CPE, which stands for Common Platform Enumeration, is a standardized scheme for naming hardware, software, and operating systems. CPE provides a structured naming scheme to uniquely identify and classify information technology systems, platforms, and packages based on certain attributes such as vendor, product name, version, update, edition, and language.
CWE, or Common Weakness Enumeration, is a comprehensive list and categorization of software weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It serves as a common language for describing software security weaknesses in architecture, design, code, or implementation that can lead to vulnerabilities.
CAPEC, which stands for Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification, is a comprehensive, publicly available resource that documents common patterns of attack employed by adversaries in cyber attacks. This knowledge base aims to understand and articulate common vulnerabilities and the methods attackers use to exploit them.
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The AhcVerifyAdminContext function in ahcache.sys in the Application Compatibility component in Microsoft Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 Gold and R2, and Windows RT Gold and 8.1 does not verify that an impersonation token is associated with an administrative account, which allows local users to gain privileges by running AppCompatCache.exe with a crafted DLL file, aka MSRC ID 20544 or "Microsoft Application Compatibility Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability."
Category : Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls Weaknesses in this category are related to the management of permissions, privileges, and other security features that are used to perform access control.
Metrics
Metrics
Score
Severity
CVSS Vector
Source
V2
7.2
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
nvd@nist.gov
EPSS
EPSS is a scoring model that predicts the likelihood of a vulnerability being exploited.
EPSS Score
The EPSS model produces a probability score between 0 and 1 (0 and 100%). The higher the score, the greater the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited.
Date
EPSS V0
EPSS V1
EPSS V2 (> 2022-02-04)
EPSS V3 (> 2025-03-07)
EPSS V4 (> 2025-03-17)
2022-02-06
–
–
3.61%
–
–
2022-04-03
–
–
3.61%
–
–
2022-04-17
–
–
3.61%
–
–
2022-10-30
–
–
3.61%
–
–
2023-01-01
–
–
3.61%
–
–
2023-01-22
–
–
3.61%
–
–
2023-03-12
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2024-02-11
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2024-02-18
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2024-04-07
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2024-06-02
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2024-10-27
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2024-12-15
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2024-12-22
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2025-01-12
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2025-01-19
–
–
–
0.04%
–
2025-03-18
–
–
–
–
44.23%
2025-03-18
–
–
–
–
44.23,%
EPSS Percentile
The percentile is used to rank CVE according to their EPSS score. For example, a CVE in the 95th percentile according to its EPSS score is more likely to be exploited than 95% of other CVE. Thus, the percentile is used to compare the EPSS score of a CVE with that of other CVE.
Publication date : 2014-12-31 23h00 +00:00 Author : Google Security Research EDB Verified : Yes
# Source: https://code.google.com/p/google-security-research/issues/detail?id=118#c1
# Exploit-DB Mirror: https://gitlab.com/exploit-database/exploitdb-bin-sploits/-/raw/main/bin-sploits/35661-poc.zip
Platform: Windows 8.1 Update 32/64 bit (No other OS tested)
On Windows 8.1 update the system call NtApphelpCacheControl (the code is actually in ahcache.sys) allows application compatibility data to be cached for quick reuse when new processes are created. A normal user can query the cache but cannot add new cached entries as the operation is restricted to administrators. This is checked in the function AhcVerifyAdminContext.
This function has a vulnerability where it doesn't correctly check the impersonation token of the caller to determine if the user is an administrator. It reads the caller's impersonation token using PsReferenceImpersonationToken and then does a comparison between the user SID in the token to LocalSystem's SID. It doesn't check the impersonation level of the token so it's possible to get an identify token on your thread from a local system process and bypass this check. For this purpose the PoC abuses the BITS service and COM to get the impersonation token but there are probably other ways.
It is just then a case of finding a way to exploit the vulnerability. In the PoC a cache entry is made for an UAC auto-elevate executable (say ComputerDefaults.exe) and sets up the cache to point to the app compat entry for regsvr32 which forces a RedirectExe shim to reload regsvr32.exe. However any executable could be used, the trick would be finding a suitable pre-existing app compat configuration to abuse.
It's unclear if Windows 7 is vulnerable as the code path for update has a TCB privilege check on it (although it looks like depending on the flags this might be bypassable). No effort has been made to verify it on Windows 7. NOTE: This is not a bug in UAC, it is just using UAC auto elevation for demonstration purposes.
The PoC has been tested on Windows 8.1 update, both 32 bit and 64 bit versions. I'd recommend running on 32 bit just to be sure. To verify perform the following steps:
1) Put the AppCompatCache.exe and Testdll.dll on disk
2) Ensure that UAC is enabled, the current user is a split-token admin and the UAC setting is the default (no prompt for specific executables).
3) Execute AppCompatCache from the command prompt with the command line "AppCompatCache.exe c:\windows\system32\ComputerDefaults.exe testdll.dll".
4) If successful then the calculator should appear running as an administrator. If it doesn't work first time (and you get the ComputerDefaults program) re-run the exploit from 3, there seems to be a caching/timing issue sometimes on first run.