MS Paint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

727 pointsposted 5 days ago
by kuberwastaken
(cve.org)

300 Comments

pasteleft

5 days ago

Paint can exectue arbitrary code from the REMOTE, without USER INTERACTION?????

We seriously need more information.

sharpshadow

4 days ago

Paint’s image decoding engine is a shared system component and during thumbnail and visual preview generation it gets called automatically without opening the GUI. Ergo it’s enough for a malformed image file to exist on your device to get pwnd.

jasomill

4 days ago

Do you have details on this? Given that this is classified as a network vulnerability of the Paint application itself rather than any shared system components, I assumed it had to do with the recently-introduced Copilot features which AFAIK are the only part of the application that directly interact with the network.

bushbaba

4 days ago

Feels like this was placed on purpose

hulitu

5 days ago

Every program which has telemetry can. And web browsers.

joshspankit

4 days ago

While I understand your phrasing getting downvoted, I agree with what I assume you mean:

1. Telemetry as implemented is usually sloppy. Even though intuitively one could think that telemetry means “data gets collected locally and fired off to a remote server”, we have seen time and time again that they also build a return path to make the telemetry gathering more powerful. That return path can be a vector.

2. Web browsers have a _huge_ surface and they connect to remote servers constantly. The industry does very well at being proactive and at addressing CVEs but the whole premise makes that very difficult and so we cannot absolutely claim that browsers don’t have RCE(s).

embedding-shape

4 days ago

> That return path can be a vector

What return path could possibly lead to a RCE? That's crazy, no telemetry requires "backend could return any command that gets run on the client", you're doing telemetry in a very non-standard way if this is even possible.

At worst, the telemetry backend might first send the client a config, but none of that would contain executable commands because again, that'd be crazy.

> we cannot absolutely claim that browsers don’t have RCE(s).

Of course, you can never prove the absence of bugs (and/or security issues), but given that browsers aren't wildly exploited at this very moment, nor have been for quite some time, we can pretty confidently claim there are no browser RCEs in wide use today.

It's true that browsers have pretty big attack surface, but it's also true that it's the class of software that gets the more pentesting, since the payoff would be so great when you manage to find holes.

Someone

4 days ago

> What return path could possibly lead to a RCE?

API protocol says “return value is either “OK” or “ERR””, attacker sends “Floccinaucinihilipilification”, overflowing the 3-byte response buffer allocated on the stack.

embedding-shape

4 days ago

Right, so you have the first step of something, but then depending on everything else, this is either a DOS or a RCE.

I'm claiming if "everything else" does indeed lead to a RCE, you're again doing something very wrong here. It's not rocket science exactly.

Someone

4 days ago

It’s harder nowadays, with address space layout randomization and no-execute stacks, but the basics are

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_buffer_overflow#stack_sm...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return-oriented_programming

I think that’s how lots of RCE bugs start, so it may not be rocket science, but lots of software falls for it.

embedding-shape

3 days ago

I'm sorry, but I still find it hard to believe you work with other professionals that when they implement telemetry in client applications, that usually ends up exposing a RCE on the client because of the telemetry implementation.

port11

4 days ago

But only these 2, only software with telemetry and web browsers. There are no RCEs in anything else…

embedding-shape

4 days ago

> Every program which has telemetry can

I'd go out on a limb here perhaps, but I'd claim that if your telemetry means that the one SENDING the data gets a RCE by default by it, you're doing telemetry very wrong. Maybe look into different libraries/services than the ones you use today, please.

IAmBroom

4 days ago

Citation required for extraordinary claim.

monster_truck

5 days ago

If I had to guess, without diffing old/new, it's probably related to the generative erase/ai shit.

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.

johnisom2001

4 days ago

> If I had to guess, ... > To stack assumptions, ...

So, you're saying nothing? It would have been more useful to never have posted.

monster_truck

a day ago

Likewise. Why ever speculate on anything at all? Best to just never have fun and be an asshole

_notreallyme_

4 days ago

Either the description or the impact is wrong. You can't trigger MS Paint in a '0-click' attack, and OOB read are not sufficient to directly obtain code execution. So I'll let you guess which one is wrong.

It's quite common with vulnerabilities found by IA, there might be less hallucination, but the impact/score is often completely wrong.

boringg

4 days ago

Finally MS Paint has entered the OPSEC battle royale currently being waged.

BobbyTables2

4 days ago

Couldn’t let Notepad keep the its title uncontested, right?

user

5 days ago

[deleted]

Oarch

5 days ago

I can't wait for the Raymond Chen write up one day.

fuzzfactor

5 days ago

Just after I deployed a "currently patched" system yesterday and failed to uninstall Paint when I had the chance.

