Microsoft Windows Mark of the Web (MOTW) Protection Mechanism Failure Vulnerability

Added to KEV
2024-09-10
Federal due date
2024-10-01
Vendor
Microsoft
Product
Windows
EPSS
94.4th percentile (score 0.138, as of 2026-06-08)
NVD CVSS v3.1
Ransomware use
Unknown
Upstream
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-38217

CISA short description

Microsoft Windows Mark of the Web (MOTW) contains a protection mechanism failure vulnerability that allows an attacker to bypass MOTW-based defenses. This can result in a limited loss of integrity and availability of security features such as Protected View in Microsoft Office, which rely on MOTW tagging.

Required action

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

EPSS percentile is the FIRST.org exploit-probability ranking as of the date noted above; it moves daily. CVSS reflects NVD's analysis at time of publication.