Microsoft Windows up to Server 2019 Group Policy privileges management

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Microsoft Windows. This vulnerability affects unknown code of the component Group Policy. The manipulation leads to privileges management. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2020-1013. Access to the local network is required for this attack to succeed. There is no exploit available. It is suggested to install a patch to address this issue.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Microsoft Windows (Operating System) and classified as critical. This issue affects an unknown functionality of the component Group Policy. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a privileges management vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-269. The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

<p>An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Microsoft Windows processes group policy updates. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could potentially escalate permissions or perform additional privileged actions on the target machine.</p> <p>To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to launch a man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attack against the traffic passing between a domain controller and the target machine. An attacker could then create a group policy to grant administrator rights to a standard user.</p> <p>The security update addresses the vulnerability by enforcing Kerberos authentication for certain calls over LDAP.</p>

The weakness was shared 09/08/2020 as confirmed security update guide (Website). The advisory is shared at portal.msrc.microsoft.com. The vendor cooperated in the coordination of the public release. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2020-1013. The exploitation is known to be difficult. The attack can only be done within the local network. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 02/24/2026). MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1068 for this issue. The advisory points out:

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Microsoft Windows processes group policy updates. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could potentially escalate permissions or perform additional privileged actions on the target machine.

Applying a patch is able to eliminate this problem. A possible mitigation has been published immediately after the disclosure of the vulnerability.

The entries VDB-160893, VDB-160892, VDB-160891 and VDB-160890 are related to this item. Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Microsoft

Name

• Windows

Version

• 7 SP1
• 8.1
• 10
• 10 1607
• 10 1709
• 10 1803
• 10 1809
• 10 1903
• 10 1909
• 10 2004
• RT 8.1
• Server 1903
• Server 1909
• Server 2004
• Server 2008 R2 SP1
• Server 2008 SP2
• Server 2012
• Server 2012 R2
• Server 2016
• Server 2019

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.microsoft.com/
• Product: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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