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.

onei

4 days ago

Some years ago, I ended up on a call with a support team guy, helping him under some parts of a system I worked on. He shared his screen, started drawing diagrams. It took me a whole 10 minutes to realise it was in paint, he was just that good at using it.

Turns out paint was the thing almost every customer had installed/had access to, so he worked to the lowest common denominator and got really good at using it. I guess now he'll need to find a new tool to astonish devs with.

ethbr1

4 days ago

If you're in support across multiple customers, especially in regulated industries, you learn to rely on the minimum common denominator, which usually means OS utils.

And at the end of the day $2 and $2000 screwdrivers are both still screwdrivers.

ndsipa_pomu

3 days ago

This is also why knowing the basics of "vi" is so useful on Linux/unix systems

partomniscient

3 days ago

...especially knowing how to save/exit without saving/quit, when it automatically opens up for some reason.

joshspankit

4 days ago

Before MS, there was a time where it wasn’t possible to get a virus by receiving an email. Users had to click on the attachment. Email itself is a text protocol after all.

Then they added automatic HTML parsing of incoming emails, and the attackers cheered.

stevekemp

4 days ago

Email may be text-based, but parsing MIME is a pain in the ass (speaking as somebody who wrote a console-based email client.)

You can go back to mutt's parsing, and CVE-1999-0940 for an old example. But I'm sure that's only one of many.

znpy

5 days ago

86-ing?

yakshaving_jgt

4 days ago

It comes from working in kitchens. It means to remove something from the menu, or otherwise make it unavailable.

dboreham

4 days ago

Also seashells.

SketchySeaBeast

4 days ago

86 seashells? I don't even know what do with the three seashells.

Grimeton

4 days ago

Greetings and salutations!

I understood that reference.

zdragnar

4 days ago

Surely a SketchySeaBeast could come up with uses for at least three seashells

fuzzfactor

4 days ago

Traditionally tossing excess baggage overboard when the situation gets grim enough.

Like when a previously sturdy old sailing ship starts taking on water, for instance in the 18th century and beyond.

Numerical equivalent to "deep-six."

DANmode

5 days ago

Perhaps someone else,

once Microsoft has reinvented themselves as…security-first?

pjmlp

5 days ago

They supposedly did, that is why most stuff on Azure is now a mix of Java, C#, Go and Rust with very little C and C++.

And there is the SFI program.

However this is a Windows application, and in spite some Rust advances in WinDev, it is pretty much C and C++ turf, with Rust getting the same warm reception as .NET used to enjoy.

Guess which language is Paint written on?

Nonetheless, they are doubling down on sandboxing Windows, macOS, iOS and Android style, for quite some time, exactly to become security first as you are asking for.

NooneAtAll5

4 days ago

I didn't know "just don't bloody add an internet access to everything" required a different language

DANmode

4 days ago

Not asking - just saying aloud that they seem to feel the need to get ahead of sentiment (like being dev-unfriendly), and surely this one comes next.

vaylian

4 days ago

Remember Windows Vista? Cancel or Allow?

greyhound1

5 days ago

Had to go to Microsoft Store to get the fixed version, Windows Update didn't show anything.

Natsu

5 days ago

I did the same, then ran:

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...

iririririr

5 days ago

why get package after something that is obviously a malicious backdoor?

If I still mamaged any windows host, i would be deploying a remove-package script asap to the entire fleet.

Natsu

4 days ago

Get-AppxPackage gives you the currently-installed packages for a Windows profile in PowerShell. It does not, in fact, download or install anything.

The whole command I gave gives you the currently installed version of MS Paint so you can see if you're already vulnerable or not.

izacus

5 days ago

What kind of nonsense are you writing here right now? When the next Linux kernel CVE happens, you'll also delete all the kernels from your fleete because they're a malicious backdoor?

When did y'all stop using some basic sense before writing? -_-

Natsu

4 days ago

Maybe we can blame PowerShell a bit for confusing names on this one. Get-AppxPackage does not download or install anything, contrary to what one might wrongly assume.

trashb

4 days ago

Great time to jump to the openbsd kernel!

BSDobelix

4 days ago

>When did y'all stop using some basic sense before writing? -_-

Yeah samesame:

-Compares a kernel with paint

-Uses a program with telemetry/spyware instead of installing on of the 1000s alternatives

izacus

4 days ago

It's a built-in tool of the OS, not some random spyware. Stop with the bizarre hyperbole.

