#Security Vulnerability

**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. The vulnerable endpoint is only available over the local VM interface as all external communication is blocked. This means an attacker needs to execute code from the local machine to exploit the vulnerability.

**How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?** A locally authenticated attacker could manipulate information on the Sysinternals services to achieve elevation from local user to SYSTEM admin.

**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 type of information could be disclosed by this vulnerability?** Exploiting this vulnerability could allow the disclosure of initialized or uninitialized memory in the process heap.

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

**Is the Preview Pane an attack vector for this vulnerability?** No, the Preview Pane is not an attack vector.

**Is the Preview Pane an attack vector for this vulnerability?** No, the Preview Pane is not an attack vector.

**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. The vulnerable endpoint is only available over the local VM interface as all external communication is blocked. This means an attacker needs to execute code from the local machine to exploit the vulnerability.

**What is the relationship between Mark of the Web and Windows SmartScreen?** When you download a file from the internet, Windows adds the zone identifier or Mark of the Web as an NTFS stream to the file. So, when you run the file, Windows SmartScreen checks if there is a zone identifier Alternate Data Stream (ADS) attached to the file. If the ADS indicates ZoneId=3 which means that the file was downloaded from the internet, the SmartScreen does a reputation check. For more information on SmartScreen, please visit Microsoft Defender SmartScreen overview | Microsoft Learn.

**What privileges could be gained by an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability?** An attacker with physical access to an unlocked device could bypass the application's biometric authentication, which effectively disables the application lock and gives the attacker full access.