CVE-2022-34713

CVE-2022-34713, commonly referred to as 'DogWalk,' is a remote code execution vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT), patched in Microsoft's August 2022 Patch Tuesday release. The flaw requires user interaction: a user who engages with attacker-supplied content that invokes MSDT can allow the attacker's file operations to run in the context of the logged-on user, yielding high-impact code execution (confidentiality, integrity, and availability all rated high in the CVSS vector). Affected products span essentially the entire supported Windows installed base at the time: Windows 7, 8.1, RT 8.1, Windows 10 (1507 through 21H2), Windows 11 21H2, and Windows Server 2008 and 2012. The vulnerability was confirmed by Microsoft as an actively exploited zero-day in August 2022 and was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-08-09, with a required action to apply vendor updates. EPSS assigns it a 67.8% probability of exploitation within 30 days (99th percentile), consistent with in-the-wild use.

What to do: Apply the August 2022 (or later) Windows security updates on all affected Windows 7, 8.1, RT 8.1, 10 (1507–21H2), 11 21H2, Server 2008, and Server 2012 systems per vendor instructions, prioritizing user-facing workstations where exploitation depends on user interaction. Given the KEV listing, federal and high-value environments should verify patch status immediately and hunt for suspicious MSDT/diagnostic-tool invocations. No public PoC is known, but treat any unpatched system as exposed given confirmed in-the-wild exploitation.