BlueMoon Exploit Kit Chains Recent Chrome, Windows Zero-Days
Proofpoint reports multiple espionage groups rapidly adopting BlueMoon, a new exploit kit chaining Chrome and Windows zero-days.
Proofpoint identified a new exploit kit, BlueMoon, chaining two Chrome V8 zero-days (CVE-2026-85046, CVE-2026-87491) with a Windows ALPC privilege escalation zero-day (CVE-2026-85880), all patched between September 3 and September 2026 Patch Tuesday. China-linked Violet Typhoon (APT31) first used it on August 28 against US NGOs and mining/commodity trading firms; UNK_LateNight, UNK_DoubleCheck, and UNK_QuietRacket adopted it within days against targets in the US, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore. The kit exploits the V8 defects for sandbox escape, fingerprints the host, and injects a CreateProcess stub into the Chrome broker process to download and execute a payload via curl. Development artifacts suggest the kit's creators may have used AI to build it, potentially lowering the barrier to exploit development.
- BlueMoon chains two Chrome V8 zero-days and a Windows ALPC privilege escalation zero-day
- Violet Typhoon (APT31) first used it August 28 against US NGOs, mining, and commodity trading firms
- Three more actors adopted it within days, hitting aerospace, manufacturing, government, and finance
- Proofpoint suggests AI agents may have lowered the barrier to exploit kit development
- Adoption was fast but noisy, with high detection signals across deployments
Coverage
oldest first · one row per article · UTC- · Sep 9, 2026
The RecordFirst report
Multiple Chinese hacking groups seen using identical Chrome zero-day exploit
Four China-linked espionage groups share identical BlueMoon Chrome zero-day exploit kit targeting US defense contractors and Asian government agencies.
- · Sep 9, 2026
The Hacker News
Four Spy Groups Used the Same Chrome and Windows Exploit Kit Within a Week
Proofpoint links four espionage clusters, including China's APT31, using shared exploit kit BlueMoon chaining Chrome V8 and Windows ALPC zero-days.
Vulnerabilities in this story
All| CVE | Vulnerability | CVSS | EPSS | Signals | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-85046 | Actively Exploited V8 Type Confusion in Google Chrome (CVE-2026-85046) | 8.8 | 2% | KEVPoC ×6 | KEV |
| CVE-2026-85880 | Heap-Based Buffer Overflow in Windows ALPC Enables Local Privilege Escalation | 7.8 | <1% | KEV | KEV |
| CVE-2026-86218 | Pre-Auth Static Code Injection RCE in N-able N-central (Exploited in the Wild) | 10.0 | 15% | KEVPoC ×3 | KEV |
| CVE-2026-87491 | Actively Exploited Out-of-Bounds Write in Google Chrome V8 | 8.8 | 4% | KEV | KEV |