September 2025 Patch Tuesday Addresses Numerous Vulnerabilities,focus Shifts to Privilege Escalation
Microsoft’s September 2025 Patch Tuesday delivered fixes for a range of security vulnerabilities,with a notable emphasis on privilege escalation flaws. While remote code execution vulnerabilities frequently enough dominate headlines, this month’s updates reveal a trend: Microsoft patched more elevation of privilege vulnerabilities than remote code execution flaws for the third time this year.
According to Tenable Senior Staff Research Engineer Satnam narang, nearly half of all vulnerabilities Microsoft addressed this month require an attacker to already have access to a target system before attempting to elevate privileges. One recently publicized remote code execution vulnerability, while labeled as such, doesn’t allow for network-based exploitation. ”while the title of the CVE says ‘Remote Code execution,’ this exploit is not remotely exploitable over the network, but instead needs an attacker to either have the ability to run code on the host or to convince a user to run a file that would trigger the exploit,” explained security researcher Breen. “This is commonly seen in social engineering attacks, where they send the user a file to open as an attachment or a link to a file to download and run.”
the vulnerabilities aren’t limited to Windows. Google recently patched two zero-day flaws detected in active attacks: CVE-2025-38352, an elevation of privilege in the Android kernel, and CVE-2025-48543, an elevation of privilege issue in the android Runtime component.
Apple also addressed a seventh zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2025-43300) this year, exploited in conjunction with a WhatsApp vulnerability (CVE-2025-55177) to compromise Apple devices. Amnesty International reports the zero-days were used in an “advanced spyware campaign” over the past 90 days. Updates addressing the issue are available for iOS 18.6.2, iPadOS 18.6.2, iPadOS 17.7.10, macOS Sequoia 15.6.1, macOS sonoma 14.7.8, and macOS Ventura 13.7.8.
Detailed data on each microsoft fix, categorized by severity and CVSS score, is available from the SANS Internet Storm Centre. Enterprise administrators testing patches should consult askwoody.com for insights into potentially problematic updates.
Microsoft is set to discontinue free security updates for Windows 10 computers in two months,prompting users to consider options for extending the lifespan of older machines.
