Windows NTLM Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2025-54918 is an elevation-of-privilege vulnerability in Windows NTLM caused by improper authentication. The available reporting indicates that an authorized/authenticated attacker can send specially crafted network traffic to a target system and exploit flaws in NTLM authentication handling to elevate privileges over the network, ultimately obtaining SYSTEM privileges on the affected host. Multiple sources in the provided content characterize the issue as affecting Windows NTLM authentication across supported Windows client and server platforms. Some reporting further claims the flaw may enable bypass of protections such as LDAP signing and channel binding in NTLM relay-to-LDAP scenarios, but the precise technical mechanism is not confirmed in the provided material.
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Impact, mitigation & remediation
What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.
Impact
What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.
Mitigation
If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.
Remediation
Patch, then assume compromise.
Exploits
No valid public exploits. Mallory filtered out 2 candidates as fakes, detection scripts, or README-only repos.
All candidate exploits were filtered out by Mallory's validation.
Affected products & vendors
Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.
Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.
Recent activity
67 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Improper authentication vulnerability in Windows NTLM described as enabling privilege escalation over the network and bypassing channel binding and LDAP signing in NTLM relay scenarios.
A Windows NTLM elevation of privilege vulnerability reported as exploited.
A vulnerability in NTLM LDAP authentication, tracked as CVE-2025-54918, allows for authentication bypass, potentially enabling privilege escalation from domain user to SYSTEM. This is significant due to the potential for lateral movement and privilege escalation in Windows environments.
A vulnerability in NTLM LDAP authentication, tracked as CVE-2025-54918, allows bypassing authentication and potentially escalating privileges from domain user to SYSTEM.
The version that knows your environment.
Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.
Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.
Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.
Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.