An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Windows AppX Deployment Service (AppXSVC) improperly handles hard links, aka 'Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1129.

An arbitrary file deletion vulnerability exists in PaperCut NG/MF, specifically affecting Windows servers with Web Print enabled. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must first obtain local login access to the Windows Server hosting PaperCut NG/MF and be capable of executing low-privilege code directly on the server via the web-print-hot-folder. Important: In most installations, this risk is mitigated by the default Windows Server configuration, which restricts local login access to Administrators only. However, this vulnerability could pose a risk to customers who allow non-administrative users to log into the local console of the Windows environment hosting the PaperCut NG/MF application server. Update: This CVE has been updated in May 2025 to update the fixed version and fix process. Please refer to the May 2025 Security Bulletin. Note: This CVE has been split from CVE-2024-3037.

Kevin Backhouse discovered that apport would read a user-supplied configuration file with elevated privileges. By replacing the file with a symbolic link, a user could get apport to read any file on the system as root, with unknown consequences.

RenderDoc before 1.27 allows local privilege escalation via a symlink attack. It relies on the /tmp/RenderDoc directory regardless of ownership.

Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

AVG AntiVirus Free AVGSvc Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of AVG AntiVirus Free. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the AVG Service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to delete a file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-22260.

NCP Secure Enterprise Client before 10.15 r47589 allows a symbolic link attack on enumusb.reg via Support Assistant.

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in the way the Task Scheduler Service validates certain file operations. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain elevated privileges on a victim system. To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker would require unprivileged code execution on a victim system. The security update addresses the vulnerability by correctly validating file operations.

Panda Security Dome Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Panda Security Dome. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the PSANHost executable. By creating a junction, an attacker can abuse the service to create arbitrary files. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-23413.

Wacom Drivers for Windows Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Wacom Drivers for Windows. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the Tablet Service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to create a file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-16857.

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Windows AppX Deployment Service (AppXSVC) improperly handles hard links. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run processes in an elevated context. An attacker could then install programs; view, change or delete data. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would first have to log on to the system. An attacker could then run a specially crafted application that could exploit the vulnerability and take control of an affected system. The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting how Windows AppX Deployment Service handles hard links.

Panda Security Dome Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Panda Security Dome. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the PSANHost service. By creating a junction, an attacker can abuse the service to create an arbitrary file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-23375.

AVG AntiVirus Free AVGSvc Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of AVG AntiVirus Free. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the AVG Service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to delete a folder. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-22960.

Avast Cleanup Premium Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Avast Cleanup Premium. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the Avast Cleanup Service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to delete a file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-22894.

Comodo Internet Security Pro cmdagent Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Comodo Internet Security Pro. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the cmdagent executable. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the agent to delete a file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-22831.

Comodo Internet Security Pro cmdagent Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Comodo Internet Security Pro. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the cmdagent executable. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the agent to delete a file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-22829.

VIPRE Advanced Security SBAMSvc Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of VIPRE Advanced Security. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the Anti Malware Service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to delete a file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-22238.

SysInternals Sysmon for Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Poly Plantronics Hub Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Poly Plantronics Hub. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the Spokes Update Service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to delete a file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-18271.

VIPRE Advanced Security PMAgent Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of VIPRE Advanced Security. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the Patch Management Agent. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the agent to delete a file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-22315.

runc is a CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification. It was found that AppArmor can be bypassed when `/proc` inside the container is symlinked with a specific mount configuration. This issue has been fixed in runc version 1.1.5, by prohibiting symlinked `/proc`. See PR #3785 for details. users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should avoid using an untrusted container image.

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Windows AppX Deployment Service (AppXSVC) improperly handles hard links, aka 'Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-0730, CVE-2019-0731, CVE-2019-0796, CVE-2019-0805, CVE-2019-0836.

In Malwarebytes before 4.5.23, a symbolic link may be used delete any arbitrary file on the system by exploiting the local quarantine system. It can also lead to privilege escalation in certain scenarios.

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Windows Error Reporting manager improperly handles hard links, aka 'Windows Error Reporting Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1315, CVE-2019-1342.

A security agent link following vulnerability in the Trend Micro Apex One agent could allow a local attacker to quarantine a file, delete the original folder and replace with a junction to an arbitrary location, ultimately leading to an arbitrary file dropped to an arbitrary location. Please note: an attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in the way that the iphlpsvc.dll handles file creation allowing for a file overwrite, aka 'Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1420, CVE-2019-1423.

