The Cyber Toolchain — issue 042, August 11, 2026

The ADSCAN_TRUST_SCOPE environment variable (values all or origin) controls which domains are collected across forest trusts during a scan, and can be overridden per scan via the web scan-setup domain-enumeration policy.

$ ADSCAN_TRUST_SCOPE=origin adscan ci auth --type audit --interface eth0 --domain corp.local --dc-ip 10.0.0.1 -u alice -p 'S3cr3t!'

On large directories, ADscan now prompts the operator to choose an SMB host-enrichment scope: the recommended host set, a custom count, all hosts, or skipping enrichment entirely; reports and platform state how many hosts were enriched out of the reachable total.

The MSSQL linked-server-chain compromise attack pathattack pathA possible sequence of steps an attacker could take to reach a valuable target. It connects weaknesses, permissions and reachable systems rather than treating each finding separately. now extends across forest boundaries, coupling SYSTEM-on-DC compromise to directory replication in the target trusted domain and terminating the attack path there rather than at the controller.

Force Change Password steps now follow engagement type in unattended runs: CTFCTFCapture The Flag — a competitive hacking challenge format where participants exploit intentionally vulnerable systems or puzzles to retrieve hidden strings, used by cyber tools to practice and demonstrate offensive and defensive techniques. scans reset the target password and continue automatically, while audit scans skip the reset unless an operator explicitly approves it; machine account password resets are refused outright in every mode.

ADscan now surfaces cross-forest Kerberos ticket delegation as an escalation route, drawing the two forests as one blast radius in the attack path map and adding remediation guidance to disable the delegation.

Trust relationships are always mapped regardless of collection scope; domain collection now follows engagement type, with CTF scans collecting all reachable domains including newly unlocked trusted forests unattended, while audit scans default to the origin domain only.

The Openlayer MCP server is now hosted at https://mcp.openlayer.com, OAuth-protected so no API key or local install is needed, and supports switching workspace directly from chat for users in multiple workspaces. Integrates with Claude desktop/claude.ai via Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector using https://mcp.openlayer.com, Claude Code via claude mcp add --transport http openlayer https://mcp.openlayer.com, Cursor via .cursor/mcp.json ("url": "https://mcp.openlayer.com"), VS Code via the MCP: Add Server command or .vscode/mcp.json ("type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.openlayer.com"), Codex via codex mcp add openlayer --url https://mcp.openlayer.com, and other clients via the mcp-remote bridge (npx -y mcp-remote https://mcp.openlayer.com).

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$ claude mcp add --transport http openlayer https://mcp.openlayer.com

{
  "servers": {
    "openlayer": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.openlayer.com"
    }
  }
}

{
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.openlayer.com"]
}

Packaged Agent Skills teach AI coding assistants to integrate a codebase with Openlayer — tracing, offline evals, tests, guardrails, and CI gating — covering both LLMLLMA large language model, a neural network trained on large amounts of text to recognize patterns and generate language. Applications use it for tasks such as answering, summarizing and writing code./agent apps and traditional ML models (scikit-learn, XGBoost, and similar). Install via npx skills add openlayer-ai/openlayer-skills --skill "openlayer" into Codex, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, opencode and other agents, or manually by symlinking/copying the skills/openlayer folder from github.com/openlayer-ai/openlayer-skills; ships as a Claude Code plugin, a Cursor plugin, or via the skills CLI. The skill uses openlayer.json + tests.json for offline evals, integrates the Openlayer MCP server for workspace queries and doc search, and authenticates via OPENLAYER_API_KEY (and OPENLAYER_BASE_URL for self-hosted instances).

$ npx skills add openlayer-ai/openlayer-skills --skill "openlayer"

$ export OPENLAYER_API_KEY=<your-api-key>
export OPENLAYER_BASE_URL=<your-instance-url>  # self-hosted only

openlayer.init() automatically patches every installed supported LLM SDK — OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Groq, Gemini, LiteLLM, Portkey, Google ADKADKGoogle's Agent Development Kit, an open-source framework for building and orchestrating AI agents; cyber tools use it to compose multi-agent workflows with built-in tool-calling and state management., and Azure — in one call; opt out with auto_instrument=False.

