SYSTEM privilege escalation via unchecked driver IOCTL
Published Aug 7, 2026 · Updated Aug 7, 2026
Improper privilege management in Power Software Ltd PowerISO 9.3.0.0 allows local users to gain SYSTEM privileges through a driver IOCTL. The scdemu.sys IRP_MJ_DEVICE_CONTROL handler accepts IOCTL 0x80002018 without validating caller privilege and passes caller-controlled data to RtlWriteRegistryValue. A low-privileged local process can therefore write administrator-protected registry values and launch an arbitrary executable as SYSTEM.
Summary
What happened
Improper privilege management in Power Software Ltd PowerISO 9.3.0.0 allows local users to gain SYSTEM privileges through a driver IOCTL. The scdemu.sys IRP_MJ_DEVICE_CONTROL handler accepts IOCTL 0x80002018 without validating caller privilege and passes caller-controlled data to RtlWriteRegistryValue. A low-privileged local process can therefore write administrator-protected registry values and launch an arbitrary executable as SYSTEM.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-19189
- Published
- Aug 7, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 7, 2026
- Vendor
- PowerISO Computing, Inc.
- Product
- PowerISO
- Classifications
- CWE-266, CWE-269, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 7, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 7, 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?
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- Affected versionversion=9.3.0.0
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
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.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- PowerISO scdemu.sys registry IOCTL proof of conceptfunctional · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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