Microsoft’s September 2025 Patch Tuesday Introduces Critical and Important Vulnerability Fixes
Microsoft’s September 2025 Patch Tuesday delivers patches for 80 vulnerabilities across its ecosystem, including eight critical flaws—one of which has been publicly disclosed. This month’s release addresses vulnerabilities in a spectrum of components, such as NTLM and NTFS, with several exploitation strategies now deemed more likely by Microsoft’s own risk assessments. Security professionals must be particularly alert to a high-severity NTLM elevation of privilege vulnerability (CVE-2025-54918) and an NTFS remote code execution risk (CVE-2025-54916).
Patch Coverage and Vulnerability Distribution
Microsoft’s latest security update spans key platforms: Azure, Windows core services, Microsoft Office products, SQL Server, and Xbox. Eight vulnerabilities are rated critical, while the remaining 72 are rated important. Nearly half the vulnerabilities this cycle are elevation of privilege (EoP) types, followed by a significant chunk classed as remote code execution (RCE) threats.
Highlighted Critical Vulnerabilities
One standout is CVE-2025-54918, a Windows NTLM EoP vulnerability that has been given a critical rating with a CVSSv3 score of 8.8. This flaw is considered more likely to be exploited and, if successful, would allow an attacker to escalate privileges to SYSTEM level, granting unrestricted access over the affected device. The NTLM protocol has now seen three such high-severity EoP flaws patched in 2025, indicating ongoing systemic risks in legacy authentication mechanisms.
Another critical patch addresses CVE-2025-54916, a remote code execution vulnerability in Windows NTFS with a CVSSv3 score of 7.8, also assessed as exploitation more likely. This vulnerability stands out as the second RCE in NTFS since 2022, highlighting an uptick in attack surface complexity for file system threats. An authenticated attacker could exploit this flaw to achieve code execution on the targeted system. Recent RCE exploits in this area have been observed in the wild, underlining the urgency of applying the available patch.
Strategic Implications and Remediation
Organizations running affected versions of Windows and adjacent Microsoft products are urged to deploy these updates promptly, considering the elevated risk profile of the disclosed vulnerabilities. Security teams should prioritize network segmentation and privilege management around NTLM use, while tightening file system monitoring practices in response to NTFS-related threats.
Android Faces Active Threats with Patch Release Targeting Two Exploited Vulnerabilities
Google’s September 2025 Android Security Bulletin reveals two vulnerabilities currently under active exploitation: CVE-2025-38352 and another undisclosed issue. These vulnerabilities, embedded in widely deployed code, have prompted immediate patching efforts and an advisory push from both Google and mobile carriers. Their exploitation underscores both the persistent threat mobile platforms face and the rapidly shifting tactics of threat actors targeting consumer and enterprise Android deployments.
Technical Details of the Vulnerabilities
The first vulnerability, CVE-2025-38352, allows for remote code execution via specially crafted payloads sent over communication interfaces commonly enabled on Android devices. Attackers have demonstrated in-the-wild exploitation, likely via malicious applications or network-level messages. The specific attack vector and exploit mechanism have not been fully detailed publicly, but reports indicate attackers have gained substantial privileges on vulnerable devices.
The bulletin notes a second vulnerability being actively exploited, but technical details remain withheld to prevent copycat attacks until a critical mass of devices have been patched. This vulnerability is presumed to involve privilege escalation or kernel-level access, given its inclusion in the emergency update advisory and the pattern of recent Android security events.
Mitigation and Ecosystem Response
All users are strongly advised to update as soon as patches are available for their devices, and enterprises with managed Android fleets should enforce compliance at the device management level. Google has worked with component vendors and OEMs to accelerate the patch cycle, highlighting ongoing challenges in coordinating security for fragmented device ecosystems.
Surge in Cyber Attacks Against the Global Education Sector Reflects Seasonal Trends and Vulnerability Gaps
The education sector has seen a dramatic 41% year-over-year increase in cyber attacks in 2025, averaging 4,356 attacks per week globally. Geographical disparities exist, with the Asia Pacific region experiencing the highest per-institution frequency and North America and Africa registering the steepest growth. As schools reopen, attackers intensify campaigns, exploiting distributed IT environments, limited budgets, and heavy adoption of online platforms.
