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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 · 9d agoExploit / PoC 2 sources

Re: Retrospective by 'gpg.fail' authors

Peter Gutmann replies to gpg.fail retrospective, pointing to PGP's arbitrary packet format as root of many past vulnerabilities.

Peter Gutmann posted a follow-up on oss-security referencing an Hacker News discussion of the gpg.fail authors' retrospective. The thread argues that a recurring source of severe PGP vulnerabilities is the format's permissive packet system, where a PGP message is a practically arbitrary stream of packets. This is discussion and retrospective analysis rather than a new disclosure.

oss-securityupdated · 3h agofirst · 3d agoResearch 8 sources4

Researcher Drops New Microsoft Defender PoC Showing ShieldBreak Patch Can Be Bypassed

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released a PoC showing CVE-2026-69414's patch is bypassable, allowing arbitrary file reads as SYSTEM on current Windows.

The researcher known as Chaotic Eclipse published a proof-of-concept for a zero-day in Microsoft Defender, dubbed ShieldCrash, assessed as a patch bypass for ShieldBreak (CVE-2026-69414, CVSS 7.8). The PoC demonstrates an arbitrary file read as SYSTEM with the latest Windows installed, and all supported desktop versions are said to be impacted. Microsoft patched the original issue in Microsoft Malware Protection Engine 1.1.26080.3, which updates automatically. The same researcher recently released PoCs for flaws in CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor, Kaspersky, Avast Antivirus and NVIDIA.

The Hacker News · 7d agoExploit / PoCCVE-2026-694141

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, 2026Exploit / PoCCVE-2026-50656

Attackers Exploit SharePoint Authentication Bypass After Public PoC Release

Attackers exploit SharePoint authentication bypass CVE-2026-55040 (CVSS 9.1) after Rapid7's PoC release, with 12 exploitation attempts recorded since July 19, 2026.

Microsoft patched CVE-2026-55040 in its July 2026 Patch Tuesday; the 9.1-severity flaw chains four weaknesses in SharePoint's JWT token validation pipeline, letting unauthenticated attackers forge valid JWTs and impersonate any SharePoint site user or administrator. Threat actors began exploiting the bug after Rapid7 released a Python PoC that forges tokens and enumerates domain users by SID. KEVIntel telemetry shows 12 exploitation attempts since July 19, 2026, eight of them on August 12-13 following the PoC release, originating from eight IPs across Hong Kong, Japan, the Netherlands, Taiwan, and the U.S. This is the fifth SharePoint vulnerability exploited this year, alongside CVE-2026-45659, CVE-2026-56164, CVE-2026-58644, and CVE-2026-50522.

The Hacker News · Aug 15, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-55040CVE-2026-45659CVE-2026-56164+2 CVEs

Fake CVE-2023

A fake PoC for WinRAR RCE CVE-2023-40477 posted on GitHub actually deploys VenomRAT through a multi-step infection chain targeting researchers.

Four days after Zero Day Initiative publicly disclosed the WinRAR RCE vulnerability CVE-2023-40477 on August 17, 2023, an actor using the alias whalersplonk published a fake proof-of-concept on GitHub. The Python script actually repurposed public PoC code for GeoServer SQL injection CVE-2023-25157 and triggered an infection chain ending in VenomRAT. The README and an accompanying video lured users into running the script; the video drew over 100 plays. Unit 42 assesses the actor was opportunistic, targeting other miscreants adopting new vulnerabilities rather than researchers specifically.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026MalwareCVE-2023-40477CVE-2023-25157

GPT-6 Astra Scores 100% on ExploitBench as OpenAI Blocks PoC Exploit Requests

OpenAI releases GPT-6 Astra, scoring 100% on ExploitBench, but restricts it to secure code review by blocking PoC exploit generation.

