Critical Vulnerabilities in Trend Micro Apex One Expose Systems to Remote Code Execution
Trend Micro has recently addressed multiple critical vulnerabilities in its Apex One security platform, which could potentially allow attackers to execute malicious code remotely. These vulnerabilities, identified as CVE-2025-71210 through CVE-2025-71217, have been assigned CVSS v3 scores ranging from 7.2 to 9.8, indicating their severity.
Overview of the Vulnerabilities
The affected products include Apex One 2019 (on-premise) and Apex One as a Service (Trend Vision One Endpoint – Standard Endpoint Protection) on Windows platforms. The most critical flaws, CVE-2025-71210 and CVE-2025-71211, are directory traversal vulnerabilities in the Apex One management console. These vulnerabilities allow attackers to upload malicious code and execute commands on affected installations. Exploitation of these flaws requires access to the Apex One Management Console, making externally exposed console IP addresses particularly vulnerable. Trend Micro advises applying source restrictions to mitigate this risk.
Additional vulnerabilities include local privilege escalation issues affecting Windows components, such as link following (CWE-59) and origin validation errors (CWE-346). These vulnerabilities require an attacker to have the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target endpoint. For macOS agents, Trend Micro has addressed similar vulnerabilities through previous updates.
Mitigation Measures
Trend Micro has released patches to address these vulnerabilities and strongly recommends that all affected customers update to the latest available builds. Even if earlier patches have addressed parts of the issue, applying the latest updates ensures comprehensive protection.
In addition to applying patches, organizations should review their remote access policies and ensure that the Apex One Management Console is not exposed to the internet without proper access controls. Implementing network segmentation and restricting access to the management console can further reduce the risk of exploitation.
Conclusion
The discovery of these critical vulnerabilities in Trend Micro’s Apex One underscores the importance of timely software updates and vigilant security practices. Organizations using Apex One should prioritize applying the provided patches and review their security configurations to prevent potential exploitation.
