CVE-2026-20182 (CVSS 10.0, CWE-287) is a critical authentication bypass in the Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller’s vdaemon DTLS service (UDP 12346). By presenting “device_type = 2” (vHub) during the CHALLENGE_ACK phase, an unauthenticated remote attacker hits a fall-through in “vbond_proc_challenge_ack()” that unconditionally sets “authenticated = 1” — from there it’s a short hop to “MSG_VMANAGE_TO_PEER” SSH-key injection into “/home/vmanage-admin/.ssh/authorized_keys” and full NETCONF control of the SD-WAN fabric. Discovered by Rapid7’s Stephen Fewer and Jonah Burgess; a Metasploit module ships with this post. Cisco has fixed it — upgrade now.
CVE-2026-40369: Arbitrary Kernel Address Increment via NtQuerySystemInformation
CVE-2026-40369 is a Windows kernel bug in “nt!ExpGetProcessInformation” that lets any unprivileged process — including one inside Chrome’s renderer sandbox — increment three DWORDs at an attacker-chosen kernel address per syscall, with no race condition, no heap spray, and 100% determinism. This deep dive walks Ori Nimron’s full exploit chain: KASLR via the prefetch side-channel, arbitrary kernel “read” via “CmpLayerVersions” type confusion (built on the Windows UTF-8 conversion path), token-privilege bitmask increment to grant SeDebugPrivilege, code injection into a SYSTEM process, and a clean restore of “CmpLayerVersionCount” at the end. Rewritten from the canonical pwn2nimron.com writeup with all original IDA decompilations and the PoC reproduced verbatim.
Ghidra Basics: Reverse-Engineering Cobalt Strike Shellcode and Extracting the C2 Server
A practical walkthrough of using Ghidra and x32dbg to disassemble a Cobalt Strike beacon shellcode, identify the PUSH/CALL EBP hash-then-dispatch pattern, resolve API hashes such as “0x726774c” (LoadLibraryA), “0xa779563a” (InternetOpenA) and “0xc69f8957” (InternetConnectA), recognise ROR13 as the hashing algorithm, and extract the C2 IP “195.211.98[.]91” from the decoded calls. Original rewrite of Matthew’s tutorial on embeeresearch.io with all 56 original screenshots preserved.
CVE-2021-21735: From Unauthenticated Information Leak to Full Admin Compromise on ZTE ZXHN H168N
A deep dive into CVE-2021-21735 on the ZTE ZXHN H168N home gateway, where two unauthenticated wizard endpoints (wizard_pppoe_lua.lua and wizard_wlan_config_lua.lua) leaked PPPoE identifiers, SSID data, and Wi-Fi passphrases — converting a “low-severity” information disclosure into a full administrative and WLAN takeover path. Includes the root-cause analysis, request/response patterns, the disclosure timeline, and the ZTE vs. NVD severity split.
The epoll UAF: A Same-CPU Preemption Race in fs/eventpoll.c on Linux 6.6+
Deep-dive writeup on a Linux kernel use-after-free in “fs/eventpoll.c”. A 2023 optimisation traded a global “epmutex” for per-instance reference counting in epoll’s graph-walking code, but left the walkers running under “rcu_read_lock()” while “ep_free()” kept calling plain “kfree(ep)” with no RCU deferral — opening a same-CPU preemption race that yields a constrained write through a freed “struct eventpoll”. Fixed in commit “07712db80857″by switching to “kfree_rcu(ep, rcu)”. Affects Linux 6.6+ including Android (Pixel 10 tested).
Gargoyle, A Decade Later: Josh Lospinoso’s Memory-Scanning Evasion Idea, Refreshed for 2026
The 2017 Windows research demo that flipped page protections so a shellcode region was non-executable at scan time and executable only during brief work windows. The 2026 refresh keeps the original Win32/x86 proof of concept central, adds x64, ARM64, and ARM64EC sibling demonstrations, fixes a subtle “SetWaitableTimer” “SleepEx” APC validation error, and reframes the whole exercise as a measurement problem about temporal memory state rather than a hiding trick.
CVE-2026-41873: Apache Pony Mail OAuth SSRF + Lua CRLF Smuggling = Unauthenticated Account Takeover
STAR Labs’ advisory on CVE-2026-41873 in Apache Pony Mail by Li Jiantao and Tevel Sho (disclosed 28 April 2026). Two independent bugs reach the same outcome — full admin takeover — without any authentication. In the modern Foal (Python) build, an attacker-supplied “oauth_token” URL drives a blind SSRF against the local Elasticsearch SQL endpoint, leaking the admin session cookie character-by-character (CVSS 9.1). In the legacy Lua build (now retired, no patch), a single unescaped query parameter in “email.lua” lets the attacker inject CRLF bytes into the Elasticsearch HTTP request and smuggle a second request that creates an admin account outright.
OpenTrafficMap’s €20 ESP32-C5 Board Turns 802.11p V2X Into a Public Map of Traffic Lights and Buses
CNX Software write-up on the OpenTrafficMap project — a €20 open-source ESP32-C5 receiver board that taps the 5.9 GHz 802.11p ITS-G5 V2X stack used by European traffic lights, buses, trams, trucks and connected vehicles, decodes CAM/DENM/SPATEM/MAPEM messages, and publishes them to a public map via NATS. Twenty units already deployed; group-buy of 450 boards shipping. Includes the original board photos, the deployment shot with a Mikrotik 4G uplink, the pole-mount enclosure, and the Graz Linux Days 2026 talk video.
CVE-2026-5426: Mandiant Catches ViewState RCE Against KnowledgeDeliver LMS in Japan
Disclosure of CVE-2026-5426: an ASP.NET ViewState deserialization RCE in Digital Knowledge’s KnowledgeDeliver LMS, caused by identical hardcoded “machineKey values” shipped to every customer. Pre-Feb-24-2026 deployments are exploitable as a zero-day. Mandiant observed BLUEBEAM (Godzilla-class) in-memory web shells, JavaScript tampering for follow-on social engineering, and Cobalt Strike BEACON keyed to the victim’s name — with Application Event ID 1316 (code 4009) as the primary detection signal.
z386: An Open-Source FPGA 80386 Driven by the Original Intel Microcode
Open-source FPGA recreation of Intel’s 80386 that runs the original recovered Intel microcode rather than re-implementing instruction behaviour from scratch. The result is an 8 K-line, 18 K-ALUT, 85 MHz core that boots DOS, runs DOS/4GW and DOS/32A extenders, and plays Doom and Doom II — with detailed comparison against 486 and a clear silicon-archaeology angle relevant to reverse engineers and hardware security researchers.










