Microsoft has added CVE-2025-62472 to its Security Update Guide: a newly cataloged elevation‑of‑privilege vulnerability in the Windows Remote Access Connection Manager (RasMan) that — according to vendor metadata — stems from a use‑of‑uninitialized resource and can allow a local, authorized user to escalate to SYSTEM. Administrators should treat this as a high‑impact local EoP: the vulnerability is recorded with a high severity (CVSS v3.1 base ~7.8 in public feeds) and Microsoft’s advisory entry exists for mapping affected builds to patches, making rapid verification and patching the primary remediation step.
Background / Overview
RasMan (Remote Access Connection Manager) is the Windows service that manages dial‑up, VPN, and other remote‑access connections and frequently runs in elevated contexts on both client and server SKUs. Because RasMan mediates privileged operations and interacts with kernel and network stacks, local memory‑safety and resource‑validation defects in its code paths are routinely very high value for attackers seeking privilege escalation. Over 2024–2025, RasMan and the broader RRAS family have repeatedly appeared in Microsoft advisories and community analyses as a recurring attack surface for local EoP and, in some cases, remote compromises when combined with other weaknesses.
What Microsoft’s Update Guide entry signals is not just the presence of a bug, but a vendor‑recognised remediation path: the MSRC advisory provides the authoritative mapping from CVE to the KB/security update that fixes the issue for each supported Windows build. For practical triage, that mapping is the source of truth for patch deployment. Note that the MSRC advisory may require a modern browser to render fully; using the Update Guide or Microsoft Update Catalog to fetch exact KB numbers is the safest operational route.
What the advisory and public trackers say
- Vulnerability class: use of uninitialized resource (memory/resource-handling defect). Public feed metadata lists CWE classes consistent with UAF/uninitialized memory conditions, which can lead to corruption, crashes, or control‑flow manipulation in privileged processes.
- Impact: Elevation of Privilege (EoP) — a successful exploitation can elevate an attacker from a standard or otherwise limited local account to SYSTEM, enabling persistence, credential access, and host compromise.
- Attack vector: Local — exploitation requires the ability to run code or invoke local APIs on the target system; the vendor entry and independent trackers record the vector as local.
- Severity: public trackers are assigning a high severity (CVSS v3.1 near 7.8). Because this score and vectoring are visible in several public aggregators, treat the CVSS figure as a validated indicator for prioritization — but always confirm vendor KBs for exact applicability.
- Proof‑of‑concept / in‑the‑wild status: at the time of publication, public PoC code for CVE‑2025‑62472 is not consistently corroborated across reputable telemetry feeds; some third‑party pages list exploitation activity for related RasMan flaws, while vendor advisories focus on remediation. Treat reports of active exploitation or PoC availability cautiously until multiple, independent sources corroborate them.
Technical analysis — how a “use of uninitialized resource” yields EoP
A
use of uninitialized resource occurs when code accesses memory, handles, or object fields before they have been fully initialized. In privileged long‑running services like RasMan, this can manifest as a sequence such as: accept input from a lower‑privileged client; allocate an object or memory region; read fields from the object that were never set or validated; then use those fields in security‑sensitive operations (for example, impersonation, token handling, pointer arithmetic or function pointer dispatch). Under the right conditions, an attacker can control the uninitialized fields or the timing of their initialization and thereby cause:
- information disclosure of sensitive memory,
- corruption of in‑process structures,
- redirection of control flow via vtable or pointer replacements, or
- incorrect privilege checks that permit token use or service actions under SYSTEM context.
Because RasMan frequently interacts with kernel drivers, IPC endpoints and network protocol parsers, a memory‑safety or uninitialized resource bug there can be turned into a deterministic EoP with modest exploit engineering. Modern mitigations (ASLR, CFG, DEP, heap hardening) raise the difficulty, but do not remove the fundamental risk when a privileged service mismanages resource initialization. This technical model matches the public descriptions Microsoft and community trackers have used for recent RRAS/RasMan advisories.
Who should worry — threat and exposure model
- Systems with the RasMan/Remote Access role installed and the RemoteAccess/RasMan service running are in scope. RasMan is optional but common on machines used as VPN endpoints, gateway appliances, branch servers, and some client machines that run VPN clients or certain remote‑access tooling.
- The highest‑risk hosts are:
- Internet‑facing VPN gateways or RRAS endpoints reachable from untrusted networks.
- Multi‑user servers (RDS/VDI, terminal servers) that allow many users to execute code.
- Systems where attackers can already obtain a low‑privileged shell (phishing, malicious installers, lateral movement).
- Management hosts (bastions, jump boxes) and developer machines where local code execution is easier for an attacker.
- Why local EoP matters operationally: an attacker converts a limited foothold into SYSTEM — enabling credential theft (LSASS dumps), disabling controls, installing persistent backdoors, and launching ransomware or lateral moves.
Immediate operational guidance (0–72 hours)
- Confirm applicability
- Use Microsoft’s Update Guide entry for CVE‑2025‑62472 to map the CVE to the precise KB for each Windows build in your environment. The Update Guide is the canonical source for KB mapping and product lists; rely on it rather than third‑party aggregated CVE→KB mappings.
- Prioritize patch testing and deployment
- Test the vendor KB in a representative lab for each affected build, then roll into production via WSUS, Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune), SCCM/ConfigMgr, or your patch pipeline.
- Prioritize:
- Internet‑facing RRAS/RasMan hosts and VPN gateways.
- Multi‑user / shared systems and RDS/VDI hosts.
- Any system where local code execution is allowed for non‑admins.
- Compensating controls where patching is delayed
- Where business constraints delay immediate patching, consider:
- Temporarily disabling the Remote Access Connection Manager service on hosts that do not require it.
