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Prolific ransomware group behind SonicWall zero-day attacks

Researchers said INC ransomware, one of the most active ransomware groups globally, has been the main attacker exploiting a pair of SonicWall zero-days soon after they were disclosed last month.

The prolific ransomware-as-a-service operation wasn’t the first group to exploit the flaws, which were actively exploited for three weeks before the vendor disclosed and patched the defects July 14, but it has been the most assertive and concerning group to target and chain both vulnerabilities together for full access.

“Since public disclosure, INC ransomware has emerged as the most commonly named threat actor actively weaponizing this vulnerability chain,” Brett Deroche, director of incident response at Rapid7, told CyberScoop. “While Inc is the name driving the post-disclosure wave, we can’t attribute the full body of exploitation to INC specifically.”

SonicWall did not respond to a request for comment.

The SonicWall vulnerabilities — CVE-2026-15409 and CVE-2026-15410 — are the latest in a series of security issues confronting the vendor’s customers, including actively exploited zero-days, previously disclosed defects, and an attack last year that allowed a state-sponsored threat group to steal the firewall configurations of every SonicWall customer

Just last week, Huntress researchers spotted an attack spree that compromised 30 SonicWall customers in less than two days. 

Ransomware groups have taken a special interest in SonicWall. Ten of the 17 SonicWall defects added to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s known exploited vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog since late 2021 are known to be used in ransomware campaigns.

INC ransomware, which has claimed nearly 900 victims across 71 countries since it was first discovered three years ago, is just the latest financially-motivated group to target SonicWall customers. 

Researchers haven’t determined how many organizations have been impacted by the latest SonicWall zero-days, including attacks linked to INC ransomware. 

“Attribution here isn’t a single clean answer. The earliest exploitation we observed, beginning June 22, traced back to common hosted infrastructure, though those attacks were largely unsuccessful,” Deroche said. 

“INC’s confirmed activity that we’ve observed came after public disclosure, using different infrastructure and moving from initial access to ransomware deployment in short order. That’s a meaningfully different operational tempo and skill level than what we saw pre-disclosure,” he added. 

Deroche said Rapid7 has successfully prevented data theft and encryption in the majority of recent cases, yet noted ransomware was deployed in at least one case the security vendor observed.

Yet, there could be other attacks outside the purview of Rapid7’s telemetry. INC ransomware has listed multiple new alleged victims on its data leak site, including organizations and government agencies in Australia, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Colombia and Switzerland, Resecurity said in a blog post Saturday.

The company said it has aided several victims with incident response, and learned multiple victims received emails and phone calls from alleged hackers who pressured them to engage in negotiations.

The post Prolific ransomware group behind SonicWall zero-day attacks appeared first on CyberScoop.

Huntress warns about attack spree that hit 30 SonicWall customers in 2 days

Huntress researchers spotted an active and ongoing series of attacks targeting SonicWall VPN and firewall accounts, which compromised 30 organizations in less than two days, the company said in a threat advisory Tuesday.

The credential stuffing campaign started Saturday and grew rapidly, ultimately compromising 92 unique user accounts during the next 41 hours, according to Huntress. Researchers said the attacks were broad and opportunistic, hitting various SonicWall devices, rather than targeting specific types of organizations.

SonicWall hasn’t released a security advisory about the malicious activity as of press time. A spokesperson told CyberScoop the company is still investigating and hopes to have more information soon.

The attacks ended — at least for now — as abruptly as they began. The last compromise occurred Monday, according to Michael Tigges, principal tactical response analyst at Huntress.

“This fits campaign trends,” he said. “A rash of compromise will break out, followed by silence until the adversary rotates infrastructure.”

Attackers, which haven’t been identified, have also refrained from initiating any post-compromise activity, indicating the intrusions could be pre-positioning for future attacks. 

“With local network access, the sky is essentially the limit for most networks that do not have proper topology controls in place,” Tigges said.

Huntress’ observations are limited to telemetry it collects from its customers, meaning all of the identified victims were Huntress customers using SonicWall devices, so the number of organizations impacted could be greater. 

Researchers haven’t identified a root cause for the attacks, noting that they begin with authorized logins. Attackers are validating credentials against remote access portals to compromise as many vulnerable accounts as possible, the cybersecurity vendor and threat intelligence firm said. 

“This could be an aggregation of stealer malware logs, previously compromised SonicWall configuration files, or historic CVE compromise that resulted in more credentials than the adversary could use at the time,” Tigges said. 

