CriticalCVE-2025-62215

Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability (CVE-2025-62215)

Published 11.11.2025In CISA KEV since 12.11.2025Sources: pwn.watch, CVE.org, Msrc Update Guide

What is affected, what to do

Concurrent execution using shared resource with improper synchronization ('race condition') in Windows Kernel allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. Update Microsoft Windows 10 Version 1809 to version 10.0.17763.8027, Microsoft Windows 10 Version 21H2 to version 10.0.19044.6575, Microsoft Windows 10 Version 22H2 to version 10.0.19045.6575. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

Affected: Microsoft Windows 10 Version 1809 lt 10.0.17763.0..10.0.17763.8027
Microsoft Windows 10 Version 21H2 lt 10.0.19044.0..10.0.19044.6575
Microsoft Windows 10 Version 22H2 lt 10.0.19045.0..10.0.19045.6575
Microsoft Windows 11 version 22H3 lt 10.0.22631.0..10.0.22631.6199
Microsoft Windows 11 Version 23H2 lt 10.0.22631.0..10.0.22631.6199
Microsoft Windows 11 Version 24H2 lt 10.0.26100.0..10.0.26100.7171
Microsoft Windows 11 Version 25H2 lt 10.0.26200.0..10.0.26200.7171
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 lt 10.0.17763.0..10.0.17763.8027
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Server Core installation) lt 10.0.17763.0..10.0.17763.8027
Microsoft Windows Server 2022 lt 10.0.20348.0..10.0.20348.4405
Microsoft Windows Server 2022, 23H2 Edition (Server Core installation) lt 10.0.25398.0..10.0.25398.1965
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 lt 10.0.26100.0..10.0.26100.7171
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 (Server Core installation) lt 10.0.26100.0..10.0.26100.7171
Fixed in: Microsoft Windows 10 Version 1809 10.0.17763.8027
Microsoft Windows 10 Version 21H2 10.0.19044.6575
Microsoft Windows 10 Version 22H2 10.0.19045.6575
Microsoft Windows 11 version 22H3 10.0.22631.6199
Microsoft Windows 11 Version 23H2 10.0.22631.6199
Microsoft Windows 11 Version 24H2 10.0.26100.7171
Microsoft Windows 11 Version 25H2 10.0.26200.7171
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 10.0.17763.8027
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Server Core installation) 10.0.17763.8027
Microsoft Windows Server 2022 10.0.20348.4405
Microsoft Windows Server 2022, 23H2 Edition (Server Core installation) 10.0.25398.1965
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 10.0.26100.7171
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 (Server Core installation) 10.0.26100.7171

Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

Metrics

7.0

Priority

XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

Source: NVD, CVSS v3

7.0

CVSS v3

Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.

Source: pwn.watch, CVE.org, Msrc Update Guide

4.5 %

EPSS score

Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.

Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 91.4

Show all metrics

Severity: Critical
Priority (0–325) The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first? Read in glossary: 213.86 Methodology
Exploit maturity An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack. Read in glossary: actively exploitedSource: VulnCheck KEV (opens in a new tab) How we classify
XIEM Effective CVSS XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command. Read in glossary: 7.0 Methodology
CVSS v3 CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions. Read in glossary: 7.0
EPSS score The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“. Read in glossary: 4.5 %; Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking. Read in glossary: 91.4; Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
KEV status The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching. Read in glossary: Actively exploited
Published: 11.11.2025
In CISA KEV since The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching. Read in glossary: 12.11.2025
CWE CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect. Read in glossary: CWE-362, CWE-415

Response and mitigation

Why act now?

Prioritisation rationale

CVE-2025-62215 was exploited as a zero-day and added to KEV right at Patch Tuesday. Attackers use it as a second-stage primitive after initial access through phishing, infostealer logs or stolen credentials, turning a standard user into SYSTEM. The attack is local-only and the high complexity of the race condition makes the exploit less reliable. Successful exploitation, however, means full loss of confidentiality, integrity and availability on the host, and exploitation likelihood is markedly higher than for most CVEs. CISA does not flag ransomware use, but this class of privilege escalation is a standard building block in such intrusion chains. Rate it high overall and critical for multi-user hosts, jump servers and unpatchable Windows 10 estates, and close it within your emergency patch window (≤ 7 days).

