Summary
Impact: Security Feature Bypass. Microsoft rating: Important. Not known to be exploited — Exploitation Less Likely. Customer action: Required.
Details
According to the CVSS metrics, successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to some loss of integrity (I:L) and some loss of availability (A:L). What does that mean for this vulnerability?
An attacker can craft a malicious file that would evade Mark of the Web (MOTW) defenses, resulting in a limited loss of integrity and availability of security features such as Protected View in Microsoft Office, which rely on MOTW tagging.
How could an attacker exploit the vulnerability?
To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker could host a file on an attacker-controlled server, then convince a targeted user to download and open the file. This could allow the attacker to interfere with the Mark of the Web functionality.
Please see Additional information about Mark of the Web for further clarification
Security updates
10.0.17763.8880 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5094123
10.0.20348.5256 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5094128
10.0.19044.7417 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5094127
10.0.26100.32995 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5094125
10.0.26200.8655 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5094126
10.0.22631.7219 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5093998
10.0.28000.2269 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5095051
10.0.14393.9234 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5094122
6.3.9600.23228 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5094041
Vulnerabilities 1
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Medium 5.4
Windows Mark of the Web Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
Protection mechanism failure in Windows Mark of the Web (MOTW) allows an unauthorized attacker to bypass a security feature over a network.
Revision history
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#1
Information published.
References
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CVE-2026-45595 Windows Mark of the Web Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability - HTML
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-45595
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Microsoft Exploitability Index
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/exploitability-index?rtc=1
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Microsoft Support Lifecycle
https://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle
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Common Vulnerability Scoring System
https://www.first.org/cvss