The Annual Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report is Here

What will you learn in this year’s edition?

The ninth annual Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report returns to provide a digestible analysis of the current Microsoft vulnerabilities landscape — even after recent changes in vulnerability reporting.

Two years ago, Microsoft announced changes to their Microsoft Security Update Guide, and a switch to the industry-standard Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). While the new reporting system brings benefits, it also creates some visibility challenges.

As with prior versions, this year’s Microsoft Vulnerability report is designed to help you better understand and address risks within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Key Findings:

  • 1,212 reported vulnerabilities in total — 5% lower than last year.
  • For the second year in a row, Elevation of Privilege was the #1 vulnerability category.
  • 47% decrease in Critical vulnerabilities year/year — the lowest number since this report began.
  • 349 new vulnerabilities in IE & Edge — almost 4x the prior year total, and a new record.

Read the full report for a deeper dive into these findings. You’ll also gain prescriptive advice for effectively addressing vulnerabilities, alongside access to the expert commentary of noteworthy industry leaders.

Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report 2022

Access new vulnerabilities listed by category, and find expert advice for best practices moving forward.

Topics Covered in the Report Include:

Vulnerabilities by Category

Find out how vulnerability categories, including Elevation of Privilege, Denial of Service, Remote Code Execution, and more have trended over the last decade, which categories are the most prominent today, and why.

Vulnerabilities by Product

Discover the latest reported vulnerabilities for products including, Internet Explorer, Edge, Windows, Microsoft Office, Windows Server, and Azure.

Highest Impact Vulnerabilities

Review how the most significant vulnerabilities – measured at a CVSS score of 9.0+ – have impacted deployments of Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows DNS, and more.

Expert Opinions and Advice

Hear from notable industry figures such as Sami Laiho, Senior Technical Fellow, MVP; Russell Smith, Editorial Director, Petri IT Knowledgebase; and Paula Januszkiewicz, Security Expert & Penetration Tester. Plus, BeyondTrust’s security leaders Morey Haber, Chief Security Officer, and James Maude, Lead Cyber Security Researcher offer insight.

“Although we can see a decrease in the number of vulnerabilities for the first time in years, it’s only -5%, and I don’t really see this as a big change or anything to be too happy about. With Microsoft’s move to the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), it’s not as easy to identify which vulnerabilities would have been mitigated by removing admin rights, but we can still see that one out of two vulnerabilities did aim at elevating privileges.”

Sami Laiho, Senior Technical Fellow, MVP

Take a Proactive Approach to Vulnerability Mitigation

Patching vulnerabilities is not always straightforward, or even desirable based on an organization’s environment, so removing admin rights remains a longstanding best practice. Many exploits depend on the presence of admin rights to execute or perform lateral movements.

Removing admin rights is a proactive way to vastly reduce the attack surface and provide protection against potential zero-day threats before a patch is even available. In addition to compliance initiatives, removing admin rights is now often specifically called out by cyber insurers, and is a control consistent with zero trust principles.

Manage Admin Rights & Proactively Mitigate Vulnerabilities

BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management is a best-in-class solution designed to to reduce the risks associated with admin rights and many of Microsoft’s Critical vulnerabilities. Use Endpoint Privilege Management to elevate privileges to trusted applications that require them, control application usage, and log and report on privileged activities.

The Complete BeyondTrust Platform

Defend against client and server-side threats

BeyondTrust protects privileged identities, right-sizes privileges, and secures and audits privileged access across the enterprise.

Our intelligent identity and access security platform combines comprehensive privileged access management (PAM) capabilities with cloud infrastructure entitlements management (CIEM) capabilities. The BeyondTrust platform is comprised of four integrated solutions: Secure Remote Access, Endpoint Privilege Management, Privileged Password Management, and Cloud Security Management. Together, these integrated solutions provide powerful, blended protection that proactively minimizes the attack surface and threat windows.

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