CVE-2025-25003: 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? The attacker would gain the rights of the user that is running the affected application. According to the CVSS metric, user interaction is required (UI:R). What interaction would the user have to do? Exploitation of this vulnerability requires that a user trigger the payload in the application. According to the CVSS metric, privileges required is low (PR:L). What does that mean for this vulnerability? Any authenticated attacker could trigger this vulnerability. It does not require admin or other elevated privileges.

Affected Products (5)

Developer Tools

  • 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
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 version 17.12
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 version 17.13

Security Updates (5)

Acknowledgments

<a href="https://github.com/ycdxsb">ycdxsb</a>

Revision History

  • 2025-03-11: Information published.