CVE-2023-36033

CVE-2023-36033 is a significant privilege escalation vulnerability found in the Windows Desktop Window Manager (DWM) Core Library. This flaw was discovered as a zero-day vulnerability, meaning it was actively exploited before Microsoft could provide a patch. The exploit allows an attacker who successfully leverages this vulnerability to gain system-level privileges, providing them with high-level access and control over affected systems. As such, this vulnerability should be a top priority for mitigation due to its active exploitation and public disclosure. The discovery and investigation of this vulnerability took place in early April. It was one of three vulnerabilities - CVE-2023-36025, CVE-2023-36033, and CVE-2023-36036 - that were identified as being exploited in the wild. These vulnerabilities affected various Microsoft products, including Windows and Server, Office 365 Apps, Visual Studio, .NET, and ASP.NET Core. The technical details of these vulnerabilities were publicly disclosed, raising their risk profile. Given the severity of CVE-2023-36033, organizations running the affected software are advised to apply patches or take other appropriate remediation actions as soon as possible. The fact that this vulnerability is already being actively exploited increases the urgency for immediate action. Further, since the details of this vulnerability have been publicly disclosed, even unskilled attackers could potentially leverage this information to exploit unpatched systems. Therefore, delaying mitigation efforts could lead to serious security breaches and potential data loss.