This vulnerability is caused by a CWE‑159: Improper Handling of Invalid Use of Special Elements weakness, which leads to an unrecoverable inconsistency in the CLFS.sys driver. This condition forces a call to the KeBugCheckEx function, allowing an unprivileged user to trigger a system crash. Microsoft silently fixed this vulnerability in the September 2025 cumulative update for Windows 11 2024 LTSC and Windows Server 2025. Windows 25H2 (released in September) was released with the patch. Windows 1123h2 and earlier versions remain vulnerable.
Weakness
The product does not properly filter, remove, quote, or otherwise manage the invalid use of special elements in user-controlled input, which could cause adverse effect on its behavior and integrity.
Potential Mitigations
- Assume all input is malicious. Use an “accept known good” input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
- When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, “boat” may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as “red” or “blue.”
- Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code’s environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.