BSDobelix

4 days ago

>It's a built-in tool of the OS, not some random spyware

Oh no dont get me wrong, it's definitely not some random spyware, it's deliberately made by Microsoft targeted at Windows Users who cant buy a Enterprise License.

iririririr

a day ago

do you get the same value from the linux kernel as you get from a image editor bloatware that have infinite better alternatives? ok. uninstall it then

lossyalgo

5 days ago

Ugh so I have to unblock the Store in my firewall just to get patched. What a PITA.

gadrev

5 days ago

Did the same and it quickly updated itself when I went into the "Paint" page (but I had to go there first). No indication of what just happened a few seconds later.

pixelpoet

5 days ago

If MS knew it would drive people to actually use their app store, they would have created the CVE themselves.

ManuelKiessling

5 days ago

For a split second, I visualized you walking into a brick and mortar Microsoft Store to get your security update done on your laptop, and somewhere in the middle of that split second I caught myself thinking „typical Microsoft“, and then I came to my senses.

alt227

4 days ago

You made a slip. Thats Apple you are talking about, and it actually happens.

IAmBroom

4 days ago

If brick and mortar Apple stores are staffed by "Geniuses"...

everylostbit

5 days ago

This seems to affect only paint 11.0.0.0 up to, but not including, 11.2605.91.0. For folks like me, running a much older version, its probably safe, although its Windows so, I'm not too sure.

tjohns

5 days ago

I'm amazed MS Paint is somehow up to version 11, let alone 11.2605 (!). I literally can't remember the last time I used it, but what are they even changing?

Legend2440

5 days ago

They've added a lot of features and it's almost like Photoshop Elements now. It has layers, general photo editing tools, an AI generator, etc.

anal_reactor

5 days ago

I remember that when Paint started being funky I found a Windows XP exe and used that. I want Paint to be the graphical equivalent of hexedit.

Now that I'm on Linux, I use jspaint.app.

boomlinde

5 days ago

I still use the Paint from Windows XP, running in Wine.

I would use kolourpaint but for whatever reason overlaid GUI elements like the selection box and brush cursors leave trails on the canvas.

Fun anecdote, paint.exe crashed the other day just as I was finishing up my drawing of the tower of Babel.

WarOnPrivacy

5 days ago

Windows 11 26H2 w/ MSPaint is 10.26100.1. It's just right.

pasteleft

5 days ago

Honestly I like layers in Paint. Even pixel art programs have layers.

QuantumNomad_

5 days ago

I remember when I was doing pixel art, there were some purists that insisted that using layers and transparency/opacity to create windows for your buildings is more or less cheating. According to them, one should manually figure out what the color palette should be for things seen through a window.

Anyway, I continued using layers and transparency/opacity. Pixel art was hard enough already for me, so I didn’t feel that it made sense to artificially make it even more difficult for myself at the time. I had enough other aspects of pixel art to work out already in order to try to get better at it.

rkachowski

4 days ago

XP era mspaint with layers is really all I want. Rudimentary image editing and drawing but with layers.

IAmBroom

4 days ago

Add threshold select (magic wand), and I'll agree 100%.

breakwaterlabs

4 days ago

They should have just hired the paint.net guy and rolled it in.

The point of paint is a tiny pixel editor. If you want layers there are better programs.

card_zero

4 days ago

But is Windows 11 paint capable of pixel art? I'm reading that it antialiases everything.

Measter

4 days ago

You can draw single pixels. I'm not sure where whoever told you that got it from.

jasomill

4 days ago

And create single-pixel images. My most used application of Paint by far is creating single-pixel PNG files to work around the fact that "solid color" is not an option for lock/login screen backgrounds.

card_zero

4 days ago

But can you resize without antialiasing, and does pasting trigger antialiasing?

There's this https://www.windowsphoneinfo.com/threads/why-does-resizing-m... (made confusing by the next person talking about Paint 3D, a different application) and this https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3991946/... (made confusing by the person being an artist and talking in peanut butter metaphors).

There's some suggestion there that shapes (including lines) are separate entities from pixels. Wikipedia references a now-deleted answers.microsoft.com version of the first question https://web.archive.org/web/20250203164656/https://answers.m... with a couple of people saying that resize is useless. Wiki also says "re-copied" images blur, which is why I wondered if that meant pasting. Also this: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5673783/... a complaint that the tool for drawing pixels doesn't indicate exactly which pixel it will draw to.

Measter

4 days ago

I can't reproduce any of those issues. When drawing the indicator snaps to a pixel, so it's perfectly clear where it's going. When I draw a line, it's pixel-perfect when moving the control points, likewise after it finalises. And when I copy a section of the image and paste it back in, it's pixel-perfect as I move and when I finalise. There doesn't seem to be a true resize; all I seem to be able to do is change the size of the canvas, which doesn't add any kind of aliasing.

But I've only used the program for less than 5 minutes, so maybe it's configured differently?

IAmBroom

4 days ago

Yes, resizing within Paint preserves pixel-level color. I just resized a single pixel dot to about 14x25 without aliasing.

