2019 Vulnerability Report: Cybercriminals Continue to Target Microsoft Products

Time- and resource-strapped security teams face an ongoing challenge: How do you make remediation decisions around vulnerabilities with lots of disparate information, but without access to all of the facts?

The annual Recorded Future vulnerability report helps remove some of that guesswork. Our researchers have scoured thousands of sources, including code repositories, underground forum postings, and dark web sites, to bring you the top 10 vulnerabilities being actively exploited by cybercriminals.

In the new 2019 report, titled “Criminal Underground Continues to Target Microsoft Products in Top 2019 Exploited Vulnerabilities List,” we observed more exploits targeting Microsoft products than Adobe products — a trend that began in 2017. Many of the top vulnerabilities of 2019 also appeared on our 2018 list — underscoring the importance of patching Microsoft products in your technology stack.

Interestingly, only one vulnerability impacting Internet Explorer 10 and 11 ranked in the top 10. This vulnerability was included in a new exploit kit called Capesand. We also observed that the total number of new exploit kits continued to decrease, dropping from five to four in 2019. This change is partially due to evolving criminal use of exploited vulnerabilities — but overall, exploit kits are declining as criminal efforts have adapted.

Download the 2019 report today to see the year-over-year changes in exploit kit, phishing, and remote access trojan co-occurrences with vulnerabilities, and find out how CVSS scores correlate to actual “in the wild” severity analysis. You’ll also get actionable recommendations for protecting your organization against the highest-trending vulnerabilities.