MS Paint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
cve.org
cve.org
We seriously need more information.
To stack assumptions, I'd reach for something like using the recent certificate circus to present as there being an updated version of whatever model it uses on the PCs that can run it locally to give it a fucked up model that does the out of bounds shit as part of whatever verification/checks it does after its downloaded/installed.
Normally have been 86-ing a number of annoying things such as OneDrive, but leaving Paint in place figuring it's got to still be harmless.
Creeping increases in attack vector when just the opposite is needed more than ever.
once Microsoft has reinvented themselves as…security-first?
Get-AppxPackage -Name Microsoft.Paint | Select-Object Name, Version
But I can only get Microsoft.Paint 11.2609.401.0 and Microsoft has said different things in different places, so it's not even clear if this has the fix or not.
This article has more info on the confusion they're causing: https://windowsforum.com/news/cve-2026-83844-windows-11-pain...
If I still mamaged any windows host, i would be deploying a remove-package script asap to the entire fleet.
Now that I'm on Linux, I use jspaint.app.
[^1]: https://lawsofsoftwareengineering.com/laws/zawinskis-law/
>june 2026
Pretty sure it would be May?
But in either case they had 91 releases that month?
They're not a positional notation. It's version 11.2605.91 recently. It was 11.2605.81 earlier this year. There was an 11.2605.71 and an 11.2605.61 before that. Last year, there was a 11.2504.451 . The year before there was a 11.2402.32 .
Microsoft's versioning systems are not 4 columns where a tick around of one increments the one before it. The easiest way to think of them is madness made for marketing purposes. (Windows NT starting at 3.1, for example.) There is some logic to it, but nowadays it's often four entirely different things jammed together, ticking around independently. Like the version of Windows, the year and month of the release, and perhaps a daily build number or some such.
Windows NT itself has a monotonically increasing build number as part of its versioning that started some time in 1992 and is currently just over 26 thousand.
Are you using Windows? If so, then yes.
IFF there is a NSA backdoor it likely would be:
- not in paint, but something you can't disable/remove in hardened special purpose windows setups
- not be easily usable by 3rd parties, like some auth accidentally accepting some quite specific other password (e.g. due to some bug reading the expected hash from the wrong place) or similar
lets not forget as much as the NSA might want to spy on you they also want to keep China/Russia out of spying on US companies. A traditional RCE in paint is very counter productive for that.
One one hand they can actively try to work with companies to get secret back doors put in, sure. But I imagine that's not usually very successful. Lavabit chose to go out of business instead of doing so... I wonder who else is out there that we don't know about.
But we also have evidence that they actively look for, buy, and hoard, unknown (to the vendor) exploits for their own possible later use in case they need it for something.
I'm sure you can imagine that it's much more advantageous to keep collecting all kinds of different ways to get into a system in case one method is not applicable for any number of reasons.
not sure if the last time was also a RCE specifically, but this by far isn't the first "this shouldn't even be remotely possible" CVE in MS Paint
The Microsoft link doesn't mention this at all, so my guess it's "remote" in the sense that a zip file exploit is "remote"
This is some Eric-Cantona-level gnomic mysticism. I approve.
unfortunately it made some mistakes and didn't make everything secure.
im sure windows security will get better as models get better...
maybe in six months when we have AGI... . . .
Could also be some kind of recall feature.
> An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted packet to an affected service over the network. Successful exploitation could allow the attacker to execute code on the target system. No authentication or user interaction is required.
[1] https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20...
"No User Interaction"
Does that mean that paint doesnt have to be running?
Application being installed on a PC allows a specially crafted packet to arbitrarily execute code?
0. My gut says this is somehow related to indexing/thumbnail rendering. But maybe I'm off base.
1. The 'no user interaction' could be related to (ironically) some background pre-indexing process that windows is doing on files inserted to folders.
1.1. LOL maybe their bullshit 'Windows Copilot' which is why the description is so vague, don't want to torpedo things worse than they already are.
2. It could also be, still in the category of 'well, ok they click on a share folder and the preview runs' or a weird edge thing.
2.1. But they aren't being that clear yet, probably because it's bad.
My take is that the addition of CoPilot to MS Paint is probably how this CVE got introduced.
> LLMs are now unfolding technical debt, poorly written code, and security vulnerabilities accumulated in software that they have created themselves.
