CVE-2001-1517: Microsoft Windows 2000

Low severity, CVSS 2.1. EPSS: 2.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

RunAs (runas.exe) in Windows 2000 stores cleartext authentication information in memory, which could allow attackers to obtain usernames and passwords by executing a process that is allocated the same memory page after termination of a RunAs command. NOTE: the vendor disputes this issue, saying that administrative privileges are already required to exploit it, and the original researcher did not respond to requests for additional information

Affected products

• Microsoft Windows 2000: any version

Published 2001-12-31. Last modified 2026-06-16.