Microsoft August Patch Tuesday Fixes Critical Exchange, SharePoint, and Kerberos Flaws
Published
- The update: Microsoft patched 107 vulnerabilities, including 13 critical bugs, across multiple products.
- Patches urged: Microsoft urges administrators to prioritize identity-related and collaboration component patches.
- Critical flaw: Exchange Server bug CVE-2025-53786 could allow attackers to infiltrate Microsoft cloud services.
Microsoft’s Security Update Guide confirms the August 2025 Patch Tuesday release addresses 107 vulnerabilities across Windows, Exchange Server, SharePoint, and developer tools. Thirteen are rated critical, including remote code execution and elevation-of-privilege flaws.Â
The update highlights CVE-2025-53786 in Exchange Server, which could allow lateral movement from compromised on-premises environments into Microsoft cloud platforms such as Exchange Online and Office 365.Â
Microsoft urges administrators to prioritize identity-related and collaboration component patches, monitor for unusual authentication or privilege changes, and deploy updates promptly to limit attacker persistence.
Identity and Privilege Risks
Filipi Pires, Head of Identity Threat Labs at Segura, said the high number of elevation-of-privilege and RCE flaws could enable credential compromise and lateral movement.Â
He recommended urgent Kerberos patching, multi-factor authentication enforcement, privileged access management, regular credential rotation, and monitoring for abnormal authentication activity.
Trey Ford, Chief Strategy and Trust Officer at Bugcrowd, said Patch Tuesday’s timing after Black Hat underscores the need for prompt action. He called out the Kerberos vulnerability from Yuval Gordon and noted it will be detailed at SecTor in September, highlighting the importance of rigorous testing in security feature design.
SharePoint and Exploitation Trends
Saeed Abbasi, Senior Manager at Qualys Threat Research Unit, discussed CVE-2025-49712, a SharePoint remote code execution flaw that requires authentication but could be combined with known bypass methods. He said such chaining could result in full server compromise and data exfiltration, urging organizations to patch, rotate keys, and restrict internet exposure.
Satnam Narang, Senior Staff Research Engineer at Tenable, noted that for the second month in a row, elevation-of-privilege flaws outnumber code execution bugs, accounting for 39.3% of patches.Â
He also referenced CVE-2025-53779, the BadSuccessor privilege escalation bug, which poses limited immediate risk due to specific prerequisites, such as a domain controller running Windows Server 2025.
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