Foundational Zero-Day Exploits Turn Infrastructure Into Systemic Cyber Risk

Foundational Zero-Day Exploits Turn Infrastructure Into Systemic Cyber Risk

Published Nov 12, 2025

In the past two weeks attackers rapidly exploited zero‐day flaws in foundational network infrastructure: Cisco Secure Firewall ASA/FTD vulnerabilities (CVE‐2025‐20333 and CVE‐2025‐20362) were disclosed on 2025‐11‐05 and tied to a campaign active since May 2025 attributed to UAT4356/Storm‐1849, prompting CISA Emergency Directive ED 25‐03; a WSUS flaw (CVE‐2025‐59287) has been actively exploited since 2025‐10‐24—one day after Microsoft patched it—and impacted at least 50 organizations across healthcare, manufacturing, education and tech. Separately, the Congressional Budget Office disclosed a breach on 2025‐11‐06, potentially exposing communications with Senate offices; the CBO contained the incident and enhanced monitoring. These events amplify systemic risk because compromised patching or edge devices enable wide lateral control; immediate actions cited include auditing patch distribution and firmware, validating deployments, strengthening detection/isolation, and tightening regulatory enforceability.