I don't know why you are so concerned, but it's incredibly easy to test these questions if you really want to know.

bombcar

5 days ago

Just like any text editor is doomed to become either Emacs or Word, so any image editor is doomed to become Photoshop.

sam345

5 days ago

Except Vim of course.

eru

4 days ago

Well, there's vile for you.

mihaaly

4 days ago

I hope MS is not getting exclusive right for manufacturing spoons because I want mine to scoop up stuff like soup or ice-cream without smart features activated by elegant touch UI on the handle like cutting down trees being in the way to the grocery store to 'elevate user experience', or others. This stuffing more and more into everything and anything for the sake of shock and awe is a stupid (and dangerous) thing.

JdeBP

5 days ago

It's the last two digits of the year plus the month number. That was June 2026. It was 2504 in May 2025, and 2402 in March 2024.

what

5 days ago

>2605

>june 2026

Pretty sure it would be May?

But in either case they had 91 releases that month?

JdeBP

5 days ago

You haven't spotted that it's regularly being released the month following the revision number. (-: Because Microsoft will of course have a release pipeline that things have to go through.

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.

gnabgib

5 days ago

Call a paleontologist, it kooks like we've found a Java developer

Rexxar

5 days ago

Maybe someone insisted to start counting month at zero.

hulitu

5 days ago

They didn't get the right roundness from the first time. /s

StilesCrisis

5 days ago

The Windows 11 version is a complete rewrite.

CursedSilicon

5 days ago

So was the Windows 7 version

chungy

5 days ago

Windows 7 added ribbons to the UI. It's unlikely it was a rewrite. Just a retooling of what Vista had, which in turn what Windows XP had, which... [continue down the line until Windows 1.0].

Kwpolska

5 days ago

They also added brushes and shapes, they might have rewritten it at that point.

hulitu

5 days ago

Did you noticed the round buttons lately ?

jval43

5 days ago

They added AI.

grishka

5 days ago

You can't have finished software any more. It's now illegal or something. Must keep changing things forever. And must add some AI features of course, to make the VCs happy.

sznio

5 days ago

it seems to be the same version/build as the whole system

Kapura

5 days ago

This was my observation too; I assume 11.0.0.0 is windows 11? because my windows 10 mspaint doesn't even match that numbering format.

everylostbit

5 days ago

yes that is my exact situation. I think (hope?) Microsoft would've disclosed it if prior versions were affected too, although I never heard the "old" paint have anything to do with network, so there's that.

novia

5 days ago

My version shows "22H2" I don't know if I'm vulnerable or not

durmusk

5 days ago

That is Windows version. But you probably use the regular Win32 Paint, so should be okay.

lossyalgo

5 days ago

> I don't know if I'm vulnerable or not

Are you using Windows? If so, then yes.

cowlevel

5 days ago

Or if you're using Linux. Or OSX. seL4 users are safe though, mostly because their computers don't do anything useful.

protocolture

5 days ago

Hold up.

"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?

to11mtm

5 days ago

I have my own (related) questions, but I do have theories, that may or may not answer;

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.

brunes

4 days ago

The advisory from Microsoft specifically says it can be exploited over the network with zero user interaction.

IAmBroom

4 days ago

The vulnerability predates Copilot. Paint's first vulnerable version (11.0) was released September 2021, Copilot in February 2023.

protocolture

4 days ago

Thumbnails make sense, because the indexer can spin it up at any point with no user interaction.

xlayn

5 days ago

WHY ON HELL paint has a remote code execution in the name of God? WHY? is this because someone who needs to build a CV decided to network something on ..... I can't come with a reason why "An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted packet to an affected service over the network." will cause paint to start being nice to an attacker and leaking crypto secrets etc.. the thing says sending a specially crafted packet.. this means windows is part of the attack vector, but that just makes the WHY bigger, really, why?

gruez

5 days ago

>I can't come with a reason why "An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted packet to an affected service over the network."

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"

simiones

4 days ago

It absolutely does, in the "FAQ" section:

https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20...

> How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?

> 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..

jasomill

4 days ago

Paint now has Copilot features that require sign-in, so presumably involve network access.

user

5 days ago

[deleted]

doubled112

5 days ago

Put it on a file share and now any file is "remote".

jdiff

5 days ago

Remote, and inapplicable. One of the very few things the Microsoft link does mention that no user interaction is required. A banana left out in the walkway still requires the user to go for a walk.

dofm

5 days ago

> A banana left out in the walkway still requires the user to go for a walk.

