The number of unreported bugs exploited by criminals, nation states and commercial vendors fell in 2024, but hackers are increasingly targeting vulnerabilities in security software and appliances to gain greater access to victim systems. There were a total of 33 zero-days impacting enterprise software and appliances in 2024, which is lower than 2023 but represented a higher proportion of the total number of new bugs in 2024. Google, which defines zero-days as vulnerabilities exploited in the wild before a patch is made publicly available, said cyber espionage was still the leading motivation behind the exploitation of bugs. Hackers working on behalf of China, Russia and North Korea continue to lead the way in exploiting zero-days, alongside commercial surveillance vendors (CSVs) that sell vulnerabilities to other countries. “Despite the otherwise varied cast of financially motivated threat actors exploiting zero-days, FIN11 has consistently dedicated the resources and demonstrated the expertise to identify, or acquire, and exploit these vulnerabilities from multiple different vendors,” they said. Google’s Threat Intelligence team published its annual zero-day report on Tuesday, finding that 75 vulnerabilities were exploited in the wild in 2024, down from 98 in the prior year. The report divides the 75 bugs into two buckets: those impacting end-user platforms like mobile devices or browsers and others such as security software and appliances. The Google researchers said they anticipate that zero-day exploitation will continue to rise — with big vendors facing attacks due to the ubiquity of operating systems and browsers.
This Cyber News was published on therecord.media. Publication date: Wed, 30 Apr 2025 01:10:12 +0000