Description

Heap-based buffer overflow in Windows Device Association Service allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-11T17:18:26.883Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-11T17:18:26.883Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the Windows Device Association Service, specifically manifesting as a heap-based buffer overflow.\nThe vulnerability allows an authorized local attacker to elevate their execution privileges on affected systems.\nThe flaw affects the Windows Device Association Service component, posing significant risk to host integrity by potentially granting SYSTEM-level access or equivalent elevated privileges from a low-privileged execution context.\nExploitation requires the attacker to possess prior local access and authorization to interact with the vulnerable service.\nSuccessful exploitation results in arbitrary code execution within the security context of the affected service, compromising local operating system security boundaries.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability is a heap-based buffer overflow residing within the Windows Device Association Service.\nThe root cause stems from improper bounds checking or insufficient size validation when processing input data allocated on the heap within the vulnerable component.\nAn authorized local attacker initiates the attack flow by sending specially crafted input or interacting with the service via standard local inter-process communication channels or APIs utilized by the Windows Device Association Service.\nBecause memory management operations fail to restrict write operations to the boundaries of the allocated heap chunk, the surplus data overflows adjacent heap memory structures.\nThis memory corruption allows the attacker to overwrite critical heap metadata, function pointers, or objects residing in adjacent heap allocations.\nBy carefully engineering the payload, the attacker can hijack the control flow of the application upon execution of corrupted pointers.\nThe vulnerability requires local access and authorization, meaning the threat actor must already have a foothold on the target operating system with sufficient permissions to interface with the service.\nNetwork exposure is not strictly required as the attack vector is local, though dependent on the service's exposed local interfaces.\nPost-exploitation impact includes local privilege escalation, allowing the attacker to execute arbitrary code with the elevated privileges of the Windows Device Association Service, facilitating complete compromise of the local operating system."
}