The 2026 VulnCheck Exploit Intelligence Report: What Actually Happens In the Wild

Caitlin Condon, VP of Security Research, and Jacob Baines, CTO, deep dive into findings from the 2026 Exploit Intelligence Report, covering everything from fake exploits and major incidents to in-depth threat actor analysis and the most potent CVEs disclosed in 2025.

Key takeaways: 

VulnCheck identified 50 Routinely Targeted Vulnerabilities disclosed and exploited in 2025. Discover which CVEs different threat actors and researchers prioritized (and why).

More proof-of-concept exploits were developed for new CVEs than ever before in 2025 — a 16.5% uptick year over year. But fake PoCs and AI slop are misleading defenders about risk, driving misdirected action instead of providing clarity.

Amid geopolitical tensions, Chinese-attributed exploits rose more than 50% in 2025 while Iranian and unattributed exploits fell.