ShinyHunters Weaponize Oracle PeopleSoft Zero-Day, Hit Higher Ed Hardest

❓What:
ShinyHunters (tracked by Mandiant as UNC6240) exploited an unpatched RCE flaw in Oracle PeopleSoft PeopleTools, CVE-2026-35273 (CVSS 9.8), between May 27 and June 9, 2026 — before Oracle's advisory landed on June 10, making it a true zero-day for the entire window
The flaw sits in the Environment Management Hub (PSEMHUB) component and requires no authentication or user interaction — just HTTP network access to the exposed endpoint
Affects PeopleTools 8.61 and 8.62; Oracle says older, unsupported versions are likely vulnerable too
The intrusion came to light because attackers left their own staging servers exposed — open directories running Python SimpleHTTP on port 8888, discovered by researcher @nahamike01 and triaged by Mandiant



