Study reveals dramatic rise in critical vulnerabilities across Linux, macOS, browsers, and Office tools—demanding urgent action from security leaders
Action1, a leading provider of autonomous endpoint management (AEM) solutions, today released its 2025 Software Vulnerability Ratings Report, revealing a 61% year-over-year surge in discovered software vulnerabilities and a 96% spike in exploited vulnerabilities throughout 2024, amid an increasingly aggressive threat landscape.
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Based on analysis of data from NVD and CVEdetails.com, the report highlights vulnerability trends over the past year, identifying which software categories are most at risk—and most exploited. With vulnerability volumes and exploitation rates spiking across key tools widely used in modern enterprise environments, this comprehensive research equips security leaders with insights needed to navigate the growing, complex threat landscape and prioritize proactive security measures.
Key Vulnerability Trends and Threat Areas
Action1’s 2025 Software Vulnerability Ratings Report uncovers pivotal developments across multiple software categories. Key findings from the analysis include:
- Sharp surge in discovered vulnerabilities: The total number of software vulnerabilities grew by 61% YoY in 2024, with critical vulnerabilities rising by 37.1%—a significant expansion of the global attack surface and exposure of critical weaknesses across diverse software categories.
- Exploited vulnerabilities nearly doubled: The number of known exploited vulnerabilities rose by 96% in 2024, signaling a critical escalation in threat actor activity and widespread real-world exploitation.
- Dramatic rise in Linux and macOS flaws: Linux vulnerabilities soared by 967% and macOS vulnerabilities by 95% in 2024, indicating increased attacker focus on UNIX-based systems due to these sharp increases.
- Web browsers and Office applications have emerged as prime targets: Exploits spiked 657% in browsers and 433% in Microsoft Office, with Chrome leading all products in known attacks.
- Database software vulnerabilities rose dramatically: With 213% YoY overall vulnerability growth and a 505% increase in critical flaws, this trend highlights a rapidly growing risk to enterprise data environments using platforms like MSSQL and MySQL.
The year-over-year trends and findings from this analysis underscore the urgent need for organizations to evolve their cybersecurity strategies. With vulnerability exploitation nearly doubling and critical weaknesses continuing to rise, it’s clear that threat actors are accelerating their efforts while software ecosystems grow more complex.
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The Action1 report also points to a shift in how software vendors handle CVE attribution, adding new layers to the vulnerability management challenge. As organizations navigate this increasingly volatile threat environment, taking a proactive stance on patch management, risk assessment, and overall security hygiene is no longer optional—it’s foundational.
“The findings in this year’s report confirm a seismic shift in the cyber threat landscape, which many security professionals have sensed— attackers move faster than manual processes can respond,” said Mike Walters, President and Co-Founder at Action1. “To stay ahead, organizations must embrace more autonomous, scalable approaches to vulnerability remediation and adopt a mindset of continuous security readiness. Our report offers the data-driven clarity leaders need to recalibrate risk priorities before threats become breaches.”
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