SYSTEM privilege escalation via security-cache refcount overflow
Published Sep 12, 2023 · Updated Oct 30, 2025
Use-after-free in the Microsoft Windows kernel allows local users with low privileges to elevate to SYSTEM via crafted registry hive operations. During registry hive self-healing, the kernel fails to reset a cached security descriptor reference, allowing repeated operations to overflow its reference count and leave freed memory reachable. A logged-in low-privilege user can exercise the faulty path without user interaction and gain kernel-level control of the affected host.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in the Microsoft Windows kernel allows local users with low privileges to elevate to SYSTEM via crafted registry hive operations. During registry hive self-healing, the kernel fails to reset a cached security descriptor reference, allowing repeated operations to overflow its reference count and leave freed memory reachable. A logged-in low-privilege user can exercise the faulty path without user interaction and gain kernel-level control of the affected host.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-38139
- Published
- Sep 12, 2023
- Updated
- Oct 30, 2025
- Vendor
- Microsoft
- Product
- Windows 10 Version 1507
- Classifications
- CWE-416, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Sep 12, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Oct 30, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=10.0.10240.0 <10.0.10240.20162
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo