Cyber Posture

CVE-2025-21351

High

Published: 11 February 2025

Published
11 February 2025
Modified
28 February 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.1024 93.2th percentile
Risk Priority 21 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2025-21351 is a high-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10 1607. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked in the top 6.8% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) and SC-6 (Resource Availability).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004). What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.
Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

prevent

Directly mitigates the vulnerability by requiring timely installation of Microsoft patches for the Active Directory Domain Services API flaw.

prevent

Provides denial-of-service protections such as rate limiting and traffic anomaly detection to block exploitation of the API's uncontrolled resource consumption.

preventdetect

Protects system resources from depletion by monitoring usage and allocation to counter the CWE-400 resource exhaustion in the Domain Services API.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Why these techniques?

CVE enables unauthenticated network DoS via resource consumption in AD DS API, directly mapping to application/system exploitation for endpoint denial of service.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

NVD Description

Windows Active Directory Domain Services API Denial of Service Vulnerability

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2025-21351 is a Denial of Service vulnerability affecting the Windows Active Directory Domain Services API. Published on 2025-02-11, it is classified under CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) and carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5, reflecting high availability impact with no confidentiality or integrity effects.

The vulnerability can be exploited by unauthenticated attackers over the network (AV:N) with low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring no privileges (PR:N) or user interaction (UI:N), and without changing scope (S:U). Successful exploitation results in a high-impact denial of service (A:H), potentially disrupting Active Directory Domain Services availability.

Microsoft's update guide provides details on mitigation, available at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21351.

Details

CWE(s)

Affected Products

microsoft
windows 10 1607
≤ 10.0.14393.7785 · ≤ 10.0.14393.7785
microsoft
windows 10 1809
≤ 10.0.17763.6893 · ≤ 10.0.17763.6893
microsoft
windows 10 21h2
≤ 10.0.19044.5487
microsoft
windows 10 22h2
≤ 10.0.19045.5487
microsoft
windows 11 22h2
≤ 10.0.22621.4890
microsoft
windows 11 23h2
≤ 10.0.22631.4890
microsoft
windows 11 24h2
≤ 10.0.26100.3194
microsoft
windows server 2016
≤ 10.0.14393.7785
microsoft
windows server 2019
≤ 10.0.17763.6893
microsoft
windows server 2022
≤ 10.0.20348.3207
+2 more product configuration(s) — see NVD for full list

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-21330Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1809
CVE-2025-21207Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1809
CVE-2025-21290Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1607
CVE-2025-21289Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1607
CVE-2025-21270Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1607
CVE-2025-21300Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1607
CVE-2025-21389Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1607
CVE-2025-21251Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1607
CVE-2025-21230Same product: Microsoft Windows 10 1607
CVE-2025-21218Same product: Microsoft Windows Server 2016

References