Windows Kernel 0-Day Under Active Exploitation for Privilege Escalation

Microsoft has disclosed a critical Windows Kernel vulnerability that is currently under active exploitation in the wild.

Tracked as CVE-2025-62215, the flaw enables attackers to escalate privileges and gain elevated access on vulnerable Windows systems.

Vulnerability Details

The vulnerability is an elevation-of-privilege flaw in the Windows Kernel that stems from improper synchronization when multiple processes access shared resources simultaneously.

The weakness, classified under CWE-362 (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization) and CWE-415 (Double Free), allows local attackers with limited privileges to exploit a race condition and execute arbitrary code with system-level permissions.

Released on November 11, 2025, CVE-2025-62215 carries an “Important” severity rating with a CVSS 3.1 score of 7.0 (Microsoft assessment).

The vulnerability requires local access to exploit, meaning an attacker must already have a user account on the target system.

However, the attack does not require any user interaction and can be executed through automated scripts or malicious applications.

The exploitation technique involves triggering a race condition in the Windows Kernel’s memory management subsystem.

By carefully timing multiple threads or processes, an attacker can manipulate shared kernel resources to cause a double-free condition, potentially leading to memory corruption.

This allows the attacker to execute arbitrary code in the kernel’s context, resulting in complete system compromise.

The attack surface is particularly concerning because it can be initiated with only low-level privileges.

Any authenticated user, including those with restricted accounts, can trigger the vulnerability. This makes it especially dangerous in enterprise environments where multiple users share access to the same systems.

According to security researchers monitoring threat activity, this vulnerability is being actively exploited by multiple threat actors in targeted attacks.

The attacks primarily focus on stealing sensitive data, deploying ransomware, and establishing persistent backdoors on compromised systems.

Enterprise and government networks have reported confirmed breach attempts leveraging this vulnerability.

Microsoft has released security patches to address this vulnerability.

Organizations are strongly urged to apply the latest Windows security updates immediately, particularly for systems running Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server versions.

Beyond patching, security teams should implement additional defensive measures, including:

• Restricting local user account creation and privilege levels
• Turning off unnecessary services and kernel features that might be vulnerable
• Deploying endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions to identify exploitation attempts
• Monitoring system logs for suspicious kernel-level activities and privilege escalation events
• Implementing application allowlisting to prevent malicious code execution

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