This is some Eric-Cantona-level gnomic mysticism. I approve.

augment_me

5 days ago

Any extraction of behavioural surplus is a win, Nadella went hard on this in Windows 11. If you are drawing something for your child in paint, you might want to buy pampers or something.

dathinab

5 days ago

my first reaction was "oh_ why??!?, not again_"

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

lmc

5 days ago

Windows Subsystem for Paint, coming to a theater near you

tomkarho

5 days ago

Management demanded "put copilot on it!" and someone did is my guess.

Could also be some kind of recall feature.

novia

5 days ago

NSA backdoor?

dathinab

5 days ago

unlikely

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.

ranger_danger

5 days ago

They (and other governments) can do multiple things at the same time.

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.

BowBun

5 days ago

unless they actively work with MS to keep their backdoor fresh, one can reasonably assume a potential backdoor _was_ well-hidden and advanced for the time period when it was introduced. What about after 20 years and LLMs decompiling everything?

DANmode

5 days ago

Why hide blatant doors when they’re readily available?

goodcitizen

4 days ago

I believe they're already quite happy with the Windows OS itself for this purpose, and probably some other firmware-level rootkits across many products like Intel and Qualcomm chipsets. Their contracts with Meta might be helpful too.

gloosx

5 days ago

llm they use to vibe-code windows was supposed to make no mistakes and make everything secure...

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... . . .

boomlinde

5 days ago

AGI will realize that creating critical exploit vectors only to discover and fix them later will only make it seem more relevant and important.

dmitrygr

5 days ago

Oh, this is the modern "paint" trash, not mspaint.exe that i still use, copied out of x64 XP build, together with calc.exe

IAmBroom

4 days ago

This is the equivalent of "I don't watch TV" comments about media problems.

Good for you.

Now only <all Windows users>-1 are affected.

jasonjayr

5 days ago

Don't forget to grab notepad.exe too!

caspar

5 days ago

metapad.exe[0] by liquidninja is a much better notepad replacement IMO. Obviously I am excluding the heavyweight options like Notepad++, Sublime, etc.

[0]: https://liquidninja.com/metapad/download.html

speedstyle

4 days ago

At the moment I just use Zed, or I imagine I'd be fine with Sublime. When I used Jetbrains/VSCode, I would grab Notepad/Notepad++ when I didn't want to wait for them to open, set up a project, etc. But if something 'heavyweight' is quicker than notepad, and the features don't get in my way, I don't need anything else. In fact I still appreciate the extra functionality with those one-off text/data/scripts - format, regex replace, diff, occasionally even LSP like shellcheck

nik282000

4 days ago

Didn't notepad get a CVE recently too?

amluto

5 days ago

mspaint.exe is quite likely to have at least one code execution vulnerability if one opens a malicious file, but I bet it's very safe against remote attack :)

what_hn

5 days ago

Paint opens a port?

user

5 days ago

[deleted]

matt123456789

5 days ago

Yes, when it launches, it opens a telnet server so that bill gates can log in and type all the colors for you to use, like #000000, #000001, etc

user

5 days ago

[deleted]

mattstir

4 days ago

Presumably as part of the generative AI stuff they crammed into it? They've been hilariously cagey about the details here which makes me think it has to be AI-feature related

sigmar

4 days ago

Not sure what you think is "hilariously cagey", but why would they only be "cagey" if the bug was from ai-features? Also it says paint versions are "affected from 11.0.0.0 before 11.2605.91.0" which I take to mean the bug has been there since Windows 11 was released in 2021

TZubiri

5 days ago

>Exploit Code Maturity

>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.

ajasmin

5 days ago

What Network?

hoppp

5 days ago

It's probably a way to get phished, if you click on a malicious bmp file.

Arainach

5 days ago

MSRC[1] says otherwise:

> 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...

hoppp

4 days ago

I don't know anyone running Paint servers and I'm pretty sure phishing could be possible.

Arainach

4 days ago

It's bizarre that you're doubling down in the face of statements from Microsoft's security experts who have the full context of the investigation and the source code. It's worth some self-reflection on what drove you to make this post.

decidu0us9034

4 days ago

The boilerplate FAQ text is frequently wrong or incomplete. You can go through the catalog and look through some of them and see how many have multiple revisions. I think, if you want to know definitively, you have to patch diff it

hoppp

4 days ago

Where does it say that you can't be phished with a bmp file?

Maybe you should self-reflect on why you are offended by my comment. You might learn something about yourself.

Arainach

4 days ago

It says that "no user interaction is required", so phishing is explicitly not what this vulnerability is about.

You haven't declared any privileged knowledge of this attack or MS Paint and have, on vibes, doubled down on what you assume must be going on despite other evidence.

It's a bad look.

hoppp

4 days ago

Look away then.

You don't have to comment on other people's comments you know.

Phishing with .bmp files existed for a very long time now.

