Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2026-45601 is a high-severity Race Condition (CWE-362) vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10 21H2. Its CVSS base score is 7.0 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and SC-39 (Process Isolation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-35557
Vulnerability Data
Concurrent execution using shared resource with improper synchronization ('race condition') in Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Local use-after-free in a Windows kernel driver directly enables exploitation for privilege escalation (T1068) by an authorized attacker.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Enforces access-control decisions on kernel objects and shared resources, preventing unauthorized concurrent access that leads to the race condition.
Provides process isolation so that the WinSock ancillary driver’s shared state cannot be concurrently manipulated by another process to elevate privileges.
Protects memory regions used by the driver, mitigating use-after-free exploitation that can accompany the race condition.
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.
Secure SDLC practices directly require proper synchronization primitives and concurrency testing that prevent race conditions.
Vulnerability identification processes can discover use-after-free issues via scanning or analysis but do not prevent their introduction.
Routine patching removes known use-after-free instances after they have been introduced in released software.
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.
Security testing can detect race conditions, but does not prevent them at design or coding time.
Secure SDLC mandates concurrency controls and synchronization primitives that directly prevent race conditions.
Application security requirements can specify thread-safety and locking rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.
Secure architecture principles require proper synchronization and resource isolation, addressing the root cause of CWE-362.
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe concurrent access patterns and mandate atomic operations or locks.
Change-management processes help ensure memory-safety fixes are deployed consistently.