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 34.7% 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).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
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.
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.
NVD Description
Heap-based buffer overflow in Windows Core Messaging allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges over a network.
Deeper analysisAI
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.
Details
- CWE(s)