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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 · 8d agoAdvisory in the wildCVE-2026-69805CVE-2026-58649CVE-2026-69806+27 CVEs1

Unit 42 Researchers Discover Multiple Espionage Operations Targeting Southeast Asian Government

Unit 42 attributes three espionage clusters targeting a Southeast Asian government to Stately Taurus, Alloy Taurus, and Gelsemium APTs.

Unit 42 investigated espionage attacks starting in late 2022 against multiple governmental entities in a Southeast Asian country, including critical infrastructure, public healthcare, financial administrators, and ministries. Analysis revealed three distinct clusters: CL-STA-0044 attributed to Stately Taurus (Mustang Panda), CL-STA-0045 to Alloy Taurus (GALLIUM), and CL-STA-0046 to Gelsemium. The first cluster used a ToneShell backdoor variant, ShadowPad, China Chopper web shells, Impacket, and credential dumping tools across roughly Q1 2021 to Q3 2023. All three operated with distinct tools, infrastructure, and long-term surveillance tradecraft consistent with APTs.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild

Persistent Attempts at Cyberespionage Against Southeast Asian Government Target Have Links to Alloy Taurus

Alloy Taurus (GALLIUM) compromised Southeast Asian government networks from 2022 to 2023 using Exchange web shells and undocumented .NET backdoors Reshell and Zapoa.

Unit 42 tracked persistent multiwave intrusions at a Southeast Asian government starting in early 2022 and continuing through 2023, attributing the activity with moderate confidence to Alloy Taurus (aka GALLIUM), a Chinese state-aligned espionage group. Attackers exploited Exchange Server vulnerabilities to deploy web shells including China Chopper, then ran reconnaissance with Fscan and WebScan, created administrative accounts, and installed undocumented .NET backdoors named Reshell and Zapoa. They established resilience by installing SoftEther VPN, brute-forced Active Directory credentials with Kerbrute, and dumped credential stores with GoDumpLsass and LsassUnhooker. The campaign reflects long-term espionage tradecraft to maintain a foothold.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild1

Counterfeit installers to system compromise: Tracking a deceptive software download campaign

Microsoft tracks a counterfeit software-installer campaign compromising multinationals' China operations, moderately linked to the Silver Fox (Yinhu) actor.

Microsoft Defender Experts is tracking an active campaign using spoofed software download sites for brands such as Razer, Kaspersky, Microsoft Edge, Calibre, and Baidu Netdisk on .com.cn and .hl.cn domains, delivering installer archives whose hashes change per download, indicating server-side payload generation. The implants establish persistence, weaken security protections, and communicate with attacker-controlled infrastructure, with confirmed compromises across healthcare, manufacturing, gaming, technology, logistics, government, and education. Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that the activity matches the publicly reported Silver Fox (Yinhu) fake software campaign; it has not attributed it to a nation-state actor.

Microsoft Security Blog · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild1

APT36 Suspected in PATCHCORD Espionage Campaign Using Google Sheets C2

Acronis links the PATCHCORD espionage campaign targeting Afghan telecom and South Asian critical infrastructure to APT36 with moderate confidence.

Acronis Threat Research Unit documented PATCHCORD, a previously undocumented C/C++ backdoor delivered via fake VPN installers impersonating Afghan Telecom (AFTEL), which hijacks Edge, Chrome and Firefox shortcuts for persistence and executes in-memory shellcode. A related Go implant, SHEETCORD, abuses the Google Sheets API for per-victim C2 and was distributed via a domain impersonating India's National Informatics Centre, while a third tool, HACKERAI C2 Agent, uses GitHub Gists and shows signs of LLM-assisted coding. An exposed staging server revealed SuperShell, RAT frameworks, credential-harvesting tools and OpenSSH exploit code, and the researchers attribute the activity to APT36/Transparent Tribe at moderate confidence.

Security Affairs · Aug 16, 2026Threat actor in the wild

Hackers Abuse Google CAPTCHA, WebDAV and BNB Smart Chain to Deploy Credential-Stealing Malware

Cisco Talos details ClickFix campaigns abusing fake Google CAPTCHA prompts, WebDAV and BNB Smart Chain to deploy the Amatera infostealer.