Session detail views open with an AI summary explaining what the user was trying to do, what the agent did, and where it struggled (Projects > Sessions > open a session). Trace detail views get an AI summary replacing line-by-line span reading (open any trace from the Traces view). Test results include a summary of dominant failure modes with drill-down to the exact matching rows. Summaries are generated on demand and cached so reopening the same session or result is instant.

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openlayer init is a guided command that takes a fresh directory to a pushable, linked, monitored project with tracing instrumentation configured in one step.

$ openlayer init

$ openlayer init

A drop-in import auto-traces Claude Agent SDK runs in TypeScript. Python tracing instruments the full agent loop, capturing tool calls, MCP tools, subagent nesting, session continuity, cost, and tokens.

A semantic match type in test subpopulation filters uses embeddingsembeddingsLists of numbers a model produces to represent the meaning of text, images or code, so similar items sit close together. They power semantic search and RAG. to match rows by topic or intent rather than exact or keyword wording — useful for free-text columns like user messages, model outputs, and transcripts — and composes with existing metadata conditions (date ranges, user IDs, tags).

A new PATCH endpoint updates a project's name and description via API, surfaced in the Python, Go, Java, and Ruby SDKs and the MCP server.

Workspace API keys can now be used for updating projects, cost-override endpoints, test retrieval/update/deletion, and seven previously session-only read routes.

Set a rolling retention window per project — 7, 30, 90, 180, or 365 days, or indefinite — after which monitoring data older than the window is deleted.

Adds a per-model breakdown on the usage endpoint, a per-user spend aggregation endpoint, projected savings shown when creating a limit, key rotation, and provider secrets settable from the admin UI.

Trace configuration in the SDK is unified around init(); settings now merge incrementally instead of resetting on each call. configure() is deprecated in favor of init().

openlayer export now supports CSV and XLSX output formats in addition to JSON, and adds the ability to include scores in the export.

The Gateway's /responses and /messages endpoints now accept and return media, not just text, adding multimodalmultimodalAble to work with more than one type of input or output, such as text, images and audio. A multimodal model can combine information across those formats. support to prompt and response handling.

MCP tooling grows from 44 to 53 tools, adding governance and lifecycle access (frameworks, rules, and rule results) plus 12 new session, trace, and test-lifecycle tools reachable through MCP.

Cached, reasoning, and audio token categories are now priced and stored, with per-API-key cost visible in the UI; LLM-as-judge evaluator runs are cost-tracked per test result.

Non-interactive CLI mode lets link, login, and resource creation run without prompts, enabling the CLI to be driven from AI coding agents and CI pipelines.

Routing rules can now score each prompt in-process with a model and route it to a strong or weak target by threshold, alongside existing static first-match rules.

A new deployment admin area, gated by a dedicated deployment-admin role, gives operators background-job queue health, metrics, history, and license/feature status.

Adds CSICSIAn ambiguous acronym spanning Container Storage Interface, Crime Scene Investigation, and other expansions — without more context about which domain this tool operates in, a reliable definition cannot be given. Secrets Store support, external/managed ClickHouse, native Oracle Object Storage as a storage backend, and a multi-arch Gateway image for ARMARMA family of RISC processor architectures designed by Arm Holdings and licensed to chip makers worldwide; tools target it to run natively on mobile, embedded, and increasingly server and desktop hardware. hosts.

The public policies API vocabulary now includes breaking_change and full_scan fields, enabling scan policies that use those options to be represented through the API. The API remains in public beta for organizations using unified policies.

GitHub Workflow Integration v2.0.0 adds scan scheduling for Static Analysis, SCASCASoftware composition analysis, identifying third-party dependencies and checking them for known vulnerabilities and license issues. It covers software a team uses rather than writes itself., and IaCIaCInfrastructure as Code: the practice of defining and provisioning compute infrastructure through machine-readable config files rather than manual processes, giving cyber tools repeatable, version-controlled environment setup. scans directly from the Veracode Platform for organizations using either the platform or GitHub Marketplace install path. Azure DevOps Workflow Integration v2.3.9 adds the ability to schedule scans for every organization where the integration is installed, driven by veracode.yml configuration, and v2.3.10 adds an analysis_branch key to veracode.yml so scheduled scans run against a specified branch instead of the default branch.

