# Responsible Disclosure Report: CVE-2025-47181 (Conceptual PoC)

## Summary

- **Title:** Link Following Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Microsoft Edge Updater (Chromium-based)  
- **Reported by:** [Your Name or Alias]  
- **Contact:** [Your Email]  
- **Date:** [Today’s Date]  
- **CVE ID:** CVE-2025-47181 (Proposed, Conceptual)  
- **Severity:** High (Potential SYSTEM privilege escalation)  
- **Affected Product:** Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), specifically the Edge Updater component  
- **Description:**  
  This report details a conceptual proof-of-concept exploit demonstrating a "link following" vulnerability in the Microsoft Edge Updater. Improper handling of symbolic links by a privileged updater process allows an attacker with limited user privileges to write arbitrary content to sensitive system files, potentially leading to privilege escalation to SYSTEM.

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## Technical Details

### Vulnerability Overview

The updater process writes temporary update files to a privileged directory. Due to insufficient validation, an attacker can replace or inject symbolic links in this directory that point to critical system files (e.g., driver configuration DLLs). When the updater writes update content, it follows these links and overwrites the target files with attacker-controlled data, resulting in unauthorized system modifications with elevated privileges.

### Proof-of-Concept Summary

- Attacker creates a symlink inside the trusted Edge updater temp directory pointing to a protected system file.  
- The privileged updater process writes malicious content by following the symlink.  
- The sensitive system file is modified without proper authorization.  
- This scenario demonstrates potential SYSTEM-level privilege escalation.

### Environment

- Windows 10/11 (simulated)  
- Microsoft Edge Chromium-based (conceptual model)  
- Python 3.x used to simulate filesystem and process behavior  

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## Impact

Successful exploitation may allow:

- Arbitrary file overwrite of SYSTEM-protected files.  
- Execution of attacker-controlled code with SYSTEM privileges.  
- Full system compromise on vulnerable versions.  

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## Mitigation

- Validate and restrict symbolic link resolution in privileged update directories.  
- Ensure update process performs strict path validation before file writes.  
- Employ least privilege principles for updater components.  

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## Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a symbolic link in the updater’s temporary directory pointing to a sensitive system file.  
2. Trigger the updater process to write an update file.  
3. Confirm that the sensitive file’s content has been overwritten with malicious data.  
4. Verify privilege escalation through altered system behavior.  

*Note: A detailed PoC script and simulation is available upon request.*  

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## Disclosure Policy

This report is submitted under responsible disclosure guidelines. Please contact me at [Your Email] for coordination of further details, patch status, or discussion.

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## Contact Information

- Name: [Your Full Name or Handle]  
- Email: [Your Email Address]  
- Twitter/GitHub (optional): [Your Socials]  
