CVE-2019-1039

An information disclosure vulnerability exists when the Windows kernel improperly initializes objects in memory. To exploit this vulnerability, an authenticated attacker could run a specially crafted application. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could obtain information to further compromise the user’s system. The update addresses the vulnerability by correcting how the Windows kernel initializes objects in memory.

Weakness 

The product does not initialize or incorrectly initializes a resource, which might leave the resource in an unexpected state when it is accessed or used.

Affected Software 

Potential Mitigations 

• Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
• For example, in Java, if the programmer does not explicitly initialize a variable, then the code could produce a compile-time error (if the variable is local) or automatically initialize the variable to the default value for the variable’s type. In Perl, if explicit initialization is not performed, then a default value of undef is assigned, which is interpreted as 0, false, or an equivalent value depending on the context in which the variable is accessed.

Related Attack Patterns 

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/26.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/29.html

References  

• https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2019-1039
• https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2019-1039