Cisco Talos identified a multi-stage campaign, first observed in April 2026 when a Ukrainian government organization executed a disguised DLL named verification.google from a WebDAV path. The chain combines ClearFake JavaScript injected via malicious Cloudflare Workers, EtherHiding payloads stored in BNB Smart Chain contracts, ClickFix social engineering, and WebDAV-hosted DLL loaders to deliver the Amatera (ACR Stealer) infostealer. The Amatera configuration contained over 400 collection entries targeting browsers, messengers, crypto wallets, password managers, FTP and VPN tools, hunting for .kdbx, .p12, .pfx and .pem files. The pf.ch branch deploys ZigCryptoStealer, an EDR-terminating vulnerable driver and Go-based reverse TCP proxies, while the verification.google branch installs NetSupport Manager, supporting moderate-confidence attribution of the UAT-10820 activity to a Russian actor.

GBHackers · 7d agoMalware in the wild

ClearFake WebDAV infection chain delivers Amatera stealer, ZigCryptoStealer, and NetSupport Manager

Cisco Talos details ClearFake WebDAV chains delivering Amatera stealer to a Ukrainian government organization, with cryptocurrency and credential theft payloads.

Cisco Talos investigated DLL executions named 'verification.google' via WebDAV UNC paths at a Ukrainian government organization, tracking the actor as UAT-10820 and assessing with moderate confidence the activity is Russian and opportunistic rather than targeted. The infection chain uses ClearFake JavaScript injected via a Cloudflare Worker, EtherHiding storage on BNB Smart Chain contracts, and a ClickFix fake Google CAPTCHA prompt to deliver Amatera stealer. Secondary payloads differ by C2: one loader deploys ZigCryptoStealer with a Go reverse TCP proxy and a vulnerable driver that kills EDR, while the other installs an unauthorized NetSupport Manager with a Russia-based C2. Similar Amatera chains were separately documented by Malwarebytes and Blackpoint Cyber, but with no shared infrastructure.

Cisco Talos · 8d agoMalware in the wild1

Phishing Campaign Sends Millions of Emails Using Invisible Unicode to Evade Filters

Microsoft warns of a high-volume phishing campaign using invisible Unicode characters to split keywords like 'funding' and evade filters, peaking at 2.37 million daily messages.

Microsoft's Security Research team documented a high-volume phishing operation inserting deprecated Unicode Tags characters (U+E0000-U+E007F) inside financial keywords such as 'funding' so literal-string and regex email filters stop matching them. The campaign ran on a weekly cadence with 1-2.37 million weekday messages between February and May 15, 2026, peaking on February 26, 2026. It used hundreds of disposable finance-themed sender domains and relayed mail through ActiveCampaign's click-tracking infrastructure (acemlnd[.]com, activehosted[.]com), lending legitimate platform reputation. Microsoft ties the activity to an AI-assisted SBA loan phishing campaign that Fortra's FIRE team disclosed in September 2025.

The Hacker News · 12d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

ASCII smuggling crosses over from AI prompt injection to phishing evasion

Microsoft details high-volume phishing campaign using ASCII smuggling (Unicode tag chars) for filter evasion, peaking at 2.3M messages.

Microsoft researchers observed a high-volume finance-themed phishing campaign using invisible Unicode tag characters (U+E0000–U+E007F), a technique known from AI prompt injection research as ASCII smuggling, to split lure words like 'funding' and evade email filters. Telemetry from Microsoft Defender for Office 365 showed signature hits jump from roughly 21,000 messages on February 8, 2026 to more than 1.3 million on February 9, peaking above 2.3 million on February 11, with elevated weekday activity lasting approximately three months. The discovery emerged from prompt injection protection research, showing AI-era evasion techniques crossing into traditional phishing. Most messages were flagged by layered Defender protections rather than a single Unicode-specific signal.

Microsoft Security Blog · 13d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

Russian APT BlueDelta Uses HOOKEDGE to Target Defense and Diplomatic Organizations

Russian GRU-linked BlueDelta (APT28) deployed HOOKEDGE backdoor via macro Word lures against European governments using webhook.site and Microsoft Edge for stealthy C2.

Recorded Future's Insikt Group documented a BlueDelta (APT28/Fancy Bear/Forest Blizzard) espionage campaign from late September 2025 through early April 2026 targeting government and diplomatic organizations in Romania, Spain and Türkiye. The group delivered HOOKEDGE, a lightweight Windows batch-script backdoor, via macro-enabled Word documents with diplomatic lures, including one impersonating Spain's Ministry of the Presidency after a Spanish-Moldovan meeting. HOOKEDGE uses webhook.site as C2, a scheduled task every 30 minutes that downloads commands through Microsoft Edge, and canary pixels like docopened.jpg to track phishing funnel progress. A second tier with 5-minute check-ins served high-value victims, and beaconing intervals were stretched to 61 minutes to evade sandboxes; code overlap ties HOOKEDGE to BlueDelta's earlier HEADLACE backdoor.

Security Affairs · 19d agoThreat actor in the wild1