Windows ALPC Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability [CVE-2019-1162]

CVE Number – CVE-2019-1162

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Windows improperly handles calls to Advanced Local Procedure Call (ALPC).

An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the security context of the local system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would first have to log on to the system. An attacker could then run a specially crafted application that could exploit the vulnerability and take control over an affected system.

The update addresses the vulnerability by correcting how Windows handles calls to ALPC.

Microsoft has not identified any workarounds for this vulnerability. However updates to fix this issue can be found here.

The following video is a demonstration of exploiting Microsoft CTF to gain SYSTEM privileges in Windows 10 done by Tavis Ormandy, a security researcher with Google’s Project Zero who discovered this vulnerability.

Tavis Ormandy also published a blog post explaining the CTF security issue in more depth, but also released a tool on GitHub that helps other researchers in testing the protocol for other issues.