CVE-2008-4250 — Microsoft
CRITICALCVE-2008-4250 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Code Injection vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2026-05-20) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
The Server service in Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4, XP SP2 and SP3, Server 2003 SP1 and SP2, Vista Gold and SP1, Server 2008, and 7 Pre-Beta allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2026-05-20. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2026-06-03.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2008-4250.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2008-4250 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,415 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
The Server service in Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4, XP SP2 and SP3, Server 2003 SP1 and SP2, Vista Gold and SP1, Server 2008, and 7 Pre-Beta allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted RPC request that triggers the overflow during path canonicalization, as exploited in the wild by Gimmiv.A in October 2008, aka "Server Service Vulnerability."
Affected Products
windows 2000microsoftwindows server 2003microsoftwindows server 2008microsoftwindows vistamicrosoftwindows xpmicrosoftResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Microsoft Windows Server - Universal Code Execution (MS08-067)
by EMM · Oct 26, 2008
Microsoft Windows Server - Code Execution (MS08-067)
by Polymorphours · Nov 12, 2008
Microsoft Windows Server - Code Execution (PoC) (MS08-067)
by stephen lawler · Oct 23, 2008
Microsoft Windows Server 2000/2003 - Code Execution (MS08-067)
by Debasis Mohanty · Nov 16, 2008
Microsoft Windows Server - Service Relative Path Stack Corruption (MS08-067) (Metasploit)
by Metasploit · Jan 21, 2011
Microsoft Windows - 'NetAPI32.dll' Code Execution (Python) (MS08-067)
by ohnozzy · Feb 26, 2016
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2008-4250 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2008-4250 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.