OpenAI officially unveiled GPT-6 Astra days after the model reached the "Critical" cybersecurity capability threshold under its Preparedness Framework. The model claims 100% on ExploitBench (versus 78.5% for GPT-5.6 Sol), 98% on FrontierMath Tier 4, and 99.9% on ARC-AGI-3, and demonstrated exploit development including on two zero-days disclosed between June and August 2026. The released version is limited to secure code review and patching and refuses proof-of-concept exploit requests, with less restrictive safeguards planned via OpenAI Daybreak. OpenAI also launched a $1 billion "Daybreak for Frontline Defenders" program for critical infrastructure sectors and a pilot with the US MS-ISAC for public sector and water system defenders.

The Hacker News · 12d agoModel release1

Public PoC Released for Apache Superset SQL Injection Vulnerability

A public Python PoC exploit is available for CVE-2026-23980, an authenticated error-based SQL injection in Apache Superset versions before 6.0.0.

CVE-2026-23980 is a SQL injection flaw (CWE-89) in Apache Superset affecting all releases before 6.0.0, exploitable via the sqlExpression and where parameters by authenticated users with read-level access. A public repository containing a Python exploit.py proof-of-concept has been released, reducing attacker effort against exposed instances. Apache disclosed the issue on February 24, 2026 and fixed it in Superset 6.0.0. Defenders should upgrade and monitor logs for malformed queries, database errors, and unusual activity from low-privilege accounts.

Cyber Security Newsupdated · 11h agofirst · 13h agoExploit / PoC 2 sourcesCVE-2026-239801

FalconFlank: CrowdStrike Falcon 0-Day PoC

A researcher published a working proof-of-concept for an alleged privilege escalation zero-day in CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor for Windows.

SOCRadar describes 'FalconFlank,' an alleged privilege escalation zero-day vulnerability in the CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor agent for Windows. The finding was published alongside working proof-of-concept code by a researcher. The available text does not state that exploitation has been observed in the wild, nor does it mention an assigned CVE.

SOCRadar · 13d agoVulnerability

Testing race conditions with memory access tracing and stack-based delay injection

Google Project Zero released MAccConc, Linux kernel tooling that traces memory accesses to explore and test race condition interleavings.

A Google Project Zero researcher published MAccConc (Memory Access Concurrency), tooling for exploring possible interleavings of multithreaded test cases in the Linux kernel, available on GitHub. The tools use KCOV with ASAN outline-mode instrumentation to record per-access memory traces, enabling automatic testing of all A-B-A interleavings plus terminal and GUI explorers for manual analysis. The work targets confirming race condition candidates, building reliable regression tests, and enabling concurrency fuzzing, drawing on ideas from SKI and Ned Williamson's sockfuzzer.

Google Project Zero · 8d agoResearch1

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 · 15d agoExploit / PoC1

HHS Releases Updated Security Risk Assessment Tool

HHS OCR and ONC released version 3.7 of the Security Risk Assessment Tool for healthcare organizations.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) released version 3.7 of the Security Risk Assessment (SRA) Tool. The tool helps covered entities conduct HIPAA security risk assessments. ONC and OCR provided guidance on the updates.

DataBreaches.net · 3d agoTools

When AI Agents Go Rogue: Agent Session Smuggling Attack in A2A Systems

Unit 42 unveils agent session smuggling, where a rogue AI agent hides covert instructions in established Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol sessions to manipulate victim agents.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 discovered agent session smuggling, a new attack technique in which a malicious AI agent exploits an established cross-agent session under the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol to send covert instructions hidden among benign client requests and server responses. The technique leverages the implicit trust agents place in collaborating agents and the stateful, multi-turn nature of A2A sessions; the researchers stress it affects any stateful protocol, not an A2A flaw. Unlike one-shot data-based attacks, a rogue agent can converse, adapt and build false trust over multiple interactions. Proposed mitigations include human-in-the-loop enforcement, cryptographically signed AgentCards for remote agent verification, and context-grounding to detect injected instructions.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026AI safety & security2

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 · 13d agoExploit / PoC

CVE-2026-34486: Apache Tomcat EncryptInterceptor Fail-Open Bypass

Technical analysis shows CVE-2026-34486 is a one-line fail-open regression in Tomcat Tribes enabling unauthenticated RCE via Java deserialization.

