CVE-2024-38015 is a vulnerability identified in the Windows Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) component of Microsoft Windows Server 2019, specifically version 10.0.17763.0. The issue is categorized under CWE-400, which pertains to uncontrolled resource consumption. This vulnerability allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to send specially crafted requests to the RD Gateway service, causing excessive consumption of system resources such as memory or CPU. This resource exhaustion leads to a denial of service (DoS) condition, rendering the RD Gateway service unavailable to legitimate users. The vulnerability does not impact confidentiality or integrity, as it does not allow data leakage or modification, but it severely affects availability. The attack vector is network-based (AV:N), requires no privileges (PR:N), and no user interaction (UI:N), making it easier to exploit remotely. The scope is unchanged (S:U), meaning the impact is limited to the vulnerable component without affecting other system components. The CVSS v3.1 base score is 7.5, reflecting high severity due to the ease of exploitation and significant impact on service availability. No public exploits have been reported yet, and no patches were linked at the time of publication, indicating that organizations should prioritize monitoring and interim mitigations until official updates are available.

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2024-38015 is the disruption of remote access services provided via the Windows RD Gateway. Many enterprises, government agencies, and critical infrastructure operators in Europe rely on RD Gateway to securely enable remote desktop connections for employees and contractors. A successful denial of service attack could lead to widespread outages of remote access capabilities, hindering business operations, remote work, and incident response activities. This is particularly critical in sectors such as finance, healthcare, public administration, and manufacturing, where continuous remote access is essential. Additionally, prolonged service outages could increase operational costs and reduce productivity. Although there is no direct data breach risk, the loss of availability can indirectly affect compliance with regulations such as GDPR, which mandates operational resilience. The lack of authentication requirement and remote exploitability increase the risk profile, especially for organizations with exposed RD Gateway endpoints.

1. Monitor official Microsoft security advisories closely and apply patches promptly once released to address CVE-2024-38015. 2. Until patches are available, implement network-level protections such as firewall rules to restrict access to RD Gateway services only to trusted IP addresses or VPNs. 3. Deploy rate limiting or connection throttling on RD Gateway endpoints to mitigate the risk of resource exhaustion from excessive requests. 4. Use network segmentation to isolate RD Gateway servers from other critical infrastructure, limiting the blast radius of potential attacks. 5. Enable detailed logging and monitoring on RD Gateway servers to detect unusual traffic patterns indicative of exploitation attempts. 6. Consider deploying Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) or Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) with signatures or heuristics to detect and block malformed or excessive RD Gateway requests. 7. Educate IT staff on the vulnerability and ensure incident response plans include steps for RD Gateway service outages. 8. Review and minimize the exposure of RD Gateway services to the public internet where possible, favoring VPN or zero-trust access models.