Out-of-bounds WriteWeakness · CWE-787

CVE-2025-12050

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-01-14
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
80/100
Remediation priority · High
Zero-click

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 · unedited
The drivers in the tool packages use RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT flag to read a registry value to which an untrusted user-mode application may be able to cause a buffer overflow.

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 confidence

Windows drivers in tool packages use the RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT flag to read registry values without proper buffer size validation, allowing an untrusted user-mode application to trigger a buffer overflow. This enables privilege escalation from user-mode to kernel context.

MitigationUpdate to patched driver versions when available; review and harden registry reading code in drivers to validate buffer sizes before copying data.

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
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify drivers using RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT flag
    Use a disassembler or driver analysis tool to examine driver binaries in your system. Search for references to 'RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT' in driver code or binaries. Focus on drivers from third-party tool packages.
    Affected if A driver from a tool package uses RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT without documented buffer size validation checks in the registry reading code path.
  2. Review registry read code for buffer validation
    Examine the driver's code that handles RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT operations. Look for explicit buffer size checks (e.g., comparisons against registry value sizes) before any memory copy or memcpy operations.
    Affected if The driver performs registry reads with RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT but lacks size validation code before copying data into fixed-size buffers.
  3. Check for user-mode accessible registry operations
    Identify if the vulnerable driver exposes any IOCTLs or interfaces callable by untrusted user-mode applications that trigger the registry reading code path.
    Affected if Untrusted user-mode applications can trigger the driver's registry reading functionality that lacks buffer validation.
  4. Verify driver source for RtlQueryRegistryValues calls
    If driver source code is available, search for calls to RtlQueryRegistryValues or equivalent APIs using RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT. Confirm the DestinationBuffer parameter size is not validated against the actual registry value size.
    Affected if The driver passes a fixed-size DestinationBuffer to RtlQueryRegistryValues with RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT without validating the registry value size fits within the buffer.

Your environment is affected if you have drivers from tool packages that use RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT to read registry values without validating buffer sizes, and these drivers are accessible to untrusted user-mode callers.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Update to patched driver versions when available; review and harden registry reading code in drivers to validate buffer sizes before copying data.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing8.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
32.0 hours of engineering $5,600
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-12050 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-12050 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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