Description

Null pointer dereference in Microsoft Remote Registry Service allows an authorized attacker to deny service over a network.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "6.5",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-11T17:18:08.727Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-11T17:18:08.727Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A null pointer dereference vulnerability exists within the Microsoft Remote Registry Service, which facilitates the remote management of registry configurations on target hosts.\nThe primary security impact of this vulnerability is a targeted denial of service condition, leading to the unexpected termination or unresponsiveness of the affected service across the network.\nThe affected product is the Microsoft Remote Registry Service, exposing systems to potential availability degradation.\nThe risk implication centers on operational disruption, as critical remote administration capabilities rely on the stability of this service.\nAn attacker must possess authorization to interact with the service over the network to successfully trigger the fault condition.\nExploitation requirements include network connectivity to the vulnerable target and valid credentials or access permissions necessary to interface with the Remote Registry Service protocol handlers.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of the vulnerability stems from improper handling of internal pointers within the Microsoft Remote Registry Service codebase, specifically when processing specific input parameters or protocol message structures.\nWhen a specially crafted sequence of network requests is supplied to the vulnerable component, the application attempts to dereference a memory address that evaluates to a null value.\nThis invalid memory reference lacks appropriate bounds checking or null verification prior to access, triggering an unhandled exception within the runtime environment.\nThe attack flow proceeds as an authorized attacker transmits malicious Remote Procedure Call (RPC) or underlying protocol traffic over the network to the listening Remote Registry Service endpoint.\nUpon receipt, the vulnerable component parses the input data and executes internal routines that lead to the unauthorized null pointer dereference.\nThis behavior results in an immediate crash of the service process, abruptly terminating all active administrative sessions and preventing subsequent remote registry operations until manual or automated service recovery occurs.\nThe vulnerable component is the Remote Registry Service daemon and its associated protocol parsing modules.\nAuthentication requirements dictate that the attacking entity must be authorized to initiate communication with the service.\nPrivilege requirements are limited to the baseline access needed to interact with the remote registry management interface.\nNetwork exposure is defined by the accessibility of the service ports utilized by the Remote Registry Service across the network perimeter.\nThe payload behavior is strictly destructive to service availability, manifesting as a crash rather than arbitrary code execution, due to the nature of the null pointer dereference exception."
}