August 16, 2025 - Red Dot Security

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Hello all,

I knew it would be a busy week since it was Patch Tuesday, but I didn’t know it would be this busy. Hundreds of new vulnerabilities were reported that need evaluation, prioritization, and remediation. Some of the reveals are as a result of discoveries unveiled at Black Hat or DefCon last week, but many others are just an unfortunate coincidence in timing. Defenders have been and will continue to be busy for a while sorting all of this.

This email and video commentary is from the RedDotSecurity.news website that contains a plethora of links to other items, not mentioned here, that are worth skimming to see if they interest you or pertain to your particular environment or of those you support. There is a lot more than what is provided in these opening comments. So, on to the headline news.

Headline NEWS:

Adobe contributed 60 vulnerabilities to Patch Tuesday. Thirteen different products have defects that need fixing, many being rated as critical. If you use any product by Adobe, make sure you check for and apply updates quickly.
Cisco is back in the news, this time with a maximum severity RADIUS defect in their Not-so-secure ‘Secure Firewall Management Center Software’. If you use this and use RADIUS, update to the latest supported version immediately. In addition to the above hole, there were at least twelve other vulnerabilities identified in various Cisco products that require patching.
Fortinet being consistent with not wanting to let a month go by without a defect, unleashed fixes for FortiOS, FortiProxy, FortiPAM, FortiWeb, and FortiSwitchManager. Five different CVEs were addressed, some of which plug defects allowing authentication bypass, and remote code authentication. Since firewalls have consistently been a very high-profile target of threat actors, you should patch immediately.
Microsoft doesn’t appear to be winning the vulnerability game of whack a mole, with 107 CVEs receiving patches this month, or 111 depending on who is reporting. These flaws are in a significant swath of Big Redmond’s products. The most severe of these, in my opinion, is a zero-day defect in the Kerberos authentication system. It appears to be simple to exploit under the right circumstances. Start patching there and evaluate your order of triage for the remainder. And if you use Microsoft Exchange on premises, there is a new security patch release available which addresses some issues and which activates a feature of the Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI) integration which will scan message bodies.
SAP aka System Applications and Products in Data Processing, released updates for fifteen holes, along with updates to four other fixes. At least six of their products are affected, so if you SAP, check for updates.
7-Zip and WinRAR both have defects that require updating to the latest version to mitigate. Threat actors have been quick to weaponize the WinRAR defect and are already actively exploiting this hole to compromise systems.
Xerox and Zoom, finishing out the alphabet in this week’s headlines, both have critical privilege escalation, and remote code execution defects that need patching.

In Ransomware, Malware, and Vulnerabilities News:

FBI warning about ‘The Com’ aka The Community. The exponentially growing number of tech savvy, but impulse control lacking teenagers is rapidly approaching a crisis. Criminal organizations are actively recruiting teens in chat groups, online forums, and via online games. Under the mistaken belief that underage criminals will not be prosecuted, these youth engage in ransomware, social engineering, crypto theft and swatting for hire. Our modern culture and online anonymity have desensitized them to the devastating effects of their malevolent activities on others. When you combine the thrill of getting away with something, the lure of easy money, fame within their inner circles, and youthful poor impulse control, you have a recipe for chaos and disaster. Parents, you need to monitor your youth’s activity. Little Johnny may be a criminal mastermind.

In Other News Events of Note and Interest:

Backblaze the online backup and storage company, maintains statistics of how various hard drives and solid-state drives perform across their enterprise. They graciously share their findings with the world on a regular basis. Their Quarter 2 2025 report is out, listing some clear winners and losers in speed and dependability. If you are shopping for a new drive, make sure you check out their report so that you don’t buy a lemon.

Musings:

Change is inevitable. We can fight it, and at times we should so that the chaos doesn’t overwhelm us, but there is no stopping change. In some industries change comes very slowly. I would imagine that woodworking would be one such discipline, or perhaps bricklaying. However, in my experience in the tech world, I need to practically relearn my job every three years or so. Throw in changes that come with adapting to new workplaces, managers, and modalities, and you encounter a rather frenetic life. The answer isn’t to attempt to block or prevent the changes, but rather to use them to your advantage, harnessing advances and using them to be more efficient to get your work done and accomplish desired goals. Unchecked, change will produce entropy, the natural progression of order to chaos, but if we remain diligent, it doesn’t win. At least not on our watch.

Headline NEWS

Ransomware, Malware, and Vulnerabilities News

Other News Events of Note and Interest

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