-2026-65773 with a CVSS score of 7.8. A local attacker who can already execute low-privileged code can exploit it to escalate privileges. The vulnerability was demonstrated at Pwn2Own.

ZDI Published Advisories·Aug 11, 05:00 UTC · Aug 11, 2026AdvisoryCVE-2026-657731

Microsoft named a Leader in the Frost Radar™: Cloud Workload Protection Platforms, 2026

Microsoft was named a leader in the 2026 Frost Radar for Cloud Workload Protection Platforms, cited for Defender for Cloud runtime security.

The 2026 Frost Radar for Cloud Workload Protection Platforms placed Microsoft in its leadership tier, calling the company a visionary leader. Microsoft attributes the recognition to unified runtime security delivered through Microsoft Defender for Cloud. The post is vendor marketing with no incident, vulnerability, or technical detail.

Microsoft Security Blog·Aug 19, 17:30 UTC · 27d agoIndustry2

ZDI-26-543: Microsoft Windows ICC File Parsing Out-Of-Bounds Write Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

ZDI discloses an out-of-bounds write in Windows ICC file parsing via Mscms.dll enabling remote code execution (CVE-2026-54984, CVSS 7.8).

ZDI advisory ZDI-26-543 describes an out-of-bounds write in Microsoft Windows ICC file parsing that allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code. Exploitation requires interaction with the Mscms.dll color management library, though attack vectors may vary by implementation. The flaw has a CVSS rating of 7.8 and is assigned CVE-2026-54984.

ZDI Published Advisories·Aug 11, 05:00 UTC · Aug 11, 2026VulnerabilityCVE-2026-549841

Windows 11 cumulative updates KB5124008 & KB5122880 released

Microsoft shipped mandatory September 2026 Patch Tuesday cumulative updates KB5124008 and KB5122880 for Windows 11, fixing vulnerabilities and adding features.

Microsoft released Windows 11 KB5124008 (versions 25H2/24H2) and KB5122880 (23H2) cumulative updates containing the September 2026 Patch Tuesday security patches, described as covering 1,000 vulnerabilities discovered in previous months. The updates are mandatory and add features including movable and resizable taskbars, Start menu customization, a Windows Search option to hide Bing and Store web suggestions, and Administrator Protection, a just-in-time admin privilege feature that is off by default and configurable via Intune OMA-URI or Group Policy.

BleepingComputer·Sep 8, 17:57 UTC · 7d agoAdvisory

The Coding-Agent Trap: When a "Free" LLM Endpoint Is the Adversary, (Mon, Aug 31st)

A SANS honeypot caught a real coding-agent session routed to a rogue "free" LLM endpoint, exposing a Windows user's transcript and tool outputs.

A SANS analyst describes how an internet-exposed inference honeypot was discovered, relabeled with sought-after model names like DeepSeek, and enrolled in infrastructure serving "free" LLM backends. On 2026-08-30 an opencode terminal coding agent sent an 88-message, 224 KB transcript 210 times in 91 seconds via a China Unicom relay, exposing directory listings, tool outputs and read file portions. The analyst frames tool-enabled agents treating model endpoints as trusted control planes as a novel risk — a "rogue model endpoint" that could request tool executions on the user's machine.

SANS Internet Storm Center·Aug 31, 20:00 UTC · 15d agoAI safety & security1

Windows memory integrity switches on automatically for eligible devices in October 2026

Microsoft's Windows quality updates will automatically enable memory integrity and Virtualization-based Security on eligible devices starting October 2026.

Beginning in October 2026, Windows quality updates will automatically enable memory integrity on eligible devices and turn on Virtualization-based Security where it is not already running. Memory integrity restricts kernel-mode execution to trusted, signed code and drivers, blocking kernel compromise and rootkits. Microsoft said existing administrator decisions remain in effect, and readiness checks weigh hardware capability, compatibility, and performance. Memory integrity also underpins hotpatch updates that install without a reboot, so unprotected devices are excluded from that servicing model.

Help Net Security·Sep 3, 00:00 UTC · 12d agoAdvisory

Novel-reading apps used users' phones to generate fake ad traffic

Help Net Security·Aug 6, 00:00 UTC · Aug 6, 2026Threat actor1

Windows Malware Detector as a Compound AI System: Trade-Offs in Accuracy, Efficiency, and Adversarial Robustness

Researchers model industrial Windows malware detection as a Compound AI System, quantifying trade-offs between detection accuracy, efficiency, and adversarial robustness under tiered attacker knowledge.

