Report Date: 2026-08-16
New KEVs: 3 ▼ -3 vs last weekRansomware Victims: 247 ▲ +19 vs last week
3 vulnerabilities were added to the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog this period. Microsoft products show the strongest concentration of risk signals this week. Ransomware activity is moderate with 247 new victims posted to leak sites over the last 7 days, with Clop posting the most victims.
Patch This Week
The top 3 KEVs to remediate right now, ranked by CISA deadline proximity, ransomware exploitation, and severity. These are confirmed exploited — if you do nothing else today, patch these.
- CVE-2026-72898 – Metabase Metabase | CVSS 10.0 | EPSS 10.4% / 95th pct
CISA deadline: 2026-08-14 (overdue by 2d) — Apply mitigations in accordance with vendor instructions, ensuring compliance with CISA’s BOD 26-04 Prioritizing Security Updates Based on Risk (see URL in Notes) guidance and CISA’s “Forensics Triage Requirements” (see URL in Notes). Follow applicable BOD 26-04 guidance for cloud services or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. Stakeholders are responsible for evaluating each asset's internet exposure and ensuring adherence to BOD 26-04 patching guidelines. - CVE-2026-20349 – Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) | CVSS 8.6 | EPSS 0.9% / 56th pct
CISA deadline: 2026-08-14 (overdue by 2d) — Apply mitigations in accordance with vendor instructions, ensuring compliance with CISA’s BOD 26-04 Prioritizing Security Updates Based on Risk (see URL in Notes) guidance and CISA’s “Forensics Triage Requirements” (see URL in Notes). Follow applicable BOD 26-04 guidance for cloud services or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. Stakeholders are responsible for evaluating each asset's internet exposure and ensuring adherence to BOD 26-04 patching guidelines. - CVE-2026-68820 – Microsoft Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock | CVSS 7.0 | EPSS 0.3% / 26th pct
CISA deadline: 2026-08-25 (9d remaining) — Apply mitigations in accordance with vendor instructions, ensuring compliance with CISA’s BOD 26-04 Prioritizing Security Updates Based on Risk (see URL in Notes) guidance and CISA’s “Forensics Triage Requirements” (see URL in Notes). Follow applicable BOD 26-04 guidance for cloud services or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. Stakeholders are responsible for evaluating each asset's internet exposure and ensuring adherence to BOD 26-04 patching guidelines.
Top KEVs
Vulnerabilities confirmed actively exploited in the wild by CISA — ranked by ransomware use, then severity. Patch these before anything else.
This Reporting Window
- CVE-2026-72898 – Metabase Metabase | CVSS 10.0 (CRITICAL) | AV: Network | EPSS 10.4% / 95th pct | Ransomware Use: No
- CVE-2026-20349 – Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) | CVSS 8.6 (HIGH) | AV: Network | EPSS 0.9% / 56th pct | Ransomware Use: No
- CVE-2026-68820 – Microsoft Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock | CVSS 7.0 (HIGH) | AV: Local | EPSS 0.3% / 26th pct | Ransomware Use: No
Security News
Advisories, threat research, and incident reports from 12 sources across government, commercial research, and security journalism — prioritized by source credibility.
