CVE-2024-21338
Actively exploited. CVE-2024-21338 is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2024-03-04) — exploitation has been observed in the wild, and US federal agencies are required to remediate it under BOD 22-01. Treat patching as urgent.
Public exploit code is available. Proof-of-concept or working exploit code for CVE-2024-21338 is indexed in Exploit-DB and GitHub PoC. Expect opportunistic scanning and exploitation attempts — prioritize remediation.
Microsoft Windows Kernel contains an exposed IOCTL with insufficient access control vulnerability within the IOCTL (input and output control) dispatcher in appid.sys that allows a local attacker to achieve privilege escalation.
CSIRTS triage
- What
- An exposed IOCTL with insufficient access control allows local attackers to achieve privilege escalation.
- Who is affected
- Users of Microsoft Windows are affected.
- Urgency
- Remediation is urgent as the vulnerability has been exploited in the wild.
- Action
- Apply the security update programs through Microsoft Update.
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 99% of all EPSS-scored CVEs.
Exploit availability
Public exploit or proof-of-concept code for CVE-2024-21338 is indexed in these free datasets. Available exploit code raises real-world risk independent of the CVSS score.
- Exploit-DBA public exploit is published in the Exploit-DB archive.look it up ↗
- GitHub PoCPublic proof-of-concept repositories on GitHub reference this CVE.look it up ↗
Advisory coverage (1)
- criticalexploitedCVE-2024-21338: Microsoft Windows Kernel Exposed IOCTL with Insufficient Access Control Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2024-03-04
External references
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[](https://www.csirts.com/cve/CVE-2024-21338)