In 2025, an undisclosed state-sponsored threat actor intruded SonicWalls’s cloud environment and stole firewall configurations of every customer. 

SonicWall customers have also been hit by a barrage of actively exploited zero-days, including a pair of zero-days that were exploited for three weeks before the vendor disclosed and patched the defects earlier this month, and previously disclosed defects in SonicWall devices for years. 

Seventeen defects affecting the vendor’s products have been added to CISA’s known exploited vulnerabilities catalog since late 2021. Ten of those defects are known to be used in ransomware campaigns, according to CISA, including a wave of about 40 Akira ransomware attacks between mid-July and early August 2025.

“Edge devices are one of the most targeted interfaces, comprising over 70% of active intrusions triaged by Huntress, including the overwhelming majority of ransomware deployments,” Tigges said. “Organizations that do not spend significant time architecting secure remote access solutions and networks that are resilient to edge-device compromise will likely continue to feel the burn in the coming months and years.”

The post Huntress warns about attack spree that hit 30 SonicWall customers in 2 days appeared first on CyberScoop.

SonicWall customers under threat as attackers exploit 2 zero-days

SonicWall customers are attempting to dodge another security challenge as attackers are exploiting a pair of zero-day vulnerabilities that have been confirmed by the vendor. 

The company publicly disclosed the vulnerabilities — CVE-2026-15409 and CVE-2026-15410 — in a security advisory Tuesday. SonicWall credited an employee with discovering the defects, but it hasn’t said when the discovery occurred or the earliest known instance of exploitation. 

Rapid7 researchers told CyberScoop both vulnerabilities were first exploited June 22. “From the cases that our team has observed, the goal is likely ransomware, though we have prevented the actors from achieving exfiltration and encryption,” said Seth Lazarus, senior manager of detection and response services at Rapid7.

Overlapping tactics, techniques and procedures from the attacks observed by Rapid7 indicate the same threat group or attacker discovered and exploited the zero-days, Lazarus added.

SonicWall did not answer questions about the impacts of these attacks thus far, and the company hasn’t attributed the attacks to a known group or described the attacker’s origins and motivations.

The vendor did, however, confirm to CyberScoop that both vulnerabilities have been chained together for exploitation. The vulnerabilities affecting SonicWall SMA1000 appliances, including a max-severity defect that allows attackers to make authenticated requests and a 7.2-rated vulnerability that allows authenticated command injection.

“When these two are chained, an attacker can go from zero access to a complete system compromise for the affected appliance,” said Landon Rice, senior exploit developer at VulnCheck.

Ben Harris, founder and CEO at watchTowr, said two characteristics of the vulnerabilities fuel a sense of dread. “Both were exploited as zero-days before fixes were available, and together they offer a plausible path to remote-code execution from the internet,” he said.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency added both zero-days to its known exploited vulnerabilities catalog Tuesday. 

SonicWall encouraged customers to patch the vulnerabilities by upgrading to the latest software version, which it released upon disclosure, and shared some indicators of compromise to help customers hunt for potential malicious activity on their systems.

“Speed of response was a priority for us,” said Bret Fitzgerald, senior director of global communications at SonicWall. “Within days of becoming aware of the issue, our team had developed a script that we can run on behalf of affected customers to assist with resolution, and mitigation efforts are already underway.”

SonicWall and third-party researchers haven’t said how many SonicWall customers are impacted by the exploited vulnerabilities, but the vendor did say it already investigated multiple cases of active exploitation. 

Fitzgerald said the company monitors about one million sensors globally and “SMA1000 appliances represent a very small subset of that footprint, less than 5,000 units.”

SonicWall said support staff are also helping customers work through instances of suspicious activity, warning that patching alone is not sufficient. 

The vendor and its customers have been hit by a barrage of actively exploited zero-days and previously disclosed defects in SonicWall devices for years. In 2025, an undisclosed state-sponsored threat actor intruded the company’s cloud environment and stole firewall configurations of every SonicWall customer. 

Seventeen defects affecting the vendor’s products have been added to CISA’s known exploited vulnerabilities catalog since late 2021. Ten of those defects are known to be used in ransomware campaigns, according to CISA, including a wave of about 40 Akira ransomware attacks between mid-July and early August.

“As always,” Harris said, “when something is confirmed as already exploited in the wild, patching is the bare minimum, and breach should be assumed.”

The post SonicWall customers under threat as attackers exploit 2 zero-days appeared first on CyberScoop.

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