CVE-2019-0972 Local Security Authority Subsystem Service Denial of Service Vulnerability

Medium 6.5 Published 12 Jun 2019 Updated 20 May 2025

An authenticated attacker can cause a denial of service and system reboot by sending a specially crafted authentication request to LSASS.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Any signed-in user
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: None listed

What is CVE-2019-0972?

CVE-2019-0972 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10, published on 12 Jun 2019. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

This security update corrects a denial of service in the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) caused when an authenticated attacker sends a specially crafted authentication request. A remote attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could cause a denial of service on the target system's LSASS service, which triggers an automatic reboot of the system. The security update addresses the vulnerability by changing the way that LSASS handles specially crafted authentication requests.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-0972?

It affects 8 products.

Products include Microsoft Windows 10, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows 8.1, Microsoft Windows Rt 8.1, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and 2 more.

How do I fix CVE-2019-0972?

No fix has been published for CVE-2019-0972 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2019-0972 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-0972 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Microsoft Windows 10 vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as GHSA-9r4c-6g65-x8qw.