Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2024-38193 is a Microsoft Windows elevation-of-privilege vulnerability in the Ancillary Function Driver (AFD) for WinSock. The provided sources identify it as an actively exploited zero-day patched in Microsoft’s August 2024 security updates and assign it a CVSS score of 7.8. The available content does not include root-cause details such as the specific vulnerable function, memory corruption class, or exact exploitation primitive. Reporting in the supplied material indicates the flaw has been used in the wild and has been associated with deployment of the FudModule rootkit by North Korean threat activity, including reporting that Diamond Sleet exploited CVE-2024-38193 in June 2024.
Are you exposed to this one?
Mallory correlates every CVE against your assets, your vendors, and active adversary campaigns. Know which vulnerabilities matter for you, not just which ones are loud.
Impact, mitigation & remediation
What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.
Impact
What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.
Mitigation
If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.
Remediation
Patch, then assume compromise.
Exploits
1 valid exploit after Mallory filtered fakes, detection scripts, and README-only repos (1 hidden).
This repository contains a local privilege escalation exploit for CVE-2024-38193, targeting the Windows AFD (Ancillary Function Driver) kernel component. The exploit is implemented in C++ and consists of two main code files: 'poc.cpp' and 'poc.h'. The code interacts directly with Windows kernel objects and system calls, including custom usage of NtCreateFile, NtDeviceIoControlFile, and other NT APIs. The exploit crafts and manipulates AFD endpoints (\\Device\\Afd\\Endpoint) and named pipes to achieve arbitrary kernel read/write primitives. It then leverages these primitives to steal the SYSTEM process token, resulting in privilege escalation. The exploit is operational and tested on Windows 11 Pro 23H2 (build 22631.3447). No network or remote attack vector is present; the exploit must be run locally. The repository includes Visual Studio project files and build artifacts, but the core exploit logic resides in the C++ source files.
Affected products & vendors
Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.
Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.
Recent activity
9 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
A zero-day vulnerability in the AFD.sys driver in Windows, exploited by Diamond Sleet with the FudModule rootkit to escalate privileges from standard user to kernel access.
Unknown
An elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock, actively exploited in the wild.
Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock elevation-of-privilege vulnerability; listed among actively exploited zero-days fixed by Microsoft.
The version that knows your environment.
Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.
Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.
Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.
Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.