CVE-2025-24998
Published: 11 March 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-24998 is a high-severity Uncontrolled Search Path Element (CWE-427) vulnerability in Microsoft Visual Studio 2022. Its CVSS base score is 7.3 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique DLL (T1574.001); ranked in the top 44.6% 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 CM-6 (Configuration Settings) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Directly remediates the uncontrolled search path vulnerability in Visual Studio by applying vendor patches, preventing local privilege escalation exploits.
Establishes secure configuration settings such as Safe DLL Search Mode to prioritize trusted directories over user-writable paths, mitigating the CWE-427 vulnerability in Visual Studio.
Enforces integrity verification of software components prior to execution, blocking malicious DLLs that exploit Visual Studio's uncontrolled search path for privilege escalation.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Uncontrolled search path element (CWE-427) in Visual Studio directly enables DLL side-loading via hijacked execution flow for local privilege escalation.
NVD Description
Uncontrolled search path element in Visual Studio allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2025-24998 is an uncontrolled search path element vulnerability (CWE-427) in Visual Studio. Published on 2025-03-11T17:16:37.670, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.3 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating a high-severity issue that enables local privilege escalation.
The vulnerability can be exploited by an authorized local attacker possessing low privileges. Exploitation requires user interaction and low attack complexity, allowing the attacker to achieve high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, ultimately resulting in privilege elevation on the affected system.
Mitigation guidance is available in the Microsoft Security Response Center advisory at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2025-24998.
Details
- CWE(s)