🕒 Read time: 3 minutes
💡 Because resilience isn’t built by reacting — it’s built by preparing.
🧠 The Briefing
This is a board-level risk.
In July 2025, Microsoft disclosed a critical zero-day vulnerability in SharePoint (CVE-2025-2372) that was exploited in the wild before a patch was available.
Why this matters:
SharePoint is deeply embedded in workflows — from HR and legal to vendor portals and financial data.
It’s often over-permissioned, misconfigured, and unmonitored — making it a silent but high-value attack vector.
⚠️ This Week’s Resilience Signal
SharePoint exploitation is happening right now.
Threat actors are:
Pivoting through SharePoint to internal systems
Harvesting credentials via poisoned documents
Deploying ransomware through legacy Power Automate workflows
According to CISA:
🔓 68% of impacted orgs had open external links
🧾 42% had legacy users with admin access
🤖 1 in 5 used automation flows without logging
This isn’t hypothetical. It’s operational — and scaling.
✅ Executive Actions
Here’s what to do now:
1. Inventory Your SharePoint Exposure
Map internal use cases (HR, finance, ops)
Include third-party integrations and contractors
2. Verify Patch Status (Don’t Assume It’s Done)
Confirm the July 2025 patch is installed
Double-check self-hosted or hybrid environments
3. Restrict and Review Access
Disable external sharing globally — whitelist later
Audit permissions on critical libraries
Sunset unused workflows immediately
📊 Board-Level Metrics & KPIs
Use these to communicate real risk posture:
📈 Metric | 🎯 Target |
|---|---|
% SharePoint instances patched | 100% in 7 days |
# of users with external access | < 10% of total |
# of active external links | Decreasing weekly |
Time to config drift detection | < 24 hours |
💡 Pro tip: Present these on your security dashboard or in QBRs. They map well to business impact.
🧭 Resilience Quote of the Week
“You’re not being targeted for using SharePoint.
You’re being targeted for using it insecurely.”
— Forrester Analyst, Cyber Risk Report (July 2025)
🔗 Trusted Intel
🔁 Forward This to a Risk Lead, COO, or Ops Exec
Someone in your org is assuming SharePoint is safe.
This brief helps them ask better questions.
🌀 The Lateral Move
To close, a quick step sideways from the technical — into the human.
The Lateral Move is where we highlight the quieter realities of security leadership: the misalignments, the meetings, and the moments where strategy meets sarcasm.
Meet Carl the CISO, Linda the CFO, and Mark the CEO — three roles, one shared goal: surviving the week without a breach… or a breakdown.
Linda (CFO): “Do we have an incident response plan for zero-days?”
Carl (CISO): “Oh, absolutely. We call it ‘panic and patch.’”
Mark (CEO): “That sounds… reassuring”
Carl: “Hey, it’s better than just panic.”
🔚 Closing Note
Resilience isn’t a department — it’s a decision.
And the best leaders make it before risk shows up in the quarterly report.
Until next time,
The Editor, The Resilience Brief