Microsoft Security Response Center

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

**According to the CVSS metric, a successful exploitation could lead to a scope change (S:C). What does this mean for this vulnerability?** A successful exploitation of this vulnerability via a medium integrity level exploit could allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to system-level resources, potentially modify kernel memory, and execute arbitrary code with kernel-level privileges. This could lead to a full compromise of the system’s integrity, confidentiality, and availability.

**What type of information could be disclosed by this vulnerability?** The type of information that could be disclosed if an attacker successfully exploited this vulnerability is sensitive information.

**Are there any additional steps that I need to follow to be protected from this vulnerability?** The changes to address this vulnerability updated Virtual Secure Mode components. The policy described in Guidance for blocking rollback of Virtualization-based Security (VBS) related security updates has been updated to account for the latest changes. If you deployed this policy, then you'll need to redeploy using the updated policy.

**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.

**How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?** An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by tricking a user into sending a request to a malicious server. This could result in the server returning malicious data that might cause arbitrary code execution on the user's system.

**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 manipulate system operations in a specific manner.

**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.

**According to the CVSS metrics, successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to some loss of confidentiality (C:L) but have no effect on integrity (I:N) or on availability (A:N). What does that mean for this vulnerability?** An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could view some sensitive information (Confidentiality) but not all resources within the impacted component may be divulged to the attacker. The attacker cannot make changes to disclosed information (Integrity) or limit access to the resource (Availability).

**How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?** An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by tricking a user into sending a request to a malicious server. This could result in the server returning malicious data that might cause arbitrary code execution on the user's system.