Microsoft closed out 2025 with patches for 56 security flaws in varied merchandise throughout the Home windows platform, together with one vulnerability that has been actively exploited within the wild.
Of the 56 flaws, three are rated Essential, and 53 are rated Vital in severity. Two different defects are listed as publicly recognized on the time of the discharge. These embody 29 privilege escalation, 18 distant code execution, 4 info disclosure, three denial-of-service, and two spoofing vulnerabilities.
In complete, Microsoft has addressed a complete of 1,275 CVEs in 2025, in response to information compiled by Fortra. Tenable’s Satnam Narang mentioned 2025 additionally marks the second consecutive 12 months the place the Home windows maker has patched over 1,000 CVEs. It is the third time it has achieved so since Patch Tuesday’s inception.
The replace is along with 17 shortcomings the tech large patched in its Chromium-based Edge browser for the reason that launch of the November 2025 Patch Tuesday replace. This additionally consists of a spoofing vulnerability in Edge for iOS (CVE-2025-62223, CVSS rating: 4.3).
The vulnerability that has come underneath lively exploitation is CVE-2025-62221 (CVSS rating: 7.8), a use-after-free in Home windows Cloud Information Mini Filter Driver that might permit a licensed attacker to raise privileges regionally and acquire SYSTEM permissions.
“File system filter drivers, aka minifilters, connect to the system software program stack, and intercept requests focused at a file system, and prolong or exchange the performance offered by the unique goal,” Adam Barnett, lead software program engineer at Rapid7, mentioned in a press release. “Typical use instances embody information encryption, automated backup, on-the-fly compression, and cloud storage.”
“The Cloud Information minifilter is utilized by OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud, and others, though as a core Home windows part, it could nonetheless be current on a system the place none of these apps had been put in.”
It is at present not recognized how the vulnerability is being abused within the wild and in what context, however profitable exploitation requires an attacker to acquire entry to a vulnerable system by way of another means. Microsoft Menace Intelligence Middle (MSTIC) and Microsoft Safety Response Middle (MSRC) have been credited with discovering and reporting the flaw.
In line with Mike Walters, president and co-founder of Action1, a menace actor may acquire low-privileged entry by way of strategies like phishing, net browser exploits, or one other recognized distant code execution flaw, after which chain it with CVE-2025-62221 to grab management of the host.
Armed with this entry, the attacker may deploy kernel parts or abuse signed drivers to evade defenses and preserve persistence, and will be weaponized to attain a domain-wide compromise when coupled with credential theft situations.
The exploitation of CVE-2025-62221 has prompted the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company (CISA) so as to add it to the Identified Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, mandating Federal Civilian Govt Department (FCEB) companies to use the patch by December 30, 2025.
The remaining two zero-days are listed beneath –
- CVE-2025-54100 (CVSS rating: 7.8) – A command injection vulnerability in Home windows PowerShell that permits an unauthorized attacker to execute code regionally
- CVE-2025-64671 (CVSS rating: 8.4) – A command injection vulnerability in GitHub Copilot for JetBrains that permits an unauthorized attacker to execute code regionally
“This can be a command injection flaw in how Home windows PowerShell processes net content material,” Action1’s Alex Vovk mentioned about CVE-2025-54100. “It lets an unauthenticated attacker execute arbitrary code within the security context of a consumer who runs a crafted PowerShell command, reminiscent of Invoke-WebRequest.”
“The menace turns into vital when this vulnerability is mixed with frequent assault patterns. For instance, an attacker can use social engineering to steer a consumer or admin to run a PowerShell snippet utilizing Invoke-WebRequest, permitting a distant server to return crafted content material that triggers the parsing flaw and results in code execution and implant deployment.”
It is value noting that CVE-2025-64671 comes within the wake of a broader set of security vulnerabilities collectively named IDEsaster that was lately disclosed by security researcher Ari Marzouk. The problems come up because of including agentic capabilities to an built-in growth atmosphere (IDE), exposing new security dangers within the course of.
These assaults leverage immediate injections in opposition to the bogus intelligence (AI) brokers embedded into IDEs and mix them with the bottom IDE layer to lead to info disclosure or command execution.
“This makes use of an ‘previous’ assault chain of utilizing a weak device, so not precisely a part of the IDEsaster novel assault chain,” Marzouk, who’s credited with discovering and reporting the flaw, advised The Hacker Information. “Particularly, a weak ‘execute command’ device the place you may bypass the user-configured permit listing.”
Marzouk additionally mentioned a number of IDEs had been discovered weak to the identical assault, together with Kiro.dev, Cursor (CVE-2025-54131), JetBrains Junie (CVE-2025-59458), Gemini CLI, Windsurf, and Roo Code (CVE-2025-54377, CVE-2025-57771, and CVE-2025-65946). Moreover, GitHub Copilot for Visible Studio Code has been discovered to be vulnerable to the vulnerability, though, on this case, Microsoft assigned it a “Medium” severity ranking with no CVE.
“The vulnerability states that it is doable to achieve code execution on affected hosts by tricking the LLM into working instructions that bypass the guardrails and appending directions within the consumer’s ‘auto-approve’ settings,” Kev Breen, senior director of cyber menace analysis at Immersive, mentioned.
“This may be achieved by way of ‘Cross Immediate Injection,’ which is the place the immediate is modified not by the consumer however by the LLM brokers as they craft their very own prompts primarily based on the content material of information or information retrieved from a Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) server that has risen in recognition with agent-based LLMs.”
Software program Patches from Different Distributors
Along with Microsoft, security updates have additionally been launched by different distributors over the previous a number of weeks to rectify a number of vulnerabilities, together with —
- Adobe
- Amazon Internet Providers
- AMD
- Arm
- ASUS
- Atlassian
- Bosch
- Broadcom (together with VMware)
- Canon
- Cisco
- Citrix
- CODESYS
- Dell
- Devolutions
- Drupal
- F5
- Fortinet
- Fortra
- GitLab
- Google Android and Pixel
- Google Chrome
- Google Cloud
- Google Pixel Watch
- Hitachi Vitality
- HP
- HP Enterprise (together with Aruba Networking and Juniper Networks)
- IBM
- Creativeness Applied sciences
- Intel
- Ivanti
- Lenovo
- Linux distributions AlmaLinux, Alpine Linux, Amazon Linux, Arch Linux, Debian, Gentoo, Oracle Linux, Mageia, Purple Hat, Rocky Linux, SUSE, and Ubuntu
- MediaTek
- Mitsubishi Electrical
- MongoDB
- Moxa
- Mozilla Firefox and Firefox ESR
- NVIDIA
- OPPO
- Progress Software program
- Qualcomm
- React
- Rockwell Automation
- Samsung
- SAP
- Schneider Electrical
- Siemens
- SolarWinds
- Splunk
- Synology
- TP-Hyperlink
- WatchGuard
- Zoom, and
- Zyxel
