November 2025 Critical CVE Round-Up

November 2025 has delivered one of the most impactful vulnerability cycles of the year, punctuated by multiple actively exploited zero-days, CVSS 9–10 flaws, and severe exposures across widely deployed enterprise systems. From Microsoft to Cisco, Fortinet, Citrix, SAP, and Google, this month underscores once again how rapidly evolving threat activity continues to pressure defenders.

This roundup provides a concise but technical analysis of the most notable CVEs discovered, disclosed, or exploited during November 2025, with emphasis on exploitation status, impact severity, and recommended remediation for enterprise environments.

Why November’s CVEs Matter

Cyber threat actors increasingly chain vulnerabilities across multiple vendors. November’s disclosures illustrate this pattern clearly. Several of the month’s most severe CVEs were discovered being used together in active intrusion campaigns, most notably Cisco ISE, Citrix NetScaler, and Fortinet FortiWeb.

These are not just patch-and-move-on vulnerabilities; several require post-exploitation investigation, session invalidation, credential rotation, or broader incident response measures.

Top November 2025 CVEs Security Teams Must Prioritize

1. Windows Kernel EoP Zero-Day (CVE-2025-62215)

Impact: Elevation of Privilege → SYSTEM
Status: Actively exploited
Severity: High

A race-condition flaw in the Windows Kernel is being used in targeted intrusions to escalate from local compromise to full SYSTEM access. While Microsoft rates this as “Important,” security teams should treat it as critical in real-world risk terms.

Why it matters:

• Actively exploited

• Enables post-phishing or foothold escalation

• Impacts a broad Windows install base

Mitigation: Apply November Patch Tuesday across all supported Windows releases; prioritize user-facing endpoints.

2. Microsoft Office Preview Pane RCE (CVE-2025-62199)

Impact: Remote Code Execution via email preview
Status: High-risk, critical
Severity: Critical

This vulnerability allows execution of malicious code simply by viewing an email in the Preview Pane, representing a classic but devastating attack vector.

Why it matters:

• Minimal user interaction

• Extremely attractive to phishing-based threat actors

• Can lead to complete endpoint compromise

Mitigation: Patch immediately; disable Preview Pane where practical until updated.

3. GDI+ Graphics Processing RCE (CVE-2025-60724)

Impact: RCE through crafted image or document
Status: High-risk, widely impactful
Severity: High/Critical

This vulnerability in Windows GDI+ affects any application that renders certain image types. Attackers can embed malicious image payloads inside Office files, PDFs, or other content that uses Windows rendering libraries.

Mitigation: Apply November Windows updates; sandbox untrusted document handling.

4. Nuance PowerScribe 360 Exposure (CVE-2025-30398)

Impact: Information Disclosure
Industry: Healthcare / Radiology
Severity: Critical

PowerScribe 360, broadly deployed across hospitals and radiology groups, contains a flaw enabling unauthorized access to sensitive clinical data.

Why it matters:

• Healthcare continues to be a top ransomware target

• Exposure includes PHI, increasing regulatory and operational risk

• Often deeply integrated into clinical networks

Mitigation: Patch immediately and audit access logs for anomalies.

5. Visual Studio RCE (CVE-2025-62214)

Impact: RCE via malicious project content
Severity: Critical
Risk Profile: Developer & CI/CD Environments

A critical RCE vulnerability in Visual Studio allows attackers to execute arbitrary code when a developer opens a specially crafted project or solution file. This flaw directly targets the software supply chain by exploiting developer tooling.

Why it matters:

• Developer endpoints provide high-value access to source code and build environments.

• Compromise can lead to tampered builds, credential theft, or unauthorized modifications in repositories.

• APT groups frequently target IDEs to gain long-term access to CI/CD pipelines and sensitive intellectual property.

Mitigation: Apply the November Visual Studio security updates and restrict untrusted extensions or project content.

6. Google Chrome V8 Zero-Day (CVE-2025-13223)

Impact: Browser-based RCE
Status: Actively exploited
Severity: High

A type-confusion vulnerability in the V8 JavaScript engine has prompted emergency Chrome updates. This marks the seventh actively exploited Chrome zero-day of 2025.

