Trend Micro warns of worrying security flaw allowing full Windows takeover, so patch now

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Two critical-severity flaws were recently fixed

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  • Trend Micro patched two critical Apex One path traversal flaws (CVE-2025-71210, CVE-2025-71211, both 9.8/10)
  • Exploitation requires console access
  • SaaS version fixed, on-prem patch Build 14136 released

Trend Micro says it has patched two critical vulnerabilities which could have allowed threat actors to take over vulnerable underlying systems.

In a security advisory, the company said it fixed a path traversal vulnerability in the Trend Micro Apex One management console, which is now tracked as CVE-2025-71210, and which was given a critical severity score of 9.8/10.

The second bug is similar in nature - a path traversal flaw in the Apex One management console, but since it affects a different executable, it is tracked as CVE-2025-71211. This one was also given a critical severity rating of 9.8/10.

Patches and defenses

Apex One is an endpoint security platform for business computers, servers, and other devices, designed to shield them from malware, ransomware, spyware, and other cyberthreats. It combines traditional antivirus with modern threat-detection technologies like machine learning and behavioral analysis and comes with centralized management and investigation tools.

Defending against potential attacks is relatively easy. As Trend Micro explained in the advisory, to exploit it, an attacker “must have access to the Trend Micro Apex One Management Console, so customers that have their console’s IP address exposed externally should consider mitigating factors such as source restrictions if not already applied.”

"Even though an exploit may require several specific conditions to be met, Trend Micro strongly encourages customers to update to the latest builds as soon as possible," it warned.

The SaaS Apex One version has already been fixed, and the company released Critical Patch Build 14136 for on-prem customers. This patch also fixes additional two vulnerabilities in the Windows agent, and four in the macOS agent.

At press time, there was no evidence of these flaws being abused in the wild, and the US CISA has not yet added them to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.

Via BleepingComputer

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Sead Fadilpašić

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.

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