Observation from Microsoft Zero-Day Vulnerability Examples

Zero-Day vulnerabilities are an intriguing and ever increasing problem. Microsoft has been one of the more exploited companies having Zero-Day vulnerabilities. This paper intends to identify some relationships within the ZeroDay vulnerabilities identified in nineteen news articles from 2010. We tried to collect data on vulnerability report date, attack report date, vulnerability patch date, vulnerability life cycle category, exploit implemented, Microsoft product affected, and affected functionality. Based on this data, we analyzed the duration between vulnerability notification and attack dates, the distribution of different vulnerability life cycle categories, the most common Microsoft product affected, and the most common exploitation technique used. Our data shows that Potential for Attack (POA) is the most common vulnerability life cycle category, Windows XP SP3 is the most affected system, and the most common exploitation technique is by finding Back/Trap doors.