Why it matters:

• Exploitable via a single malicious website

• Potentially linked to spyware vendors or targeted campaigns

• Affects Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers

Mitigation: Upgrade Chrome to 142.0.7444.175/176 or later.

7. Fortinet FortiWeb RCE (CVE-2025-64446)

Impact: Unauthenticated Path Traversal → Admin RCE
Severity: CVSS 9.8 / Critical
Status: Actively exploited, KEV-listed

Attackers can remotely create admin accounts and execute commands without authentication on vulnerable FortiWeb appliances.

Why it matters:

• No authentication required

• Impacts internet-facing WAF appliances

• Already exploited in mass scanning campaigns

Mitigation: Upgrade to FortiWeb 8.0.2+ immediately. If patching is delayed, disable public access and monitor logs for suspicious admin creation.

8. Cisco ISE Unauthenticated RCE (CVE-2025-20337)

Impact: Remote Code Execution as root
Severity: CVSS 10.0
Status: Actively exploited
Threat Activity: Web shells observed (“IdentityAuditAction”)

Perhaps the most severe vulnerability of the month, CVE-2025-20337 enables full unauthenticated RCE on Identity Services Engine systems. Cloud security teams detected active exploitation delivering custom web shells.

Why it matters:

• ISE is core to enterprise authentication & NAC

• RCE as root enables deep network pivoting

• Detection involves investigating Tomcat logs, unauthorized admin entries, and unknown JAR deployments

Mitigation:

• Patch immediately

• Assume compromise if unpatched and internet-accessible

• Conduct full forensic review

9. Citrix NetScaler “CitrixBleed 2” (CVE-2025-5777)

Impact: Memory leak → session/credential theft
Severity: Critical
Status: Under active exploitation

In the style of the original CitrixBleed, this memory over-read enables session hijacking, including administrator sessions on Citrix Gateway and ADC appliances.

Why it matters:

• Used with other zero-days in multi-vector breaches

• Ideal for credential harvesting, VPN bypass, and lateral movement

• Can impact thousands of remote workers simultaneously

Mitigation:

• Patch per Citrix advisory

• Invalidate active sessions

• Rotate credentials used for gateway authentication

10. SAP SQL Anywhere Monitor RCE (CVE-2025-42890)

Impact: Hardcoded credentials → Unauthenticated RCE
Severity: CVSS 10.0
Status: Critical

SAP’s November Security Patch Day highlighted this as the most severe issue. Hardcoded credentials grant remote attackers full unauthorized access to the SQL Anywhere Monitor.

Why it matters:

• Complete RCE without authentication

• Affects enterprise environments with embedded SQL Anywhere monitoring

• SAP classified it with the highest severity rating

Mitigation:

• Apply SAP Note 3666261

• Update to SQL Anywhere 17.0 SP1 PL20 (Build 8039) or higher

• Consider disabling the non-GUI Monitor instance entirely

Prioritization Strategy for Security Teams

To reduce risk exposure quickly, organizations should follow this sequence:

1. Patch Exploited or KEV-listed vulnerabilities first

• Chrome (CVE-2025-13223)

• Windows Kernel (CVE-2025-62215)

• Cisco ISE (CVE-2025-20337)

• FortiWeb (CVE-2025-64446)

• Citrix NetScaler (CVE-2025-5777)

2. Secure internet-facing appliances

• Citrix Gateway

• FortiWeb

• Any externally exposed ISE or SAP Monitor instance

3. Upgrade high-value endpoints

• Office/Outlook

• Visual Studio

• Developer or build servers (general hardening recommended)

4. Audit for potential compromise

Especially for Cisco ISE, Citrix, or Fortinet appliances that remained unpatched during active exploitation windows.

Conclusion

November 2025 delivered some of the year’s most serious vulnerabilities, with multiple zero-days and high-impact flaws actively exploited across critical enterprise systems. As attackers continue chaining vulnerabilities across platforms, defenders need more than timely patching. They need the practical skills to detect, validate, and mitigate threats in real environments.

Hands-on training is one of the most effective ways to build that readiness. INE’s real-world, hands-on labs and guided learning paths help cybersecurity and networking professionals develop the capabilities needed to respond quickly and confidently to vulnerabilities like those highlighted this month.

Build stronger defenses. Strengthen your skills. Start training with INE to stay ahead of emerging threats.