Hackers exploited Windows WebDav zero-day to drop malware
An APT hacking group known as 'Stealth Falcon' exploited a Windows WebDav RCE vulnerability in zero-day attacks since March 2025 against defense and government organizations in Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, and Yemen. Stealth Falcon (aka 'FruityArmor') is an advanced persistent threat (APT) group known for conducting cyberespionage attacks against Middle East organizations. The flaw, tracked under CVE-2025-33053, is a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability that arises from the improper handling of the working directory by certain legitimate system executables. Specifically, when a .url file sets its WorkingDirectory to a remote WebDAV path, a built-in Windows tool can be tricked into executing a malicious executable from that remote location instead of the legitimate one. This allows attackers to force devices to execute arbitrary code remotely from WebDAV servers under their control without dropping malicious files locally, making their operations stealthy and evasive. The vulnerability was discovered by Check Point Research, with Microsoft fixing the flaw in the latest Patch Tuesday update, released yesterday.
