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New Report: AI threats are here. Why Q2 2026 signals the end of traditional patch cycles

Rapid7 Labs' Q2 2026 threat report finds vulnerability disclosures surging while AI-assisted attackers compress the time from disclosure to exploitation.

Rapid7 Labs' Quarterly Threat Landscape Report for Q2 2026 reports continued growth in vulnerability disclosures alongside attacker use of automation and AI-assisted tooling. The report argues the window between disclosure and exploitation is shrinking, eroding the value of traditional patch cycles. It recommends prioritizing exposures attackers can actually reach rather than attempting to patch everything.

Rapid7 Blog · 29d agoResearch

CVE-2026-63520: Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution (FIXED)

Rapid7 and Microsoft disclose CVE-2026-63520, a SharePoint RCE that chains with CVE-2026-55040 for unauthenticated RCE; patches released.

Rapid7 Labs' zero-day research project on Microsoft SharePoint uncovered two vulnerabilities that, when chained, achieve unauthenticated remote code execution. The second flaw in the chain, CVE-2026-63520, affects all supported versions of Microsoft SharePoint and has been disclosed and fixed. The first chain component, CVE-2026-55040, was disclosed by Rapid7 and Microsoft the previous month.

Rapid7 Blog · Aug 11, 2026VulnerabilityCVE-2026-63520CVE-2026-550401

North Korea-linked Hackers Hide a Backdoor Inside HAProxy

Rapid7 reports North Korea-linked hackers implanted a backdoor compiled into HAProxy at South Korean automotive and media firms, enabling covert C2 and credential theft.

Rapid7 documented a previously undocumented Linux toolkit hitting South Korean automotive and media organizations, centered on a backdoor compiled directly into victims' HAProxy 2.8.12. The 'ted backdoor' uses HAProxy's native filter API to intercept HTTP traffic, receive C2 commands hidden in requests to a fake image path, and erase all traces from logs and counters; the toolkit also trojanizes crond, agetty, atd, sshd, and polkitd, adds an SSH keylogger, and runs curlRAT with virtualization checks. It can inject scripts or replace page content for selected victims, turning the load balancer into a watering hole. Attribution sits at medium confidence toward North Korean state actors, with overlaps to APT37-linked infrastructure and a concurrent Lazarus campaign; the campaign's command domains have since gone dark.

Security Affairs · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild

Microsoft Patches 398 Flaws Including a Windows Driver Zero

Microsoft's August Patch Tuesday fixes 398 CVEs, including actively exploited Windows zero-day CVE-2026-68820 used by Lazarus for SYSTEM privilege escalation.

Microsoft's August 2026 Patch Tuesday release addresses 398 new vulnerabilities, 62 rated Critical by the Zero Day Initiative, with CVE-2026-68820 (CVSS 7.0), a use-after-free in the afd.sys Windows kernel driver, the only flaw flagged as actively exploited. Check Point Research attributed exploitation of the privilege escalation bug to Lazarus' Operation Dream Job campaign. Four unauthenticated remote code execution flaws rated 9.8 affect Windows DNS Server (CVE-2026-62878, called wormable by ZDI), Windows Deployment Services (CVE-2026-62893), Microsoft QUIC (CVE-2026-62815) and HPC Pack (CVE-2026-59124). The release also completes a two-part SharePoint fix with RCE component CVE-2026-63520, following July's authentication bypass fix CVE-2026-55040.

The Hacker News · Aug 11, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2026-68820CVE-2026-62878CVE-2026-62893+4 CVEs

New Ted Backdoor Hides Inside Victims' Own HAProxy Builds to Intercept Web Traffic

Rapid7 found a new backdoor, ted, compiled into trojanized HAProxy at two South Korean organizations, with medium-confidence attribution to North Korean actors.

Rapid7 documented a previously undocumented Linux toolkit named ted compiled into the HAProxy load balancer binaries of two South Korean organizations in the automotive and media sectors. The implant intercepts web traffic, serves altered pages only to filtered visitors, and hides C2 exchanges from backend logs and HAProxy statistics; a companion RAT, curlRAT, beacons on a default 12-hour schedule. The toolkit also trojanizes crond, sshd, agetty, atd, and polkitd binaries and sanitizes logs and bash history. Rapid7 attributes the activity with medium confidence to North Korean state-sponsored actors, with domain infrastructure overlapping APT37 listings in maltrail and delivery resembling the Operation SyncHole campaign.

The Hacker News · 12d agoThreat actor in the wild

CVE-2026-86206, CVE-2026-86207: N-able N-central Authentication Bypass (FIXED)

Rapid7 disclosed two chained N-able N-central flaws, CVE-2026-86206 and CVE-2026-86207, enabling unauthenticated admin account creation; patched in 2026.3 Hotfix 3.

Rapid7 researchers found CVE-2026-86206 (semicolon/Forwarded access-control bypass, CWE-791, CVSSv4 6.9) and CVE-2026-86207 (UserTwoFactorLogin authentication bypass, CWE-305, CVSSv4 7.7) in the latest N-able N-central. Chained, they let a remote unauthenticated attacker create an attacker-controlled System administrator account. The bugs stem from Envoy and Jetty disagreeing on the requested path and whether the client is local. N-able patched both in N-central 2026.3 Hotfix 3, following the earlier CVE-2026-18577 authentication bypass.

DPRK APTs: Ted backdoor and curlRAT target South Korean media and automotive sectors

Rapid7 uncovered a DPRK-linked Linux toolkit using a HAProxy-embedded ted backdoor, SSH keylogger, and curlRAT against South Korean media and automotive firms.

Rapid7 Labs identified a previously undocumented framework attributed with medium confidence to DPRK actors, targeting South Korean automotive and media organizations likely since early 2025. The toolkit embeds a backdoor compiled into HAProxy 2.8.12 using its filter API, plus trojanized crond, agetty, atd, sshd, and polkitd, an SSH keylogger storing credentials under /var/lib/sshd/, and a curl-based RAT with a watchdog thread. It enables remote command execution, malicious script injection into served webpages (a watering-hole loop), credential harvesting, and long-term surveillance. Hardcoded C2s are associated with APT37 via ThreatFox, and exposed groupware portals and mail servers align with Kimsuky tradecraft; the initial access vector and any CVE remain unconfirmed.

Rapid7 Blog · 12d agoThreat actor in the wild1

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

Rapid7 Analysis: Microsoft SharePoint JWT Token Authentication Bypass (CVE-2026-55040)

Rapid7's analysis of SharePoint auth bypass CVE-2026-55040 includes a PoC for unauthenticated admin-level operations.

Rapid7 and Microsoft disclosed CVE-2026-55040, an authentication bypass in Microsoft SharePoint, on July 14, 2026. The flaw stems from multiple issues in SharePoint's JWT token validation pipeline, allowing a remote unauthenticated attacker to bypass authentication and perform operations as a site user or administrator. Rapid7 has now published a technical analysis and a proof-of-concept script, based on SharePoint Server Subscription Edition.

Rapid7 Blog · Aug 11, 2026VulnerabilityCVE-2026-550401