News: 0001569141

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WSL2 Vulnerability Could Lead To Elevating Local Privileges

([Microsoft] 5 Hours Ago Windows Subsystem for Linux)


Last week Microsoft released [1]new versions of WSL2 for a yet-to-be-public security vulnerability affecting their Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 implementation. Those details around CVE-2025-53788 are now public for this vulnerability that could lead to elevation of privileges.

CVE-2025-53788 was made public yesterday as part of the monthly Patch Tuesday dance. CVE-2025-53788 comes down to being a time-of-check time-of-use "TOCTOU" race condition within the WSL2 kernel code.

This race condition could lead to elevation of local privileges for WSL2 usage prior to last week's WSL 2.5.10 and WSL 2.6.1 releases. The good news though is this only affects local users of WSL2 and isn't any remote vector involved. Hopefully you aren't dealing with any multi-user WSL2 usage anyhow or relying on Windows Subsystem for Linux for running any production workloads with privileged information, but nevertheless Microsoft found it serious enough to patch against CVE-2025-53788 in advance.

Additional CVE-2025-53788 details are available via [2]msrc.microsoft.com .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-WSL-2.5.10

[2] https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2025-53788


phoronix

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throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless
loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming
rigidity.
A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this
law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the
way that astonishes him least.
A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The
program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward
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If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of
disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the
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