01
Runbook step 1
Immediate response (0-24 h)
- Deploy the November 2025 Patch Tuesday cumulative update. Target builds: Windows 10 1809/Server 2019 ≥ 10.0.17763.8027, Windows 10 21H2 ≥ 10.0.19044.6575, Windows 10 22H2 ≥ 10.0.19045.6575, Windows 11 22H3/23H2 ≥ 10.0.22631.6199, Windows 11 24H2 ≥ 10.0.26100.7171, Windows 11 25H2 ≥ 10.0.26200.7171. Look up the per-build KB number in the Microsoft Security Update Guide entry for CVE-2025-62215.
- Verify compliance fleet-wide via Intune, SCCM/MECM, WSUS or a script: Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' | Select CurrentBuild,UBR. Track every host below the target UBR as an open finding.
- Patch multi-user hosts first: RDS/terminal servers, VDI pools, Citrix workers, jump hosts and build agents. On these systems, any low-privileged user or service context is enough to attempt the exploit.
- Windows 10 22H2 left mainstream support in October 2025. Confirm ESU enrolment. Devices without ESU will not receive the fix and must be treated as unpatchable: isolate them or fast-track their migration.
- Check server versions not listed in the context (e.g. Server 2022/2025) against the vendor advisory. Patch available from vendor — look up the version in the vendor advisory.
- On any endpoint with a confirmed initial foothold (phishing payload, compromised user account), assume the attacker reached SYSTEM. Isolate the host, capture forensic artefacts and rotate any credentials cached on it.
02
Runbook step 2
Mitigation layers
- Vendor/configuration: According to the context, Microsoft documents no workaround. Patching is the only full remediation; everything below only lowers likelihood and blast radius.
- Endpoint hardening/application control: Enforce WDAC or AppLocker to block execution from user-writable paths (%TEMP%, %APPDATA%, %LOCALAPPDATA%, Downloads, C:\Users\Public), since local kernel exploits require running attacker code. Also enable HVCI/Memory Integrity and the Microsoft Vulnerable Driver Blocklist.
- Defender ASR rules: Enable "Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion" and "Block Office applications from creating child processes" to break the chain from initial access to local privilege escalation.
- IAM/least privilege: Restrict interactive and RDP logon rights on servers via GPO, deny interactive logon for service accounts, and enforce admin tiering so that no standard-user sessions run on Tier-0-adjacent systems.
- Contain post-escalation impact: Enable Credential Guard and LSA protection (RunAsPPL), and use LAPS for unique local admin passwords, so that SYSTEM on one box does not automatically lead to lateral movement.
- Network segmentation: Move unpatched or unpatchable clients (e.g. Windows 10 without ESU) into a quarantine VLAN with no SMB/RDP/WinRM to servers and only the minimum required access to domain controllers.
03
Runbook step 3
Detection rules
- Sysmon EID 1 / Defender DeviceProcessEvents: A SYSTEM-integrity process spawned by a Medium/Low-integrity parent that is not a known broker (services.exe, svchost.exe, wininit.exe). KQL: DeviceProcessEvents | where ProcessIntegrityLevel == "System" and InitiatingProcessIntegrityLevel in ("Medium","Low") and InitiatingProcessFolderPath has_any (@"\Users\", @"\Temp\", @"\ProgramData\")
- Windows Security EID 4688 (with command-line auditing): cmd.exe, powershell.exe or rundll32.exe running as SubjectUserSid S-1-5-18 whose ParentProcessName sits in a user-profile path. Sigma shape: selection: SubjectUserSid='S-1-5-18' AND ParentImage|contains '\Users\'.
- Crash noise from race attempts: Clusters of bugchecks (System log EID 1001 "BugCheck", EID 41 Kernel-Power), especially across hosts tied to the same user. Failed race attempts often precede a successful one. Review minidumps for ntoskrnl faults.
- Post-exploitation: Sysmon EID 10 showing an unsigned process accessing lsass.exe (GrantedAccess 0x1010/0x1410) shortly after an integrity jump. Also watch for EID 7045/4697 (new service) and Sysmon EID 13 (Run keys) from the same process tree.
- EDR process ancestry: A chain of Office, browser or archive tool, followed by an unknown EXE in %TEMP%, followed by a child process running as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. Alert on this chain at high severity and trigger automatic host isolation.

