What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities
CVE-2020-1472: Netlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
- Severity: critical (CVSS 9.3 v2.0)
- Exploited in the wild: yes — in CISA KEV since 2021-11-03
- EPSS: 99.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Public exploit or detection template: yes
- Published: 2020-08-17 · updated 2026-06-17
Description
An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when an attacker establishes a vulnerable Netlogon secure channel connection to a domain controller, using the Netlogon Remote Protocol (MS-NRPC). An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could run a specially crafted application on a device on the network. To exploit the vulnerability, an unauthenticated attacker would be required to use MS-NRPC to connect to a domain controller to obtain domain administrator access. Microsoft is addressing the vulnerability in a phased two-part rollout. These updates address the vulnerability by modifying how Netlogon handles the usage of Netlogon secure channels. For guidelines on how to manage the changes required for this vulnerability and more information on the phased rollout, see How to manage the changes in Netlogon secure channel connections associated with CVE-2020-1472 (updated September 28, 2020). When the second phase of Windows updates become available in Q1 2021, customers will be notified via a revision to this security vulnerability. If you wish to be notified when these updates are released, we recommend that you register for the security notifications mailer to be alerted of content changes to this advisory. See Microsoft Technical Security Notifications.
Affected products
- Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04
- Debian Linux: 9.0
- Fedoraproject Fedora: 31, 32, 33
- Microsoft Windows Server 1903: all versions
- Microsoft Windows Server 1909: all versions
- Microsoft Windows Server 2004: all versions
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008: r2-sp1
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012: r2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2016: all versions
- Microsoft Windows Server 2019: all versions
- Microsoft Windows Server 20H2: all versions
- openSUSE Leap: 15.1, 15.2
- Oracle Corporation Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Kit: 8.8
- Samba: before 4.10.18; from 4.11.0 before 4.11.13; from 4.12.0 before 4.12.7 — fixed in 4.10.18, 4.11.13, 4.12.7
- Synology Directory Server: before 4.4.5-0101 — fixed in 4.4.5-0101
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1: from 6.1.0 before publication — fixed in publication
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012: from 6.2.0 before publication — fixed in publication
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2: from 6.3.0 before publication — fixed in publication
- Microsoft Windows Server 2016: from 10.0.0 before publication — fixed in publication
- Microsoft Windows Server 2019: from 10.0.0 before publication — fixed in publication
- Microsoft Windows Server, version 1903 (Server Core installation): from 10.0.0 before publication — fixed in publication
- Microsoft Windows Server, version 1909 (Server Core installation): from 10.0.0 before publication — fixed in publication
- Microsoft Windows Server version 2004: from 10.0.0 before publication — fixed in publication
- Microsoft Windows Server version 20H2: from 10.0.0 before publication — fixed in publication
How to fix
Upgrade to a fixed version: Samba 4.10.18, 4.11.13, 4.12.7; Synology Directory Server 4.4.5-0101; Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 publication; Microsoft Windows Server 2012 publication; Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 publication; Microsoft Windows Server 2016 publication; Microsoft Windows Server 2019 publication; Microsoft Windows Server, version 1903 (Server Core installation) publication; Microsoft Windows Server, version 1909 (Server Core installation) publication; Microsoft Windows Server version 2004 publication; Microsoft Windows Server version 20H2 publication. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.
References
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-09/msg00080.html
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-09/msg00086.html
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/159190/Zerologon-Proof-Of-Concept.html
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/160127/Zerologon-Netlogon-Privilege-Escalation.html
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2020/09/17/2
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/11/msg00041.html
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/H4OTFBL6YDVFH2TBJFJIE4FMHPJEEJK3/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/ST6X3A2XXYMGD4INR26DQ4FP4QSM753B/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/TAPQQZZAT4TG3XVRTAFV2Y3S7OAHFBUP/
- https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2020-1472
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202012-24
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4510-1/
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