Windows messages provide a way for interactive processes to react to user events (e.g., keystrokes or mouse movements) and communicate with other interactive processes. One such message, WM_TIMER, is sent at the expiration of a timer, and can be used to cause a process to execute a timer callback function. A security vulnerability results because it's possible for one process in the interactive desktop to use a WM_TIMER message to cause another process to execute a callback function at the address of its choice, even if the second process did not set a timer. If that second process had higher privileges than the first, this would provide the first process with a way of exercising them.

By default, several of the processes running in the interactive desktop do so with LocalSystem privileges. As a result, an attacker who had the ability to log onto a system interactively could potentially run a program that would levy a WM_TIMER request upon such a process, causing it to take any action the attacker specified. This would give the attacker complete control over the system.