CVE-2025-26634
Published: 11 March 2025
Summary
CVE-2025-26634 is a high-severity Heap-based Buffer Overflow (CWE-122) vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10 1607. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 34.3% 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 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-16 (Memory Protection).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2025-26634 is a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability, classified under CWE-122, affecting the Windows Core Messaging component. This flaw enables an authorized attacker to elevate privileges over a network, with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).
An attacker with low privileges (PR:L) can exploit this vulnerability remotely over the network (AV:N), though it requires high attack complexity (AC:H) and no user interaction (UI:N). Successful exploitation grants high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H), specifically allowing privilege escalation within the affected system.
The Microsoft Security Response Center provides an update guide for this vulnerability at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2025-26634, which details recommended mitigations and patches.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-7698
Vulnerability details
Heap-based buffer overflow in Windows Core Messaging allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges over a network.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
The heap-based buffer overflow in Windows Core Messaging directly enables remote privilege escalation from low privileges, matching T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Requires timely identification, reporting, and patching of the heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in Windows Core Messaging to prevent privilege escalation exploitation.
Provides memory safeguards such as address space layout randomization and non-executable memory to directly counter heap-based buffer overflow attacks.
Enforces validation of inputs to the Windows Core Messaging component to prevent buffer overflows from malformed network messages leading to privilege escalation.