Microsoft Power Automate Vulnerability
CVE-2025-47966 is a critical vulnerability discovered in Microsoft Power Automate for Desktop, publicly disclosed on June 5, 2025. This vulnerability allows an unauthorized attacker to remotely expose sensitive information and elevate privileges across a network without requiring any user interaction, making it extremely dangerous for affected systems.
Details of the Vulnerability
Type: Exposure of sensitive information to an unauthorized actor (CWE-200) combined with privilege escalation.
Impact: Attackers can gain unauthorized access to sensitive data, elevate their privileges network-wide, compromise system integrity, and potentially take full control of affected systems.
Attack Vector: Network-based remote exploitation with no user interaction required.
Severity: Rated 9.8 (CRITICAL) on the CVSS v3.1 scale, indicating a high likelihood of exploitation and severe impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
How the Vulnerability Works
The flaw in Power Automate for Desktop allows attackers to bypass normal security controls, exposing sensitive information that should be protected. With this information, attackers can escalate their privileges, gaining higher-level access to systems on the network. This can lead to unauthorized viewing, modification, or deletion of critical data and potentially full system compromise1.
Sample Scenario
Imagine an enterprise using Power Automate for Desktop to automate workflows across its network. An attacker remotely exploits CVE-2025-47966 by sending crafted network requests that do not require any user to click or interact with anything. The attacker gains access to sensitive credentials and configuration data stored or processed by Power Automate. Using this information, the attacker elevates their privileges, moving laterally through the network, accessing confidential files, modifying workflows to disrupt operations, or installing malware for persistent control. Because the attack requires no user interaction and can be performed remotely, the risk of widespread compromise is high.
Mitigation and Remediation
Microsoft released a security update on June 3, 2025, to patch this vulnerability. The following mitigation steps are strongly recommended:
Apply the Microsoft security update immediately on all instances of Power Automate for Desktop.
Verify that all Power Automate deployments are patched to prevent exploitation.
Monitor network traffic for suspicious activities related to Power Automate services.
Restrict network access to Power Automate services to trusted users and systems only.
Implement network segmentation to limit the spread of potential attacks.
Enforce least privilege access controls to minimize the impact of any compromised accounts or services.