Full Report
The goal of this report is to analyze the exploits from the year as a whole, looking for trends, gaps, lessons learned, and successes.
Analysis Summary
This article is a high-level, annual review of trends in 0-day vulnerabilities exploited in the wild during 2022, based on analysis by Google Project Zero/TAG. It does not detail specific individual CVEs, products, or technical exploit descriptions. Therefore, specific details for CVE ID, Severity, Affected Products/Versions, and Remediation are **Not Available (N/A)** based solely on the provided text, as the focus is on macro trends.
# Vulnerability: 2022 Year in Review of in-the-Wild 0-Day Exploits (Aggregate Trends)
## CVE Details
- CVE ID: N/A (This is an aggregated analysis, not a specific CVE advisory)
- CVSS Score: N/A
- CWE: N/A
## Affected Systems
- Products: Various consumer platforms, primarily focusing on the Android ecosystem and web browsers.
- Versions: N/A (Focus is on the general impact across ecosystems)
- Configurations: N/A
## Vulnerability Description
The report analyzes 41 in-the-wild 0-days disclosed in 2022. Key observations include:
1. **N-day behavior on Android:** Due to long patching times, existing, older vulnerabilities (N-days) function effectively as 0-days against users who have not yet received updates.
2. **Shift to 0-Click/Non-Browser Targets:** Attackers are increasingly favoring 0-click exploit methods, often targeting components outside the browser, potentially due to new browser-based mitigations.
3. **Variant Exploitation:** Over 40% (17 out of 41) of the 0-days were variants of previously reported vulnerabilities (including prior 0-days), indicating a failure to fully remediate root causes.
4. **High Bug Collisions:** Increased frequency of multiple attacker groups or researchers hitting the same underlying vulnerability.
## Exploitation
- Status: 41 total 0-days were confirmed as exploited in the wild during 2022.
- Complexity: Attackers are moving toward lower-friction attacks (0-click).
- Attack Vector: Varied, but observation suggests a move away from traditional browser exploits towards targets enabling 0-click execution.
## Impact
Specific impact metrics (C/I/A) are not detailed per vulnerability. The general impact is significant, as these flaws were actively exploited against consumer platforms.
## Remediation
### Patches
- **General Need:** The primary recommendation is for more comprehensive and timely patching to address the use of N-days functioning as 0-days.
- Specific patch versions are N/A.
### Workarounds
- **General Need:** Industry-wide adoption of broader mitigations across platforms (similar to those implemented in major browsers) to make classes of vulnerabilities less exploitable.
## Detection
- **Detection Strategy:** Emphasis on sharing technical details post-discovery to help security defenders create detection mechanisms for complex exploit chains crossing multiple products.
- **Indicators of Compromise (IoCs):** N/A (The report focuses on analysis, not specific IoCs for any single flaw).
## References
- Vendor advisories: N/A (This is an industry-wide analysis by Google).
- Relevant links:
- Full 2022 Year in Review report: security dot googleblog dot com/2023/07/the-ups-and-downs-of-0-days-year-in.html
- Detailed RCA reports: googleprojectzero dot github dot io/0days-in-the-wild/rca.html