Hackers Chain Chrome and Windows Zero-Days in New BlueMoon Exploit Kit Attacks
Multiple espionage actors, mostly China-nexus, are chaining Chrome V8 and Windows kernel zero-days (CVE-2026-85046, CVE-2026-85880) via the BlueMoon exploit kit against government and defense targets.
Proofpoint identified a new exploit kit dubbed BlueMoon chaining a Chromium V8 type-confusion RCE (CVE-2026-85046), a V8 sandbox escape, and a Windows kernel LPE (CVE-2026-85880). At least four distinct threat clusters, most with suspected China nexus, adopted the kit within days starting with TA412 (Violet Typhoon/APT31) on August 28, 2026. Both Chrome-side flaws were patch-gap zero-days with roughly a four-week exploitation window; the Windows LPE only works on Windows 10 and Server 2019/2022. TA412 used spearphishing posing as university interns to deliver the GemStone browser backdoor disguised as a Google Gemini extension; other clusters delivered ShadowPad via DLL sideloading and a Rust loader against targets in aerospace, government, and finance.
KindaRails2Shell threatens Ruby on Rails apps (CVE-2026-66066)
Critical CVE-2026-66066 in Rails' Active Storage/libvips allows unauthenticated arbitrary file read and possible RCE; active exploitation now observed.
CVE-2026-66066 (KindaRails2Shell), discovered by Ethiack researchers and independently by RyotaK of GMO Flatt Security, lets attackers upload crafted files that exploit libvips' handling of specialty formats to read arbitrary files, including process environment secrets, potentially escalating to RCE. Default Rails 7.0+ setups using Active Storage with the vips processor are affected before versions 7.2.3.2, 8.0.5.1, and 8.1.3.1; fixes shipped July 29, 2026, with VIPS_BLOCK_UNTRUSTED as a partial mitigation. Proof-of-concept exploits circulated after disclosure, and VulnCheck updated that it observed active exploitation originating from a single French IP establishing C2 to a host in Israel. Akamai deployed WAF rules, but experts stress patching and credential rotation over filtering alone.