privilege escalation | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A use-after-free bug in Linux's SCTP networking code can be turned into full root on a host, and Tencent researchers say they used it to escape a container and reach the machine underneath. The flaw has existed since 2008. The fix already shipped: stable kernels 7.1.6, 6.18.42, 6.12.101 and 6.6.148, released August 3, close it. Anyone running an older kernel with SCTP reachable should update. Tracked as  CVE-2026-64564  and named SCTPhantom by its finders, the flaw was disclosed publicly on August 6, two days after the kernel CVE team assigned it. No public exploit code had surfaced at the time of writing, and The Hacker News found no entry for the flaw in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog as of August 7. The flaw is local, not remote, and it needs SCTP reachable on the target, which limits exposure. Where those conditions held, Tencent Zhuque Lab reports it got root on the kernel builds it tested for Debian 13, Ubuntu 24.04, Rocky Linux 9 and RHEL 9, and ...

Zapscape , a new Linux kernel vulnerability, could allow an attacker with kernel privileges inside an L1 guest virtual machine (VM) to escape KVM isolation and execute code on the host. The risk applies when nested virtualization is exposed to untrusted guests. The flaw is tracked as  CVE-2026-64561  and affects KVM/x86's shadow memory management unit (MMU), which manages shadow page tables used for nested guest memory translation. Security researcher Hyunwoo Kim, who disclosed the bug, said the demonstrated exploit path can run commands on the host with kernel, or root, privileges. The upstream fix has been merged, and administrators running KVM hosts that expose nested virtualization to untrusted guests should update to a fixed stable kernel or a vendor package that backports the patch. The required L1 kernel privilege usually means guest root. Intel systems also require both EPT page-walk length 4 and 5 to be exposed to the L1 guest. AMD has no equivalent conditio...

Attackers broke into an organization's Oracle database through a SQL injection flaw in a public-facing web application, then installed a post-exploitation toolkit without writing an executable to disk. They fed Java source code to the database, let Oracle compile it into stored schema objects, and ran commands from inside the database engine. Huntress, which tracks the toolkit as khunt , investigated after credential-theft detections fired on July 27, 2026, and traced the chain to SYSTEM-level code execution on the underlying Windows server. The flaw sat in the application, where an autocomplete search field passed unvalidated input to the database over a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) connection. The account behind that connection had enough privilege to create Java objects. No Oracle patch closes either the application flaw or the account privilege behind it. Finding the toolkit means hunting: search the Oracle installation for object names beginning Khunt, and SQL logs...

A memory corruption flaw in the Linux kernel's Open vSwitch datapath gives ordinary local users a path to root on a broad set of default-configured distributions, and a public exploit ships with pre-built records for roughly 800 kernel builds. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-64531 (CVSS score: 7.8) and codenamed OVSwrap by its discoverer, was disclosed by security researcher Asim Manizada on July 28, 2026. The bug sits in the kernel datapath, not the userspace ovs-vswitchd daemon. In a technical write-up , Manizada said an attacker needs "no existing OVS bridge, no running ovs-vswitchd, no host-level CAP_NET_ADMIN." On affected systems where the OVS kernel datapath is available and unprivileged user namespaces are enabled, an ordinary user can create private user and network namespaces with unshare -Urn, gain CAP_NET_ADMIN inside that namespace, and reach the vulnerable flow-installation path. If the openvswitch module is installed but not loaded, resolvi...

cPanel has patched a flaw that let an authenticated hosting customer execute SQL in the database's root context, crossing the privilege boundary between a cPanel account and the server's administrative database identity. It shipped in a targeted security release that closes two other routes past account boundaries. The database bug is tracked as CVE-2026-58048 (CVSS 4.0 score: 9.4) and affects all supported versions of cPanel & WHM, along with WP Squared. Reaching it requires a valid cPanel account and access to the MySQL/MariaDB feature. From there, the vendor says the account holder could execute arbitrary database commands with full administrative privileges. Depending on the operating system and database engine configuration, “this may extend to operating-system-level compromise.” cPanel patched CVE-2026-58048 in these builds: 11.110.0.137 11.118.0.71 11.126.0.78 11.134.0.48 11.136.0.32 138.1.6 for WP Squared Servers that cannot update immediately can ...