# veracode.yml
analysis_branch: main-release

Java API Wrapper v26.3.19.0 adds page size support to the Platform Applications API (/appsec/v1/applications) to improve efficiency when retrieving large application lists, and adds support for the paginated Sandbox REST APIREST APIA web API design style where clients interact with resources over HTTP using standard methods like GET, POST, and DELETE, giving cyber tools a predictable, language-agnostic way to integrate with external services. to retrieve sandbox lists using pagination. v26.2.18.0 adds support for the Platform Findings REST API to access open and mitigated application findings, and implements a configurable retry mechanism for the Platform Applications API (appsec/v1/applications) to handle transient failures and timeouts.

GitHub Workflow Integration v2.0.0 enables installing, configuring, and updating credentials for the Veracode GitHub Integration directly from the Veracode Platform, removing the requirement for manual GitHub Marketplace steps. v2.1.1 adds a new uninstallation workflow accessible from the Veracode Platform to remove the app from GitHub organizations, and reduces the GitHub Veracode Workflow App's permissions by removing administration access, preventing the app from altering or removing installed repositories.

Adds a debug configuration option to veracode.yml across Azure DevOps Workflow Integration v2.3.6, GitHub Workflow Integration v1.0.6, and GitLab Workflow Integration v2.1.4, for debugging and troubleshooting scan pipelines.

# veracode.yml
debug: true

The VeracodeFlawImporter task replaces the deprecated Veracode Flaw Importer task (space-separated name) in Veracode Azure DevOps extension v3.35.0; both are currently supported, but the space-separated task is deprecated and scheduled for removal in a future release.

GitHub Workflow Integration v2.1.1 ships an updated default runner image scm-packaging-5.0.0 with Alpine v3.24.0, Ubuntu v26.04, .NET v10, PipEnv v2026.6.2, libicu v78, Node.js v22.22.1, and Python v3.14.4.

Azure DevOps Workflow Integration v2.3.3 enforces Build Action: error custom policy behavior for SCA agent-based scans, causing the scan to fail when vulnerabilities are found.

Veracode Scan for Visual Studio v0.8.0 adds a Scan Scope setting to choose between scanning the full project directory or only the active solution, and adds usage analytics providing insights into plugin adoption, feature usage, and scan activity. v0.7.2 adds support for Visual Studio 2026.

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Support for the Veracode Integration for Jira on Jira Server and Jira Data Center 9.x ends November 30, 2026; customers must upgrade to Jira 10 or later to maintain a supported configuration.

With --check-maintenance, deprecated npm packages now produce their own medium-severity finding, separate from constraint-drag findings which remain high-severity. Packages abandoned for 2+ years also show a Last release context line.

$ cve-lite /path/to/monorepo --check-maintenance --check-overrides --fail-on high

--usage/--only-used now work correctly in multi-folder scans: each subfolder gets its own source-usage annotation and filtering, isolated from other subfolders. Previously these flags were accepted but silently ignored outside single-folder mode.

Release-cooldown warnings now appear in SARIF output as properties.cooldownWarning on the result, making them visible in GitHub Code Scanning.

The ggshield honeytoken plant command plants a decoy AWS credential on developer endpoints; any access to the decoy triggers an alert naming the compromised machine, its IP address, user agent, and timestamp. A new Honeytoken protection card in the Endpoints dashboard reports the share of the fleet with active honeytoken coverage and lists unprotected endpoints.

$ ggshield honeytoken plant

$ ggshield honeytoken plant

Improves precision for github_oauth_token, generic_password, base64_generic_high_entropy_secret, and generic_high_entropy_secret detectors so values that fail format validation are no longer reported. Expands generic_password to ignore passwords in public proxy-subscription configs (shadowsocks/vmess/vless/trojan/hysteria URIs, Telegram MTProto links, clash/mihomo node lists), and expands generic_encryption_key to ignore Talend encrypted passwords (enc:system|routine.encryption.key.vN:...). Improves recall for PostgreSQL credential detectors: usernames containing dashes (e.g. workflow-prod-user) are now matched, and the username length bound is raised from 20 to 30 characters.

