CVE-2020-0683 — Windows 7
HIGHCVE-2020-0683 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) CWE-59 vulnerability in microsoft windows 7. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in the Windows Installer when MSI packages process symbolic links, aka 'Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-05-03.
- 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-2020-0683.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-0683 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in the Windows Installer when MSI packages process symbolic links, aka 'Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2020-0686.
Affected Products
windows 7microsoftwindows 8.1microsoftwindows 10 1507microsoftwindows 10 1607microsoftwindows 10 1709microsoftwindows 10 1803microsoftResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
MSI Packages Symbolic Links Processing - Windows 10 Privilege Escalation
by nu11secur1ty · Feb 17, 2020
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every microsoft windows 7 deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2020-0683 yet — track the microsoft windows 7 advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-0683 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.