Google Warns of WinRAR Vulnerability Exploited to Gain Control Over Windows System

A critical WinRAR vulnerability (CVE-2025-8088) enabling path traversal and abuse of Alternate Data Streams is being actively exploited in the wild to write malicious files (often to the Windows Startup folder) and achieve persistent execution; attacks since July 2025 involve nation-state actors (e.g., UNC4895, APT44), Chinese-linked groups, and criminal operators targeting governments, military, technology firms, and commercial sectors worldwide despite a patch released on July 30, 2025.