Improper Privilege ManagementWeakness · CWE-269

CVE-2025-52915

HIGH · 7.2 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-09-09
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
78/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable 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
K7RKScan.sys 23.0.0.10, part of the K7 Security Anti-Malware suite, allows an admin-privileged user to send crafted IOCTL requests to terminate processes that are protected through a third-party implementation. This is caused by insufficient caller validation in the driver's IOCTL handler, enabling unauthorized processes to perform those actions in kernel space. Successful exploitation can lead to denial of service by disrupting critical third-party services or applications.

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 · high confidence

K7RKScan.sys driver 23.0.0.10 in the K7 Security Anti-Malware suite contains an insufficient caller validation vulnerability in its IOCTL handler. Admin-privileged users can send crafted IOCTL requests to terminate third-party protected processes, allowing unauthorized actions to execute in kernel space. This enables denial of service by disrupting critical services or applications.

MitigationApply vendor-provided patches for K7RKScan.sys when available. Restrict administrative privileges and monitor for suspicious IOCTL requests targeting protected processes until a fix is deployed.

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
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/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 checks

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

  1. Locate the K7RKScan.sys driver file
    Search for K7RKScan.sys in the Windows\System32\drivers directory and any K7 Security product installation folders, or use 'Get-ChildItem -Path C:\ -Recurse -Filter K7RKScan.sys -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue' to find all instances
    Affected if The driver file exists on the system, indicating K7 Security Anti-Malware is installed
  2. Verify the driver file version
    Right-click the K7RKScan.sys file, select Properties, then go to the Details tab to check the Product Version and File Version fields, or run 'powershell (Get-Item "<path_to_driver>").VersionInfo'
    Affected if The version matches exactly 23.0.0.10 or falls within the affected version range (prior to any vendor fix)
  3. Check if the driver is currently loaded
    Open an elevated command prompt and run 'sc query K7RKScan' or check Device Manager for hidden/system devices, or use 'driverquery /v | findstr K7RKScan'
    Affected if The driver shows as RUNNING or LOADED, meaning the vulnerable IOCTL handler is active
  4. Confirm administrative access exists
    Run 'whoami /groups | findstr -i admin' or check if the current user is a member of the Administrators group, as the exploit requires admin privileges
    Affected if The current user has administrative rights, enabling the crafted IOCTL requests to be sent

If K7RKScan.sys version 23.0.0.10 is installed and loaded while the current user has administrative privileges, the environment is affected by this vulnerability.

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

Apply vendor-provided patches for K7RKScan.sys when available. Restrict administrative privileges and monitor for suspicious IOCTL requests targeting protected processes until a fix is deployed.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation8.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing12.0 h
  • Review / QA6.0 h
42.0 hours of engineering $7,360
Get help mitigating

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $11,776.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-52915 — 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-2025-52915 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