When King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council disclosed a cyberattack in July, it looked like a standalone incident. Research from Hunt.io ties it, at moderate confidence, to a much larger operation exploiting a SonicWall SMA1000 flaw (CVE-2026-15409) across dozens of organizations, starting two days after the bug was disclosed.

The operator left their toolkit exposed in an open directory, which is how the full picture came out: 250 targets, credentials stolen from at least 9 Active Directory domains, victims confirmed across France, India, Italy and the US. The council was one name on a long list and most of the others were never reported.

The detail worth taking away: the credential theft ran from the SonicWall appliances themselves, the kind of device most organizations barely monitor compared to their laptops and servers. Full writeup below.

https://hunt.io/blog/sonicwall-sma1000-uk-council-attack

CVE-2026-15409 is an unauthenticated SSRF in the SMA1000 WorkPlace interface. The chain is the interesting part. The /wsproxy WebSocket endpoint is used to reach a locally bound Erlang distribution node (couchdb@127.0.0.1 on port 1050), the Erlang handshake is completed with a hardcoded cookie, and os:cmd() gives command execution as the couchdb user.

From there the operator read policy\file.xml, decrypted the stored LDAP bind passwords (static 32-byte AES key lifted from ASAPPasswordUtil.class bytecode), and dropped a standalone Linux build of Impacket secretsdump to /tmp on the appliance. secretsdump then ran from the SonicWall itself against internal DCs, with DCSync automated using recovered LDAP creds and, more effectively, domain-controller machine-account hashes for pass-the-hash.

The exploit is a direct refactor of Rapid7's public PoC, reworked for unattended bulk use. Full chain, scripts and IOCs in the writeup.

https://hunt.io/blog/sonicwall-sma1000-uk-council-attack

A Zip Slip vulnerability in the SonicWall Network Security Manager (NSM) On-Prem file upload and archive processing functionality allows an attacker to extract files outside the intended destination directory using a specially crafted archive.

A missing authorization vulnerability in the SonicWall Network Security Manager (NSM) On-Prem Management interface allows a lower-privileged Admin user to escalate privileges to SuperAdmin.

An Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection') vulnerability in the SonicWall Network Security Manager (NSM) On-Prem Management interface allows an authenticated attacker with SuperAdmin privileges to inject arbitrary commands that are executed on the underlying host, resulting in remote code execution.

Post-authentication Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection') vulnerability has been identified in the SMA1000 Appliance Management Console (AMC) which in specific conditions could potentially enable a remote authenticated attacker as administrator to execute arbitrary OS commands, resulting in remote code execution.

A Pre-authentication SSRF vulnerability exists in the SMA1000 Appliance Work Place interface due to an unintended alternate access path. A remote unauthenticated attacker could potentially exploit this vulnerability to gain unauthorized access to sensitive functionality and perform unauthorized operations.

The NEService auto-upgrade process insecurely handles temporary files in SonicWall NetExtender Linux client which allows an attacker to manipulate file paths.

Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') Vulnerability in the SonicWall Email Security appliance allows an authenticated attacker with access to the SonicWall Email Security restricted CLI can inject arbitrary OS commands that execute as root via SNMP.

Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') Vulnerability in the SonicWall Email Security appliance allows an authenticated attacker with access to the SonicWall Email Security restricted CLI can inject arbitrary OS commands that execute as root via netmask.

This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of SonicWall GMS Virtual Appliance. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The ZDI has assigned a CVSS rating of 7.8. The following CVEs are assigned: CVE-2026-66148.

This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of SonicWall GMS Virtual Appliance. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The ZDI has assigned a CVSS rating of 7.8. The following CVEs are assigned: CVE-2026-66148.

This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of SonicWall Email Security. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The ZDI has assigned a CVSS rating of 7.8. The following CVEs are assigned: CVE-2026-66149.

This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of SonicWall Email Security. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The ZDI has assigned a CVSS rating of 7.8. The following CVEs are assigned: CVE-2026-66149.

This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of SonicWall Email Security. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The ZDI has assigned a CVSS rating of 7.8. The following CVEs are assigned: CVE-2026-66150.

SonicWall Global VPN Client version 4.10.8.1108 and earlier is vulnerable to an out-of-bounds kernel memory read in the SWIPsec.sys driver, which could allow a local attacker to cause a system crash.

A improper neutralization of HTTP Headers for Scripting Syntax vulnerability in SonicOS could allow a remote attacker to manipulate the Host header and redirect firewall management users to arbitrary web domains.

SonicWall warns that threat actors have been exploiting two SMA1000 vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2026-15409 and CVE-2026-15410, in zero-day attacks and urges customers to install the newly released security updates.

CVE-2026-15409 is a critical (CVSS 10.0) server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in the SMA1000 Appliance Work Place interface that allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to force an appliance to make requests to unintended locations.

CVE-2026-15410 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) post-authentication code injection flaw in the SMA1000 Appliance Management Console that could allow a remote authenticated administrator to execute arbitrary operating system commands.

A Server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability has been identified in the SMA1000 Appliance Work Place interface. A remote unauthenticated attacker could potentially cause the appliance to make requests to unintended location.

Post-authentication improper control of generation of code ('Code Injection') vulnerability has been identified in the SMA1000 Appliance Management Console (AMC) which in specific conditions could potentially enable a remote authenticated attacker as administrator to execute arbitrary OS commands.

A post-authentication Stack-based Buffer Overflow vulnerabilities in SonicOS allows a remote attacker to crash a firewall.

A post-authentication Path Traversal vulnerability in SonicOS allows an attacker to interact with usually restricted services.

A vulnerability in the access control mechanism of SonicOS may allow certain management interface functions to be accessible under specific conditions.

Improper handling of Unicode encoding in SonicWall SMA1000 series appliances allows a remote authenticated SSLVPN user to bypass Workplace/Connect Tunnel TOTP authentication.

Improper handling of Unicode encoding in SonicWall SMA1000 series appliances allows a remote authenticated SSLVPN admin to bypass AMC TOTP authentication.

An observable response discrepancy vulnerability in the SonicWall SMA1000 series appliances allows a remote attacker to enumerate SSL VPN user credentials.

Improper neutralization of special elements used in an SQL command (“SQL Injection”) in SonicWall SMA1000 series appliances allows a remote authenticated attacker with read-only administrator privileges to escalate privileges to primary administrator.