CVE-2020-1472: Microsoft Netlogon Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Is it exploited?

Yes. CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 3 Nov 2021, 443 days after the CVE record was published.

How likely is exploitation in the next 30 days?

99.4%

EPSS score, percentile 99.9 of all scored records

How severe?

5.5 Medium

CVSS v3.1 base score, given by the CNA

What should I do?

Required action (CISA), due 3 May 2022: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Advisories and patches (9)

Which versions are affected?

Affected: 10.0.0; 10.0.0; 10.0.0; 10.0.0; 10.0.0; 10.0.0; 10.0.0; 6.1.0; 6.0.0; 6.2.0; 6.2.0; 6.3.0; 6.3.0; 10.0.0

Versions by product

Source: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, 2026.10.28, as of 28 Oct 2026; FIRST Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), v2026.06.15, as of 28 Oct 2026; CVE List V5 (CVE Program), cve_2026-10-28_0000Z, as of 28 Oct 2026. About the data.

What to do

CISA due date for this action: 3 May 2022.

Advisories and patches

• USN-4510-1 (Vendor advisory)
• USN-4510-2 (Vendor advisory)
• FEDORA-2020-0be2776ed3 (Vendor advisory)
• openSUSE-SU-2020:1513 (Vendor advisory)
• openSUSE-SU-2020:1526 (Vendor advisory)
• FEDORA-2020-77c15664b0 (Vendor advisory)
• FEDORA-2020-a1d139381a (Vendor advisory)
• USN-4559-1 (Vendor advisory)
• GLSA-202012-24 (Vendor advisory)

Linked from CISA's catalog entry

• https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/directives/ed-20-04-mitigate-netlogon-elevation-privilege-vulnerability-august-2020-patch-tuesday
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-1472

Affected products and versions

As listed in the CVE record.

Source: CVE List V5 (CVE Program), cve_2026-10-28_0000Z, as of 28 Oct 2026. About the data.

About this vulnerability

Microsoft's Netlogon Remote Protocol (MS-NRPC) contains a privilege escalation vulnerability when an attacker establishes a vulnerable Netlogon secure channel connection to a domain controller. An attacker who successfully exploits the vulnerability could run a specially crafted application on a device on the network. The vulnerability is also known under the moniker of Zerologon.

Summary: CISA's KEV catalog, as of 28 Oct 2026.

• CISA added CVE-2020-1472 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog on 3 Nov 2021.
• CISA marks it as known to be used in ransomware campaigns.
• The due date CISA sets for the required action is 3 May 2022.
• The CVE record was published on 17 Aug 2020, 443 days before it was added to KEV.
• The CVE record carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.5 (Medium), given by its CNA.
• FIRST's EPSS model puts the probability of exploitation in the next 30 days at 99.4% (percentile 99.9), as of 28 Oct 2026.
• CISA's SSVC assessment in the CVE record: exploitation active, automatable yes, technical impact total.

Source: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, 2026.10.28, as of 28 Oct 2026; CVE List V5 (CVE Program), cve_2026-10-28_0000Z, as of 28 Oct 2026; FIRST Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), v2026.06.15, as of 28 Oct 2026. About the data.

Description

Netlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when an attacker establishes a vulnerable Netlogon secure channel connection to a domain controller, using the Netlogon Remote Protocol (MS-NRPC). An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could run a specially crafted application on a device on the network. To exploit the vulnerability, an unauthenticated attacker would be required to use MS-NRPC to connect to a domain controller to obtain domain administrator access. Microsoft is addressing the vulnerability in a phased two-part rollout. These updates address the vulnerability by modifying how Netlogon handles the usage of Netlogon secure channels. For guidelines on how to manage the changes required for this vulnerability and more information on the phased rollout, see How to manage the changes in Netlogon secure channel connections associated with CVE-2020-1472 (updated September 28, 2020). When the second phase of Windows updates become available in Q1 2021, customers will be notified via a revision to this security vulnerability. If you wish to be notified when these updates are released, we recommend that you register for the security notifications mailer to be alerted of content changes to this advisory. See Microsoft Technical Security Notifications.

Source: CVE List V5 (CVE Program), cve_2026-10-28_0000Z, as of 28 Oct 2026. About the data.

Weakness

• CWE-330

CWE and CAPEC are maintained by MITRE; the entries are those named in the CVE record and the KEV entry.

Timeline

References

• VU#490028 (Third-party advisory)
• portal.msrc.microsoft.com
• [oss-security] 20200917 Samba and CVE-2020-1472 ("Zerologon")

5 more in the CVE record.

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