Overview
Microsoft Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability (CVE-2021-1732): A local privilege escalation vulnerability has been discovered on Windows systems due to a bug in Win32k.
Description
According to Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) report, a local elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in Microsoft Win32k. Specifically, the vulnerability stems from an improper boundary check in the Wind32k.sys driver in the Windows kernel.
Due to the vulnerability, a local attacker can trigger a memory corruption error with a specially crafted program, leading to execution of arbitrary code on the system by the attacker, with elevated priveleges.
Note that the vulnerability can only be exploited locally and requires authentication credentials on the system. However, the vulnerability is considered to be critical since it is exploitable easily and actively exploited in the wild.
Affected Windows products include a series of Windows 10 and Windows Server versions.
Impact
A successful exploitation of the vulnerability could lead a local attacker to gain full control of the system.
Impact Summary
Category: Elevation of Privilege (EoP)
CVSS 3.1 Base Score: 7.8 High
CVSS 3.1 Vector: AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Solution (Update)
To defend against possible attacks due to this Microsoft Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability (CVE-2021-1732), affected Microsoft products need to be updated to the most up-to-date versions.
The hacker mindset doesn’t actually see what happens on the other side, to the victim.
Kevin Mitnick
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References to Advisories, Solutions and Tools
To learn more about security vulnerabilities, you could also read our articles What is a Security Vulnerability? or What is Vulnerability Scanning?
