CVE-2024-21966

CVE-2024-21966 is a DLL hijacking vulnerability affecting the AMD Ryzen™ Master Utility. Published on 2025-02-11, it enables an attacker to achieve privilege escalation, potentially resulting in arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management) with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.3 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

A local attacker with low privileges can exploit this vulnerability by leveraging DLL hijacking techniques, such as placing a malicious DLL in a directory searched by the Ryzen Master Utility before its legitimate counterpart. Exploitation requires user interaction, such as the victim launching or interacting with the utility, which could load the attacker's DLL instead. Successful exploitation leads to privilege escalation and arbitrary code execution with elevated permissions.

AMD has addressed this issue in security bulletin AMD-SB-9010, available at https://www.amd.com/en/resources/product-security/bulletin/amd-sb-9010.html, which provides details on mitigation and patching recommendations for affected systems.