dbcve.org
Visual Studio 2019Application · Microsoft

CVE-2025-25003

HIGH · 7.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-03-11
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 16.11.45 / 17.8.19 or later.
See remediation →
73/100
Remediation priority · Elevated

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
Uncontrolled search path element in Visual Studio allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

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

A local privilege escalation vulnerability in Visual Studio where the application uses uncontrolled search paths to locate DLLs or other resources, allowing an authorized attacker to inject malicious files into those paths and execute with elevated privileges.

MitigationEnsure Visual Studio only loads DLLs from trusted, secure locations by reviewing and hardening the application's search path configuration, and restrict write access to directories in the search path.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Visual Studio 2019Application
Affected:>= 16.0, < 16.11.45
Visual Studio 2022Application
Affected:>= 17.8.0, < 17.8.19>= 17.10.0, < 17.10.12>= 17.12.0, < 17.12.6>= 17.13.0, < 17.13.3

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
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/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 installed Visual Studio version
    Open Visual Studio, go to Help > About Microsoft Visual Studio, or check the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup\Instances to see the installed version and build number
    Affected if The version displayed is within any of the following ranges: VS 2019 version 16.0 through 16.11.44; VS 2022 versions 17.8.0-17.8.18, 17.10.0-17.10.11, 17.12.0-17.12.5, or 17.13.0-17.13.2
  2. Locate Visual Studio installation directory
    Default locations are C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\ - confirm the actual installation path from the About dialog or registry
    Affected if Visual Studio is installed in a directory where standard users have write access to subdirectories
  3. Identify DLL search path configuration
    Check Visual Studio developer command prompt environment using 'set PATH' or examine the system environment variables and any vswhere.exe output that shows install paths. Also review any custom .props or .targets files in projects that may define additional search paths
    Affected if The search paths include directories that are writable by non-privileged users, such as temp folders, shared project directories, or unhardened extension folders
  4. Check write permissions on search path directories
    Use icacls or PowerShell Get-Acl to examine permissions on directories in Visual Studio's DLL search path (common locations include the VS install root, CommonExtensions folder, and any configured extension or template directories)
    Affected if Any directory in the search path allows write access for users without administrator privileges, enabling potential DLL hijacking

You are affected if your installed Visual Studio version falls within the vulnerable ranges AND directories in its DLL search path are writable by low-privilege users.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 16.11.45 / 17.8.19 / 17.10.12 or later
Fixed in 16.11.4517.8.1917.10.12
Interim mitigation

Ensure Visual Studio only loads DLLs from trusted, secure locations by reviewing and hardening the application's search path configuration, and restrict write access to directories in the search path.

Recommended fix High confidence

Visual Studio 2019: 16.11.45 or later | Visual Studio 2022: 17.8.19, 17.10.12, 17.12.6, or 17.13.3 (or latest 17.13.x)

  1. Open Visual Studio Installer
  2. Click 'Modify' on your Visual Studio 2019 or 2022 installation
  3. Ensure 'Updates' is selected in the installer
  4. If an update to version 16.11.45 (VS 2019) or 17.8.19/17.10.12/17.12.6/17.13.3 (VS 2022) is available, click 'Update' to install it
  5. Alternatively, download the latest Visual Studio 2019 (16.11.x) or Visual Studio 2022 (17.13.x) installer from https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/ and run it to upgrade
  6. Restart Visual Studio after the update completes
  7. Verify the update was successful by going to Help > About Microsoft Visual Studio and confirming the version number

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Visual Studio 2019 Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
16.0 hours of engineering $2,800
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,480.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-25003 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

Get it on GitHub Scan in the browser

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-2025-25003 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

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
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data