The Unpatched Pivot: New RPC Flaw Opens Doors for Windows Privilege Escalation

Kaspersky researchers disclosed "PhantomRPC," an architectural local privilege escalation in Windows RPC that can let attackers coerce processes with SeImpersonatePrivilege to escalate to SYSTEM; five exploitation paths were demonstrated. Microsoft assessed the issue as moderate (requiring SeImpersonatePrivilege) and did not issue an immediate patch, so mitigations center on monitoring and restricting accounts with SeImpersonatePrivilege.