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- Market & Momentum - 02/23/2026
Market & Momentum - 02/23/2026
This week opens with sharpened enterprise risk around exploited webmail flaws, remote access takeover paths, and perimeter device compromise... proving (again) that attackers don’t need creativity when your edge is doing the hard work for them.
J.W. Croley
February 23, 2026
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Over the last ~72 hours, threat signals converged on five patterns: active exploitation in webmail, remote access platform compromise, hardware/vendor edge exposure, “living-off-the-user” malware delivery, and KEV-driven patch compression.
Together, these trends reinforce a simple operational reality: if your external-facing surface area isn’t tightly governed (patch, isolate, monitor), your incident response plan becomes the change-management process you never had.
Trend (Macro) | Likelihood | Direction | Signal for the Week |
|---|---|---|---|
Active exploitation of internet-facing email/webmail platforms | 81% | 🔺 Rising | Webmail flaws are getting operationalized quickly once exploit details circulate. |
Remote access platform compromise enabling rapid lateral movement | 77% | 🔺 Rising | RCE + persistence inside privileged access tooling is a worst-case combo. |
Perimeter device compromise (firewalls/edge appliances) at scale | 74% | 🔺 Rising | Opportunistic scanning + weak hygiene = mass exploitation potential. |
Social-engineering delivery chains (“ClickFix”-style execution) | 69% | 🔺 Rising | Users are still being turned into the payload runner. |
KEV-driven patch triage pressure | 66% | ➡ Stable | “Actively exploited” listings keep tightening patch timelines and outage risk. |
Roundcube webmail vulnerabilities exploited in attacks
CISA-backed reporting shows attackers actively abusing recent Roundcube bugs, meaning externally reachable webmail stacks should be treated as Roundcube-exposed until proven otherwise.BeyondTrust RS/PRA critical flaw actively exploited (CVE-2026-1731)
Threat actors are using a high-severity remote access weakness to gain persistence and move laterally, turning privileged tooling into an attacker trampoline via CVE-2026-1731.CISA orders rapid patching of an actively exploited Dell flaw
KEV-driven deadlines are forcing “patch-now” decisions; if Dell management utilities exist in your estate, treat this as a KEV-patch priority, not a backlog item.AI-assisted actor reportedly breached 600 Fortinet FortiGate firewalls
Whether you buy the “AI” label or not, the pattern is the same: exposed firewall surfaces get hammered at scale, and “edge security” becomes an ironic phrase during a FortiGate-breach wave.ClickFix campaign abusing compromised sites to deploy a new RAT
This is “user-assisted execution” evolving again: compromised legit sites push scripted steps that install malware when victims comply, making ClickFix an evergreen problem for endpoint and awareness programs.CISA adds four more vulnerabilities to the Known Exploited catalog
Another KEV update means more patch triage pressure; operationally, treat KEV-additions as your “what attackers are using right now” shortlist.
6 Predictions Every CX Leader Should Know
AI is redefining how customer conversations are designed, operated, and improved.
This guide outlines six shifts that will shape enterprise CX in 2026 — and what leaders need to rethink now.
Webmail remains a high-leverage entry point: It’s exposed, commonly under-patched, and immediately valuable for credential access and internal pivoting.
Remote access tools are becoming “instant enterprise access”: This will be leveraged when vulnerabilities hit, especially when they sit on privileged lanes.
Edge appliances are still the soft underbelly: If your firewall is reachable, it’s being scanned… nonstop.
User-execution chains keep winning: Because they bypass a lot of preventive controls with one simple trick… the user did it.
KEV isn’t just compliance: It’s your best proxy for what’s weaponized and being used at scale.
Webmail exploitation defense: confirm patch levels, restrict admin paths, and hunt for abnormal auth spikes, mailbox rule creation, suspicious POST patterns, and weird attachment/SVG handling.
Remote access hardening (BeyondTrust-class systems): isolate management interfaces, enforce MFA everywhere, review privileged session logs, and hunt for new services, scheduled tasks, and unexpected admin account activity.
Dell/endpoint utility exposure: locate impacted components fast (asset inventory), patch with validation, then verify telemetry continuity (don’t “patch blind” and lose signal).
Fortinet edge posture: confirm firmware levels, reduce internet exposure, rotate credentials/keys where applicable, and baseline config changes (especially admin accounts and remote management toggles).
ClickFix containment: detect suspicious command execution patterns, block common LOLBAS abuse paths where feasible, and reinforce the rule: “IT will not ask you to paste commands from a webpage.”
KEV triage discipline: prioritize externally reachable + identity-adjacent systems first; schedule downtime intentionally rather than during an incident bridge.
You don’t need perfect security…
You need owned assets, fast patch validation, and zero “mystery internet-facing boxes.”
That’s how you survive weeks like this without living in your war room.
This week’s theme is simple: the edge is still the battleground, and the losers are the orgs who treat external exposure like a ticket queue instead of an emergency.
(P.S. Forward this to the SOC, infrastructure owners, and IAM leadership so patch urgency, edge governance, and remote access controls stay aligned.)
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