CVE-2023-36884

What is affected

Vendor	Microsoft
Product	Windows
Weakness	CWE-362

The vulnerability

Microsoft Windows Search contains an unspecified vulnerability that could allow an attacker to evade Mark of the Web (MOTW) defenses via a specially crafted malicious file, leading to remote code execution.

Required action

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

US federal civilian agencies were required to act by 29 August 2023 under BOD 22-01. The deadline is a compliance date, not a measure of severity — it says nothing about how dangerous the flaw is to anyone else.

Ransomware

CISA records this vulnerability as having been used in ransomware campaigns. That is a confirmed observation, not an assessment of likelihood.

Where this comes from

Every field on this page is taken from the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, last synced 12 Nov 2026, 00:29. Nothing here is our own assessment. For the technical scoring, see the NVD record below.

NVD record ↗ CVE.org record ↗