Arainach

4 days ago

> Maybe you should self-reflect on why you are offended by my comment

A significant chunk of the world's problems today are caused by or exacerbated by people who confidently assert things they believe regardless of what evidence or experts say, and who dismiss expertise. Those people are emboldened by others allowing them to spew nonsense unchecked, and I have no interest in seeing HN degraded similarly.

You're moving goalposts. A commenter asked what Networking MS Paint had in the context of this vulnerability. You made an assertion not supported by the documentation we had, and now you're trying to claim that there could be other vulnerabilities rather than admitting that you made a mistake without doing any research.

hoppp

4 days ago

Arguing on the internet over these kind of things is not a very good look.

patrick_rtk

5 days ago

wow thoses days are amazing. cve: AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

UI:N it is with no interaction ?

is it a cve mistake ?

jdiff

5 days ago

Doesn't seem to be:

> 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.

akerl_

5 days ago

That looks like a placeholder text they drop in the FAQ for anything tagged as RCE.

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.

> https://share.google/aDP2ac9j5AmB13QRo

jdiff

5 days ago

Okay, but then the UI:N? Without user interaction, how do you even perform an exploit in a way that doesn't qualify as remote?

akerl_

2 days ago

They've updated it to be UI:R / AV:L, with a goofy FAQ to try to retcon that by "RCE" they mean that the attacker could be remote but the "attack is local", in that the attacker needs to trick a user into opening the malicious file.

That definition would make essentially every vuln "RCE", because even attacks that expect the attacker to be local would equally be something a remote attacker could pull off if they tricked a local user into performing the actions.

layer8

5 days ago

Fixed in version 11.2609.401.0.

darepublic

5 days ago

Is this old or new paint

tclancy

5 days ago

Just take the lid off and let is sit for a week.

trashb

4 days ago

hardened paint, when you lend a security researcher your paint.

paulpauper

5 days ago

is this as bad as Windows Metafile (WMF) Exploit?

dathinab

5 days ago

with the limited available information it looks a few _magnitudes_ worse :(

sreekanth850

5 days ago

LLMs are now unfolding decades of technical debt, poorly written code, and security vulnerabilities accumulated in software built by humans.

CivBase

5 days ago

That's one way to read it.

My take is that the addition of CoPilot to MS Paint is probably how this CVE got introduced.

IAmBroom

4 days ago

The CVE was introduced over a year before that.

sreekanth850

5 days ago

this is just one case.

bigstrat2003

5 days ago

But it is the case you were leaving the comment on, which is why anyone reading it will assume you meant to apply it to this case.

jdiff

5 days ago

You say that as if there aren't more just over there.

sreekanth850

5 days ago

I was saying this is just one case where we can say the reason about copilot, there are dozens of reported vulnerabilities, bugs in kernel, rust. and many more elite products which were authored by so called elite developers.

bigyabai

5 days ago

You willingly let "perfect" be the enemy of "good" in this case. It's absolutely possible to build software runtimes that obviate this type of nonsense. It's not grandstanding by elite developers, most of these choices are common-sense mitigations.

sreekanth850

5 days ago

--Another vulnerability in ssh accounts that should never take a password at all (root, your key-only deploy user, ldap users, the default user on alpine's aws and azure images) take any password longer than 256 characters. I guess these also belongs to your common sense mitigation category but this has been there since 2016. -- struct's lifetime requirements can be bypassed via covariant field assignment, 11 year old rust compiler bug. how about this?

bigyabai

4 days ago

Reread both of our comments. You are complaining about an LDAP bug and a Rustc issue, the sky is not falling Mr. Chicken Little.

imp0cat

5 days ago

Exactly. So the original quote should be updated to read:

> LLMs are now unfolding technical debt, poorly written code, and security vulnerabilities accumulated in software that they have created themselves.

sreekanth850

5 days ago

i dont think kernel bugs , ssh bug, 12 year old rust compiler bug all was written by LLMs.

MarchApril

5 days ago

Firearms are now exposing the inherent vulnerability of human flesh against small projectiles flying faster than the speed of sound. Before that we were just fist fighting eachother and we were trained for that. But no mo! Get your dragon's breath today at $199.99!

mock-possum

5 days ago

From the moment I understood the vulnerability of my human flesh it disgusted me.

pmkary

5 days ago

Why on Earth do you have to give Paint, internet? How is that a technical debt? Making all nice little fully offline apps Internet Nightmare Slop is wag beyond debt.

infinite_spin

5 days ago

It might not be paint with internet, it might be something like a packet over your network asking a computer to open an input/file, and the computer responds by opening that malicious input with paint

sreekanth850

4 days ago

Yes, its related to a image file, where parsing a specially crafted image file causes the program to read outside its designated memory buffer

ranger_danger

5 days ago

And yet suggesting C++ should focus more on memory safety just gets downvoted instead... I swear sometimes it's like being a crab in a barrel.

user

5 days ago

[deleted]

falcor84

5 days ago

Wow! At first sight I was sure it was a joke, but no. What a time...

https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20...

dboreham

5 days ago

Presumably this is like many other graphics tool vulnerabilities this works by the attacker persuading a user to open a file that exercises the bug. Not terribly unusual.

yread

5 days ago

I don't think so:

> User Interaction: None

> Out-of-bounds read in Windows Paint allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code over a network.

criddell

5 days ago

> An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted packet to an affected service over the 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?

