In the Wild with VulnCheck

Topic: A First Look at the 1H 2026 State of Exploitation Report

Is AI actually changing how vulnerabilities get exploited, or just how much noise there is about it? This topic, along with other findings in the report, was explored by Kimber Duke, Principal Product Manager, and Patrick Garrity, Security Researcher at VulnCheck, as they walked through the 1H 2026 State of Exploitation report.

In this month's In the Wild with VulnCheck, we covered observations on exploitation volume, speed, threat actor activity, and the sources first reporting exploitation in the wild, along with the open questions the report set out to answer. Watch the recording to see the full data and hear what stood out to them along the way.

Key takeaways:

• KEV data trends for 1H 2026, drawn from both CISA KEV and the more comprehensive VulnCheck KEV catalog

• Exploitation speed and threat actor activity from the first half of 2026

• Whether AI is meaningfully changing exploitation trends or just amplifying the noise around them

Past Topics:

January 28th: Tales from the Exploit Mines

February 25th: Inside the Exploitation Files

March 25th: Expectations vs Reality

April 29th: CISA, NIST, and Mythos — oh my

May 27th:  Fuzzers to Frameworks: Hot takes on the new AI-Powered Vulnerability Discovery Stack

June 24th: BOD 26-04, Decoded: What It Means for Federal Agencies and Everyone Else

July 29th: A First Look at the 1H 2026 State of Exploitation Report

Future Dates:

August 26th: TBD