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Click Or Trick

IdentifiersCVE-2025-59199CWE-284· Improper Access Control

CVE-2025-59199, dubbed "Click Or Trick," is an improper access control vulnerability in Windows Software Protection Platform (SPP) that can be exploited as a local sandbox escape and privilege elevation path. According to the provided research summary, the issue allows a low-integrity process on Windows 11 to reach medium-integrity code execution and arbitrary file write after a single user click. The demonstrated exploit chain abuses trust boundaries between multiple Windows components rather than a single memory-corruption flaw. The chain includes a COM object associated with editionupgradebroker that could be activated from a low-integrity process and launched as a medium-integrity LocalServer32 COM server, a controllable ShowToast function that could generate spoofed toast notifications for trusted applications, command-line argument injection into packaged applications, Snipping Tool URI handling and redirect behavior, URI decoding quirks, and Microsoft Teams' exposed Chromium remote debugging interface. In the reported attack, a low-integrity process creates the COM object, triggers a spoofed toast notification, and relies on the user clicking it. That click launches a trusted application with attacker-controlled parameters, which is then used to pivot into a medium-integrity context and ultimately abuse Chrome DevTools Protocol functionality to write files outside the original sandbox.

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ANALYST BRIEF

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.

Successful exploitation enables a local authorized attacker to bypass Windows integrity boundaries, escaping from a low-integrity context into medium-integrity execution. The demonstrated outcome includes arbitrary file write outside the sandbox and execution of attacker-controlled code in a higher-integrity context. This can undermine browser or application sandboxing assumptions, enable tampering with user-accessible files, facilitate persistence or staging of additional payloads, and materially increase an attacker's ability to operate under the current user account.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate patching is not possible, reduce exposure by limiting execution of untrusted code in low-integrity contexts, restricting local user ability to run arbitrary applications, and hardening environments against user-driven toast-notification abuse and unnecessary URI-handler exposure. Reducing or disabling unnecessary applications that expose remote debugging functionality, such as Chromium-based apps with accessible debugging switches, may also reduce exploitability in the demonstrated chain. However, the provided content does not specify an official vendor mitigation beyond patching.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Microsoft patched CVE-2025-59199 on October 14, 2025, as part of the October 2025 security updates. Affected systems should be updated to the patched Windows builds containing Microsoft's fix for the SPP improper access control issue. Because the exploit chain relies on interactions among multiple built-in Windows components and application behaviors, applying the vendor patch is the primary remediation.
PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.

VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

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.

VendorProductType
Microsoft CorporationWindows 10 1809operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows 10 21h2operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows 10 22h2operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows 11 22h2operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows 11 23h2operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows 11 24h2operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows 11 25h2operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows 11 2h2operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows Server 2019operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows Server 2022operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows Server 2022 23h2operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows Server 2025operating_system
Microsoft CorporationWindows Server 23h2operating_system

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What this page doesn’t show

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Exposure mapping

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Threat actor evidence

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Associated malware

Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.

Detection signatures1

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity9

Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.