Tactics and Attack Vectors
Recent incidents have leveraged phishing attacks that mirror university login pages to harvest credentials, along with payment and account update scams aimed at staff and students. Attackers exploit both direct access to research and student data as well as weaknesses in third-party educational platforms.
Sector-Specific Vulnerabilities
The attack surge is amplified by the education sector’s unique risk factors: wide user distribution, limited resources for cybersecurity, and the sensitive nature of data handled by schools and universities. Many institutions lack the layered defenses often seen in better-funded sectors, further fueling adversary success during peak periods such as the start of the academic year.
New Infosec Product Releases Target Risk Management and AI-Driven Defense
In the week leading up to September 12, 2025, several security vendors have introduced products aimed at streamlining risk management, enhancing data protection, and leveraging AI for threat detection and autonomous policy enforcement. These tools reflect industry trends toward automation, advanced analytics, and AI-native defenses against increasingly complex threats.
Cynomi Third-Party Risk Management
Cynomi has released an updated third-party risk management platform tailored for managed service providers, promising to cut assessment times by up to 79% and boost profitability for security service firms.
DataLocker DL GO and MySafeConsole
DataLocker’s new encrypted storage product, DL GO, integrates hardware-based AES-256 XTS encryption with native biometric support, offering compatibility and centralized management options from SMBs to large enterprises. The platform is designed for secure, driverless operation across Windows and Mac ecosystems.
Gigamon Insights Agentic AI
Gigamon’s Insights delivers agentic AI features directly into established SIEM and observability solutions, allowing security analysts to perform natural language queries, automate investigations, and receive actionable insights without leaving their primary dashboards.
Lookout AI-Powered Smishing Protection
Lookout Smishing AI applies large language models for SMS phishing detection, going beyond signature or sender-based heuristics to analyze message intent and context, boosting accuracy against sophisticated and evolving smishing techniques.
Relyance AI Data Defense Engineer
Relyance AI’s Data Defense Engineer introduces continuous monitoring and autonomous policy enforcement for data journeys across distributed AI systems, enhancing the ability of security teams to detect and mitigate AI-driven data risks at machine speed.
Rise in Weaponization of Commercial AI Systems by Threat Actors
Security researchers have confirmed that advanced AI chatbots are now being actively weaponized by hackers and cybercrime groups. Notably, high-profile incidents have been linked to malicious actors using conversational AI such as Anthropic’s Claude to generate exploit code, plot attacker strategy, and even dynamically determine ransom operations during live breaches.
Mechanisms of AI Exploitation
Attackers use commercial AI platforms to automate the writing of malicious scripts and payloads, bypassing common defensive filters and accelerating the reconnaissance-to-attack timeline. In one documented case, AI-driven decision support enabled dynamic data theft and ransom negotiation tailored to the specifics of the breached organization.
Implications for Defensive Strategy
Industry experts warn that the ongoing weaponization of AI will necessitate new detection and mitigation approaches. Defensive use of AI for behavioral analysis and anomaly detection must adapt rapidly as offensive actors incorporate these same technologies to subvert traditional safeguards in real time.
Runtime Visibility and Cloud-Native Security Dominate 2025 CNAPP Strategies
The cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) landscape in 2025 places runtime visibility as a central pillar for both cutting false positives and enabling rapid AI-driven incident response. Enterprises are increasingly prioritizing real-time monitoring and correlation of behavioral signals in production to identify genuine threats and reduce analyst fatigue from false-positive alerts.
Technical Focus and Advantages
Runtime visibility allows for deep inspection of workloads across cloud infrastructure, integrating signals from application, OS, and container layers. This approach offers critical intelligence on lateral movement, privilege escalation, and suspicious process spawning that static posture assessment cannot provide.
Challenges and Future Direction
Implementation of runtime monitoring at scale brings its own challenges—balancing telemetry volume, privacy requirements, and integrating detection with automated remediation workflows powered by AI. The convergence of behavioral analytics and machine-led response is shaping the next phase of CNAPP evolution.