CVE-2019-1215
Published: 11 September 2019
Summary
CVE-2019-1215 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10 1709. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, ranked in the top 9.8% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-16 (Memory Protection) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Deeper analysis
An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in the way that ws2ifsl.sys (Winsock) handles objects in memory. This issue affects Windows systems and is tracked as CVE-2019-1215, distinct from the related issues CVE-2019-1253, CVE-2019-1278, and CVE-2019-1303. It carries a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.8 reflecting local attack vectors.
A local attacker with low privileges can exploit the flaw without user interaction to achieve full elevation of privilege, resulting in high impact to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Microsoft has published security guidance for the issue via its advisory portal, and the vulnerability appears in CISA's catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2019-9783
Vulnerability details
An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in the way that ws2ifsl.sys (Winsock) handles objects in memory, aka 'Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1253, CVE-2019-1278, CVE-2019-1303.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 03 November 2021
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly requires timely installation of the vendor patch that eliminates the ws2ifsl.sys memory-handling flaw before local exploitation can succeed.
Mandates memory-protection safeguards that would block unauthorized code execution or object manipulation inside the kernel driver.
Enforces least-privilege restrictions so that a low-privileged local account cannot reach the vulnerable Winsock kernel path in the first place.