Adobe has released security updates to address a maximum-severity security flaw in Campaign Classic (ACC), its enterprise-focused marketing automation platform, that could result in arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-48449 , carries a severity score of 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. It has been described as a case of incorrect authorization that could result in arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user without requiring any user interaction. The update also resolves another high-severity flaw ( CVE-2026-48448 , CVSS score: 8.6) stemming from SQL injection that could pave the way for arbitrary file reads. "This update addresses critical vulnerabilities that could result in arbitrary code execution and arbitrary file system read," Adobe said in an advisory. The company noted that it's not aware of any of the flaws being exploited in the wild. Both shortcomings have been addressed in ACC v7: 7.4.3 build 9398 for W...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a previously undocumented Go-based loader framework called HollowFrame and a Rust-based malware family tracked as Matryoshka . According to Blackpoint Cyber, the intrusion sequence begins with a spear-phishing message containing a link to an encrypted archive, which holds a Windows Shortcut (LNK). Executing the file triggers a multi-stage chain that involves privilege escalation, weakening Microsoft Defender protections, and downloading additional payloads. While HollowFrame is launched via a DLL side-loading pair comprising the legitimate Python binary ("python.exe") and a rogue DLL ("python311.dll"), Matryoshka comes in two variants, one which supports HTTP-based communication and command execution, and another that uses GitHub for command-and-control (C2), including beaconing, tasking, reconnaissance, file transfer, and secondary payload delivery. "Together, HollowFrame and Matryoshka gave the actor a pers...

STAR Labs has published a Linux kernel exploit that turns an ordinary local user into root on the CentOS Stream 9 build it targeted. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-53264 (CVSS score: 7.8), is a use-after-free race in the kernel's network traffic-control subsystem. Researcher Lee Jia Jie said artificial intelligence (AI) helped him find the bug and speed up exploit development. This is local privilege escalation, not remote code execution, so an attacker needs a foothold on the machine before any of it applies. The demonstrated exploit also requires unprivileged user namespaces, the CONFIG_NET_ACT_GACT and CONFIG_NET_CLS_FLOWER kernel options, and a kernel-specific return-oriented programming (ROP) chain containing hardcoded offsets. Those conditions narrow the immediate exposure, but full exploit source code is now public. The upstream fix landed on June 1, 2026, and has since been backported to several stable kernel branches. The Linux CNA record lists vulnerable ranges begi...

Researchers H0j3n and Aniq Fakhrul published a working exploit on July 24 that lets a low-privileged Active Directory user obtain a certificate for a Domain Controller and authenticate as that machine. They codenamed the flaw Certighost . Because Domain Controller accounts carry directory replication rights, the resulting Kerberos credential can retrieve the krbtgt secret through DCSync . Microsoft patched the Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) issue ten days earlier as CVE-2026-54121 . Microsoft classed the flaw as improper authorization and assigned it a CVSS score of 8.8. Exploitation requires network access and a domain account, but no administrator rights or user interaction. In the researchers' test, a normal Domain Users account could create a computer account under the default ms-DS-MachineAccountQuota value of 10 or reuse one it already controlled. The chain also required an Enterprise CA that followed the vulnerable chain path, enrollment through t...

Someone installed a popular AI assistant on a rented server, switched off the setting that makes it ask permission before running risky commands, and pointed it at Thailand's Ministry of Finance, which runs the country's treasury and tax collection. The agent then worked through the ministry's network on its own, checking hosts for ways to gain root access, hunting through file systems, and crawling a folder of staff personnel records going back to 2012. The operator left the agent's own logs sitting on a web server with directory listing switched on, where threat intelligence firm Hunt.io and researcher Bob Diachenko found them, along with 585 files and 470 MB of attack tooling. The tool is Hermes , an open-source assistant from Nous Research that people install to manage their mail, run chores, and take instructions over Telegram or Slack. It is not a hacking tool, and nothing here is a flaw in it. The mode the operator used, called YOLO, is a documented feat...

