CVE-2024-38068 is a vulnerability classified under CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) affecting the Windows Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) server component in Microsoft Windows 10 Version 1809 (build 10.0.17763.0). The OCSP server is responsible for providing real-time certificate status information, a critical function in validating digital certificates and maintaining secure communications. This vulnerability allows an unauthenticated attacker to send specially crafted requests to the OCSP server, causing excessive consumption of system resources such as CPU or memory. This resource exhaustion leads to a denial of service (DoS) condition, making the OCSP service unavailable and potentially impacting dependent applications and services that rely on certificate validation. The CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 reflects a high severity, with attack vector being network-based (AV:N), no privileges required (PR:N), and no user interaction needed (UI:N). The impact is limited to availability (A:H) with no confidentiality or integrity loss. The vulnerability was reserved in June 2024 and published in July 2024, with no known exploits in the wild at the time of reporting. No official patches were linked yet, indicating that mitigation may currently rely on workarounds or network controls. The vulnerability affects a specific Windows 10 version (1809), which is still in use in some enterprise environments despite being an older release. Given the critical role of OCSP in certificate validation, disruption could cascade to multiple dependent services and applications.

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2024-38068 is the potential denial of service of OCSP servers running on Windows 10 Version 1809 systems. This can disrupt certificate validation processes, leading to failures in establishing trusted TLS/SSL connections, authentication mechanisms, and secure communications. Critical infrastructure sectors such as finance, healthcare, government, and telecommunications that rely on OCSP for real-time certificate status checks may experience service outages or degraded security posture. The unavailability of OCSP responses can cause client applications to reject certificates or delay connections, impacting business continuity and user experience. Additionally, organizations using legacy Windows 10 1809 systems in their network perimeter or internal PKI infrastructure are at higher risk. Although no confidentiality or integrity impact is reported, the availability disruption can indirectly affect operational security and compliance with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, which mandates secure and reliable data processing environments. The ease of exploitation (no authentication or user interaction required) increases the threat level, especially in exposed network environments.

1. Prioritize identification and inventory of all Windows 10 Version 1809 systems running OCSP services within the organization. 2. Apply official Microsoft security patches promptly once they become available to address CVE-2024-38068. 3. Until patches are released, implement network-level access controls such as firewall rules or network segmentation to restrict access to OCSP servers only to trusted clients and internal systems. 4. Monitor OCSP server resource usage and network traffic for signs of abnormal spikes or potential exploitation attempts. 5. Consider deploying rate limiting or traffic filtering mechanisms on OCSP endpoints to mitigate resource exhaustion attacks. 6. Evaluate the feasibility of upgrading affected systems to a supported and patched Windows version to reduce exposure to legacy vulnerabilities. 7. Review and update incident response plans to include detection and mitigation steps for OCSP-related denial of service events. 8. Engage with certificate authority providers to understand alternative certificate validation methods or fallback mechanisms in case of OCSP service disruption. 9. Educate IT and security teams about this vulnerability and the importance of maintaining up-to-date systems and network defenses.