CVE-2026-34486 is a fail-open regression in Tomcat's Tribes EncryptInterceptor, introduced while fixing the CVE-2026-29146 padding-oracle flaw; Apache rated it Important and NVD scores it 7.5 High. Decryption failures are now forwarded to an unfiltered ObjectInputStream, and public PoC repositories demonstrate unauthenticated RCE on default port 4000 when clustering, the EncryptInterceptor, a reachable receiver and deserialization gadgets are all present. Affected releases 9.0.116, 10.1.53 and 11.0.20 are fixed in 9.0.117, 10.1.54 and 11.0.21; Tomcat 8.5 is unaffected.

Attackers exploit critical SharePoint flaw after PoC goes public (CVE-2026-55040)

Attackers use Rapid7's public PoC to exploit CVE-2026-55040, a critical SharePoint authentication bypass patched in July 2026.

Rapid7 researcher Stephen Fewer published technical analysis and PoC exploit code for CVE-2026-55040, an authentication bypass in SharePoint caused by flaws in the JWT token validation pipeline. Threat intelligence firm Defused observed attackers using the PoC against SharePoint honeypots, though Microsoft has not yet confirmed in-the-wild exploitation. Chained with CVE-2026-63520, the flaw can yield unauthenticated remote code execution, per NHS England Digital. CISA is urging administrators to harden SharePoint deployments by limiting direct internet exposure and using Layer 7 reverse proxies.

Help Net Security · Aug 13, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-55040CVE-2026-63520

Exploits in the Wild for Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway Directory Traversal Vulnerability CVE-2019

Unit 42 confirmed in-the-wild exploitation of CVE-2019-19781, a critical Citrix ADC/Gateway directory traversal flaw enabling unauthenticated file access and RCE.

CVE-2019-19781, a CVSS 9.8 directory traversal vulnerability, affects all supported versions of Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway. Unit 42 captured multiple exploitation attempts in the wild and identified scanning activity from roughly 700 Shodan-exposed hosts. The flaw stems from improper pathname handling in Apache, allowing unauthenticated attackers to read sensitive files like smb.conf or achieve remote code execution via crafted XML. Palo Alto Networks released Threat Prevention signatures 57497 and 57570 on January 7, 2020, while Citrix published advisories CTX267027 and CTX267679 with responder policy mitigations pending a late-January patch.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2019-19781

CVE-2026-16232: Checkpoint Quantum Security Management auth bypass ...

Attackers exploit Check Point SmartConsole authentication bypass CVE-2026-16232 to take over Quantum Security Management firewall servers; CISA added it to KEV.

CVE-2026-16232 is an authentication bypass (CWE-287) in the SmartConsole login process of Check Point Quantum Security Management, exploitable via an application token. Disclosed July 22, 2026, it was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog the same day with remediation due July 25. Rapid7, Check Point Research and other vendors confirmed exploitation in the wild, and a public PoC was released. A workaround is available, and federal agencies must comply with BOD 26-04 patching guidance.

Code to Cloud Platform Archives

Unit 42 archive page for Code to Cloud platform product-category articles; no new research or announcements.

This Unit 42 archive page lists product-category posts about Palo Alto Networks' Code to Cloud platform, which secures public cloud environments, SaaS applications and remote locations. It contains no new research, incidents, or announcements.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 28d agoIndustry

Security Affairs newsletter Round 594 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Weekly Security Affairs newsletter aggregates top stories including Cisco FMC exploitation, Qilin ransomware, Chrome zero-days, and Berlin leak.

Pierluigi Paganini's Security Affairs newsletter Round 594 (International Edition) rounds up the week's security headlines. Topics include attackers exploiting a critical Cisco FMC flaw to deploy Qilin ransomware, SonicWall mass exploitation linked to a UK council attack, multiple CISA KEV additions, Chrome zero-days used by four nation-state actors, a $320 million Liquid Network theft, and a Berlin ransomware data leak. It also covers AI security items such as agent sandbox failures and distillation campaigns by Chinese AI firms.

