Microsoft Study Shows 78% of Exploited Vulnerabilities Enable System Takeover
Original title: Microsoft Reveals 78% of Exploited Vulnerabilities Enable System Takeover and Privilege Escalation
Attackers prioritize flaws giving remote code execution or privilege escalation, with patch times ranging from two weeks to over a year.
Microsoft research indicates that 78% of vulnerabilities exploited in real attacks allow system takeover or privilege escalation. The study analyzed approximately 2,056 exploited CVEs against the broader pool of 383,000 disclosed from 1999 to September 2026. Operating system flaws comprise 41% of exploited vulnerabilities compared to 23% of all disclosed ones. Server-side remote code execution rises to 37% in the exploited set.
Unconfirmed: Specific CVEs analyzed are not listed; numbers are approximate
- Attackers focus on remote code execution, privilege escalation and authentication bypass
- Median fix time is two weeks on Windows workstations
- It exceeds one month on Windows servers
Impact: system takeover or privilege escalation
- 1.Prioritize flaws by impact and exposure instead of CVSS scores
- 2.Find internet-facing assets with Defender External Attack Surface Management
- Vendors
- Microsoft
- Organizations
- Microsoft Security Research
From the original article
4 min read at cybersecuritynews.com
Microsoft’s new research shows that attackers pick flaws that give them control of a system. About 78% of vulnerabilities exploited in real attacks let an attacker take over a system or raise their privileges. The finding comes from a data study published on November 2, 2026, by Microsoft Security Research.
By Tushar Subhra Dutta · cybersecuritynews.com
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