CVE-2025-13665
📋 TL;DR
CVE-2025-13665 is a DLL planting vulnerability in the System Console Utility for Windows that allows attackers to execute arbitrary code by placing malicious DLLs in directories where the application searches for them. This affects Windows systems running vulnerable versions of the utility. Attackers can exploit this to gain the same privileges as the user running the application.
💻 Affected Systems
- System Console Utility for Windows
📦 What is this software?
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Full system compromise if exploited by an attacker with local access who can plant malicious DLLs and trick users into running the utility, potentially leading to privilege escalation or persistence.
Likely Case
Local privilege escalation or arbitrary code execution by authenticated users who can write to directories in the DLL search path, allowing them to execute malicious code with the privileges of the utility.
If Mitigated
Limited impact if proper access controls prevent unauthorized users from writing to application directories and users run with minimal privileges.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires local access to plant DLLs and knowledge of DLL search order. No public exploit code is known at this time.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Not specified in reference; check vendor advisory for patched versions
Vendor Advisory: https://www.altera.com/security/security-advisory/asa-0002
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Visit the vendor advisory URL. 2. Download and install the latest patched version of System Console Utility. 3. Restart the system to ensure changes take effect.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Restrict DLL search path
windowsModify application or system settings to restrict DLL search to secure directories only
Set SafeDllSearchMode registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SafeDllSearchMode = 1
Remove write permissions from application directories
windowsPrevent unauthorized users from writing DLLs to directories where the application searches
icacls "C:\Program Files\SystemConsoleUtility" /deny Users:(OI)(CI)W
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Run the utility with minimal user privileges (non-admin accounts)
- Implement application whitelisting to prevent execution of unauthorized DLLs
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check if System Console Utility version matches affected versions listed in vendor advisoryCheck Version:
Check application properties or run: wmic product where name="System Console Utility" get versionVerify Fix Applied:
Verify installed version is patched per vendor advisory and test DLL loading behavior📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unexpected DLL loads from non-standard directories in application logs
- Process creation events for System Console Utility with suspicious parent processes
Network Indicators:
- Unusual outbound connections from System Console Utility process
SIEM Query:
Process Creation where Image contains "systemconsole" AND ParentImage NOT IN ("explorer.exe", "cmd.exe")