Security Affairs · 3d agoIndustry in the wildCVE-2026-42016CVE-2026-42018CVE-2026-82329+1 CVEs1

Technical Manual for a Toolkit for Measuring Contextual Individuation in Transformer Language Models

An open methodology toolkit measures whether transformer language models contextualize fixed word forms across domains using bridge forms and layer-wise silhouette analysis.

The manual documents an open toolkit built around 'bridge forms' - identical written words recurring across two or more subject domains with a different sense in each - to test whether transformer language models individuate word occurrences by context beyond the embedding layer. It covers declarative specification of bridge forms, Wikipedia corpus acquisition, occurrence localization, layer-wise representation extraction, domain-pairwise silhouette measurement, and visualization, justifying each choice against failure modes such as sense contamination and subword-tokenization misalignment. It is a methodological and implementation reference and reports no empirical results.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 12d agoAI research

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 · 7d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-81578CVE-2026-82078CVE-2021-42278+1 CVEs1

CMMC Hit Pause, the FAR Council Hit Play

DoD paused CMMC Phase 2 pending a 60-day review while a proposed FAR Council rule would extend NIST 800-171 Rev 3 to all federal contractors.

The Department of Defense suspended CMMC Phase 2 third-party certification requirements, but Phase 1 self-assessments under DFARS 252.204-7021 remain in force since November 2025, and prime contractors are still directing suppliers to proceed. A CMMC Reform Task Force must report recommendations to the DoD CIO within 60 days, likely by September or October 2026. Separately, the FAR Council's proposed CUI rule from June 23 would apply NIST 800-171 Revision 3, 72-hour incident reporting, and flowdown obligations to all FAR-based federal contracts, not just the defense industrial base. False Claims Act exposure grows as DIBCAC assessment teams now cooperate directly with the DOJ.

Huntress · 14d agoPolicy & legal

A Deep Dive Into Attempted Exploitation of CVE-2023

Mirai-like botnet scans exploit TP-Link EOL router flaw CVE-2023-33538 after CISA KEV addition, though observed exploit code is flawed.

Unit 42 observed large-scale automated scans attempting to exploit CVE-2023-33538 in end-of-life TP-Link TL-WR940N, TL-WR740N and TL-WR841N routers after CISA added the flaw to its KEV catalog in June 2025. HTTP GET requests inject commands via the ssid1 parameter at the /userRpm/WlanNetworkRpm endpoint to download and execute an arm7 ELF binary, a Mirai variant related to the Condi IoT botnet. Firmware emulation and reverse engineering showed the observed exploits are flawed and would fail, but the underlying vulnerability is real and successful exploitation requires authentication to the router's web interface. TP-Link confirmed the devices are end-of-life with no patches available and recommends replacing units and eliminating default credentials.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · 28d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2023-335381

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.

Linux Kernel ZcopyReaper Vulnerability Lets Local Attackers Gain Root Privileges

Linux kernel RDS zero-copy flaw CVE-2026-43502 (ZcopyReaper) lets unprivileged local users gain root; fix in 7.1-rc3, public PoC published.

CVE-2026-43502, dubbed ZcopyReaper, is a Linux kernel local privilege escalation flaw in the RDS zerocopy send path, present since kernel 4.17, allowing unprivileged local attackers to gain root. NebuSec researcher Yuan Tan demonstrated root escalation on openSUSE kernel 6.4.0-150600.23.100; the fix landed in commit 44b550d88b26 with Linux 7.1-rc3 the first patched mainline release. Exploitation requires CONFIG_RDS and CONFIG_RDS_TCP but not unprivileged user namespaces, and PoC exploit material is publicly released alongside more than 20 other exploitable 2026 kernel CVEs.

Orthanc DICOM Server

CISA advisory flags CVE-2026-87020, an integer overflow in Orthanc DICOM Server <1.13.0 causing heap out-of-bounds write and denial of service when decoding crafted PNG/JPEG images.

