CriticalCVE-2019-1322

    Microsoft Windows Privilege Escalation Vulnerability (CVE-2019-1322)

    Published In CISA KEV since Sources: CVE.org

    What is affected, what to do

    An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Windows improperly handles authentication requests, aka 'Microsoft Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1320, CVE-2019-1340.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. CISA lists it as used in ransomware campaigns. The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • Microsoft Windows eq 10 Version 1803 for 32-bit Systems..10 Version 1803 for 32-bit Systems
    • Microsoft Windows eq 10 Version 1803 for x64-based Systems..10 Version 1803 for x64-based Systems
    • Microsoft Windows eq 10 Version 1803 for ARM64-based Systems..10 Version 1803 for ARM64-based Systems
    • Microsoft Windows eq 10 Version 1809 for 32-bit Systems..10 Version 1809 for 32-bit Systems
    • Microsoft Windows eq 10 Version 1809 for x64-based Systems..10 Version 1809 for x64-based Systems
    • Microsoft Windows eq 10 Version 1809 for ARM64-based Systems..10 Version 1809 for ARM64-based Systems
    • Microsoft Windows Server eq version 1803 (Core Installation)..version 1803 (Core Installation)
    • Microsoft Windows Server eq 2019..2019
    • Microsoft Windows Server eq 2019 (Core installation)..2019 (Core installation)

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    Metrics

    7.8

    Priority

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

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    7.8

    CVSS v3

    Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: CVE.org

    18.8 %

    EPSS score

    Elevated — model estimates 10-50% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 97.3

    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
    239.71 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 exploited
    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
    7.8 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
    7.8
    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
    18.8 %
    Elevated — model estimates 10-50% 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
    97.3
    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
    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
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: active · not automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 4 February 2025

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This CVE is on KEV and CISA flags it as used in ransomware campaigns — as a local privilege escalation it is a typical second-stage primitive after initial access (phishing, exposed service, browser exploit) and a direct enabler of domain-wide compromise. EPSS puts exploitation likelihood very high relative to the CVE population, but exploitation requires local code execution, which pushes shared-user systems (VDI, RDS farms, call-centre pools, developer workstations with shared logons) to the top of the queue. Rate the risk high to critical for any host still on 1803/1809/1903 that carries more than one interactive user; single-user workstations on isolated networks drop one notch but must still be patched because of confirmed ransomware use.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Deploy the Microsoft Patch-Tuesday update from 2019-10-08 (Security Update Guide, CVE-2019-1322) on every Windows 10 host still on builds 1803, 1809 or 1903, including Server Core SKUs of those branches. The cumulative LCU fixes this CVE — verify via Get-HotFix or WSUS compliance reporting.
      • Flag end-of-support branches: Windows 10 1803 and 1809 (Home/Pro) are EoL. Either upgrade to 21H2/22H2 or move affected hosts into a quarantine VLAN until the feature update completes.
      • Reduce local admin rights immediately: the exploit needs an authenticated local session (AV:L/PR:L). Treat multi-user systems (RDS/Citrix, shared workstations, jump hosts) as priority 1.
      • Rotate passwords of service accounts running as standard users on endpoints (backup agents, RMM tools, monitoring probes) — a local EoP turns such an account into SYSTEM.
      • If patching within 24 h is not realistic, restrict interactive logon on affected hosts to admin personas only and gate RDP via just-in-time PAM approval.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: isolate 1803/1809/1903 hosts in a quarantine VLAN with tight east-west rules. Post-EoP lateral movement rides SMB/WinRM/RPC — block TCP 445, 5985/5986 and dynamic RPC ranges between client segments.
      • Endpoint hardening: enable LSA Protection (RunAsPPL=1), Credential Guard and ASR rules, in particular „Block credential stealing from LSASS" and „Block process creations originating from PSExec and WMI commands".
      • IAM layer: manage local administrator accounts via LAPS, place privileged domain accounts into the Protected Users group and enforce Authentication Policy Silos so Domain Admins cannot log on to workstations. Migrate service accounts to gMSA.
      • Configuration: enforce AppLocker or WDAC in enforcement mode to prevent exploit tooling (Mimikatz, Cobalt Strike beacon DLLs, custom PE loaders) from running out of user-writable paths.
      • Flip EDR policy from audit to block for token manipulation and named-pipe impersonation (MITRE T1134); most Windows EoP chains conclude by abusing SeImpersonatePrivilege.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Windows Event ID 4672 („Special privileges assigned to new logon") correlated with a preceding 4624 Type 2/10 for a non-admin SID — a sudden SYSTEM/Administrators assignment to a standard user is the key signal.
      • Sysmon EID 1 (Process Create) where ParentImage is a user-context process but the child runs with IntegrityLevel=System or User=NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. Sigma shape: selection: IntegrityLevel: System AND ParentIntegrityLevel: Medium.
      • Sysmon EID 10 (ProcessAccess) targeting lsass.exe with GrantedAccess 0x1010 or 0x1410 from unexpected processes — the common post-EoP step is credential dumping.
      • Suspicious named-pipe creation (Sysmon EID 17/18) with random pipe names from a user context, immediately followed by service installation (Event ID 7045) — the classic pipe-impersonation chain.
      • KQL shape for Defender XDR: DeviceProcessEvents | where InitiatingProcessIntegrityLevel in ("Medium","Low") and ProcessIntegrityLevel == "System" | where AccountName !in ("SYSTEM","LOCAL SERVICE","NETWORK SERVICE").

    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

    An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Windows improperly handles authentication requests, aka 'Microsoft Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1320, CVE-2019-1340.

    Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog

    Affected products

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

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    MicrosoftWindows
    • 10 Version 1803 for x64-based Systems
    • 10 Version 1809 for ARM64-based Systems
    • 10 Version 1803 for 32-bit Systems
    • 10 Version 1809 for x64-based Systems
    • 10 Version 1809 for 32-bit Systems
    • 10 Version 1803 for ARM64-based Systems
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    MicrosoftWindows Server
    • 2019
    • 2019 (Core installation)
    • version 1803 (Core Installation)
    • —
    • —
    • —

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Windowsmicrosoftwindows_10_1803—
    Windowsmicrosoftwindows_10_1809—
    Windowsmicrosoftwindows_10_1903—
    Windowsmicrosoftwindows_server_1803—
    Windowsmicrosoftwindows_server_1903—
    Windowsmicrosoftwindows_server_2019—

    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 CatalogCISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.govactively exploited
    Packet StormMicrosoft UPnP Local Privilege Elevation (opens in a new tab)packetstormsecurity.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—

    References & sources

    • portal.msrc.microsoft.comen-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2019-1322x_refsource_MISC, Patch, Vendor advisory
    • packetstormsecurity.comfiles/155723/Microsoft-UPnP-Local-Privilege-Elevation.htmlx_refsource_MISC, Exploit, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2019-1322government-resource, US government resource
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