Russian-Aligned Groups Exploit WinRAR Vulnerability to Target Ukrainian Organizations
In June 2026, cybersecurity researchers identified that Russian-aligned groups, Earth Dahu (Gamaredon) and SHADOW-EARTH-066 (UAC-0226), continued exploiting a critical vulnerability in WinRAR (CVE-2025-8088) to target Ukrainian organizations. This path traversal flaw allows attackers to execute arbitrary code by crafting malicious archive files. Despite a patch being released in July 2025, the absence of automatic updates in WinRAR has left many systems vulnerable. The attackers utilized this exploit to deploy information-stealing malware, such as GIFTEDCROOK, which harvests sensitive data from infected systems. The persistent exploitation of CVE-2025-8088 underscores the critical importance of timely software updates and the risks associated with unpatched vulnerabilities. Organizations are urged to manually update WinRAR to version 7.13 or later to mitigate this threat. ([windowscentral.com](https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/new-winrar-zero-day-pc-vulnerability-exploited-by-hackers-what-you-need-to-know?utm_source=openai))
Kill Chain