UI:N it is with no interaction ?
is it a cve mistake ?
> An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted packet to an affected service over the network. Successful exploitation could allow the attacker to execute code on the target system. No authentication or user interaction is required.
Until somebody connects the dots on how the heck MS Paint is accessible over the network, I'm gonna maintain some pretty intense skepticism here.
>Unproven
>Remediation Level
>Official Fix
>Report Confidence
>Confirmed
I really like these secondary scoring factors, not just scoring the vuln itself, but how it's being attacked.
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20...
> User Interaction: None
> Out-of-bounds read in Windows Paint allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code over a network.
What server is MS Paint running or what services does it provide?
Edit: Apparently you can use it to print an image from the command-line. Is that how this is being exploited?
>Publicly disclosed
>No
>Exploited
>No
>Exploitability assessment
>Exploitation Less LikelyExcept for the infamous Dropbox comment.
Usually I just enable JS. But is this a security site, asking for remote code execution on my device? Before they can show me some text? They just disqualified themselves.
But From [0]: > A total of 59 of the October CVEs fit my definition of wormable. Specifically, 57 contain both “An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted packet to an affected service over the network” and “No authentication or user interaction is required.”
Makes you wonder if MS is just copy-pasting boilerplate on CVEs and disclosed incorrectly the scope of the one in Paint because they had 56 other bugs to disclose.
So I'm not discounting reporting human error here, yet.
[0] https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/blog/2026/10/13/the-octobe...
But remote? How
Or are they chaining a browser auto opening a download in paint, (but browsers shouldn't do that)...
Make a new product and bundle that as an option if you want to drastically change the functionality.
> Notepad in Windows includes AI features powered by Copilot that help refine and shorten text with the assistance of GPT. By default, these AI features are enabled on managed devices
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/...
I mean… what else were the people working on Notepad and Paint to do!?
The order came down to integrate AI, and they wanted to be promoted.
Every single day I’m happier and happier than I use Linux now.
Still, the question remains... How?
>The CVSS score of 8.1 marks this as a high‑severity RCE. The EPSS score is not available, and the vulnerability is not listed in CISA’s KEV catalog. Based on the description, the likely attack vector is remote: an attacker can deliver the malicious file over a network connection, for example via Remote Desktop, file shares, or other network‑exposed services that allow users to open images. The lack of EPSS data does not diminish the threat posed by a known RCE, but it does make precise likelihood estimation difficult.
> After applying the update, verify that the target Windows systems are running a version that includes the CVE fix before disabling legacy file‑open processing in Paint.
Which is complete nonsense. "Legacy file-open processing" isn't a real configurable option in Paint and this seems to suggest that enabling it is some sort of mitigation. The resolution is simply to update Paint.
Or maybe after the .bmp file is executed, it can install something that opens an outbound TCP connection to its C2, and thus can receive commands. Would not need admin privileges because it doesn't open a port, just 'outbound' connections, like a long-poll.
> The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
since it exposes no port, I’d assume it isn’t trivial to exploit, paint will chose its target (a microsoft domain or IP), the exploit must involve some error in destination selection, or simply allowing a mitm to impersonate microsoft.
this is inline with Attack Complexity High, attacker needs to be either in the network path (mitm) or control the erroneous destination of the connection (say mircosoft.com), possibly blocking (dosing) the higher priority genuine destination
Should be easy to verify for someone with a windows machine if it does.
So I guess either some random OS component is listening to the network and just-as-inexplicably asking Paint to do something for it. Or one of Paint's outbound connections is vulnerable if hijacked by a mitm. Network interception's one of the examples used for the "High" Attack Complexity rating that MS gave this CVE. Maybe powered by eMudhra for any systems that haven't revoked those certs? That'd be topical.
But still wouldn't really make sense. A patch for machines that are actively updating Paint but dodging cert revocations? Nothing really makes sense about this silly Paint CVE.
States:
> Attack Vector: Network
> The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet.
The way I read it is MSPaint is now running as a service and listens to a port (while running? all the time?) and you can trigger remote execute by sending data. Just.. Why?..
I just... It's just ridiculous at this point.
[0] https://x.com/orange_8361/status/2115654643141489057?a=qallN...
This is absurd.
Cross hatch, Scottish tartan?