CVE-2020-0790: Microsoft Windows 10

High severity, CVSS 7.8. EPSS: 0.9% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

A local elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in how splwow64.exe handles certain calls. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could elevate privileges on an affected system from low-integrity to medium-integrity. This vulnerability by itself does not allow arbitrary code execution; however, it could allow arbitrary code to be run if the attacker uses it in combination with another vulnerability (such as a remote code execution vulnerability or another elevation of privilege vulnerability) that is capable of leveraging the elevated privileges when code execution is attempted. The security update addresses the vulnerability by ensuring splwow64.exe properly handles these calls..

Affected products

Microsoft Windows 10: affected versions not specified; version 1607 only; version 1709 only; version 1803 only; version 1809 only; version 1903 only; …
Microsoft Windows 7: affected versions not specified
Microsoft Windows 8.1: affected versions not specified
Microsoft Windows Rt 8.1: affected versions not specified
Microsoft Windows Server 2008: affected versions not specified
Microsoft Windows Server 2012: affected versions not specified; version r2 only
Microsoft Windows Server 2016: affected versions not specified; version 1903 only; version 1909 only; version 2004 only
Microsoft Windows Server 2019: affected versions not specified

Published 2020-09-11. Last modified 2026-06-17.