Industrial Windows malware detectors combine rule-based mechanisms with ML-based static and dynamic analyses, but their architectures are rarely publicly disclosed. The authors propose a methodology balancing detection performance, computational cost, and robustness, plus system-level threat models capturing whole-pipeline evasion rather than isolated components. Experiments on real-world data show training time reductions with marginal detection loss, while more knowledgeable attackers craft increasingly effective adversarial examples. The paper derives deployment guidelines from the observed efficiency-robustness trade-off.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 8, 08:04 UTC · 7d agoResearch

UBoatRAT Navigates East Asia

Unit 42 discovers UBoatRAT, a new custom RAT targeting South Korean and video-game industry personnel, delivered via Google Drive with GitHub-based C2 and BITS persistence.

Unit 42 identified UBoatRAT, a new custom remote access trojan first found in May 2017, whose initial version used a public Hong Kong blog service and a compromised Japanese web server for command and control. The latest variants target personnel or organizations related to South Korea or the video games industry, are delivered through Google Drive, and masquerade as Microsoft Word, Excel, or folder icons. The RAT checks for virtualization software and domain join, retrieves its C2 address from a Base64-encoded string in a GitHub-hosted file, uses a custom XOR-encrypted C2 protocol, and maintains persistence via Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) jobs that survive reboots.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 17, 12:55 UTC · 29d agoMalware in the wild1

Risky Bulletin: Slovakia finds Russian backdoor in traffic speed cameras

Slovakia's NBU found an SMS-triggered backdoor in Russian-made NERO R-ONE traffic cameras, pausing a 279-unit deployment.

Slovakia's national security service NBU issued an alert against NERO R-ONE high-speed traffic cameras after finding a backdoor that grants shell and network access via SMS from hardcoded Russian phone numbers. The cameras are a rebranded version of the Russian CORDON PRO.M model by St. Petersburg firm Semicon, purchased via a Cyprus shell company under a €30 million EU-funded project. The report also found SecureBoot disabled, vulnerable web management, and unauthenticated live streams; the Interior Ministry paused deployment of 279 cameras pending independent assessment.

Risky Business News·Aug 19, 04:52 UTC · 27d agoThreat actor in the wild1

ZDI-26-541: (Pwn2Own) Microsoft Windows win32kfull Use-After-Free Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

ZDI discloses a Pwn2Own Windows win32kfull use-after-free local privilege escalation flaw (CVE-2026-65775, CVSS 8.8) requiring existing low-privileged code execution.

ZDI advisory ZDI-26-541 describes a use-after-free in Microsoft Windows win32kfull that allows local attackers to escalate privileges. Exploitation requires the attacker to first execute low-privileged code on the target system. The flaw carries a CVSS score of 8.8 and is assigned CVE-2026-65775; it was demonstrated at Pwn2Own.

ZDI Published Advisories·Aug 11, 05:00 UTC · Aug 11, 2026VulnerabilityCVE-2026-657751

Security Incident – BGP Hijacking

Attackers BGP-hijacked Softaculous' Hetzner IP block for 33 hours, obtained valid TLS certificates, and delivered a malicious Virtualizor update to some servers.

Between August 28 and 30, 2026, AS62390 (NexonHost) announced 162.55.80.0/24 via transit AS6204 (Zet.net) without authorization, diverting traffic while retaining Hetzner's AS24940 on the AS path. The attacker obtained valid Let's Encrypt certificates for virtualizor.com domains because the CA's domain validation was also routed through the hijack, so affected connections showed no TLS warnings. A malicious Virtualizor update package reached a handful of installations; routing was fully restored, and reconstruction from RIPE RIS data showed all 368 collector peers carried the hijacked route at some point with roughly 28% time-weighted diversion.

Lobsters · security·Sep 3, 02:07 UTC · 12d agoData breach

Microsoft September 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 966 flaws, 2 zero-days

Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes a record 966 flaws, including two Windows zero-days actively exploited to gain SYSTEM privileges.

Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday addresses a record 966 vulnerabilities, including 105 rated Critical, 81 of them remote code execution bugs. Two zero-days were actively exploited: a Windows Update Stack link-following flaw and a Windows ALPC heap-based buffer overflow, both allowing local elevation to SYSTEM privileges. The ALPC flaw was reported by Volexity and Proofpoint researchers, while the Update Stack flaw was credited to Romain Deperne and the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Centre. Microsoft shared no details on how the flaws were exploited in attacks.