Extends source health management to Bitbucket Cloud, Bitbucket Data Center, GitLab, and Azure DevOps: GitGuardian now pauses real-time ingestion and historical scans on unreachable sources, auto-resumes on recovery, and surfaces an actionable recovery step.

Adds the Lovable Access Token, Lovable Git Token, Slack Webhook Trigger URL, n8n API Key, Atlassian Auth Key, AWS Cognito Access Token, OpenAI Access Token, Vercel OIDC Token, and OpenCode API Key detectors, plus a Supabase Service Role JWT checker for Supabase service_role JWTsJWTsJSON Web Tokens — an open standard (RFC 7519) for encoding claims as a signed, optionally encrypted JSON object. Cyber tools use them for stateless authentication without server-side session storage..

Replaces Grunt with a custom packaging script (scripts/package.mjs) for the build process.

Invicti Platform's Secrets Manager now integrates with HashiCorp Vault, letting credentials be retrieved directly from Vault when configuring scan authentication instead of storing them directly in Invicti.

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A new Custom scan speed option in scan configuration lets you set the number of concurrent requests and their send frequency for precise control over scan throughput; a fix ensures scans configured with a custom speed and throttling delay now correctly run at the configured request rate.

A new EXIF Metadata Leakage test uploads canary images containing GPS coordinates, device identifiers, timestamps, and comment fields to file upload endpoints, then checks whether served copies leak this data across upload responses, redirects, API responses, rendered HTML, and linked image URLs. It reports Medium severity findings under CWE-1230, covers JPEG and PNG formats, and supports multipart and JSON-encoded uploads.

A new Repeater Insights widget on the Organization Dashboard shows connected, active, idle, disconnected, and disabled repeaters alongside running, queued, and scheduled Scan and Discovery tasks across selected projects.

A new Authentications tab on the Project page lets teams view, create, and edit project-scoped authentications, with automatic assignment to the current project on creation, without leaving the project context.

New project classification attributes (Environment, Business Criticality, Exposure) are available for filtering on the Projects page and Organization Dashboard to prioritize security efforts. Host-based project search is now available in the Projects table and the project selector in the Organization Dashboard.

Reworks automated OIDC role assignment, adds support for alphanumeric-only e-mail barrier authentication, and introduces GUI.authenticator.claims.allow_unverified_email and GUI.authenticator.claims.override_acls config keys for finer control over OIDC-based role assignment.

GUI:
  authenticator:
    claims:
      allow_unverified_email: true

VQL functions and stored queries can now define default parameter values, e.g. LET F(X=2, Y=3) = X + Y; the artifact verifier flags calls that omit required parameters.

$ LET Score(Severity='medium', Multiplier=2) = Severity + ' x' + str(str=Multiplier)
SELECT Score(), Score(Severity='high'), Score(Multiplier=5) FROM scope()

Adds a dir_permissions parameter to the copy() VQL function for controlling directory permissions during file operations.

Adds a Tags argument to the hunt() VQL function, enabling programmatic tagging of hunts at creation time.

Adds the --pcap-memory flag to make the memory budget for loading PCAP files configurable at runtime.

Adds harvesting support for Managed Identity configurations (system-assigned and user-assigned) and linked services credential storage method for Azure Data Factory resources. Adds the Data Factory with/without Managed Identity query filter (defaults to without) and the Data Factory Linked Services Use Key Vault query filter (defaults to identifying inline storage), plus the corresponding Insights Data Factory without Customer Managed Key Encryption, Data Factory without Managed Identity, and Data Factory Linked Services Not Using Key Vault for Credentials.

Adds the CIS Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) Benchmark v2.0.0 for EKSEKSAmazon's managed Kubernetes service, run by AWS, that handles control-plane provisioning so teams can deploy containerized workloads without operating the underlying cluster infrastructure themselves. clusters, CIS Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Benchmark v1.9.0 for GKEGKEGoogle Kubernetes Engine, Google's managed Kubernetes service, which lets cyber tools run containerized workloads without managing the underlying cluster infrastructure. clusters, CIS Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Benchmark v1.9.0 for OpenShift clusters, and CIS AWS Compute Services Benchmark v1.1.0 covering EC2EC2Amazon's cloud virtual-machine service, letting tools run on-demand servers without managing physical hardware., EBSEBSAmazon's block-storage service for EC2 instances, providing persistent network-attached volumes that survive instance restarts and can be snapshotted, giving cyber tools durable, scalable disk without managing physical drives., ECSECSElastic Common Schema, an open specification maintained by Elastic that defines a standard field naming convention for log and event data, letting cyber tools share and correlate records without per-source field mapping., Lambda, Lightsail, Elastic Beanstalk, Fargate, Batch, App Runner, and SimSpace Weaver, with 47 Insights mapped across AWS, AWS GovCloud, and AWS China regions.

