VulnCheck Canary Intelligence has been launched by the exploit-intelligence company to give security teams verified, real-time proof of active exploitation from globally deployed, intentionally vulnerable systems.
Unlike traditional honeypots or second-hand threat reports, each event captured by the canaries includes authenticated details: the attacker’s source IP, the targeted CVE, and the exact payload used.
A Paradigm Shift: Verified Exploitation Instead of Assumptions
For decades, security teams have relied on signature feeds, probabilistic risk models, and intelligence reports that often only hint at potential exploitation. Honeypots—though commonly used—depend on simulated behavior and are often easily identifiable or ignored by sophisticated attackers. The result is uncertainty: security teams have struggled to understand which vulnerabilities are truly being exploited and which are primarily theoretical risks.
Canary Intelligence replaces that uncertainty with ground-truth telemetry. The system deploys real, vulnerable software instances across the public internet, where they quietly observe attacker behavior. Every exploitation event is authenticated, validated, and tied to real adversarial action, removing speculation from the intelligence cycle.
According to Jacob Baines, CTO of VulnCheck, the goal is simple yet transformative: provide organizations with verified proof of exploitation activity so they can make remediation decisions based on factual attacker behavior rather than hypothetical risk scores.
“Security teams need real-world data—not just predictions or scoring models—to determine what to patch first,” Baines said. “Canary Intelligence provides that missing piece by showing exactly which vulnerabilities attackers are targeting, in real time, and with what payloads.”
How Canary Intelligence Works: Authentic Attack Telemetry at Scale
At the core of Canary Intelligence is a global network of intentionally vulnerable systems designed to mimic real-world environments. These canaries are not simulations—they contain real vulnerabilities, real misconfigurations, and real attack surfaces. When attackers target these systems, Canary Intelligence records every detail, including:
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Attacker source IP address
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The specific CVE exploited
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The exact payload used, including encoded commands
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Infrastructure or malware delivered
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Full context of attack sequences or chains
Each event is verified, offering security teams confidence that the threat activity is genuine and not theoretical. While honeypots may capture noise, Canary Intelligence captures actionable, high-fidelity signals that reflect current threat actor behaviors and emerging exploitation trends.
Key Features and Capabilities: Turning Observations Into Defensive Power
The launch of Canary Intelligence introduces a broad set of features designed to power detection engineering, threat hunting, vulnerability management, and incident response workflows. These capabilities strengthen the security posture of organizations by giving them verified insights they can trust.
1. Deep Attribution to Identify Attackers and Methods
Canary Intelligence conducts in-depth attribution by extracting:
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Encoded payloads
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Obfuscated commands
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Malware samples
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Infrastructure details such as IP clusters
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Indicators used across repeated attacks
By correlating these data points, VulnCheck identifies repeat offenders, infrastructure reuse, and potential threat actor fingerprints—giving defenders enhanced situational awareness.
2. Actionable CVE Intelligence
Security teams often face a backlog of vulnerabilities, unsure of which ones attackers are actually exploiting. Canary Intelligence fundamentally changes this.
It identifies:
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Which CVEs are actively exploited
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How attackers exploit them (payload and technique)
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Whether exploit activity aligns with Known Exploited Vulnerability (KEV) lists
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Whether exploitation is opportunistic or targeted
This data directs teams toward patches that have the greatest impact on reducing real-world risk.
3. Accelerated Detection Rule Coverage
Detection engineers can test and refine rules based on verified attacker payloads, including variants and mutations.
The system supports:
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Suricata rules
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Snort rules
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Sigma and YARA logic testing
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Automated validation against attacker techniques
This accelerates the tuning of IDS/IPS and SIEM detection logic, helping organizations defend against both known and emerging exploit attempts.
