Researchers at Trend Micro said in March that nearly a thousand malicious .lnk samples dating back to 2017 exploited this weakness across a mix of state-sponsored and cybercriminal campaigns worldwide. "Our analysis revealed that 11 state-sponsored groups from North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China have employed ZDI-CAN-25373 in operations primarily motivated by cyber espionage and data theft," it said at the time.
Microsoft has released the Patch Tuesday updates for November 2025. For home users of Windows 11 23H2, this also means the end of support. The company is urging users to switch to version 25H2. Microsoft previously announced that Windows 11 23H2 Home and Pro would no longer be supported as of November 11, 2025. Enterprise and Education editions will continue to receive updates until November 2026.