Microsoft Windows Group Policy Preferences Password Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

[ Why it matters ]Priority signals

• Exploited in the wild: on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list since 2021-11-03
• Known to be used in ransomware campaigns
• EPSS: 65% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (higher than 99% of CVEs)

[ Description ]Official description

The Group Policy implementation in Microsoft Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 SP1, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 Gold and R2 does not properly handle distribution of passwords, which allows remote authenticated users to obtain sensitive credential information and consequently gain privileges by leveraging access to the SYSVOL share, as exploited in the wild in May 2014, aka "Group Policy Preferences Password Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability."

CISA: Microsoft Windows Active Directory contains a privilege escalation vulnerability due to the way it distributes passwords that are configured using Group Policy preferences. An authenticated attacker who successfully exploits the vulnerability could decrypt the passwords and use them to elevate privileges on the domain.

[ Fixes ]Fixes and patches

CISA required action (US federal deadline 3 May 2022): Apply updates per vendor instructions.

• Patch on docs.microsoft.comVendor patch or bulletin · NVD · Reference tagged 'Patch' by NVD

[ References ]References

• blogs.technet.com/b/srd/archive/2014/05/13/ms14-025-an-update-for-group-policy-preferen…Third Party Advisory
• docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/securitybulletins/2014/ms14-025PatchVendor Advisory
• www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalogUS Government Resource