Microsoft Security Response Center

**Where can I find more information about NTLM relay attacks?** Download Mitigating Pass the Hash (PtH) Attacks and Other Credential Theft, Version 1 and 2. This document discusses Pass-the-Hash (PtH) attacks against the Windows operating systems and provides holistic planning strategies that, when combined with the Windows security features, will provide a more effective defense against pass-the-hash attacks.

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack complexity is high (AC:H). What does that mean for this vulnerability?** Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires an attacker to prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability.

**According to the CVSS metric, user interaction is required (UI:R). What interaction would the user have to do?** An attacker must send the user a malicious file and convince them to open it.

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is network (AV:N) and the user interaction is required (UI:R). What is the target context of the remote code execution?** An authenticated victim who is connected to the network must be tricked or persuaded to connect to a malicious SQL database using their SQL client application. After the connection is made, the server can send specially crafted replies to the client that exploit the vulnerability and permit execution of arbitrary code within the context of the user's SQL client application.

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is network (AV:N) and the user interaction is required (UI:R). What is the target context of the remote code execution?** An authenticated victim who is connected to the network must be tricked or persuaded to connect to a malicious SQL database using their SQL client application. After the connection is made, the server can send specially crafted replies to the client that exploit the vulnerability and permit execution of arbitrary code within the context of the user's SQL client application.

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is network (AV:N) and the user interaction is required (UI:R). What is the target context of the remote code execution?** An authenticated victim who is connected to the network must be tricked or persuaded to connect to a malicious SQL database using their SQL client application. After the connection is made, the server can send specially crafted replies to the client that exploit the vulnerability and permit execution of arbitrary code within the context of the user's SQL client application.

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is network (AV:N) and the user interaction is required (UI:R). What is the target context of the remote code execution?** An authenticated victim who is connected to the network must be tricked or persuaded to connect to a malicious SQL database using their SQL client application. After the connection is made, the server can send specially crafted replies to the client that exploit the vulnerability and permit execution of arbitrary code within the context of the user's SQL client application.

**How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?** An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by tricking an authenticated user into attempting to connect to a malicious SQL server via OLEDB, which could result in the server receiving a malicious networking packet. This could allow the attacker to execute code remotely on the client.

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is network (AV:N) and the user interaction is required (UI:R). What is the target context of the remote code execution?** An authenticated victim who is connected to the network must be tricked or persuaded to connect to a malicious SQL database using their SQL client application. After the connection is made, the server can send specially crafted replies to the client that exploit the vulnerability and permit execution of arbitrary code within the context of the user's SQL client application.

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack complexity is high (AC:H). What does that mean for this vulnerability?** Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires an attacker to win a race condition.