- CISA ICS AdvisoryAdvisory · 3 days ago – Siemens Siveillance Video
View CSAF Summary Siveillance Video Management Servers contains a vulnerability that could allow a Remote Code Execution attack. Siemens has released new versions for the affected products and recommends to update to the… - CISA ICS AdvisoryAdvisory · 3 days ago – ANDRITZ HIPASE-250 and 250 SCALA
View CSAF Summary Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to read data from the device or gain access to affected workstations. The following versions of ANDRITZ HIPASE-250 and 250 SCALA … - CISA ICS AdvisoryAdvisory · 3 days ago – Siemens Desigo DXR and PXC Controllers
View CSAF Summary A vulnerability in Desigo DXR and PXC controllers has been identified that could allow an attacker to cause denial of service conditions by sending malformed BACnet packets. Recovery requires a device r… - SANS ISCResearch · 3 days ago – Using Gemma4 with Ollama – Testing File Hash Analysis and Recommendations with AI, (Wed, Aug 12th)
In the past few weeks, I have been using Gemma4 as a Large Language Model (LLM) to see how useful it can be to analyze some of the malware hashes uploaded to the DShield sensor over the past 30 days and figure out how it… - SANS ISCResearch · 5 days ago – Microsoft Patch Tuesday August 2026, (Tue, Aug 11th)
This month we got patches for 418 vulnerabilities. Of these, 62 are critical, 1 is being exploited in the wild, and 2 were publicly disclosed as zero-days. Notable fixes include Windows privilege escalation, container ta… - Unit 42Research · 5 days ago – Kimwolf v7: An Evolution of the Kimwolf Botnet
Discover how Kimwolf v7 targets Android IoT devices with HTTP/2 DDoS fingerprinting, Ethereum ENS C2 resolution and Tor backup routing. The post Kimwolf v7: An Evolution of the Kimwolf Botnet appeared first on Unit 42 . - Unit 42Research · 6 days ago – The Permanent Threat: Analyzing Aeternum’s Blockchain-Based C2 Operations and Communications
Analysis of the Aeternum botnet loader, a threat leveraging Polygon blockchain smart contracts for decentralized C2 infrastructure and payload execution. The post The Permanent Threat: Analyzing Aeternum’s Blockchain-Bas… - Sophos X-OpsResearch · 5 days ago – deno-case-studies
Attack TTPs combine fileless execution, wide LOLBin use Categories: Threat Research - Sophos X-OpsIncident · 5 days ago – ClickFix campaign abuses Deno runtime for infostealer delivery
Lures on compromised WordPress sites led to installation of Deno and a Python-based infostealer Categories: Threat Research Tags: clickfix, Deno, WordPress - The RecordIncident · 2 days ago – France investigates tax authority breach after hacker claims 600,000 victims
French authorities confirmed that someone gained unauthorized access to systems at the Directorate General of Public Finances in late June after stealing or misusing someoneâs identity. - The RecordNews · 3 days ago – New Mirai variant adds stealth capabilities to notorious botnet code
Beyond Miraiâs usual functions, the new code features include encrypted communications with command-and-control servers and a âsnifferâ that looks for default access credentials. - Security Affairs (APT)News · today – Mustang Panda Upgrades CoolClient With a Kernel Rootkit
Mustang Panda upgraded CoolClient with a signed kernel driver that hides processes, files and network activity, making the backdoor harder to detect. HoneyMyte, also known as Mustang Panda, has pushed its CoolClient back… - Security Affairs (APT)Incident · today – APT36 Suspected in PATCHCORD Espionage Campaign Using Google Sheets C2
Acronis uncovered PATCHCORD, a stealthy backdoor targeting Afghan telecom and South Asian infrastructure via fake VPN tools and Google Sheets C2. Researchers at Acronis just documented an espionage operation that reads l… - Security Affairs (Cybercrime)Incident · today – Sophisticated Cyberattack Exposes Data of 678,000 French Taxpayers
France’s tax agency says hackers stole data on 678,000 taxpayers, including income and tax details, in a sophisticated cyberattack. A threat actor claimed to have breached France’s tax agency in late June. France&#… - Security Affairs (Cybercrime)News · yesterday – Crooks Are Buying Your Expired Domains and Using Them to Deliver Malware
Attackers are buying expired domains to exploit their reputation, traffic and DNS history, using them for malware delivery, scams and C2 infrastructure. Every day, roughly 65,000 domain names that once belonged to someon…
Ransomware Activity
Victim counts posted to ransomware group leak sites — use this to gauge which groups are most active and which sectors and regions are being targeted.
