The Week in Vulnerabilities: The Year Ends with an Alarming New Trend

Cyble Vulnerability Intelligence researchers tracked 1,782 vulnerabilities in the last week, the third straight week that new vulnerabilities have been growing at twice their long-term rate. Over 282 of the disclosed vulnerabilities already have a publicly available Proof-of-Concept (PoC), significantly increasing the likelihood of real-world attacks on those vulnerabilities. A total of 207 vulnerabilities were rated as critical under the CVSS v3.1 scoring system, while 51 received a critical severity rating based on the newer CVSS v4.0 scoring system. Here are some of the top IT and ICS vulnerabilities flagged by Cyble threat intelligence researchers in recent reports to clients. The Week’s Top IT Vulnerabilities CVE-2025-66516 is a maximum severity XML External Entity (XXE) injection vulnerability in Apache Tika's core, PDF and parsers modules. Attackers could embed malicious XFA files in PDFs to trigger XXE, potentially allowing for the disclosure of sensitive files, SSRF, or DoS without authentication. CVE-2025-15047 is a critical stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability in Tenda WH450 router firmware version V1.0.0.18. Attackers could potentially initiate it remotely over the network with low complexity, and a public exploit exists, increasing the risk of widespread abuse. Among the vulnerabilities added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog were: CVE-2025-14733, an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in WatchGuard Fireware OS that could enable remote unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code. CVE-2025-40602, a local privilege escalation vulnerability due to insufficient authorization in the Appliance Management Console (AMC) of SonicWall SMA 1000 appliances. CVE-2025-20393, a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Cisco AsyncOS Software affecting Cisco Secure Email Gateway and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager appliances. The flaw has reportedly been actively exploited since late November by a China-linked APT group, which has deployed backdoors such as AquaShell, tunneling tools, and log cleaners to achieve persistence and remote access. CVE-2025-14847, a high-severity MongoDB vulnerability that’s been dubbed “MongoBleed” and reported to be under active exploitation. The Improper Handling of Length Parameter Inconsistency vulnerability could potentially allow uninitialized heap memory to be read by an unauthenticated client, potentially exposing data, credentials and session tokens. Vulnerabilities Under Discussion on the Dark Web Cyble dark web researchers observed a number of threat actors sharing exploits and discussing weaponizing vulnerabilities on underground and cybercrime forums. Among the vulnerabilities under discussion were: CVE-2025-56157, a critical default credentials vulnerability affecting Dify versions through 1.5.1, where PostgreSQL credentials are stored in plaintext within the docker-compose.yaml file. Attackers who access deployment files or source code repositories could extract these default credentials, potentially gaining unauthorized access to databases. Successful exploitation could enable remote code execution, privilege escalation, and complete data compromise. CVE-2025-37164, a critical code injection vulnerability in HPE OneView. The unauthenticated remote code execution flaw affects HPE OneView versions 10.20 and prior due to improper control of code generation. The vulnerability exists in the /rest/id-pools/executeCommand REST API endpoint, which is accessible without authentication, potentially allowing remote attackers to execute arbitrary code and gain centralized control over the enterprise infrastructure. CVE-2025-14558, a critical severity remote code execution vulnerability in FreeBSD's rtsol(8) and rtsold(8) programs that is still awaiting NVD and CVE publication. The flaw occurs because these programs fail to validate domain search list options in IPv6 router advertisement messages, potentially allowing shell commands to be executed due to improper input validation in resolvconf(8). Attackers on the same network segment could potentially exploit this vulnerability for remote code execution; however, the attack does not cross network boundaries, as router advertisement messages are not routable. CVE-2025-38352, a high-severity race condition vulnerability in the Linux kernel. This Time-of-Check Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) race condition in the posix-cpu-timers subsystem could allow local attackers to escalate privileges. The flaw occurs when concurrent timer deletion and task reaping operations create a race condition that fails to detect timer firing states. ICS Vulnerabilities Cyble threat researchers also flagged two industrial control system (ICS) vulnerabilities as meriting high-priority attention by security teams. They include: CVE-2025-30023, a critical Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in Axis Communications Camera Station Pro, Camera Station, and Device Manager. Successful exploitation could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, conduct a man-in-the-middle-style attack, or bypass authentication. Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Foxboro DCS Advisor is affected by CVE-2025-59827, a Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Server Update Service (WSUS). Successful exploitation could allow for remote code execution, potentially resulting in unauthorized parties acquiring system-level privileges. Conclusion The persistently high number of new vulnerabilities observed in recent weeks is a worrisome new trend as we head into 2026. More than ever, security teams must respond with rapid, well-targeted actions to patch the most critical vulnerabilities and successfully defend IT and critical infrastructure. A risk-based vulnerability management program should be at the heart of those defensive efforts. Other cybersecurity best practices that can help guard against a wide range of threats include segmentation of critical assets; removing or protecting web-facing assets; Zero-Trust access principles; ransomware-resistant backups; hardened endpoints, infrastructure, and configurations; network, endpoint, and cloud monitoring; and well-rehearsed incident response plans. Cyble’s comprehensive attack surface management solutions can help by scanning network and cloud assets for exposures and prioritizing fixes, in addition to monitoring for leaked credentials and other early warning signs of major cyberattacks. The post The Week in Vulnerabilities: The Year Ends with an Alarming New Trend appeared first on Cyble.