Overview
The cybersecurity landscape is continually evolving, with new vulnerabilities being discovered regularly. One recent discovery is CVE-2025-49761. This vulnerability, situated in the Windows Kernel, has the potential to put millions of users at risk due to its ability to allow an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally. This Use After Free vulnerability is significant, as it gives an attacker the chance to compromise a system or leak sensitive data. Recognizing and understanding this vulnerability is the first step towards ensuring your system’s security.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-49761
Severity: High (7.8)
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: User
User Interaction: Required
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Windows 10 | All versions prior to latest patch
Windows Server 2019 | All versions prior to latest patch
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability, CVE-2025-49761, is a Use After Free (UAF) bug in the Windows Kernel. UAF vulnerabilities occur when an application continues to use memory after it has been freed. In this particular case, an attacker with user-level access can trigger the UAF vulnerability by executing a specially crafted application. This allows them to corrupt memory in a way that could allow them to execute arbitrary code in the kernel context. This could ultimately lead to the attacker gaining elevated privileges.
Conceptual Example Code
Here is a conceptual example of how this exploit might be triggered, written in pseudocode:
// The attacker creates a malicious application
Application malicious_app = new Application();
// The application is designed to trigger the UAF vulnerability
malicious_app.triggerUAF();
// The application then exploits the corrupted memory
malicious_app.exploitCorruptedMemory();
// The application elevates its privileges
malicious_app.elevatePrivileges();
// The attacker now has elevated privileges
Attacker.attainElevatedPrivileges(malicious_app);Remember, this is conceptual pseudocode and not actual code that could be used to exploit the vulnerability. Its purpose is to illustrate the general process an attacker might follow to exploit this vulnerability.
It is highly recommended to apply the vendor’s patch to mitigate this vulnerability. If the patch cannot be applied immediately, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation.
