CISA added four flaws to KEV on April 24 with a May 8 federal deadline. The headline is CVE-2024-57726 (CVSS 9.9), a missing authorization in SimpleHelp RMM that lets a low-privileged technician mint API keys above their role and escalate to server admin; companion CVE-2024-57728 (CVSS 7.2) chains a path traversal for RCE. SimpleHelp featured in DragonForce and Akira ransomware campaigns last year. CVE-2024-7399 (CVSS 8.8) is a Samsung MagicINFO 9 path traversal with a public PoC since 2024. The fourth, CVE-2025-29635, is the D-Link DIR-823X bug we covered last week.
Akamai's Security Intelligence and Response Team caught a Mirai variant actively exploiting CVE-2025-29635, a command-injection flaw in discontinued D-Link DIR-823X routers, roughly one year after the vulnerability was publicly disclosed and its proof-of-concept exploit posted to GitHub (and later removed). The flaw lives in the sub_42232C function of the router firmware, where an attacker-controlled macaddr field is copied into a command buffer via snprintf and passed to system() without validation, enabling remote command execution through a crafted POST to /goform/set_prohibiting. Firmware versions 240126 and 24082 are affected. D-Link retired the DIR-823X line in 2025, so there is no vendor patch and no vendor patch coming. The Mirai variant, called 'tuxnokill' by its authors, drops from 88.214.20[.]14 via a simple shell script, supports multiple CPU architectures, uses XOR key 0x30 to obfuscate strings, and phones home to 64.89.161[.]130 on TCP port 44300. The same operator is chaining D-Link alongside CVE-2023-1389 (TP-Link AX21) and a ZTE ZXV10 H108L RCE, giving them a diverse pool of end-of-life consumer routers to enslave. At the time Akamai reported, CVE-2025-29635 was not yet on the CISA KEV catalog. The lesson: public PoCs against dead hardware do not stay dormant forever, and the 'wait for active exploitation' instinct gives attackers a year's head start.
TrustStrike Labs