Think Positive Cyber

As of April 9, 2025, this practice exercise post reviews recent cybersecurity news, highlighting three incidents and their lessons. In February 2025, Microsoft released a Windows security update patching CVE-2025-21418 (where “CVE” stands for Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), a critical buffer overflow flaw in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock (AFD.sys)​

thesecmaster.com. This vulnerability allows a local authenticated attacker to gain SYSTEM-level access on Windows systems​

thesecmaster.com, effectively giving them full control. Notably, CVE-2025-21418 was being actively exploited in the wild as a zero-day prior to the patch​

tenable.com, underscoring the urgency of installing Windows security updates. (A buffer overflow is a programming error where software writes more data to a memory buffer than it can hold, which can let attackers overwrite memory and run malicious code.) This CVE-2025-21418 exploit demonstrates how quickly cybercriminals weaponize new flaws, making timely patch management critical in enterprise cybersecurity.

In cybersecurity news from 2022, a major student loan data breach exposed sensitive information of about 2.5 million borrowers​

trustnetinc.com. The breach occurred through Nelnet Servicing – a third-party portal provider for EdFinancial and the Oklahoma Student Loan Authority (OSLA) – and went undetected from early June until July 22, 2022​

trustnetinc.com. It wasn’t until August 17, 2022 that the breach was finally discovered, by which time names, home and email addresses, phone numbers, and Social Security numbers for 2,501,324 student loan accounts had been compromised​

trustnetinc.com. Threatpost reported on this data breach (2022), highlighting how attackers can quietly siphon personal data for weeks before anyone notices. This incident, often referred to as the 2022 student loan breach, shows the devastating impact of compromised PII and the importance of vigilant network monitoring and third-party risk management in protecting consumer data.

Fast forward to 2023: another massive cyber incident underscored software supply-chain risks. The MOVEit Transfer hack, the largest breach of 2023, was caused by hackers exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Progress Software’s MOVEit file-transfer product​

scworld.com. A ransomware group (Clop) claimed responsibility, and the attack impacted more than 1,000 organizations globally​

scworld.com – exposing millions of personal records from numerous companies. This case serves as a stark reminder that even trusted third-party software can harbor critical vulnerabilities with cascading effects. In fact, the MOVEit incident and the student loan breach both emphasize how third-party software vulnerabilities can lead to major data breaches if left unpatched. Whether it’s a Windows OS flaw or a partner’s software weakness, organizations must stay vigilant with prompt patching, continuous security monitoring, and strong vendor security practices. These recent events show that proactive defense and oversight are key to avoiding the next headline in cybersecurity news.

Jeremiah O’Neal
Think Positive.