CVE-2024-6769
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedA DLL Hijacking caused by drive remapping combined with a poisoning of the activation cache in Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2022 allows a malicious authenticated attacker to elevate from a medium integrity process to a high integrity process without the intervention of a UAC prompt.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceThis is a DLL hijacking vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that exploits drive remapping combined with activation cache poisoning to allow an authenticated attacker to escalate privileges from medium integrity to high integrity without triggering a UAC prompt.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Windows version and patch levelRun 'winver' or 'systeminfo | findstr /B /C:"OS Name" /C:"OS Version"' to determine your Windows version. Check Windows Update history for recent security updates.Affected if Windows version lacks the CVE-2024-6769 security patch (patch date post-December 2024)
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Review enabled drive mappingsRun 'net use' and 'reg query HKCU\Network' to list all drive letter mappings. Check for unexpected mappings to UNC paths or unusual local directories.Affected if Any drive letter is mapped to a location controlled by a medium-integrity user or an untrusted network path
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Inspect activation cache contentsExamine the Windows activation cache by running 'slmgr /dlv' to view licensing status, and check %SystemRoot%\System32\spp\tokens\* for recently modified cache files.Affected if Activation cache files show unexpected modification dates or originate from non-standard paths
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Audit DLL search order loadingRun Process Monitor (procmon) with filter 'Operation starts with CreateFile' and 'Path ends with .dll' during application launches to identify DLLs loaded from current directories or untrusted paths.Affected if Applications load DLLs from user-writable directories or drive-mapped locations
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Check for medium-integrity to high-integrity privilege escalationReview security event logs (Security and System event logs) for Event ID 4688 (process creation) where the new process has a higher integrity level than the parent, with no corresponding UAC elevation prompt logged.Affected if Processes spawn with high integrity from medium-integrity parent without UAC consent event
A system is affected if it is an unpatched Windows version AND has suspicious drive remapping or activation cache manipulation present, enabling a medium-integrity user to elevate to high integrity without UAC.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply Microsoft security patches for CVE-2024-6769 once available via Windows Update. Until then, restrict medium-integrity code execution and monitor for suspicious drive remapping or activation cache manipulation.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-6769 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-6769 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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