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a sandbox escape vulnerability in Anthropic's Claude Cowork that makes it possible to break out of the confines of a Linux virtual machine (VM) within which the agent runs to read or write files anywhere on the Mac. Accomplish AI, which shared details of the vulnerability with The Hacker News ahead of publication, said about 500,000 macOS users running local Cowork sessions were affected prior to it being patched. It has been codenamed SharedRoot . "We connected a folder to a fresh Claude Cowork session, sent one short message, and watched the agent escape the sandbox," Oren Yomtov, principal security researcher at Accomplish AI, said . "From inside the VM, it reached the host Mac and read and wrote files all over it, far outside the folder we'd connected, with no permission prompt anywhere." With this level of access, the agent can access any data stored on the Mac via the user's account, including SSH ke...

RefluXFS , a Linux kernel flaw disclosed on July 22 and tracked as CVE-2026-64600 , lets an unprivileged local user overwrite root-owned files on an XFS filesystem and gain persistent root access. Qualys said default installations of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its derivatives, Fedora Server, and Amazon Linux can meet the conditions for exploitation. The company demonstrated the race against /etc/passwd and setuid-root binaries. The overwrite lands at the block layer. It survives a reboot and leaves the target's ownership, permissions, timestamps, and setuid bit untouched, so a modified setuid-root binary still runs as root. The fix was merged on July 16, and Linux vendors have begun shipping backported kernels. The patch traces the bug to Linux 4.11 in 2017: a Fixes: tag naming commit 3c68d44a2b49 and a stable backport request marked # v4.11 . Who is exposed Exploitation requires three conditions: The system runs Linux 4.11 or later without the RefluXFS fix....

Check Point has released security updates to address multiple vulnerabilities impacting Security Management and Multi-Domain Management (MDSM) products, including a critical flaw that has come under active exploitation in the wild . The security flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-16232 (CVSS score: 9.3), is an authentication bypass affecting the Check Point SmartConsole login process that allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to obtain an application login token and use it to authenticate with full administrative privileges. "Successful exploitation allows the attacker to modify security policies and security configurations," according to a description of the flaw in CVE.org. "Remote exploitation requires internet access to the Management Server IP address and a configuration that does not restrict Trusted Clients." Lotem Finkelstein, vice president of research at Check Point, said the company is aware of a handful of customers being targeted by this flaw, and t...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new local privilege escalation (LPE) vulnerability in snap-confine that an unprivileged user can trigger to obtain root access and gain complete control of a target environment. The high-severity flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-8933 (CVSS score: 7.8), impacts default installations of Ubuntu Desktop 24.04, 25.10, and 26.04. The disclosure comes as 442 security flaws in Linux have been publicized over the past three days. "The issue stems from a security hardening change that inadvertently introduced a race condition during sandbox initialization," Saeed Abbasi, head of Threat Research Unit (TRU) and director of product at Qualys, said. Snap-confine is a program used internally by snapd to construct the execution environment for snap applications. Snapd is the background service or daemon that manages snap packages on Linux systems. Snaps are nothing but a software packaging format devised by Canonical that allows an app...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new software supply chain attack codenamed SleeperGem targeting the Ruby ecosystem after three malicious gems were published to RubyGems with the end goal of serving additional payloads. The rogue gems are listed below - git_credential_manager (versions 2.8.0, 2.8.1, 2.8.2, 2.8.3) - Published on July 18, 2026 Dendreo (versions 1.1.3, 1.1.4) - Published on October 14, 2017 fastlane-plugin-run_tests_firebase_testlab (version 0.3.2) - Published on February 06, 2018 "Each malicious release is a loader," StepSecurity said in an analysis. "It fetches a second stage from an attacker controlled Forgejo host, checks whether it is running in a build system and skips if it is, and on a developer machine it drops a native daemon and installs persistence." One aspect of the attack that immediately stands out is that "git_credential_manager" impersonates the official Microsoft Git Credential Manager, while t...

