Executive Summary The Fortra Intelligence and Research (FIRE) team is tracking a 12-fold increase in emails using requests for quotation, project invitations, and procurement inquiries as a phishing pretext from October 2025 – September 2026. These messages impersonate prospective buyers seeking pricing, availability, or project participation. Their purpose is not to obtain a legitimate quote, but...

October 2026 Patch Tuesday AnalysisToday’s Patch Tuesday Alert addresses Microsoft’s October 2026 Security Updates. The FIRE team is actively working on coverage for these vulnerabilities and expect to ship that coverage as soon as it is completed.In-the-Wild & Disclosed CVEsCVE-2026-96951A vulnerability in Windows could allow attackers to evade Mark of the Web (MOTW) defenses via command...

Phishing attacks are leveraging RMM tools more than everHybrid phishing-to-RMM campaigns have emerged as a potent method to target North American financial institutions, with a focused interest in business commercial banking accounts. Through the first nine months of 2026, Fortra has recorded 475% more phishing attacks incorporating RMM tools into the phishing attack chain compared to the entire...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The findings in this report come from the results of active defense engagements with BEC threat actors. Every month, Fortra Intelligence & Research Experts (FIRE) conducts hundreds of these engagements to collect comprehensive intelligence about BEC tactics and trends to help better understand how the BEC threat landscape is evolving. The primary findings for September 2026...