CVE-2025-24998: Visual Studio Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Overview

Severity

High (CVSS 7.3)

CVSS Vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Category

Elevation of Privilege

Exploit Status

Not Exploited

Exploitation Likelihood

Less Likely

Patch Tuesday

2025-Mar

Released

2025-03-11

EPSS Score

0.67% (percentile: 71.3%)

Description

Uncontrolled search path element in Visual Studio allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

FAQ

What privileges could be gained by an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability? An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain administrator privileges. According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is local (AV:L), privileges are low (PR:L), and user interaction is required (UI:R). What is the target context of the remote code execution? This attack requires an authenticated attacker to place a specially crafted .dll file in a local network location. When a victim runs this file, it loads the malicious DLL.

Affected Products (6)

Developer Tools

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 version 17.13
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 version 17.12
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9 (includes 15.0 - 15.8)
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 version 16.11 (includes 16.0 - 16.10)
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 version 17.8
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 version 17.10

Security Updates (6)

• Release Notes
• Release Notes
• Release Notes
• Release Notes
• Release Notes
• Release Notes

Acknowledgments

Polar Penguin

Revision History

• 2025-03-11: Information published.