CVE-2018-8589
Actively exploited. CVE-2018-8589 is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-05-23) — exploitation has been observed in the wild, and US federal agencies are required to remediate it under BOD 22-01. Treat patching as urgent.
A privilege escalation vulnerability exists when Windows improperly handles calls to Win32k.sys. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run remote code in the security context of the local system.
CSIRTS triage
- What
- A privilege escalation vulnerability exists when Windows improperly handles calls to Win32k.sys.
- Who is affected
- Deployments of Windows operating systems.
- Urgency
- Remediation is urgent due to active exploitation and critical severity.
- Action
- Apply the latest security updates for Windows.
AI-assisted analysis generated from the source advisory — verify against the original.
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Exploitation outlook
- Exploitation confirmedAlready exploited in the wild (CISA KEV) — the prediction phase is over. Patch now. Riskier than 86% of all EPSS-scored CVEs.
Advisory coverage (1)
- criticalexploitedCVE-2018-8589: Microsoft Win32k Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2022-05-23
External references
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