80fj0348i

5 days ago

MS Paint has Copilot now

criddell

5 days ago

Does that turn it into a server or service?

80fj0348i

5 days ago

I'm no expert but so much of Windows is implemented as services. svchost.exe is probably involved somehow. Like it wouldn't surprise me if Copilot is implemented as a service and it talks to Paint via IPC messages or something

steve1977

5 days ago

But that alone wouldn't make the service listen on the network, even if it were the case.

80fj0348i

5 days ago

It would make sense that it could listen for messages like "your generated image is ready!" and pass bitmap data to Paint. And media like images are a common source of vulnerabilities since you're basically passing binary data into the software.

dist-epoch

5 days ago

This site doesn't do jokes

wolttam

5 days ago

At least not about serious security matters

Sohcahtoa82

5 days ago

This site absolutely does jokes, it just doesn't beat horses into bloody pulps with the jokes the way reddit does. We have a higher standard. A joke has to actually be funny, and not some tired reference.

Except for the infamous Dropbox comment.

IAmBroom

4 days ago

Post a thread including the number "42" in the title, and you'll be proven wrong in the first 3 comments.

knottn

5 days ago

Not to imply any particular comparison to less serious websites where the karma system over time may have resulted in a disproportionate surplus of one liner jokes and other spammy low quality posts.

lakeviewterrace

5 days ago

Of course the valuable link is down-weighted/buried in the HN discussion...

  >Publicly disclosed
  >No

  >Exploited
  >No

  >Exploitability assessment
  >Exploitation Less Likely

6thbit

5 days ago

I'm just in full denial that paint runs a server. Happy to be corrected if someone has a windows machine handy to verify.

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...

Matumio

5 days ago

Tangential, but: "We're sorry but the CVE Website doesn't work properly without JavaScript enabled."

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.

tosti

5 days ago

Code execution, sure, paint has been used to write executable code too, so why not.

But remote? How

gregschlom

5 days ago

"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.."

Still, the question remains... How?

IanCal

5 days ago

It mentions that it may rely on other services or security measures running- I wonder if there’s something like this hitting a firewall or av and then that calling out to paint to check file type or size out something like that?

zmmmmm

5 days ago

It still makes it sound like the problem really is the other service that is letting a remote connection invoke some part of MS paint.

jdiff

5 days ago

But why MS Paint? What functionality does it offer to another program to get called on specifically? And if this other service isn't calling on it specifically, what else can it be tricked into calling? And how many of those are also vulnerable to being stabbed in the back? The smaller interior holes are a problem, sure, but it seems like the CVE should be for the hull hole in that case.

nonethewiser

5 days ago

Sounds like they just mean opening a file that you got from somewhere else.

>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.

https://app.opencve.io/cve/CVE-2026-83844

autoexec

5 days ago

Sounds like it might be automatically opening a file that was sent over the network without any user interaction.

eqvinox

5 days ago

Reading tea leaves is still reading tea leaves, even if you make an AI do it… (which is what this is, judging by other things I've seen on opencve.io)

jdiff

5 days ago

Yeah, OpenCVE also includes this:

> 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.

Den_VR

5 days ago

The direct implication is that current generations of ms paint are a “service over the network.” Probably a theoretically possible RPC end point of svchost.exe

VorpalWay

5 days ago

I'm thankfully out of the loop on Windows these days, but as I remember it Paint did not have any network features? Is that still true? If if is, maybe it is a misfiling of the CVE and it isn't remote?

Or are they chaining a browser auto opening a download in paint, (but browsers shouldn't do that)...

augment_me

5 days ago

If they know what you paint/edit, they can sell you ads better

kuboble

5 days ago

These days paint has copilot...

radicalbyte

5 days ago

Why for the love of everything that is good does MS Paint have network trash in it. It's a super simple bitmap editor. Like Notepad, it's simple and just works.

Make a new product and bundle that as an option if you want to drastically change the functionality.

waz0wski

5 days ago

Hate to break it to you..

> 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/...

SV_BubbleTime

5 days ago

> Like Notepad, it's simple and just works.

