Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attacker must run code in a guest (AV:L, PR:L), no interaction needed (UI:N); guest-to-host escape justifies S:C with total C/I/A impact.
Primary rating from NVD.
CVSS VectorNVD
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
Use after free in Windows Hyper-V allows an unauthorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
AnalysisAI
Local privilege escalation in Microsoft Windows Hyper-V (Windows 11 22H3/23H2 and Windows Server 2022) stems from a use-after-free memory corruption flaw that lets an attacker executing code in a guest context elevate privileges with a scope-changing impact on the host. Microsoft has released fixed builds and rates this critical (CVSS 9.3, total technical impact per CISA SSVC), but there is no public exploit identified at time of analysis and EPSS probability is very low (0.04%). The scope change (S:C) combined with the Hyper-V attack surface is consistent with a guest-to-host virtualization boundary escape.
Technical ContextAI
Hyper-V is Microsoft's type-1 (bare-metal) hypervisor that partitions a host into isolated guest virtual machines; the security boundary between a guest and the host root partition is one of the most sensitive in Windows. The root cause is CWE-416 (Use After Free): a kernel/hypervisor object is freed while a dangling reference remains, and subsequent reuse of that freed memory allows an attacker to corrupt control data or object pointers. In a virtualization stack this class of bug is dangerous because manipulating freed host-side objects from guest-triggered code paths can break VM isolation. Per the CPE data the affected components are Microsoft Windows 11 version 22H3, Windows 11 version 23H2, and Windows Server 2022 - all shipping the same vulnerable Hyper-V virtualization stack.
RemediationAI
Vendor-released patch: apply the Microsoft cumulative update raising builds to at least 10.0.20348.5139 on Windows Server 2022 and 10.0.22631.7079 on Windows 11 22H3/23H2, per the MSRC advisory at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-40402. Because exploitation requires code execution in a guest context, the most effective compensating control until patching is to restrict who can run untrusted workloads inside Hyper-V VMs - avoid hosting untrusted or multi-tenant guests on unpatched hosts, and where feasible temporarily consolidate untrusted guests onto already-patched hosts (trade-off: migration overhead and reduced capacity). Where Hyper-V is not required, disabling the Hyper-V role removes the attack surface entirely (trade-off: breaks any dependent virtualization, WSL2, or container features). Additional advisory references: https://vuldb.com/vuln/363194 and https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-40402.
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Same weakness CWE-416 – Use After Free
View allSame technique Denial Of Service
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External POC / Exploit Code
Leaving vuln.today
EUVD-2026-29663
GHSA-h659-hh52-mv97