Remember when Qantas, Australia’s flagship airline confirmed a cyberattack exposing data from its frequent flyer program and customer accounts. The data was upto 6 million, which is staggering in number. This means any kind of exploits are malicious programs designed to take advantage of bugs or vulnerabilities in unpatched software or operating systems to gain unauthorised access. When left unpatched, these weak points act as open doors for cybercriminals.

Kaspersky research shows that the share of exploits targeting critical vulnerabilities in operating systems reached 64% in Q2 2025 (up from 48% in Q1 2025), with third-party apps (29%) and browsers (7%) following.

Unpatched Systems, Software’s exposes Business to Cyber Threats

The breach originated from a third-party customer service platform, proving that even indirect systems can expose millions of records we all knew. This was a clear case how unpatched software’s but Qantas denied any of its service platform was vulnerable and there was no sign the platform was compromised.

Similarly 1.5 billion records across 760 global companies record exposed to data breach when Salesforce was hit and the hacking group claimed to have breached Salesforce through compromised integrations with third-party tools like Drift and SalesLoft, stealing huge amounts of CRM data. And as recent Salesloft Drift cyberattack may have also compromised some Google Workspace accounts.

The above case are all about software vulnerabilities when left unpatched. Latest data from cybersecurity and privacy company Kaspersky revealed that existing vulnerabilities in business networks continue to leave Malaysian enterprises exposed to cyberattacks.

Globally, in Q2 2025, the most common exploits targeted vulnerable Microsoft Office products with unpatched security flaws, according to Kaspersky’s findings. Its solutions detected the most exploits on the Windows platform for the following vulnerabilities:

• CVE-2018-0802: Remote code execution vulnerability in the Equation Editor component
• CVE-2017-11882: Another remote code execution vulnerability in Equation Editor
• CVE-2017-0199: Vulnerability in Microsoft Office and WordPad allowing attackers to gain control of the system

(Source: Kaspersky: Unpatched Systems Expose Malaysian Businesses To Exploits – TechTRP)

The report also revealed that the top 10 most exploited vulnerabilities included both new zero-day flaws and older unpatched issues that organisations continue to overlook. A zero-day vulnerability is a software flaw discovered by attackers before the vendor is aware of it. As no patch exists at the time, zero-day attacks often succeed.

Key findings from Kaspersky reports to secure your unpatched systems

• Increased Exploitation: In the first half of 2025, more Windows and Linux users encountered vulnerability exploits compared to the previous year.
• Targeted Vulnerabilities: Common exploits in Q2 2025 targeted Microsoft Office products with unpatched security flaws, such as those in the Equation Editor (CVE-2018-0802 and CVE-2017-11882).
• End of Support: The end of free support for Windows 10 means millions of users will no longer receive critical security patches, leaving their systems vulnerable to new threats.
• High volume of attacks: Kaspersky solutions blocked over 700,000 exploits targeting Indian organizations in the first half of 2025, averaging more than 4,000 per day

“Attackers increasingly use methods to escalate privileges and exploit weaknesses in digital systems. As the number of vulnerabilities continues to grow, it is very important to constantly prioritize patching known vulnerabilities and use software that can mitigate post-exploitation actions. CISOs should counter the consequences of exploitation by searching for and neutralizing command and control implants that can be used by attackers on a compromised system,” says Alexander Kolesnikov, a security expert at Kaspersky.

What Businesses can do to remain Secure from Cyber threats when systems are unpatched?

For legacy systems and applications there is a lack ongoing vendor support, leaving remote code execution vulnerabilities open for exploitation. These attacks enable full system control with little user interaction.

How to Fix:

Apply host-based intrusion prevention and patch virtualization and replace or containerize legacy apps. It is important to isolate critical workloads in secure enclaves as being in legacy catagory they are prone to any kind of cyber threats and intrusion.

Follow more below recommendations

Conduct 24/7 monitoring of your infrastructure, focusing on perimeter defenses and using tools that can detect and block malicious software.

• Utilize solutions for vulnerability assessment, patch management
• Prioritize defense strategies & threat detection like phishing emails and web threats
• Deploy comprehensive cybersecurity solutions that include incident response, employee training, and access to updated threat intelligence.
• Implement a robust patch management process