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Microsoft today issued security updates to fix at least 56 vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and supported software, including two zero-day flaws that are being actively exploited.
All supported Windows operating systems will receive an update this month for a buffer overflow vulnerability that carries the catchy name CVE-2025-21418. This patch should be a priority for enterprises, as Microsoft says it is being exploited, has low attack complexity, and no requirements for user interaction.
Tenable senior staff research engineer Satnam Narang noted that since 2022, there have been nine elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in this same Windows component — three each year — including one in 2024 that was exploited in the wild as a zero day (CVE-2024-38193).
“CVE-2024-38193 was exploited by the North Korean APT group known as Lazarus Group to implant a new version of the FudModule rootkit in order to maintain persistence and stealth on compromised systems,” Narang said. “At this time, it is unclear if CVE-2025-21418 was also exploited by Lazarus Group.”
The other zero-day, CVE-2025-21391, is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Windows Storage that could be used to delete files on a targeted system. Microsoft’s advisory on this bug references something called “CWE-59: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access,” says no user interaction is required, and that the attack complexity is low.
Adam Barnett, lead software engineer at Rapid7, said although the advisory provides scant detail, and even offers some vague reassurance that ‘an attacker would only be able to delete targeted files on a system,’ it would be a mistake to assume that the impact of deleting arbitrary files would be limited to data loss or denial of service.
“As long ago as 2022, ZDI researchers set out how a motivated attacker could parlay arbitrary file deletion into full SYSTEM access using techniques which also involve creative misuse of symbolic links,”Barnett wrote.
One vulnerability patched today that was publicly disclosed earlier is CVE-2025-21377, another weakness that could allow an attacker to elevate their privileges on a vulnerable Windows system. Specifically, this is yet another Windows flaw that can be used to steal NTLMv2 hashes — essentially allowing an attacker to authenticate as the targeted user without having to log in.
According to Microsoft, minimal user interaction with a malicious file is needed to exploit CVE-2025-21377, including selecting, inspecting or “performing an action other than opening or executing the file.”
“This trademark linguistic ducking and weaving may be Microsoft’s way of saying ‘if we told you any more, we’d give the game away,'” Barnett said. “Accordingly, Microsoft assesses exploitation as more likely.”
The SANS Internet Storm Center has a handy list of all the Microsoft patches released today, indexed by severity. Windows enterprise administrators would do well to keep an eye on askwoody.com, which often has the scoop on any patches causing problems.
It’s getting harder to buy Windows software that isn’t also bundled with Microsoft’s flagship Copilot artificial intelligence (AI) feature. Last month Microsoft started bundling Copilot with Microsoft Office 365, which Redmond has since rebranded as “Microsoft 365 Copilot.” Ostensibly to offset the costs of its substantial AI investments, Microsoft also jacked up prices from 22 percent to 30 percent for upcoming license renewals and new subscribers.
Office-watch.com writes that existing Office 365 users who are paying an annual cloud license do have the option of “Microsoft 365 Classic,” an AI-free subscription at a lower price, but that many customers are not offered the option until they attempt to cancel their existing Office subscription.
In other security patch news, Apple has shipped iOS 18.3.1, which fixes a zero day vulnerability (CVE-2025-24200) that is showing up in attacks.
Adobe has issued security updates that fix a total of 45 vulnerabilities across InDesign, Commerce, Substance 3D Stager, InCopy, Illustrator, Substance 3D Designer and Photoshop Elements.
Chris Goettl at Ivanti notes that Google Chrome is shipping an update today which will trigger updates for Chromium based browsers including Microsoft Edge, so be on the lookout for Chrome and Edge updates as we proceed through the week.
Microsoft today released updates to fix more than 50 security vulnerabilities in Windows and related software, a relatively light Patch Tuesday this month for Windows users. The software giant also responded to a torrent of negative feedback on a new feature of Redmond’s flagship operating system that constantly takes screenshots of whatever users are doing on their computers, saying the feature would no longer be enabled by default.
Last month, Microsoft debuted Copilot+ PCs, an AI-enabled version of Windows. Copilot+ ships with a feature nobody asked for that Redmond has aptly dubbed Recall, which constantly takes screenshots of what the user is doing on their PC. Security experts roundly trashed Recall as a fancy keylogger, noting that it would be a gold mine of information for attackers if the user’s PC was compromised with malware.
Microsoft countered that Recall snapshots never leave the user’s system, and that even if attackers managed to hack a Copilot+ PC they would not be able to exfiltrate on-device Recall data. But that claim rang hollow after former Microsoft threat analyst Kevin Beaumont detailed on his blog how any user on the system (even a non-administrator) can export Recall data, which is just stored in an SQLite database locally.
“I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this is the dumbest cybersecurity move in a decade,” Beaumont said on Mastodon.
In a recent Risky Business podcast, host Patrick Gray noted that the screenshots created and indexed by Recall would be a boon to any attacker who suddenly finds himself in an unfamiliar environment.
“The first thing you want to do when you get on a machine if you’re up to no good is to figure out how someone did their job,” Gray said. “We saw that in the case of the SWIFT attacks against central banks years ago. Attackers had to do screen recordings to figure out how transfers work. And this could speed up that sort of discovery process.”
Responding to the withering criticism of Recall, Microsoft said last week that it will no longer be enabled by default on Copilot+ PCs.
Only one of the patches released today — CVE-2024-30080 — earned Microsoft’s most urgent “critical” rating, meaning malware or malcontents could exploit the vulnerability to remotely seize control over a user’s system, without any user interaction.
CVE-2024-30080 is a flaw in the Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) service that can allow attackers to execute code of their choosing. Microsoft says exploitation of this weakness is likely, enough to encourage users to disable the vulnerable component if updating isn’t possible in the short run. CVE-2024-30080 has been assigned a CVSS vulnerability score of 9.8 (10 is the worst).
Kevin Breen, senior director of threat research at Immersive Labs, said a saving grace is that MSMQ is not a default service on Windows.
“A Shodan search for MSMQ reveals there are a few thousand potentially internet-facing MSSQ servers that could be vulnerable to zero-day attacks if not patched quickly,” Breen said.
CVE-2024-30078 is a remote code execution weakness in the Windows WiFi Driver, which also has a CVSS score of 9.8. According to Microsoft, an unauthenticated attacker could exploit this bug by sending a malicious data packet to anyone else on the same network — meaning this flaw assumes the attacker has access to the local network.
Microsoft also fixed a number of serious security issues with its Office applications, including at least two remote-code execution flaws, said Adam Barnett, lead software engineer at Rapid7.
“CVE-2024-30101 is a vulnerability in Outlook; although the Preview Pane is a vector, the user must subsequently perform unspecified specific actions to trigger the vulnerability and the attacker must win a race condition,” Barnett said. “CVE-2024-30104 does not have the Preview Pane as a vector, but nevertheless ends up with a slightly higher CVSS base score of 7.8, since exploitation relies solely on the user opening a malicious file.”
Separately, Adobe released security updates for Acrobat, ColdFusion, and Photoshop, among others.
As usual, the SANS Internet Storm Center has the skinny on the individual patches released today, indexed by severity, exploitability and urgency. Windows admins should also keep an eye on AskWoody.com, which often publishes early reports of any Windows patches gone awry.
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