BleepingComputer·Sep 8, 18:18 UTC · 7d agoAdvisory in the wildCVE-2026-69805CVE-2026-58649CVE-2026-69806+27 CVEs1

Hackers exploit Tencent app flaw to deploy GrayRabbit malware

UNC3569 actively exploits one-click RCE in Tencent Sogou Input Method to deploy the GrayRabbit backdoor, patched in version 16.3.0.3498.

Gen Digital reports that China-aligned UNC3569 is actively exploiting CVE-2026-51990, a one-click RCE chain in Tencent Sogou Input Method for Windows, which has hundreds of millions of installations in China. The chain abuses unvalidated command-line argument injection via the sgbiz: URI handler, unrestricted URL navigation in a CEF-based webview, and an unsandboxed outdated Chromium 80 engine to gain code execution and install the GrayRabbit backdoor. The analyzed malware is a mature 64-bit variant with RC4-encoded C2 config supporting reverse shells, file transfer, and reflective plugin loading. Tencent patched the argument validation in version 16.3.0.3498, but the browser engine remains outdated and unsandboxed.

BleepingComputer·updated Sep 14, 11:51 UTC · 1d ago·first Sep 13, 14:26 UTC · 2d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 2 sourcesCVE-2026-519903

CUA-Universe: A Scalable and Dynamic Environment for Hybrid GUI+CLI Agents

Researchers introduce CUA-Universe, a pipeline turning real desktop software into hybrid GUI+CLI agent environments, lifting a 9B model's OSWorld success rate.

CUA-Universe is an environment-to-data pipeline that converts real desktop applications into hybrid GUI+CLI environments, scaling to 16 applications via App-Forge, Task-Weave, and Path-Steer. Training on its harvested trajectories shifted a 9B model toward effective GUI+CLI orchestration, yielding +39.3 points on CUA-Verse, +16.8 points success rate on OSWorld, and +7.84 points on OSWorld-MCP while cutting steps and tokens by up to 57% and 60%. The work addresses the scarcity of scalable hybrid environments for computer-use agents.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL·Sep 4, 17:26 UTC · 11d agoAI research1

Heap overflow in kernel driver due to missing size validation

Fortinet fixes a CVSS 7.3 heap overflow in the FortiClient Windows kernel driver enabling code execution via crafted DNS responses.

Fortinet PSIRT advisory FG-IR-26-156, revised 2026-08-12, describes a heap-based buffer overflow (CWE-120, buffer copy without checking input size) in the FortiClient Windows kernel driver, scored CVSSv3 7.3. An unauthenticated attacker positioned to alter or craft DNS responses for a targeted host could execute arbitrary code via malicious packets. No CVE identifier or exploitation status is provided in the advisory text, so administrators should check the full bulletin for affected versions and fixed releases.

Fortinet PSIRT·Aug 12, 07:00 UTC · Aug 12, 2026Advisory

Microsoft Patch Tuesday Update September 2026 – 974 Vulnerabilities Fixed, Including 2 Zero-Days

Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 974 vulnerabilities across Windows and Office, including two actively exploited Windows privilege-escalation zero-days.

Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday addresses 974 vulnerabilities spanning Windows, Office, SQL Server, SharePoint, Exchange, Azure, and developer tools. Two Windows zero-days are confirmed exploited in attacks: CVE-2026-85880, a Windows ALPC elevation-of-privilege flaw, and CVE-2026-81963, a Windows Update Stack privilege-escalation flaw involving link following. The release also includes Critical fixes for Windows Secure Kernel Mode, VBS Enclave, Excel, and Word.

Cyber Security News·Sep 8, 17:46 UTC · 7d agoVulnerability in the wildCVE-2026-85880CVE-2026-81963CVE-2026-83939+15 CVEs1

When the Whole Company Adopts AI: What It Does to Your SOC

Analysis of 16.9 million SOC alerts finds AI-related alerts at 0.43%, growing 685% since February, with 94.1% noise and 0.02% real attacks.

A review of roughly 16.9 million SOC alerts found about 73,000 (0.43%) were AI-related, a share that grew 685% between February and June 2026. Of AI-related alerts, 94.1% were noise, 5.8% genuine risks, and 0.02% real attacks; 79.8% received benign verdicts, 81.7% were automatically suppressed, and only 5.4% reached a human analyst. The only confirmed attacks were phishing campaigns that weaponized AI brand names as lures, while developer coding agents spawning shells and reading credential stores routinely tripped detections written before AI agents existed.