New Insights: PostgreSQL Database Instance without Customer Managed Key Encryption identifies PostgreSQL instances not using Customer Managed Keys; Aurora Database Cluster Encryption at Rest Disabled identifies Aurora clusters without encryption at rest; DocumentDB Database Cluster Encryption at Rest Disabled identifies DocumentDB clusters without encryption at rest; and Cache Instance SSL Access Not Enforced identifies Azure Cache for Redis instances not enforcing SSLSSLA cryptographic protocol for encrypting network connections, now deprecated in favor of TLS but whose name persists colloquially. Cyber tools reference it when handling HTTPS or other encrypted-channel inspection and termination.-only access, aligned with CIS Azure Database Services Benchmark Control 2.2.

Fixes CPE matching for Rust crates, controlled via match.rust.using-cpes (or the GRYPE_MATCH_RUST_USING_CPES environment variable), so vulnerabilities reachable only via CPE, such as the openssl rust-crate, are no longer silently missed.

$ GRYPE_MATCH_RUST_USING_CPES=true grype alpine:latest

Sysdig CLI Scanner v1.29.0 adds support for Allow Base Image and Deny Base Image supply chain rules in vulnerability policies, so policies that allow or deny specific base images are now evaluated locally by the CLI Scanner.

Analysts can enter a file hash (SHA-1SHA-1A cryptographic hash function standardized by NIST that produces a 160-bit digest; tools use it for file integrity checks, though it is now considered cryptographically broken and unsuitable for collision-resistant applications. or SHA-256SHA-256A cryptographic hash function that turns data into a fixed 256-bit fingerprint. It is used to check integrity; hashing does not encrypt the original data.), IP address, domain, or URL at Threat Intelligence → Threat Intelligence Hub → Indicators to check whether Trend Micro threat intelligence has flagged it as malicious, linked it to a detection, or associated it with known threat campaigns or intelligence reports. Bulk IoC validation via list upload lets analysts validate multiple suspicious objects in a single operation instead of one at a time.

A new Network Map provides a visual topology of all Sophos firewalls, switches, and AP6 access points in a Sophos Central account, including device relationship views and search capabilities.

Sophos ITDR now computes a single ML-powered Identity Risk Score per identity, combining incident likelihood with potential impact, and the score updates dynamically as findings and accounts change.

Adds the dns_query_events event type to the Taegis data lake hydration pipeline, enabled via Helm charts configuration, and adds SNI (Server Name Indication) details to connection events in the data lake.

A new Remote Access section in the Huntress API lets you programmatically query all remote access connections observed across your environment, including ConnectWise ScreenConnect hosts, returning agent hostname, relay host, port, and first/last seen timestamps — data previously confined to the portal's ScreenConnect Hosts view.

A one-page, plain-language snapshot per organization highlighting active protection layers (EDREDREndpoint detection and response, monitoring computers for suspicious behavior and providing investigation and response controls, such as isolating a device., ITDRITDRIdentity Threat Detection and Response: a discipline focused on detecting and responding to attacks that abuse identity systems such as Active Directory or IAM platforms, giving cyber tools visibility into credential-based intrusions., SIEMSIEMSecurity information and event management, collecting logs from many systems and correlating events to find suspicious activity. Analysts use it to investigate alerts and incidents., etc.), signals investigated, and threats contained, aimed at non-technical stakeholders. Accessible under the Reports section of the Huntress portal and delivered via email link to partners for forwarding to end customers; it complements rather than replaces the existing full monthly/quarterly Threat Report and is described as the first in a planned series of reporting improvements.

Shift+click on a point or line in a dashboard map chart drills down into that location's data by redirecting to the Log Search page with the query auto-populated with the corresponding latitude and longitude values.