Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2026-35416 is a use-after-free vulnerability in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock (AFD.sys). According to the provided Microsoft advisory context, the flaw can be exploited by a locally authorized attacker to elevate privileges. Microsoft classifies the issue as CWE-416 and indicates exploitation requires winning a race condition, implying the vulnerable code path involves improper lifetime management of an object that can be freed and subsequently reused under specific timing conditions. The vulnerability affects the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock and can result in local privilege escalation to SYSTEM.
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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
No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.
No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.
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
3 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
An important Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock elevation of privilege vulnerability that Microsoft determined is more likely to be exploited.
A local elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock caused by a use-after-free condition. Successful exploitation can allow an authorized attacker to gain SYSTEM privileges.
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.