CVE-2005-3981

Microsoft Windows XP-2003 - Local Privilege Escalation

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Exploitation Summary

EIP tracks 1 public exploit for CVE-2005-3981. PoCs published by Nima Salehi.

AI-analyzed exploit summary This exploit demonstrates a local denial-of-service vulnerability in Microsoft Windows by calling CreateRemoteThread with an invalid address (100) in a target process. It enumerates processes, opens a handle with PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, and injects a thread to crash the process or system.

Description

NOTE: this issue has been disputed by third parties. Microsoft Windows XP, 2000, and 2003 allows local users to kill a writable process by using the CreateRemoteThread function with certain arguments on a process that has been opened using the OpenProcess function, possibly involving an invalid address for the start routine. NOTE: followup posts have disputed this issue, saying that if a user already has privileges to write to a process, then other functions could be called or the process could be terminated using PROCESS_TERMINATE

Exploits (1)

exploitdb WORKING POC VERIFIED
by Nima Salehi · cdoswindows
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/26690

This exploit demonstrates a local denial-of-service vulnerability in Microsoft Windows by calling CreateRemoteThread with an invalid address (100) in a target process. It enumerates processes, opens a handle with PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, and injects a thread to crash the process or system.

Classification
Working Poc 90%
Attack Type
Dos
Complexity
Trivial
Reliability
Reliable
Target: Microsoft Windows (XP SP0-SP2, 2000 Server SP4, 2003 SP0-SP1)
No auth needed
Prerequisites: Local access to the target system · Target process name as command-line argument
devstral-2 · analyzed Feb 16, 2026 Full analysis →

References (3)

Core 3
Core References
Exploit vdb-entry x_refsource_bid
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/15671/
Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry mailing-list x_refsource_bugtraq
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/418289/100/0/threaded
Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry mailing-list x_refsource_bugtraq
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/418431/100/0/threaded

Scores

EPSS 0.0365
EPSS Percentile 88.1%

Details

Status published
Products (6)
microsoft/windows_2000 (5 CPE variants)
microsoft/windows_2003_server enterprise (2 CPE variants)
microsoft/windows_2003_server r2 (2 CPE variants)
microsoft/windows_2003_server standard (2 CPE variants)
microsoft/windows_2003_server web (2 CPE variants)
microsoft/windows_xp (8 CPE variants)
Published Dec 04, 2005
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026