Urgent Microsoft Update: Patch Windows 10, 11, Server Now
▼ Summary
– Microsoft has confirmed that CVE-2025-62215, a Windows Kernel zero-day vulnerability, is being actively exploited by attackers to gain system privileges.
– This privilege escalation flaw is typically used after initial access is gained through methods like phishing or other vulnerabilities, requiring attackers to win a race condition.
– Security experts warn that if exploited successfully, CVE-2025-62215 could allow remote code execution as system via the network without needing an existing foothold.
– Another critical vulnerability, CVE-2025-60724, has a CVSS 9.8 rating and can be triggered without user interaction through malicious documents uploaded to web services.
– CVE-2025-60704, a Windows Kerberos elevation of privilege vulnerability, enables attackers to impersonate users and access sensitive data while remaining undetected.
Microsoft has issued an urgent security update for Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server systems, warning that a newly discovered zero-day vulnerability is already being actively exploited by attackers. This critical flaw, identified as CVE-2025-62215, resides within the Windows Kernel and could allow an unauthorized user to gain system-level privileges on affected machines.
The situation escalated as Microsoft’s latest Patch Tuesday release detailed a total of 63 security vulnerabilities. Among them, CVE-2025-62215 stands out due to confirmed in-the-wild attacks. According to Satnam Narang, a senior staff research engineer at Tenable, although exploitation requires an attacker to win a race condition, Microsoft has verified active misuse. Narang indicated this privilege escalation flaw is likely being deployed during post-exploitation stages, following initial system access achieved through phishing, social engineering, or other security weaknesses.
Microsoft’s official advisory confirms the issue involves “concurrent execution using shared resource with improper synchronization” in the Windows Kernel, permitting a local authorized attacker to elevate privileges. Adam Barnett, lead software engineer at Rapid7, noted that this vulnerability potentially impacts nearly every asset running Microsoft software. He cautioned that under ideal conditions for an attacker, the flaw could enable remote code execution over the network without requiring any prior foothold. While Barnett does not believe CVE-2025-62215 is wormable, he emphasized it should be a top patching priority for all organizations this month.
The root cause combines two weaknesses: CWE-362, concerning concurrent execution using a shared resource with improper synchronization, and CWE-415, a double-free issue. Ben McCarthy, lead cyber security engineer at Immersive, explained that an attacker with low-privilege local access could run a specially crafted application designed to repeatedly trigger this race condition. The objective is to cause multiple threads to unsynchronizedly interact with a shared kernel resource, confusing memory management and making the kernel free the same memory block twice. This corrupts the kernel heap, allows memory overwriting, and hijacks system execution flow. Jason Soroko, senior fellow at Sectigo, summarized the danger: “CVE-2025-62215 does not open the door by itself, it flings it wide once an attacker is inside.”
Beyond this zero-day, security professionals are urging attention to other serious vulnerabilities in the November patch batch. Eliran Partush, a security researcher at Silverfort who discovered CVE-2025-60704, highlighted the Windows Kerberos privilege escalation flaw, nicknamed CheckSum, which carries a CVSS score of 7.5. This weakness could let an attacker impersonate users, access sensitive data, and remain undetected. Partush pointed out that Kerberos has long been trusted as the backbone of enterprise authentication, and this flaw reveals how legacy design choices, such as weak checksum mechanisms, can quietly undermine even well-architected security protocols.
Another high-severity issue is CVE-2025-60724, which boasts a CVSS rating of 9.8. Tyler Reguly, associate director of security research and development at Fortra, expressed serious concern over this vulnerability, as it can be triggered without any user interaction simply by uploading a malicious document to a web service. Reguly noted that for any Chief Information Security Officer, CVE-2025-60724 is particularly alarming this month, it’s a critical flaw requiring no user interaction and no privileges, just the ability to upload a file.
Given the active exploitation and high risks associated with these vulnerabilities, applying the latest Microsoft security updates immediately is essential for protecting systems and data.
(Source: Forbes)