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.

robotnikman

5 days ago

This is the only network feature paint has iirc, so that's probably it.

jdiff

5 days ago

It's the only network feature I can think of, but what is it doing opening a port to wait and listen for anything?

6thbit

5 days ago

I wonder if it could be through a file:// or some deeplink custom url handler that opens in Paint and clicking on it with some carefully crafted file path could make it read out of bounds (since that's the associated weakness reported) and execute something.

jdiff

5 days ago

Whatever it is, it doesn't require any clicking or user interaction. Maybe my imagination is just limited but I can't imagine why Paint is making itself available for incoming traffic on the network.

6thbit

5 days ago

Ah, no interaction. Yikes, doesn't make sense Paint would have a server tho.

Should be easy to verify for someone with a windows machine if it does.

jdiff

5 days ago

Mine doesn't have a mouse or keyboard at the moment, so I'm only checking over an SSH->WSL connection. But it sure doesn't look like it's opening any ports from here.

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.

TZubiri

5 days ago

Maybe because a .bmp file could be sent remotely.

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.

jdiff

5 days ago

Sending a BMP file that the user has to open doesn't match what little published details we have:

> The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.

TZubiri

5 days ago

you are right, it seems like the latter outbouns tcp connection is already being opened by paint, and that is what is exploitable.

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

jdiff

5 days ago

Seems odd even for a vibecoded copilot integration to make repeated, unprompted network requests. And if they're not repeated and unprompted, then we don't meet the "no user input" requirement.

TZubiri

4 days ago

pretty standard to check for updates no?

jdiff

4 days ago

For others, def. For paint, it's always been either OS-updated or store-updated.

Sohcahtoa82

5 days ago

Because the definition of "remote" has been expanded in the name of resume-driven development to include sending a malicious file that a victim has to open.

drillsteps5

5 days ago

https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20...

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?..

IFC_LLC

5 days ago

At this point I want to declare that air-gapped network with the transfer only over USB drives is a viable and valuable method of handling IT security. Outside transfer only happens by people manually copying text onto a floppy and reading it from a floppy.

I just... It's just ridiculous at this point.

fock

5 days ago

yes and noone does this anymore, because the internet was just convenient.

itopaloglu83

5 days ago

First the notepad CVE and now this, Microsoft is on a roll.

xg15

5 days ago

Waiting for the 0day RCE in Solitaire next...

doublerabbit

5 days ago

Hate to think what Minesweeper has in store.

xg15

5 days ago

The results will be explosive.

NooneAtAll5

5 days ago

I sooo want to wrangle in a joke about minesweeper being coNP-complete, somehow

OptionOfT

4 days ago

Given the amount of ads it shows, all you need is to find a bug in EdgeView, and get them to load your ad.

JeppyG

5 days ago

What's next, the space cadet pinball game lol... although jokes on them, I would only play it if I didn't have internet.

pmkary

5 days ago

I love Microsoft! Who else might look at a fully offline drawing app and think: "Man this needs the most severe level of networking access capable of remote code execution", and that surely is to put their useless Copilot to absolutely nowhere. Next headline will be "All user credentials stolen from Notepad"

AlienRobot

5 days ago

I miss when MS Paint just opened image files and let you do some basic editing, before layers, background removal and RCE's...

hotelsacher

5 days ago

Does MS Paint have network connections? This is sick.

Each time I learn something new about Microslop, I'm just glad I'm not a tenant.

kittikitti

5 days ago

If ain't broke don't fix it! Why did they change MS Paint! The campy memes will never be the same.

hmartin

5 days ago

The calendar app and my internal clock disagree, is it April 1 today or no?

tonyhart7

5 days ago

Yep, AI gonna end all software and we come back to air gapped system

reader9274

5 days ago

Finally my childhood abstract Paint art can take over a server

user

5 days ago

[deleted]

kleicyn

4 days ago

why does PAINT of all apps need to do something with the network? telemetry? AI? both?

kar1181

5 days ago

mspaint, remote code execution vulnerability. Dear gosh nothing is sacred.

arm32

5 days ago

Patch your MS Paint, everybody!

doublerabbit

5 days ago

What patch do I need to draw?

Cross hatch, Scottish tartan?

adzm

5 days ago

Well this is Microsoft Windows so... argyle?

durmusk

5 days ago

Does this effect the regular Win32 Paint? Who uses the app store crap anyway?

martypitt

4 days ago

Great, now I have to go and update all my software that depends on MS Paint. There goes my weekend.

egeozcan

5 days ago

I guess it's time to finally bite the bullet and migrate to jspaint.

This is absurd.

kitkarl

4 days ago

Thy F'd up again! Wish I had a tracker for all of microsoft's mistakes... oh wait, I already made one! haha