Weekly Roundup: Critical Vulnerabilities Hit VMware ESX, FortiOS, Chrome, fastjson, Cisco FMC and Ruby on Rails
Security NEXT has released its weekly ranking of the most-read articles published between July 26 and August 1, 2026. The list is led by reports of serious vulnerabilities in several major enterprise and consumer platforms.
The top story covers newly disclosed critical flaws in VMware ESX and VMware vCenter, accompanied by official patches. Second place went to confirmation from U.S. authorities that threat actors are actively exploiting vulnerabilities in FortiOS and VeloCloud Orchestrator.
Google issued a large security update for Chrome that resolves 370 vulnerabilities. A separate entry highlights a flaw in the Java data-conversion library fastjson that has already been observed in exploitation attempts.
Apple released iOS 26.6 and iPadOS 26.6, addressing 87 security issues. Cisco warned customers about a vulnerability in its firewall management product Cisco FMC that is already being exploited in the wild.
Other notable items include a cyber-attack on an ANA Group online store that may have resulted in the leakage of personal information, a serious vulnerability in OpenAM, an update for Node.js fixing 11 issues, and a critical flaw named KindaRails2Shell affecting Ruby on Rails.
Related articles
WordPress Patches Race Condition in Core Update Process Enabling Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution
WordPress addressed a critical race condition vulnerability in its core update mechanism on October 28, 2026, that could allow remote code execution without authentication. The flaw affects the automatic update process used by the majority of installations, exposing a temporary installer during file extraction to a predictable folder. Wordfence recorded 60,471 exploitation attempts within the first 24 hours after disclosure. The issue was discovered by researcher Umut Bayram and fixed across multiple branches including version 7.1.4, which bundles 22 security patches. Mitigations include immediate updates, restricting public access to the wp-content update directory, and ensuring application firewall coverage. Versions 4.6 and earlier receive no further security updates.
Google Releases November Android Security Patch Fixing 216 Vulnerabilities Including Critical Zero-Click Flaws
Google has issued its November security update for Android, addressing a total of 216 vulnerabilities with 23 classified as critical. The patch resolves multiple remote code execution flaws that require no additional privileges or user interaction, qualifying as zero-click attacks. Specific fixes include CVE-2026-58868 in the Framework component and CVE-2026-58876 along with CVE-2026-58936 in the System component, all impacting Android versions 14 through 17. Additional patches cover privilege escalation, information disclosure, and denial-of-service issues across the kernel, Bluetooth, virtualization layers, and chipsets from MediaTek and Qualcomm. No evidence of in-the-wild exploitation has been noted in the bulletin, yet the critical nature of the remote code execution bugs warrants immediate attention. Users must verify the 2026-11-05 patch level or newer in device settings, as simply running the latest Android version does not guarantee all fixes are installed. Some updates arrive via Google Play system updates while others depend on device manufacturers.
Backdoor with Password 123456 and Hardcoded Keys: How AI Cracked 'Encrypted' USB Drives
An AI agent rapidly discovered critical cryptographic weaknesses in multiple USB encryption and copy-protection products, including hardcoded backdoor accounts and keys that bypassed user passwords entirely. In the SecZure YutianDun drive, two hidden accounts with passwords 123456 and SECZURE.COM allowed full decryption of files without the administrator password. NetacFileLock used a fixed AES-256 key embedded in the binary, ignoring the user password completely while also logging passwords in plaintext and employing ECB mode. KakaSoft USB Copy Protection relied on a modified MD5 implementation with altered shift constants and a hardcoded internal password derived from an embedded seed, enabling full Blowfish decryption without any user input. Nexcopy stored its Triple DES content key and IV in an encrypted configuration file protected only by a fixed 32-byte certificate inside the viewer application. The AI completed analyses in minutes that previously required hours of manual time-travel debugging and reverse engineering.
CVE-2026-98432: Temporary nftables Filter with Auto-Rollback for Ubuntu Servers
Administrators are deploying a temporary nftables-based mitigation for CVE-2026-98432 on Linux systems while awaiting official kernel patches. The filter drops IPv4 TCP packets with IP header length exceeding five, reducing exposure to the vulnerability. The procedure includes verifying kernel status via Canonical, preparing rollback commands, and using systemd timers to automatically remove the table after five minutes if connectivity is lost. Steps cover syntax validation with nft --check, integration with existing firewall configurations, and post-reboot verification to ensure the temporary table persists without interfering with ufw or Docker rules. Red Hat guidance on discarding packets containing IP options is referenced as a complementary measure. The process is designed for single-server testing before scaling to production fleets, with explicit instructions to avoid flush ruleset operations that could disrupt other tables.