Local privilege escalation via Win32K use-after-free
Published Jul 8, 2025 · Updated Feb 26, 2026
Use-after-free in Win32K ICOMP in affected Microsoft Windows releases allows local users to elevate privileges on the host. Microsoft identifies the memory-lifetime error in the ICOMP portion of Win32K but does not disclose the object, code path, or operation that frees and later reuses it. A user with low privileges and local access can exploit the stale object without user interaction to gain higher privileges and compromise the host.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in Win32K ICOMP in affected Microsoft Windows releases allows local users to elevate privileges on the host. Microsoft identifies the memory-lifetime error in the ICOMP portion of Win32K but does not disclose the object, code path, or operation that frees and later reuses it. A user with low privileges and local access can exploit the stale object without user interaction to gain higher privileges and compromise the host.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-49733
- Published
- Jul 8, 2025
- Updated
- Feb 26, 2026
- Vendor
- Microsoft
- Product
- Windows Server 2019
- Classifications
- CWE-416, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jul 8, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Feb 26, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=10.0.17763.0 <10.0.17763.7558
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.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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