Windows CNG Key Isolation Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

cisa required action Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

1. 2023-04-11 Published
2. 2023-10-04 Added to CISA KEV
3. 2023-10-25 CISA patch deadline
4. 2024-06-13 CISA SSVC: exploitation active

Added

3 y ago (2023-10-04)

Patch by

2023-10-25 (3 y ago)

Ransomware

Not known

Required action

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Vendor, product

Microsoft, Windows CNG Key Isolation Service

CISA name

Microsoft Windows CNG Key Isolation Service Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

How it is exploited and what it leads to, in MITRE ATT&CK terms.

• T1078 Valid Accounts exploitation
• T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation primary impact

kev release 2025-07-28, att&ck v16.1. KEV to ATT&CK mappings by the MITRE Center for Threat-Informed Defense (Mappings Explorer, Apache-2.0). © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. Terms of use

Exploitation

Active, exploited in the wild

Automatable

no

Technical impact

total

Assessed

2 y ago (2024-06-13)

1.67% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 76% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

• Microsoft Windows 10 Version 1809
• Microsoft Windows Server 2019
• Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Server Core installation)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2022
• Microsoft Windows 10 Version 20H2
• Microsoft Windows 11 version 21H2
• Microsoft Windows 10 Version 21H2
• Microsoft Windows 11 version 22H2
• Microsoft Windows 10 Version 22H2
• Microsoft Windows 10 Version 1507
• Microsoft Windows 10 Version 1607
• Microsoft Windows Server 2016
• Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (Server Core installation)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (Server Core installation)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (Server Core installation)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Server Core installation)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Server Core installation)

Weakness

• CWE-591 Sensitive Data Storage in Improperly Locked Memory

• msrc.microsoft.com /update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2023-28229

  vendor-advisory, patch

• cisa.gov /known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2023-28229

  government-resource, us-government-resource

• CVE List CVE-2023-28229
• NVD CVE-2023-28229

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.