CISA published ICSMA-26-253-02 for Orthanc DICOM Server versions below 1.13.0, used in healthcare environments worldwide. CVE-2026-87020 (CWE-190) is an integer overflow in pitch and buffer-size computation causing a heap out-of-bounds write when decoding attacker-supplied PNG or JPEG images. An authenticated remote attacker can crash the Orthanc process and cause denial of service; CVSS v3.1 is 8.1 HIGH. CISA states no known public exploitation targeting this flaw has been reported.

CISA Advisories · 6d agoAdvisoryCVE-2026-87020

BugBase Pentest Copilot Enterprise automates black-box pentesting

BugBase launched Pentest Copilot Enterprise, an autonomous AI black-box pentesting platform using parallel agents to attack 100 vulnerability classes with validated PoCs.

BugBase announced Pentest Copilot Enterprise, which performs black-box red teaming without source-code access while maintaining authenticated context. Parallel specialized agents map pages, APIs, accounts and business functions, then execute iterative attacks across 100 vulnerability types including authentication, injection and business-logic flaws. The tool uses real Chromium browsers to preserve cookies, tokens, CSRF state and multiple identities, and navigates WAFs, bot detection, CAPTCHA and T-OTP. BugBase claims full scope coverage on OWASP Juice Shop, Broken Crystals and GOAD, NHA, and DRACARYS Active Directory labs.

Help Net Security · 12d agoTools

OPCFoundation OPC UA LocalDiscoveryServer (LDS)

CISA warns CVE-2026-77477 (CVSS 4.6) lets local attackers hijack a privileged console during OPC UA LDS installation below version 1.04.420.

CISA published ICSA-26-246-01 for CVE-2026-77477, CWE-250 execution with unnecessary privileges in OPC Foundation UA-LDS-Installers below 1.04.420. An attacker able to launch the installer with elevated privileges and access the keyboard and display can intercept a high-privilege console window during installation and run arbitrary commands. CVSS 3.1 score is 4.6, the issue is not remotely exploitable, and no public exploitation has been reported. Lukas Schumaker of Rockwell Automation reported the flaw to OPC Foundation.

CISA Advisories · 13d agoAdvisoryCVE-2026-77477

Security Affairs newsletter Round 590 by Pierluigi Paganini

Weekly Security Affairs newsletter roundup aggregating top cybercrime, malware, APT and AI security stories including ExfilSquad, Kimwolf v7 and Kimsuky AI use.

This is the Round 590 weekly newsletter from Security Affairs, linking to the week's major stories rather than reporting a single incident. Headlines include ExfilSquad extortion, a 7.3M chess.com record leak, Kimwolf botnet v7, SharePoint exploitation after a public PoC, Kimsuky integrating AI, and China-linked autonomous-style attacks. It is a digest and promotional item with no standalone technical details.

Security Affairs · Aug 16, 2026Industry

Before You Poll with LLMs: A Deliberative Diagnostic Framework

Deliberative diagnostic shows all five tested frontier LLMs misrepresent human belief shifts after arguments, with GPT-5.1 reversing on outgroup questions.

The Deliberative Polling Diagnostic Framework compares human and LLM persona belief shifts after identical informational interventions, using data from America in One Room (526 personas, 72 questions). All five frontier models tested failed uniquely: GPT-5.1 exhibited partisan reversal (80% on outgroup vs 26% on policy questions), Gemini 2.0 Flash, Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Llama 3.3 70B overshot at 5-7x human magnitude, and DeepSeek V3 showed near-zero change (rigidity). The authors term the underlying signature 'self-sycophancy', conformity to the model's internal persona stereotype rather than reasoning from provided information.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 2d agoAI research

8,539 Reasons To Rethink How Vulnerabilities Get Patched

Rapid7 counted 8,539 high and critical CVEs in Q2 2026, double last year, with PoC availability up 76%.

