On today's Signal Check, Adrian North covers overnight security alerts including zero-day exploits hitting SonicWall VPN appliances, a critical remote code execution flaw in 7-Zip, and public exploits now targeting WordPress Core. We also dig into a clever five-dollar ad-blocking solution that outperforms commercial tools and why patching can't wait when attackers are already inside your perimeter.

Stories covered:

- SonicWall SMA Zero-Days Exploited Before Disclosure to Gain Root Access (The Hacker News) - https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/sonicwall-sma-zero-days-exploited.html

- Update now: 7-Zip fixes RCE flaw exploitable with malicious archives (BleepingComputer) - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/update-now-7-zip-fixes-rce-flaw-exploitable-with-malicious-archives/

- Clever hacker fits 537,000 domains in a tiny $5 ESP32 ad-blocking dongle — firmware uses only around 50KB of RAM and can answer blocked lookups in 10 milliseconds - Tom's Hardware (Tom's Hardware) - https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiqgJBVV95cUxQMHBOOGNaNjJUWHVnUm5OekFuZTc1M05GYmczN3FGZTBQVkdCNHF0ZVk5T1dfWnBsY1ZkRVJrTVdOMjhQdzU0WTVkZklDaTduNzA5S2JsNmhxTlhxMWNhVHNSU2xjRk1JNVNXcXpJUjhBQ2drdVJHYURUSGJtMHhHLVN2YUN4d3ZvbldUZ2xUa245dThwaVZjOUxKNlRaRmFfTnlQWGFEREo4enhfeUd3RXFxOXR2MGI3T0NmZWpYT0F0NVZmUjRybE0yM0NzcFJNRDZ5ZjVjMmhRX1VsNWZMd09FbUp5UVY4Zmw0SkNVQzIzTzl2TVFUc3NlWnREN0pmNlZ6WnBmTEdxLWpjN1BaQmRzVXFhaXpzZnptWFdSNmZ3Z2tHYlZDSDR3?oc=5

- WordPress Core "wp2shell" RCE flaws get public exploits, patch now (BleepingComputer) - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/wordpress-core-wp2shell-rce-flaws-get-public-exploits-patch-now/

- Can the Norwegian Training Method Help You Run More and Faster—While Recovering Better? (Runner's World) - https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a72845651/norwegian-training-method/

- AI advice made people 3x less accurate but 2x confident, researchers found (Hacker News) - https://thenextweb.com/news/ai-advice-suppresses-critical-thinking-wrong-answers-study