32 new victims posted today
7-day total: 247 via Ransomware.live
Infostealer Exposure: 682 employee credentials and 68,387 user credentials compromised via infostealer malware across victim organisations — indicating credential theft likely preceded these ransomware deployments.
Most Active Groups
Group Intelligence
- Clop — The ransomware group known as Cl0p is a variant of a previously known strain dubbed CryptoMix. It is worth noting that this variant was delivered as the final payload in a phishing campaign in 2019 and was exclusively financially motivated, with attacks carried out by the threat actors TA505.<br> <br> At that time, malicious actors sent phishing emails that led to a macro-enabled document that would drop a loader called 'Get2.' After gaining an initial foothold in the system or infrastructure, the actors began using reconnaissance, lateral movement, and exfiltration techniques to prepare for the deployment of the ransomware.<br> <br> After the execution of the ransomware, Cl0p appends the extension '.clop' to the end of files, or other types of extensions such as '.CIIp, .Cllp, and .C_L_O_P,' as well as different versions of the ransom note that were also observed after encryption. Depending on the variant, any of the ransom text files were created with names like 'ClopReadMe.txt, README_README.txt, Cl0pReadMe.txt, and READ_ME_!!!.TXT.'<br> <br> The Clop operation has shifted from delivering its final payload via phishing and has begun initiating attacks using vulnerabilities that resulted in the exploitation and infection of victims' infrastructures.<BR>Source: https://github.com/crocodyli/ThreatActors-TTPs
- Qilin — Qilin ransomware was first observed in July of 2022. Qilin Ransomware is written in Golang and supports multiple encryption modes; all of which are controlled by the operator. Qilin actors practice double extortion – demanding payment for a decryptor, as well as for the non-release of stolen data.
- Thegentlemen — The Gentlemen is a RaaS group that emerged in July–August 2025, rapidly claiming over 320 victims across 17+ countries by offering affiliates a 90% revenue share, deploying a Go-based locker against Windows, Linux, NAS, and BSD systems; a compromised C2 server in 2026 revealed more than 1,570 linked victims.
- Direwolf — Dire Wolf is a sophisticated human-operated ransomware group first documented in May 2025, written in Golang using Curve25519/ChaCha20 encryption, targeting manufacturing and technology sectors across 13+ countries with ransoms up to $500,000, operated by a tight core team rather than a broad affiliate program.
Most Targeted Sectors
Top Countries
US (84), IT (16), DE (13), GB (12), IN (10)
Notable Incidents
- PharmaEssentia (Healthcare · TW) — claimed by Thegentlemen. pharmaessentia.com zoominfo.com/c/pharmaessentia-corp/145441146 PharmaEssentia is a global biopharmaceutical innovator founded in 2003 and headquartered in Taiwan.
It specializes in developing best-in-class therapies an… Press coverage → - vgrn.de (Energy & Utilities · DE) — claimed by Lockbit5. Verbandsgemeinde Rhein-Nahe is a company that operates in the Government industry. Press coverage →
- Cook Medical LLC (Healthcare · US) — claimed by Shinyhunters. Customer data, employee data, and other internal corporate data was compromised. The Company engaged with us but made several paltry offers, did not want to pay what we asked for and decided they are okay with the data l… Press coverage →
- DXS International (Technology · GB) — claimed by Direwolf. Healthcare Press coverage →
- Columbia University Information (Dental) (Healthcare · US) — claimed by Global Secret Group. Country: New York, US |
Website: columbia.edu |
Revenue: $6.6 Billion |
Industry: Colleges & Universities |
Employees: 20.000-25.000 |
Properties: 296 GB (283,387 Files, 11,268 Folders) Press coverage →
Vendor-Specific Risks
Vendors with confirmed KEV exploitation this week — the stacked bar shows how that exposure breaks down across exploited CVEs (red), critical CVEs to watch (orange), and news mentions (yellow). Prioritize patching vendors with the largest red segment.
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