Malware used by North Korea's Lazarus group negotiated its command channel using a post-quantum key exchange before pulling down a Windows zero-day exploit, in a campaign against defense and aerospace companies across Europe and India. Check Point Research reported the vulnerability to Microsoft on July 28 and published its analysis on August 11, the day a patch shipped. CVE-2026-68820 is a use-after-free race condition in AFD.sys, the driver handling network sockets in the Windows kernel, and was the only flaw in this the August Patch Tuesday release Microsoft flagged as under active exploitation. The activity is the latest wave of Operation Dream Job, which approaches employees at defense firms with fraudulent job offers. Targets included organizations working on surveillance sensors,…