4. Seamless Integration With Existing VulnCheck Intelligence
Canary Intelligence isn’t a standalone product—it integrates seamlessly with VulnCheck’s broader intelligence ecosystem, including:
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VulnCheck KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities intelligence)
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Exploit Intelligence
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Vulnerability Intelligence
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IP Intelligence
Canary telemetry can be consumed via:
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REST APIs
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Web interface (UI)
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Machine-readable streams
This flexibility allows organizations to plug verified exploitation intelligence directly into the platforms they already rely on.
Proven in Action: Detecting Live Exploitation of CVE-2025-24893
One recent example highlights the power of Canary Intelligence in real operations. VulnCheck documented an active exploitation of CVE-2025-24893, a vulnerability affecting XWiki.
Here’s what Canary Intelligence captured:
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A two-stage exploitation chain, beginning with a template-injection vulnerability
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Deployment of a malicious payload that executed a cryptocurrency miner
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Live attacker infrastructure, including IP addresses and host patterns
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Indicators of compromise and behavioral signatures
This level of detail gave defenders not only confirmation that the vulnerability was being actively exploited but also the exact techniques used, allowing teams to:
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Patch with urgency
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Update detection rules
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Conduct targeted threat hunts
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Monitor for repeat infrastructure
Such findings illustrate how Canary Intelligence enhances vulnerability response workflows with real-world evidence.
Scale and Global Coverage: Massive Exploit Visibility
Since deployment, Canary Intelligence has already demonstrated significant reach and value.
It has:
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Observed exploitation of 231 Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs)
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Revealed 20 CVEs with no previously known public exploitation
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Detected over 500 CVEs being exploited in the wild
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Identified extensive overlap between active exploitation and CISA’s KEV list
This scale of coverage gives organizations visibility into exploitation activity that might otherwise go undetected, especially for lesser-known or emerging vulnerabilities.
Why Canary Intelligence Matters for Security Teams Everywhere
The cybersecurity landscape is changing: attackers move faster, exploit cycles shorten, and the gap between vulnerability disclosure and active exploitation continues to shrink. Security teams need timely, reliable, and context-rich intelligence to stay ahead.
Canary Intelligence addresses this need on multiple levels:
1. Early Warning System for Emerging Threats
By capturing exploitation attempts the moment they appear in the wild, Canary Intelligence provides early signals that help organizations:
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Detect new exploit campaigns
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Prioritize patching more effectively
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Move faster than adversaries
2. Precision-Based Remediation
Instead of relying on generalized severity scores, teams can base patching decisions on:
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Verified exploitation data
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Known attacker behaviors
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Actual payloads and methods
This reduces wasted effort and improves security outcomes.
3. Detection and Response Enhancement
Real payloads allow teams to:
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Tune IDS/IPS rules
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Improve SIEM detection logic
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Run targeted threat hunts
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Strengthen SOC workflows
Teams can test rules against real attacker traffic, ensuring they work in practice—not just in theory.
4. Threat Attribution and Behavioral Analysis
Canary Intelligence doesn’t just show “what” is being exploited—it helps uncover:
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Who is exploiting vulnerabilities
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Where attacks are coming from
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How attackers chain exploits
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Why certain vulnerabilities are targeted
This enriches threat profiles and supports strategic incident response.
General Availability: Ready for Integration Today
Canary Intelligence is now generally available to organizations seeking to embed real-time, verified exploitation telemetry into their:
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Vulnerability management programs
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Threat intelligence platforms
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SIEM and SOC operations
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Detection engineering pipelines
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Incident response strategies
This launch signals VulnCheck’s commitment to helping defenders act with certainty rather than assumption.
Conclusion: A New Era of Evidence-Based Security
With Canary Intelligence, VulnCheck has introduced a breakthrough platform that shifts vulnerability management from a guessing game to a data-driven discipline. By delivering real-time, verified evidence of attacker behavior, security teams can respond faster, patch smarter, and defend their environments with greater precision.
In a world where attackers move quickly and unpredictably, Canary Intelligence gives defenders an invaluable advantage:
clarity, confidence, and actionable truth.
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