CVE-2023-21768

HIGHNVD 7.87.8—Weaponized

7.8

Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVSS v3: 7.8
EG Score: 7.8(medium)
EPSS: 98.9%
KEV: Not listed

Published

January 10, 2023

Last Modified

November 21, 2024

References (2)

secure@microsofthttps://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2023-21768
af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2023-21768

Weakness Classification(1)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

CWE-822Untrusted Pointer Dereference

All Vendor Advisories

(1)

Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.

Microsoft MSRCCVE-2023-217682023-01-10
Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 11× in last 7d / 19× in last 30d)

Every time one of our enrichment pipelines (NVD, MITRE cvelistV5, EPSS, CISA KEV, GHSA, OSV, vendor advisories) ran against this CVE. Most recent first.

2026-06-02 20:12 UTCepss_batch
2026-06-02 20:12 UTCepss_batch
2026-06-02 20:12 UTCepss_batch
2026-06-01 13:51 UTCepss_batch
2026-06-01 13:50 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-31 00:15 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-31 00:15 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-29 13:43 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-29 13:43 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-28 13:43 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-28 13:43 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-26 13:43 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-26 13:43 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-26 07:18 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-26 07:17 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-26 07:17 UTCepss_batch
2026-05-25 08:55 UTCEG score recompute
2026-05-25 08:55 UTCVendor advisory
2026-05-25 08:55 UTCGHSA enrichment

Publicly available exploits

(10 references)

Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 Metasploit module) (9 GitHub PoCs). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.

GitHub PoCxboxoneresearch/CVE-2023-21768-dotnet
First seen May 15, 2024
C# / .NET version of CVE-2023-21768
Open source ↗
GitHub PoCzoemurmure/CVE-2023-21768-AFD-for-WinSock-EoP-exploit
First seen Apr 20, 2023
Open source ↗
GitHub PoCh1bAna/CVE-2023-21768
First seen Apr 5, 2023
Open source ↗
GitHub PoCP4x1s/CVE-2023-21768-POC
First seen Mar 22, 2023
CVE-2023-21768 Windows 11 22H2 系统本地提权 POC
Open source ↗
GitHub PoCHKxiaoli/Windows_AFD_LPE_CVE-2023-21768
First seen Mar 21, 2023
Windows 11 System Permission Elevation
Open source ↗
GitHub PoCMalwareman007/CVE-2023-21768
First seen Mar 13, 2023
Windows_AFD_LPE_CVE-2023-21768
Open source ↗
GitHub PoCcl4ym0re/cve-2023-21768-compiled
First seen Mar 10, 2023
cve-2023-21768
Open source ↗
GitHub PoCSamuelTulach/nullmap
First seen Mar 10, 2023
Using CVE-2023-21768 to manual map kernel mode driver
Open source ↗
GitHub PoCchompie1337/Windows_LPE_AFD_CVE-2023-21768
First seen Mar 7, 2023
LPE exploit for CVE-2023-21768
Open source ↗
Metasploitexploit/windows/local/cve_2023_21768_afd_lpe✓ verified
First seen Jan 10, 2023
Ancillary Function Driver (AFD) for WinSock Elevation of Privilege
Open source ↗

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2023-21768?

CVE-2023-21768 is a high vulnerability published on January 10, 2023. Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

When was CVE-2023-21768 disclosed?

CVE-2023-21768 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on January 10, 2023, with the most recent update on November 21, 2024. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.

Is CVE-2023-21768 actively exploited?

CVE-2023-21768 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 98.9% percentile likelihood of exploitation in the next 30 days — higher percentiles indicate greater predicted risk.

What is the CVSS score of CVE-2023-21768?

CVE-2023-21768 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.8 (NVD).

How do I remediate CVE-2023-21768?

Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2023-21768, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

Dependency Blast Radius

See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2023-21768

Explore →

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