Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2024-20696 is a high-severity Heap-based Buffer Overflow (CWE-122) vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10 1809. Its CVSS base score is 7.3 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data Obfuscation (T1001); ranked in the top 12% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
Windows libarchive contains a remote code execution vulnerability tracked as CVE-2024-20696 and assigned CWE-122. The flaw resides in the Windows implementation of the libarchive component and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 7.3 reflecting local attack vector, low complexity, low privileges, and required user interaction.
An attacker with local access and limited privileges can exploit the issue by supplying a malicious archive that triggers the flaw during extraction or processing. Successful exploitation grants the ability to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the affected process, resulting in full compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability on the target system.
Microsoft’s security update guide and the corresponding patches address the vulnerability in affected Windows releases. A Debian LTS advisory also references the issue for downstream consumers of libarchive. The associated EPSS score has remained flat at 0.0771 with no material increase since disclosure.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-18411
Vulnerability Data
Windows libarchive Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V1.4.1
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including fuzzing and memory-error detectors) can discover heap overflows after they have been coded.
Input validation enforces bounds checking on data written to heap buffers, directly stopping the overflow condition from being introduced.
Security engineering principles require use of memory-safe constructs and bounds-checked allocation routines that avoid introducing heap overflows.
Memory-protection mechanisms limit the ability of a heap overflow to execute attacker-controlled code or corrupt adjacent structures.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover heap-overflow flaws but does not prevent their introduction in code.
Timely patching removes known heap-overflow instances after they exist.
Secure-development practices directly require bounds checking and safe memory handling that prevent heap overflows.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.