Microsoft Security Response Center

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack complexity is high (AC:H). What does that mean for this vulnerability?** The attacker must inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim to read or modify network communications. This is called a machine-in-the-middle (MITM) attack.

**According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is physical (AV:P). What does that mean for this vulnerability?** To exploit this vulnerability, an unauthenticated attacker needs to physically connect a malicious USB device to the victim's machine.

**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.

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

**Why is this advisory published to the Security Updates Guide Vulnerabilities tab instead of the Advisories tab?** We are publishing this advisory to the Security Update Guide's Vulnerabilities tab to document the related defense in depth security updates in the Deployments tab. Generally advisories do not contain security updates. However Microsoft Engineering elected to provide them to ensure customers could ensure they are protected. Please reference the Security Updates table or the Deployments tab to find the security update for related to your product.

**What privileges could be gained by an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability?** An attacker would be able to delete any system files.

**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.

**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.

**How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?** To exploit this vulnerability, an authenticated attacker would need to run a specially crafted application on the target system exploit the vulnerability to elevate their privileges to a Medium Integrity Level.

**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 take additional actions prior to exploitation to prepare the target environment.