CVE-2025-62215: Microsoft Patches Windows Kernel Zero-Day Vulnerability Under Active Exploitation
Hot on the heels of the disclosure of the critical unauthenticated RCE vulnerability in Microsoft WSUS (CVE-2025-59287), Microsoft has addressed another severe flaw under active exploitation. During its November 2025 Patch Tuesday release, the software giant released fixes for more than 60 vulnerabilities, including a critical zero-day, tracked as CVE-2025-62215. This Windows Kernel privilege escalation flaw poses a significant risk as it enables attackers to gain elevated system privileges, potentially compromising the integrity of affected devices.
Microsoft technologies support millions of organizations worldwide, making them a cornerstone of today’s digital ecosystem. According to the 2025 BeyondTrust Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report, 2024 saw a record 1,360 security vulnerabilities across Microsoft products, an 11% increase from the previous year. Among these, Remote Code Execution (RCE) and Elevation of Privilege (EoP) vulnerabilities remain the most critical. Alarmingly, EoP flaws alone represented 40% of all reported issues, highlighting the serious risk posed by vulnerabilities that allow attackers to escalate privileges and gain control over systems.
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CVE-2025-62215 Analysis
On November 11, 2025, Microsoft’s latest Patch Tuesday update addressed 63 vulnerabilities, including a zero-day that is already being exploited in the wild. CVE-2025-62215, with a CVSS score of 7.0, is a privilege escalation vulnerability in the Windows Kernel caused by a race condition that allows attackers to manipulate system memory and potentially take control of the affected device.
Security engineers say the exploit is straightforward in concept: an attacker who already has low‑privileged local access can run a specially crafted program that repeatedly tries to provoke the timing error. Specifically, the attack forces multiple threads to touch the same kernel resource without proper synchronization, confusing the kernel’s memory handling so it frees the same block twice. That “double free” corrupts the kernel heap and gives the attacker a path to overwrite memory and seize control of execution flow.
Although the full scope of real-world exploitation isn’t yet clear, experts believe CVE-2025-62215 is primarily being used after an initial compromise (via phishing, RCE, or sandbox escape) to elevate privileges, harvest credentials, and move laterally. Chained with other bugs, this flaw can turn a minor foothold into a full system takeover, so prompt patching and layered defenses remain critical. Users are urged to patch their instances instantly following the dedicated Microsoft advisory.
Ivanti experts point out that the CVE-2025-62215 affects all currently supported Windows OS editions, as well as Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU). This underscores that running Windows 10 past its end-of-life without ESU coverage carries a real risk.Â
Microsoft has also released an out-of-band update for consumer devices not enrolled in the ESU program. This update resolves an issue that could prevent the ESU enrollment wizard from completing successfully, ensuring users can maintain security coverage even on older Windows 10 systems.
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