Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-21746

High

Published: 10 January 2023

Published
10 January 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.5374 98.0th percentile
Risk Priority 48 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2023-21746 is a high-severity an unspecified weakness vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, ranked in the top 2.0% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Deeper analysis

CVE-2023-21746 is an elevation-of-privilege vulnerability in the Windows NTLM implementation. It carries a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.8 and is exploitable by a local attacker who already possesses low-privileged access; successful exploitation grants full control over confidentiality, integrity, and availability on the affected system.

An authenticated local user can abuse the flaw without user interaction to obtain higher privileges than intended, allowing the attacker to perform actions that would otherwise be restricted by NTLM security boundaries.

Microsoft has published remediation guidance and patches for the issue through its Security Response Center update guide at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2023-21746.

The vulnerability’s EPSS score reached a peak of 0.6149 and currently stands at 0.5374, indicating sustained moderate exploitation interest since disclosure.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Windows NTLM Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

microsoft
windows 10
1607, 1809, 20h2, 21h2, 22h2
microsoft
windows 11
21h2, 22h2, all versions
microsoft
windows 7
all versions
microsoft
windows 8.1
all versions
microsoft
windows rt 8.1
all versions
microsoft
windows server 2008
r2
microsoft
windows server 2012
all versions, r2
microsoft
windows server 2016
all versions
microsoft
windows server 2019
all versions
microsoft
windows server 2022
all versions

Mitigating Controls

No mitigating controls mapped yet. The per-CVE control annotator has not reached this CVE.

References