Threats / Microsoft / CVE-2018-8406

CVE-2018-8406 · EUVD no mirror located · GCVE no mirror located Verified 2026-09-19

Microsoft DirectX Graphics Kernel (DXGKRNL) vulnerability

An elevation of privilege vulnerability in Microsoft's DirectX Graphics Kernel driver allows attackers to gain higher system privileges through improper memory object handling.

Verdict

Today item, not a backlog item.

This vulnerability enables local privilege escalation and has been actively exploited in ransomware campaigns. The memory handling flaw in DXGKRNL permits attackers to escalate from user-mode to kernel-level access, facilitating destructive payload deployment.

CISA KEV Yes · 2022-03-28⁴Ransomware use Flagged⁴EPSS 0.03444 (verify live)⁵CVSS 7.8 (CISA)³CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total³

Is it exploitable?

— the evidence, ranked above the score

Reported exploitation

2 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.

africacybersecurityconfe ↗cisa.gov ↗Confirmed

Exploited in the wild

Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-28), flagged for known ransomware use.

CISA KEV ↗Confirmed

Probability (EPSS)

EPSS 0.03444 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.

FIRST EPSS ↗High

Severity / affected

CVSS 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: Microsoft, DirectX Graphics Kernel (DXGKRNL). Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.

CISA-ADP ↗Reported

Weakness (CWE)

Mapped to CWE-404 CWE-404 — weakness family: Resource / availability.CWE assignment from the public NVD record (may be stale); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.

NVD ↗Reported

CISA SSVC (triage disposition)

Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.

CISA-ADP ↗Reported

Currency of the record

CISA added this to its KEV catalog 1321 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.

CISA KEV ↗CVE.org ↗Reported

WeaknessCWE-404 · CWE-404Resource / availability

Who’s exploiting it?

— attribution turns risk into urgency

Attribution not established

No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.

Why it matters

— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board

Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1

Attacker

I craft a malicious application that triggers improper memory object handling in the DXGKRNL driver.

Business

An attacker gains kernel-level code execution on the victim's system.

Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2

Attacker

I use kernel access to disable security controls and establish persistence mechanisms.

Business

Ransomware operators deploy encryption payloads with system-wide scope and resilience against removal.

Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3

Attacker

I encrypt critical business data and demand ransom payment.

Business

Operations halt, data becomes inaccessible, and financial extortion occurs.

What to do

— defensible action

Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.¹

Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.

Coverage & confidence

— what we know, and what we don’t

Established (cited)

KEV listing (CISA)

Ransomware-use flag (CISA)

EPSS probability (FIRST)

2 reported-exploitation source(s)

CVSS 7.8 — CISA-assigned (CVE.org ADP)

CISA SSVC triage disposition (CVE.org ADP)

CWE weakness mapping (NVD feed — CNA left none)

Catalogued by microsoft (CNA)

Named finder/reporter credit (CVE.org)

Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden

No EUVD / GCVE mirror in feed — single-authority dependency for the identifier.

EPSS & exposure are time-varying; verify live at the source.

Threat-actor attribution not established from feed data — absence of a name is not absence of compromise.

Disclosure & credit²

Catalogued by microsoftCNA

Credited with finding itChenNan and RanchoIce of Tencent ZhanluLab working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiativefinder Communications Security Establishmentfinder

Found an error? Propose a correction.

A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source, gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the correction convention and our identity npub1j7gt9ky7sfcrjn8jjee6693dkzvk4rahs0fk2suu7968dfns62zs3mqm3y.

With JavaScript off: publish a signed kind 1111 Nostr event tagging ["r", "https://basicsecurity.net/threat/cve-2018-8406.html"], ["v", "sha256:e5ee995e965bdd1c7b37472ff7c1041e719a7ed5751c7acf385ad64735c12e90"] (the record version), plus ["src", "<your source URL>"] and ["t", "correction"], per the correction convention. Our identity: npub1j7gt9ky7sfcrjn8jjee6693dkzvk4rahs0fk2suu7968dfns62zs3mqm3y. Cite-or-die: an event with no src is a coverage finding, not a proposal.