Rapid7's Q2 2026 Threat Landscape Report tallied 8,539 high- and critical-severity vulnerability disclosures, twice the number recorded in Q2 2025, with newly disclosed flaws having public proof-of-concept code up 76% year over year. Of newly exploited vulnerabilities, 62% were network-exploitable and required neither authentication nor user interaction. Fake CAPTCHA and ClickFix social engineering accounted for 31.8% of incident response cases, the United States recorded 881 listed ransomware victims, and APT28 exploited SOHO routers for DNS hijacking while Iranian groups targeted US industrial control and OT systems.

Help Net Security · 27d agoResearch

Cross-Model Agreement as a Deployment-Time Reliability Signal for Automatic Polyp Segmentation

Referee-Based Quality Estimation flags unreliable polyp segmentations at inference without ground truth, reaching ROC-AUC 0.960 with SegFormer-B0 referees.

RBQE measures agreement between a primary segmentation model and an independently trained referee on a 1,223-image external benchmark drawn from four public datasets. A cross-architecture SegFormer-B0 referee achieves the strongest signal (ROC-AUC 0.960), beating a Test-Time Augmentation baseline by 0.055 ROC-AUC under an identical protocol. Excluding trivially separable empty-mask cases, ROC-AUC falls to 0.876 (SegFormer-B0) and 0.783 (same-architecture control), but RBQE's margin over baselines widens. Progressive rejection of low-agreement predictions increases mean Dice of retained outputs, supporting selective prediction at the cost of one extra forward pass.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 7d agoAI research

wp2shell: incident response guide (CVE-2026-63030 + CVE-2026-60137)

Eye Security published forensic IR tooling for wp2shell (CVE-2026-63030/CVE-2026-60137), the unauthenticated WordPress core RCE chain, after WordPress.org forced auto-updates.

wp2shell chains a REST API batch-endpoint route-confusion bug (CVE-2026-63030) with an SQL injection in WP_Query's author__not_in parameter (CVE-2026-60137), giving unauthenticated attackers rogue admin and code execution on default installs. Adam Kues of Searchlight Cyber discovered the flaw, a public PoC exists on GitHub, and WordPress.org forced automatic updates across an estimated 200M+ sites. Eye Security released a compromise-scanner WordPress plugin and browser extension and notes database artifacts (oEmbed cache rows, changesets) are the primary evidence since the attack is log-blind; fixed versions are 6.8.6, 6.9.5, and 7.0.2.

Playco cut manual fixes 50% prototyping games with GPT-6 Astra

Game studio Playco used OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra to build three game prototypes, reporting 50% fewer manual fixes than with the previous model.

Playco, a game development company, used OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra model to generate three themed game prototypes from a single grey-box foundation. The company reports the new model cut manual fixes by 50% compared to its previous model workflow. The piece is an OpenAI-published customer story highlighting Astra's use in game prototyping.

OpenAI News · 13d agoAI industry

Critical Gitea vulnerability now exploited in the wild (CVE-2026-60004)

Attackers are actively exploiting critical Gitea RCE CVE-2026-60004 via the diffpatch endpoint, prompting CISA KEV addition and at least one cryptomining compromise.

CISA added CVE-2026-60004, a critical code injection flaw in Gitea's diffpatch endpoint, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog after in-the-wild attacks. An attacker with repository write access, or an unauthenticated visitor on instances with open registration, can execute arbitrary shell commands as the Gitea OS user. A disclosed incident saw an automated scanner register an account and deploy a loader and cryptominer inside a Docker container within about 11 seconds, with no persistence mechanism found. Gitea patched the flaw in v1.27.1, and CISA ordered US federal civilian agencies to update by August 28, 2026.

Help Net Security · 21d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-60004

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.

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Software Authentication Bypass Vulnerability

Cisco warns of a critical authentication bypass in Secure Firewall Management Center that lets unauthenticated attackers execute scripts and obtain root access.

A vulnerability in the web interface of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) Software allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and execute script files on an affected device to obtain root access to the underlying operating system. The flaw stems from an improper system process created at boot time and is triggered via crafted HTTP requests. If the FMC management interface does not have public internet access, the attack surface is limited.