A previously undocumented threat actor has been attributed to the exploitation of recently disclosed SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 1000 series VPN appliances as zero-days prior their public disclosure since June 22, 2026. Cybersecurity company Volexity is tracking the activity under the moniker UTA0533 . The discovery was made following an incident response investigation earlier this month. The impacted organization has not been identified. "This threat actor was observed using multiple zero-day exploits, malware designed specifically for SonicWall SMA VPN appliances, as well as other attacker tradecraft," security researchers Sean Koessel and Steven Adair said in an analysis. The vulnerabilities in question are CVE-2026-15409 (CVSS score: 10.0) and CVE-2026-15410 (CVSS score: 7.2), both of which could be chained to facilitate arbitrary command execution and take over susceptible devices. Patches for both the vulnerabilities were released by SonicWall this wee...

Cybersecurity researchers have called attention to a new modular malware called TELEPUZ that's been spreading via websites infected with ClickFix lures since late April 2026. "The malware is full-featured, lightweight, and modular," Elastic Security Labs researcher Cyril François said in a technical report. "While the number of C2 [command-and-control] domains is currently small, the daily volume of builds uploaded to VirusTotal and the rapid pace of updates indicate active development and likely further growth." The disclosure makes it the second new threat cluster after SCMBANKER to be propagated via ClickFix , a pervasive social engineering attack that tricks users into manually running malicious commands by disguising them as innocent fixes for fake browser errors, software updates, or CAPTCHA verifications. Underpinning the technique is an approach called clipboard hijacking. Because web pages using ClickFix inject malicious script or commands i...

Zoom has released security updates for a critical security flaw impacting Zoom Workplace for Windows that could facilitate account takeover. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-53412 (CVSS score: 9.8), affects Zoom Workplace for Windows before version 7.0.0 and Zoom Workplace VDI Client for Windows before version 7.0.10, 6.6.15, and 6.5.18 in their respective branches. "Improper Input Validation in Zoom Desktop Client for Windows and Zoom VDI Client for Windows may allow an unauthenticated user to conduct an account takeover via network access," Zoom said in an advisory released this week. The latest security fixes also address three high-severity flaws - CVE-2026-53411 (CVSS score: 7.8) - An improper input validation vulnerability in the Zoom Workplace VDI Plugin for Windows before version 6.6.14 that may allow an authenticated user to conduct an escalation of privilege via local access. CVE-2026-53410 (CVSS score: 7.0) - A time-of-check to time-of-use ...

Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse (aka Nightmare-Eclipse ) has released a new proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit called LegacyHive. It has been described as a Windows User Profile Service arbitrary hive load elevation of privileges vulnerability. The Windows User Profile Service, also referred to as ProfSvc, is a core system component that manages user accounts and environments. "The PoC requires another standard user credential and a third username (which can be an administrator account)," Chaotic Eclipse said . "If the PoC is successful, it will end up mounting the target user hive in the current user classes root." The researcher said the exploit was stripped down to prevent public exploitation, adding the original exploit did not require additional user credentials and was not limited to the "usrclass.dat" hive. "Any hive could be loaded using this vulnerability, but you would need some brain cells to make the PoC do it," the researc...

Microsoft shipped its largest Patch Tuesday on record today, and two of the fixes close holes that attackers are already exploiting. The release covers 622 of Microsoft's own CVEs by its  Security Update Guide  count, more than triple  June's previous high of around 200 . Those two live bugs are the ones to grab first. Microsoft credits incident responders for both. Both are elevation-of-privilege flaws in identity and collaboration infrastructure: CVE-2026-56164 in on-premises SharePoint Server and CVE-2026-56155 in Active Directory Federation Services. Neither is one of the splashy remote code execution criticals. They are privilege bugs in two systems that matter more than their scores suggest: the company document store, and the box that signs its logins. The two zero-days to patch first CVE-2026-56164 , a SharePoint Server flaw Microsoft says is being exploited in attacks, lets an unauthenticated attacker escalate privileges over the ne...