CVE-2019-0859: Microsoft Win32k Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
Actively exploited. At least one CVE in this advisory is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog — exploitation has been observed in the wild. Treat remediation as urgent.
Microsoft Win32k fails to properly handle objects in memory causing privilege escalation. Successful exploitation allows an attacker to run code in kernel mode.
CSIRTS triage
- What
- The vulnerability allows an attacker to run code in kernel mode.
- Who is affected
- Deployments of Microsoft Win32k are affected.
- Urgency
- Remediation is urgent due to active exploitation and critical severity.
- Action
- Apply the latest security patch from Microsoft.
AI-assisted analysis generated from the source advisory — verify against the original.
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Details
Original advisory: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-0859
Exploitation outlook
EPSS (FIRST.org) estimates each CVE’s probability of exploitation in the next 30 days — here is the CSIRTS.com read on those numbers.
- Exploitation confirmedCVE-2019-0859Already exploited in the wild (CISA KEV) — the prediction phase is over. Patch now. Riskier than 90% of all scored CVEs.
Referenced CVEs
| CVE | CSIRTS overview | External |
|---|---|---|
| CVE-2019-0859 | coverage & exploitation status | NVD · CVE.org |
Recent advisories for Microsoft Win32k Privilege
A cluster of recent advisories against the same product widens the attack surface — attackers routinely chain freshly published CVEs on one product, so review these together.
- criticalexploitedCVE-2016-0165: Microsoft Win32k Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2023-06-22
- criticalexploitedCVE-2023-29336: Microsoft Win32K Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2023-05-09
- criticalexploitedCVE-2015-2360: Microsoft Win32k Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2022-05-25
- criticalexploitedCVE-2018-8589: Microsoft Win32k Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2022-05-23
- criticalexploitedCVE-2014-4113: Microsoft Win32k Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2022-05-04
- criticalexploitedCVE-2021-40450: Microsoft Win32k Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2022-04-25
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