Microsoft Security Response Center

**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.

Protection mechanism failure in Windows Mark of the Web (MOTW) allows an unauthorized attacker to bypass a security feature locally.

**What privileges could be gained by an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability?** An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges.

**How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?** Exploitation of this vulnerability requires that an attacker send a malicious link to the victim via email, or that they convince the user to click the link, typically by way of an enticement in an email or Instant Messenger message. In the worst-case email attack scenario, an attacker could send a specially crafted email to the user without a requirement that the victim open, read, or click on the link. This could result in the attacker executing remote code on the victim's machine. When multiple attack vectors can be used, we assign a score based on the scenario with the higher risk (UI:N).

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is local (AV:L). Why does the CVE title indicate that this is a remote code execution?** The word **Remote** in the title refers to the location of the attacker. This type of exploit is sometimes referred to as Arbitrary Code Execution (ACE). The attack itself is carried out locally. For example, when the score indicates that the **Attack Vector** is **Local** and **User Interaction** is **Required**, this could describe an exploit in which an attacker, through social engineering, convinces a victim to download and open a specially crafted file from a website which leads to a local attack on their computer.

**What privileges could be gained by an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability?** An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges.

Exposure of sensitive information to an unauthorized actor in Windows File Explorer allows an unauthorized attacker to perform spoofing over a network.

**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?** This attack requires a client to connect to a malicious server, and that could allow the attacker to gain code execution on the client.

**How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?** To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would first have to log on to the system. An attacker could then trigger an event that could exploit the vulnerability and save an invalid state to a database or trigger other unintended actions.

**What type of information could be disclosed by this vulnerability?** An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could potentially read small portions of heap memory.