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VMware Zero-Days, Microsoft-Signed Driver Exploits, and the Race Against Attackers
Welcome back!
While security teams focus on endpoints and perimeter defenses, attackers are targeting your hypervisors—the very foundation of your infrastructure.
Three VMware zero-day vulnerabilities are being actively exploited, with over 37,000 ESXi servers still unpatched. Meanwhile, ransomware groups are weaponizing Microsoft-signed drivers to bypass security controls.
Let’s break down what’s happening—and what you need to do before your infrastructure becomes someone else’s playground.
Critical VMware Zero-Days: The Hypervisor Escape You Didn’t See Coming
Broadcom disclosed three zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-22224, CVE-2025-22225, CVE-2025-22226) that allow attackers to escape virtual machines and gain control over physical infrastructure—completely bypassing your security controls.
What’s Happening?
Attackers are actively chaining these vulnerabilities for hypervisor escape attacks
37,000+ ESXi instances remain vulnerable—primarily in the U.S., France, and China
Patching delays are widespread due to Broadcom Support Portal issues post-VMware acquisition
Why This Matters Now
VMware environments are often black boxes—security teams lack visibility inside hypervisors. If an attacker escapes the VM, they can move laterally to your most critical assets (like domain controllers) without triggering a single alert.
If you’re running VMware and haven’t patched, assume compromise isn’t just possible—it’s probable.
What You Need to Do:
Patch immediately—prioritize ESXi hosts even if it means downtime
Isolate ESXi management interfaces from general network traffic
Monitor hypervisor logs for unusual activity
Implement network segmentation between virtual machines and critical infrastructure
Review your disaster recovery plan—a hypervisor breach can compromise multiple systems at once
Your hypervisor is the last line of defense—once attackers break through, all bets are off.
Microsoft-Signed Drivers: The Trojan Horse Inside Your Defenses
While you’re patching VMware, don’t overlook this: Ransomware attackers are using Microsoft-signed drivers to disable security tools.
Attackers are exploiting vulnerabilities in Paragon Partition Manager’s BioNTdrv.sys driver—a Microsoft-signed component—to gain SYSTEM-level privileges and evade detection.
How This Attack Works:
Five vulnerabilities in Paragon’s BioNTdrv.sys driver allow privilege escalation
Microsoft confirmed active exploitation in ransomware attacks
The driver’s Microsoft signature helps bypass security controls and terminate endpoint protection
Your Next Moves:
Enable Microsoft's Vulnerable Driver Blocklist on all endpoints
Update endpoint protection rules to detect and block BYOVD (Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver) techniques
Audit third-party drivers and software with kernel access
Implement application whitelisting to prevent unauthorized driver loading
Even the best security tools can’t protect your systems if attackers can shut them off first.
Headlines For the Fast Lane
The semiconductor giants patched numerous critical and high-severity vulnerabilities affecting everything from smartphones to automotive platforms to AI devices. Qualcomm's fixes include 14 vulnerabilities, mostly critical, with several impacting QNX-based automotive software.
📌 Why It Matters: Your security strategy is only as strong as your hardware foundation. These vulnerabilities affect billions of devices across multiple industries—and most users don't even know they're at risk.
Microsoft reports that Silk Typhoon (APT27) has pivoted to targeting third-party IT service providers to gain backdoor access to their downstream customers. The group is stealing API keys, credentials, and exploiting zero-days to infiltrate identity management platforms and remote monitoring tools.
📌 Why It Matters: Your IT provider might be your biggest vulnerability. This attack strategy allows hackers to compromise dozens or hundreds of organizations through a single successful breach.
Scammers are using deepfake videos of YouTube CEO Neal Mohan to target creators with phishing emails about "changes in monetization." The attack shares private videos to bypass security tools and steal credentials through fake sign-in pages.
📌 Why It Matters: AI-generated content is making phishing attacks nearly indistinguishable from legitimate communications. Your traditional security awareness training isn't equipped for this new reality.
The attackers aren't playing by your security rules—they're rewriting them. While you're busy defending your applications and endpoints, they're targeting the infrastructure layer beneath them.
In this race, you can't afford to protect the wrong assets.
// IT Pit Chief