A link following vulnerability in the scanning function of Trend Micro Apex One agent could allow a local attacker to escalate privileges on affected installations. Please note: an attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in the way that the StartTileData.dll handles file creation in protected locations, aka 'Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1420, CVE-2019-1422.

A UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability in python-postorius of openSUSE Leap 15.2, Factory allows local attackers to escalate from users postorius or postorius-admin to root. This issue affects: openSUSE Leap 15.2 python-postorius version 1.3.2-lp152.1.2 and prior versions. openSUSE Factory python-postorius version 1.3.4-2.1 and prior versions.

A security agent link following vulnerability in Trend Micro Apex One could allow a local attacker to exploit the vulnerability by changing a specific file into a pseudo-symlink, allowing privilege escalation on affected installations. Please note: an attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.

A vulnerability has been discovered in cloudflared's installer (<= 2023.3.0) for Windows 32-bits devices that allows a local attacker with no administrative permissions to escalate their privileges on the affected device. This vulnerability exists because the MSI installer used by cloudflared relied on a world-writable directory. An attacker with local access to the device (without Administrator rights) can use symbolic links to trick the MSI installer into deleting files in locations that the attacker would otherwise have no access to. By creating a symlink from the world-writable directory to the target file, the attacker can manipulate the MSI installer's repair functionality to delete the target file during the repair process. Exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to delete important system files or replace them with malicious files, potentially leading to the affected device being compromised. The cloudflared client itself is not affected by this vulnerability, only the installer for 32-bit Windows devices.

Inappropriate implementation in installer in Google Chrome on OS X prior to 83.0.4103.61 allowed a local attacker to perform privilege escalation via a crafted file.

mysql_install_db in MariaDB 10.4.7 through 10.4.11 allows privilege escalation from the mysql user account to root because chown and chmod are performed unsafely, as demonstrated by a symlink attack on a chmod 04755 of auth_pam_tool_dir/auth_pam_tool. NOTE: this does not affect the Oracle MySQL product, which implements mysql_install_db differently.

Microsoft Install Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when the Windows AppX Deployment Server improperly handles junctions.To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would first have to gain execution on the victim system, aka 'Windows Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability'. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1215, CVE-2019-1278, CVE-2019-1303.

Local privilege escalation during installation due to improper soft link handling. The following products are affected: Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office (Windows) before build 40278.

Improper link resolution before file access ('link following') in Microsoft PC Manager allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

A link following vulnerability in the Damage Cleanup Engine component of Trend Micro Apex One and Trend Micro Apex One as a Service could allow a local attacker to escalate privileges by creating a symbolic link and abusing the service to delete a file. Please note: an attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.

This issue was addressed with improved handling of symlinks. This issue is fixed in macOS Sonoma 14.4. An app may be able to create symlinks to protected regions of the disk.

uptimed before 0.4.6-r1 on Gentoo allows local users (with access to the uptimed user account) to gain root privileges by creating a hard link within the /var/spool/uptimed directory, because there is an unsafe chown -R call.

A vulnerability was found in Freedom of the Press SecureDrop. It has been rated as critical. Affected by this issue is some unknown functionality of the file gpg-agent.conf. The manipulation leads to symlink following. Local access is required to approach this attack. The name of the patch is b0526a06f8ca713cce74b63e00d3730618d89691. It is recommended to apply a patch to fix this issue. The identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-215972.

A link following vulnerability in Trend Micro Deep Security 20.0 agents could allow a local attacker to escalate privileges on affected installations. Please note: an attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.

Local privilege escalation due to improper soft link handling. The following products are affected: Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office (Windows) before build 40107.

Improper link resolution before file access ('link following') in Windows AppX Deployment Service allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

multipath-tools 0.7.7 through 0.9.x before 0.9.2 allows local users to obtain root access, as exploited in conjunction with CVE-2022-41974. Local users able to access /dev/shm can change symlinks in multipathd due to incorrect symlink handling, which could lead to controlled file writes outside of the /dev/shm directory. This could be used indirectly for local privilege escalation to root.

NVIDIA GeForce Experience contains a vulnerability in the NVContainer component, where a user without administrator privileges can create a symbolic link to a file that requires elevated privileges to write to or modify, which may lead to denial of service, escalation of privilege or limited data tampering.

A link following vulnerability in Trend Micro Deep Security 20 and Cloud One - Workload Security Agent for Windows could allow a local attacker to escalate privileges on affected installations. Please note: an attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.

Improper link resolution before file access ('link following') in Windows Update Service allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

Visual Studio Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

G DATA Total Security Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of G DATA Total Security. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the G DATA Backup Service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to delete a file. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-22312.