The Hacker News·Sep 12, 10:24 UTC · 3d agoResearch1

New Windows Defender ShieldCrash 0-Day Bypasses Microsoft Patch to Read Files as SYSTEM

Researcher's ShieldCrash PoC claims Microsoft Defender still allows arbitrary file reads as SYSTEM on patched Windows, bypassing the CVE-2026-69414 fix.

Researcher MSNightmare released the ShieldCrash proof of concept showing Microsoft Defender can allegedly be made to read arbitrary files with SYSTEM privileges on fully patched Windows systems, bypassing the September 2026 fix for ShieldBreak (CVE-2026-69414). Microsoft has not confirmed the bypass, and the new flaw has no CVE assignment yet. The PoC repository contains C++ project files, a Warden.dll library, and an EICAR test archive, suggesting interaction with Defender's malware-detection and file-handling workflow. Reading files as SYSTEM could expose configuration files, credentials, private keys, and other users' data, though it does not enable code execution.

Cyber Security News·updated Sep 10, 12:18 UTC · 5d ago·first Sep 9, 09:15 UTC · 6d agoVulnerability 8 sourcesCVE-2026-69414

How a researcher uses Codex and ChatGPT to search for new antimicrobial molecules

OpenAI profiles César de la Fuente's lab using ChatGPT and Codex alongside deep-learning models to accelerate antimicrobial molecule discovery.

OpenAI published a case study on bioengineer César de la Fuente's lab, which uses ChatGPT and Codex for hypothesis brainstorming, code writing, dataset processing, and bridging knowledge gaps across biology, chemistry, and computer science. The lab's deep-learning models scan genome and protein databases for antimicrobial peptide candidates, potentially cutting initial searches from years to hours. Bacterial antimicrobial resistance was associated with about five million deaths in 2021, a toll projected to roughly double by 2050.

OpenAI News·Sep 10, 16:00 UTC · 5d agoAI industry1

Microsoft Defender's Own Driver Can Be Weaponized to Delete Security Software at Boot

Check Point revealed BTR Reforged, a technique weaponizing Microsoft Defender's built-in BTR.sys driver to delete security software at boot without exploiting any vulnerability.

Check Point Research disclosed BTR Reforged, a technique that abuses BTR.sys, a legitimately signed Windows Defender boot-time remediation driver, to perform arbitrary kernel-level file and registry operations on Windows 7 through Windows 11 25H2 without exploiting a software flaw. The BTR_CLI proof-of-concept tool, presented at Black Hat USA 2026 and DEF CON 34, installs the driver via direct registry writes and executes deletions during the boot-time 'golden window' before Defender's user-mode services start, demonstrated by deleting the full Defender stack on a patched Windows 11 machine. Exploitation requires SeLoadDriverPrivilege; Microsoft confirmed it does not meet criteria for immediate servicing and no patch is planned. No evidence of real-world abuse was found, and related indicators of compromise via Sysmon events were published.

The Hacker News·Aug 21, 15:52 UTC · 25d agoToolsCVE-2021-240921

Switching Password Managers in 2026

An Apple password-management engineer (writing personally) explains switching password managers via iOS direct app-to-app export, crediting FIDO Credential Exchange for passkey portability.

Ricky Mondello, an Apple engineer in password management and authentication (writing personally, not for Apple), demonstrates moving 100 items from 1Password to Apple Passwords via the iOS system export, which transfers passwords, passkeys, verification codes, and notes directly between apps with Face ID confirmation and no intermediate files. He credits the FIDO Alliance's Credential Exchange format (first draft May 2024, now an open spec) and iOS 26/macOS 26 for enabling phishing-resistant credential transfer between apps like 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, DuckDuckGo, and Devolutions. The post is advice rather than news, recommending bulk transfer on the existing device, switching AutoFill to the new app, and treating the new manager as the source of truth.

Lobsters · security·Sep 8, 13:55 UTC · 7d agoIndustry1

Microsoft releases Windows 10 KB5122878 extended security update

Microsoft shipped Windows 10 ESU update KB5122878, delivering the record September 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes, including patches for two actively exploited zero-days.