- Blocking RasMan/RRAS‑related ports from untrusted networks (VPN protocol ports such as PPTP/L2TP/SSTP and associated control ports) until the host is patched.
- Enforcing strict local‑privilege policies: remove unnecessary local admin rights, use least privilege for service accounts.
- Note: disabling RasMan will disrupt VPN and remote‑access services; plan accordingly.
- Increase detection and telemetry
- Tune EDR/SIEM for:
- Unexpected crashes or restarts of RasMan (Service Control Manager events).
- Local processes attempting token duplication, service creation as SYSTEM, or unusual scheduled task or service creation originating from user contexts.
- Sudden elevation events traced to RasMan or processes that call into network/remote access APIs.
- Collect forensic evidence (memory snapshots, event logs) before remediation if you suspect exploitation.
- Incident response readiness
- Ensure IR playbooks cover local EoP scenarios: collect volatile evidence, capture LSASS where permitted, and preserve endpoint images. Treat anomalous SYSTEM creation or new persistence artifacts appearing alongside RasMan instability as potential exploitation indicators.
Practical detection hooks and hunting queries
- Windows Event Log:
- Service Control Manager (Event ID 7040/7034) showing RasMan crashes or frequent restarts.
- Application/System events reporting faulting module names associated with rasman.dll or remoteaccess binaries.
- EDR/SIEM:
- Alerts for token duplication, service creation, or scheduled task creation originating from non‑privileged users.
- Process trees: non‑admin process → call into rasman/remoteaccess APIs → subsequent SYSTEM‑context child process.
- Network:
- Unusual or repeated connections to RRAS/VPN ports (TCP 1723, GRE 47, UDP 1701, UDP 500/4500, TCP 443 for SSTP) from suspicious IPs or internal scanners.
- Probing patterns: repeated malformed negotiation traffic targeting RRAS endpoints.
Step‑by‑step remediation checklist
- Query Microsoft Update Guide for CVE‑2025‑62472 and note the exact KB(s) for every Windows build in inventory. Confirm via Microsoft Update Catalog if necessary.
- Stage the correct KB in test environments; run compatibility checks during maintenance windows.
- Deploy to high‑priority hosts first (internet‑facing, multi‑user, management).
- Reboot hosts where the update requires it and validate service health and functionality post‑patch.
- Validate patch deployment via centralized reporting (WSUS/SCCM/Intune reports or inventory tools).
- Where patching cannot be immediate: apply compensating controls (service disablement, firewall rules, privilege hardening).
- Run targeted hunts for indicators of pre‑patch exploitation and capture forensic artifacts if suspicious activity is found.
Strengths in Microsoft’s approach — what defenders can rely on
- Vendor acknowledgement and Update Guide entry exist; that provides a canonical remediation path and reduces ambiguity about whether the issue is real. Administrators can use official KB packages rather than third‑party re‑packaged fixes.
- The vulnerability’s local vector means it is not directly network wormable — organizations with strong perimeter/segmentation and restricted local privilege posture reduce blast radius.
- Microsoft’s advisory mechanism and the Update Guide let defenders map CVEs to the exact update needed for each build, which is essential for accurate, low‑risk remediation.
Risks, caveats, and what needs cautious treatment
- Third‑party aggregators sometimes report variant or adjacent RasMan CVEs with inconsistent metadata; do not rely solely on automated CVE→KB mappings from non‑vendor sources. Always cross‑check the Update Guide and Update Catalog for the precise KB for your SKU.
- Public proof‑of‑concepts and in‑the‑wild exploitation claims for RasMan family bugs have appeared for other CVEs in this component — in some prior cases Microsoft acknowledged active exploitation — but for CVE‑2025‑62472, confirm exploitation claims against vendor telemetry and multiple independent reports before elevating to a full incident posture. If credible reports appear, treat any previously unpatched hosts as compromised until proven otherwise.
- Patching changes to networking components may have functional impacts (VPN connectivity, legacy protocol behavior). Test patches in representative environments before wide rollout to avoid service disruptions.
Operational recommendations for enterprise defenders
- Immediate inventory: enumerate all hosts with RasMan/RemoteAccess installed and the service running. Make a prioritized list (internet‑facing VPN gateways, bastions, multi‑user hosts).
- Patch orchestration: use the vendor KB mapping to stage patches in a controlled, automated pipeline with rollback and validation steps.
- Restrict local execution: audit and reduce the set of users who can execute binaries or scheduled tasks on high‑value hosts.
- Harden endpoint telemetry: ensure EDR is tuned to capture and retain process trees, token manipulation attempts, and memory artifacts (subject to privacy/compliance).
- Document: update incident response runbooks with RasMan EoP playbooks (what to capture, which logs and memory dumps to save, how to validate a clean state).
- Communication: notify application owners and network teams of planned patch windows and expected impact on VPN/remote access services.
Conclusion — triage, verify, patch
CVE‑2025‑62472 is another reminder of the outsized consequences that memory‑ and resource‑handling defects have when they occur inside privileged Windows services. The appearance of a vendor Update Guide entry elevates this from theoretical concern to operational priority: confirm affected builds via Microsoft’s advisory, test vendor KBs, and deploy patches to high‑risk hosts without undue delay. Where immediate patching is impractical, apply compensating controls (service disablement, firewalling, privilege restrictions) and increase telemetry to detect potential pre‑ or post‑exploit activity. Finally, treat claims of active exploitation or PoC release with caution until corroborated by multiple reputable sources — but do not let the absence of public PoC delay prudent remediation and hunting efforts.
Source: MSRC
Security Update Guide - Microsoft Security Response Center