The Windows security landscape has dramatically evolved in early 2025, marked by increasingly sophisticated attack vectors and Microsoft’s accelerated defensive innovations.
February 2025 witnessed a sharp 87% increase in ransomware incidents globally, with 956 reported victims compared to January. As threat actors adapt their techniques, Microsoft has responded with significant security enhancements while organizations navigate a complex threat environment dominated by privilege escalation attacks and driver vulnerabilities.
Emerging Threat Landscape
The “Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver” (BYOVD) attack has emerged as one of the most concerning Windows security threats in 2025. This technique involves attackers exploiting legitimate but flawed driver software to disable security controls and compromise systems.
These attacks are particularly effective because drivers operate at the most privileged level of the operating system (ring 0), giving them direct access to critical system resources.
According to recent reports, cyberattacks related to vulnerabilities in Windows drivers have increased by 23% based on 2024 vulnerability analysis.
In March 2025, a zero-day vulnerability in a Microsoft-signed driver from Paragon Software (CVE-2025-0289) was actively exploited in ransomware attacks.
The CERT Coordination Center warned that this insecure kernel resource access vulnerability could be used to escalate privileges or execute DoS attacks, even on systems where Paragon Partition Manager was not installed. Microsoft observed threat actors using this vulnerability “to achieve privilege escalation to SYSTEM level, then execute further malicious code.”
Elevation of privilege vulnerabilities continue to dominate the Windows security landscape, accounting for 40% of total vulnerabilities in 2023. This persistence indicates that hackers’ objectives remain unchanged – they need to gain privileges to execute their attacks.
InfoStealer malware campaigns have also seen a sharp increase since the start of 2025, with attackers leveraging social engineering via fake CAPTCHA prompts. These attacks direct users to paste malicious commands into the Windows “Run” dialog, establishing code execution that enumerates credentials and stored sessions before exfiltrating them.
Microsoft’s Defensive Strategy
In response to these evolving threats, Microsoft has announced several significant security enhancements. The most notable is Administrator Protection, a new feature that gives users standard permissions by default and requires Windows Hello authentication for actions needing administrator rights.
This creates a temporary token that is destroyed once the task is completed, making it “disruptive to attackers as they no longer have automatic, direct access to the kernel or other critical system security without specific Windows Hello authorization.”
Microsoft Defender XDR (formerly Microsoft 365 Defender) has received major updates to provide incident-level visibility across the cyberattack chain.
The solution now features automatic disruption of advanced attacks with AI to limit cyberattackers’ progress early on. At Microsoft’s Secure 2025 event, the company announced further enhancements to alleviate the burden of repetitive tasks for SOC analysts as phishing threats grow increasingly sophisticated.
A new “Quick Machine Recovery” feature will help administrators remotely fix systems rendered unbootable via Windows Update “targeted fixes,” eliminating the need for physical access to affected machines.
This development appears to address concerns raised by the CrowdStrike meltdown that caused billions of dollars in damage by crashing millions of PCs and servers worldwide.
Windows Protected Print mode, introduced with Windows 11 24H2 in October 2024, eliminates the need for third-party print drivers that have become effective entry points for attackers.
This represents the first major change to Windows printing in 25 years and prevents the installation of V3 or V4 printer drivers, requiring Mopria-certified printers using the Microsoft IPP class driver instead.
Recent Security Incidents
April’s Patch Tuesday addressed 121 vulnerabilities, including a Windows zero-day (CVE-2025-29824) actively exploited by the Storm-2460 ransomware group.
This Windows Common Log File System Driver elevation-of-privilege flaw affected most Windows Server and desktop systems, allowing attackers with local access and a regular user account to gain full system privileges.
Storm-2460 targeted organizations across the U.S., Venezuela, Spain, and Saudi Arabia, infiltrating vulnerable systems to deploy malware.
February 2025’s ransomware landscape showed unprecedented growth, with Clop ransomware seeing a staggering 453% increase compared to January, while Play experienced a 360% spike. The Manufacturing sector was hardest hit, with attacks increasing 112% from January to February.
Looking Forward
As Microsoft continues to reduce critical vulnerabilities and remove excessive privileges on endpoints, attackers are increasingly forced to exploit elevation of privilege vulnerabilities.
The company’s roadmap includes plans to allow security products to operate in user mode instead of kernel mode, with a private preview scheduled for July 2025.
These developments represent a significant shift in Windows security architecture, addressing fundamental flaws exposed by recent incidents while countering the sophisticated techniques employed by modern threat actors.
For organizations, staying ahead of these evolving threats requires vigilant patching, implementing advanced threat detection, and adopting Microsoft’s latest security features.
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Source: https://cybersecuritynews.com/windows-security-in-2025/