Microsoft released KB5122878 for Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC and ESU customers, moving builds 19045/19044 to .7725 with security and bug fixes. The update carries this month's record September 2026 Patch Tuesday set, which fixed 966 Microsoft vulnerabilities including two actively exploited zero-day flaws. It also fixes BitLocker recovery-key prompts and Remote Desktop audio redirection, and updates Secure Boot certificate rollout and Morocco time zone data. Microsoft reports no known issues with the update.

BleepingComputer·Sep 8, 18:49 UTC · 7d agoAdvisory in the wild

From Parameters to Answers: How LLMs Retrieve and Use Their Internal Knowledge

Interpretability study traces how Qwen, Llama, and Gemma route query information and internal knowledge across layers when answering questions.

Researchers used layerwise interventions on hidden states to separate query-routing signals from target knowledge in language models, testing Qwen, Llama, and Gemma on country-continent questions with varied answer types. A pair-conditioned request direction strengthens before interventions alter downstream knowledge, opening a causal window while answer-supporting content is still forming. Trajectories differ by model: Gemma shows a partially overlapping mid-layer routing profile, while Llama has no sustained routing-effect window under the same gates.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL·Sep 10, 17:39 UTC · 5d agoAI research1

JarvisGUI: Towards Cross-Device GUI Agents with Dynamic Task Composition

JarvisGUI benchmark tests GUI agents on cross-device workflows across Android, Windows, and Ubuntu, revealing major gaps in state transfer and long-horizon reasoning.

JarvisGUI is a dynamic benchmark that formulates GUI tasks as input-output transformations under a lightweight type system, automatically composing multi-step cross-device workflows across Android, Windows, and Ubuntu virtual environments. Evaluation shows state-of-the-art open-source GUI agents struggle with state-transfer awareness, cross-platform contextual reasoning, and long-horizon dependency management, exposing a capability gap invisible to existing single-device benchmarks.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL·Sep 9, 16:59 UTC · 6d agoAI research1

ChatGPT Sketch turns your bad drawings into detailed AI images

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Images 2.5 with a Sketch feature that turns user doodles into images, plus 50% lower latency.

OpenAI released ChatGPT Images 2.5 and a new Sketch feature, activated by typing @Sketch, that lets users draw doodles inside ChatGPT and use them as image generation prompts. The update claims more natural lighting, richer textures, better multi-turn instruction following, and up to 50% latency reduction versus Images 2.0. Users can also leave inline comments on parts of an image to request specific edits. It is available for ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex users on desktop, mobile, and web.

The Verge · AI·Sep 8, 20:16 UTC · 7d agoAI industry

Microsoft Plugs Nearly 400 Security Holes

Microsoft's August 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 398 vulnerabilities, including one flaw already being actively exploited and two publicly disclosed before the update.

Microsoft released August 2026 Patch Tuesday updates fixing at least 398 vulnerabilities in Windows and supported software. One of the flaws is already being actively exploited, and two others were publicly detailed ahead of the patch release. The update is one of the larger monthly releases in recent memory.

Krebs on Security·Aug 11, 21:28 UTC · Aug 11, 2026Vulnerability in the wild1

Top 10 Best Enterprise Browsers in 2026

2026 enterprise browser guide ranks Island first and notes Mammoth Cyber's wind-down plus corrections to standard vendor shortlists.

An editorial guide assesses ten enterprise browser options, ranking category creator Island first for last-mile DLP and BYOD controls, followed by Palo Alto's Talon browser as a Prisma Access/SASE surface and Google Chrome Enterprise Premium for DLP on already-deployed browsers. It corrects common lists, noting SlashNext is browser-adjacent phishing and BEC defense rather than a managed browser, and that Mammoth Cyber has wound down independent operations. Microsoft Edge for Business is positioned as effectively free policy depth for Microsoft 365 estates, with Menlo Security offering an isolation-plus-browser blend.

Cyber Security News·Sep 11, 07:07 UTC · 4d agoIndustry1

Microsoft Copilot reveals secret input that allowed it to be hacked

Microsoft disclosed a hidden input in Copilot that let attackers steal passwords from users who clicked a crafted link.

Microsoft revealed that Copilot contained a secret, undocumented input parameter that allowed the assistant to be compromised. Attackers could abuse the hidden input to steal passwords when a target clicked a malicious link. The disclosure highlights hidden-parameter risks in widely deployed AI assistants.

Ars Technica · Security·Aug 18, 13:00 UTC · 28d agoAI safety & security in the wild1