Detection rules

No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

Classification under NIS2 and CRA

Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

NIS2 NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management. Read in glossary: Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
CRA The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates. Read in glossary: Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
ISO/IEC 27001 ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security. Read in glossary: Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

Description

Concurrent execution using shared resource with improper synchronization ('race condition') in Windows Kernel allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

Source: pwn.watch, NVD (NIST), Microsoft Security Update Guide, cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog, CVE.org (MITRE)

Affected products

The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

Affected products
		Affected versions	Fixed in
Microsoft	Windows 10 Version 1809	`10.0.17763.0 – < 10.0.17763.8027`	`10.0.17763.8027`
Microsoft	Windows 10 Version 21H2	`10.0.19044.0 – < 10.0.19044.6575`	`10.0.19044.6575`
Microsoft	Windows 10 Version 22H2	`10.0.19045.0 – < 10.0.19045.6575`	`10.0.19045.6575`
Microsoft	Windows 11 version 22H3	`10.0.22631.0 – < 10.0.22631.6199`	`10.0.22631.6199`
Microsoft	Windows 11 Version 23H2	`10.0.22631.0 – < 10.0.22631.6199`	`10.0.22631.6199`
Microsoft	Windows 11 Version 24H2	`10.0.26100.0 – < 10.0.26100.7171`	`10.0.26100.7171`
Microsoft	Windows 11 Version 25H2	`10.0.26200.0 – < 10.0.26200.7171`	`10.0.26200.7171`
Microsoft	Windows Server 2019	`10.0.17763.0 – < 10.0.17763.8027`	`10.0.17763.8027`
Microsoft	Windows Server 2019 (Server Core installation)	`10.0.17763.0 – < 10.0.17763.8027`	`10.0.17763.8027`
Microsoft	Windows Server 2022	`10.0.20348.0 – < 10.0.20348.4405`	`10.0.20348.4405`
Microsoft	Windows Server 2022, 23H2 Edition (Server Core installation)	`10.0.25398.0 – < 10.0.25398.1965`	`10.0.25398.1965`
Microsoft	Windows Server 2025	`10.0.26100.0 – < 10.0.26100.7171`	`10.0.26100.7171`
Microsoft	Windows Server 2025 (Server Core installation)	`10.0.26100.0 – < 10.0.26100.7171`	`10.0.26100.7171`

Vendors and products

Affected operating systems

Affected operating systems

Windows	microsoft	windows_10_1809	—
Windows	microsoft	windows_10_21h2	—
Windows	microsoft	windows_10_22h2	—
Windows	microsoft	windows_11_23h2	—
Windows	microsoft	windows_11_24h2	—
Windows	microsoft	windows_11_25h2	—
Windows	microsoft	windows_server_2019	—
Windows	microsoft	windows_server_2022	—
Windows	microsoft	windows_server_2022_23h2	—
Windows	microsoft	windows_server_2025	—

Weakness classes (CWE)

CWE-362Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')
Class
The product contains a concurrent code sequence that requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence operating concurrently.
Entry at MITRE CWE-362
CWE-415Double Free
Variant
The product calls free() twice on the same memory address.
Entry at MITRE CWE-415

Public exploit references

Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.

Public exploit references

CISA KEV Catalog	CISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.gov	actively exploited	12.11.2025
PoC-in-GitHub (nomi-sec)	CVE-2025-62215-Windows-Kernel---Elevation-of-Privilege (opens in a new tab)github.com	PoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified	08.10.2026

References & sources

Microsoft Security Update GuideWindows Kernel Elevation of Privilege VulnerabilityVendor advisory, Patch, Vendor advisory
cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2025-62215government-resource, US government resource
pwn.watchpwn.watch: Microsoft Windows: Windows Race Condition Vulnerabilitypwn-watch
Microsoft Security Update GuideMicrosoft advisory: Microsoft Windowspwn-watch
NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2025-62215pwn-watch
cisa.govCISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogpwn-watch

Embed badge

Show the severity and KEV status of this vulnerability on your site – with a link back here. The image is updated hourly.

<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2025-62215"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2025-62215.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2025-62215 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>

What is affected, what to do

Metrics

Response and mitigation

Prioritisation rationale

Immediate response (0-24 h)

Mitigation layers

Detection rules

Detection rules

Classification under NIS2 and CRA

Description

Affected products

Vendors and products

Affected operating systems

Weakness classes (CWE)

Public exploit references

References & sources