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-22892.

Avast Free Antivirus AvastSvc Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Avast Free Antivirus. 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 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-23731.

Avast Free Antivirus AvastSvc Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Avast Free Antivirus. 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 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-22272.

Avast Free Antivirus AvastSvc Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Avast Free Antivirus. 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 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-22963.

Avast Premium Security Sandbox Protection Link Following Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Avast Premium 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 implementation of the sandbox feature. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to create arbitrary namespace objects. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. . Was ZDI-CAN-20383.

Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in TuneupSvc in Gen Digital Inc. Avast Cleanup Premium Version 24.2.16593.17810 on Windows 10 Pro x64 allows local attackers to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM via creating a symbolic link and leveraging a TOCTTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) attack.

Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in NortonUtilitiesSvc in Norton Utilities Ultimate Version 24.2.16862.6344 on Windows 10 Pro x64 allows local attackers to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM via the creation of a symbolic link and leveraging a TOCTTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) attack.

Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in TuneupSvc in Avast Cleanup Premium Version 24.2.16593.17810 on Windows 10 Pro x64 allows local attackers to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM via creating a symbolic link and leveraging a TOCTTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) attack.

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.

Multiple privilege escalation vulnerabilities in Avast Antivirus prior to 20.4 allow a local user to gain elevated privileges by calling unnecessarily powerful internal methods of the main antivirus service which could lead to the (1) arbitrary file delete, (2) write and (3) reset security.

Double fetch in sandbox kernel driver in Avast/AVG Antivirus <25.3  on windows allows local attacker to escalate privelages via pool overflow.

Privilege escalation vulnerability in Avast Antivirus prior to 20.4 allows a local user to gain elevated privileges by "hollowing" trusted process which could lead to the bypassing of Avast self-defense.

Heap-based buffer overflow in the Avast virtualization driver (aswSnx.sys) in Avast Internet Security, Pro Antivirus, Premier, and Free Antivirus before 11.1.2253 allows local users to gain privileges via a Unicode file path in an IOCTL request.

Avast SecureLine 5.5.522.0 contains an unquoted service path vulnerability that allows local users to potentially execute code with elevated system privileges. Attackers can exploit the unquoted path in the service configuration to inject malicious code that would execute with LocalSystem account permissions during service startup.

An issue was discovered in Avast Antivirus before 20. The aswTask RPC endpoint for the TaskEx library in the Avast Service (AvastSvc.exe) allows attackers to achieve Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) via RPC.

Avast Premium Security Sandbox Protection Incorrect Authorization Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Avast Premium 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 implementation of the sandbox feature. The issue results from incorrect authorization. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code outside the sandbox at medium integrity. . Was ZDI-CAN-20178.

A Local Privilege Escalation issue was discovered in Avast Secure Browser 76.0.1659.101. The vulnerability is due to an insecure ACL set by the AvastBrowserUpdate.exe (which is running as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM) when AvastSecureBrowser.exe checks for new updates. When the update check is triggered, the elevated process cleans the ACL of the Update.ini file in %PROGRAMDATA%\Avast Software\Browser\Update\ and sets all privileges to group Everyone. Because any low-privileged user can create, delete, or modify the Update.ini file stored in this location, an attacker with low privileges can create a hard link named Update.ini in this folder, and make it point to a file writable by NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. Once AvastBrowserUpdate.exe is triggered by the update check functionality, the DACL is set to a misconfigured value on the crafted Update.ini and, consequently, to the target file that was previously not writable by the low-privileged attacker.

Avast Free Antivirus prior to 19.1.2360 stores user credentials in memory upon login, which allows local users to obtain sensitive information by dumping AvastUI.exe application memory and parsing the data.

Norton, Avira, Avast and AVG Antivirus for Windows may be susceptible to a Privilege Escalation vulnerability, which is a type of issue whereby an attacker may attempt to compromise the software application to gain elevated access to resources that are normally protected from an application or user.

A sym-linked file accessed via the repair function in Avast Antivirus <24.2 on Windows may allow user to elevate privilege to delete arbitrary files or run processes as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. The vulnerability exists within the "Repair" (settings -> troubleshooting -> repair) feature, which attempts to delete a file in the current user's AppData directory as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. A low-privileged user can make a pseudo-symlink and a junction folder and point to a file on the system. This can provide a low-privileged user an Elevation of Privilege to win a race-condition which will re-create the system files and make Windows callback to a specially-crafted file which could be used to launch a privileged shell instance. This issue affects Avast Antivirus prior to 24.2.

This vulnerability allows local attackers to delete arbitrary directories on affected installations of Avast Premium Security 20.8.2429 (Build 20.8.5653.561). 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 AvastSvc.exe module. By creating a directory junction, an attacker can abuse the service to delete a directory. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to create a denial-of-service condition on the system. Was ZDI-CAN-12082.

The VPN service in AVAST SecureLine before 5.6.4982.470 allows local users to write to arbitrary files via an Object Manager symbolic link from the log directory (which has weak permissions).

In Avast Antivirus before 19.4, a local administrator can trick the product into renaming arbitrary files by replacing the Logs\Update.log file with a symlink. The next time the product attempts to write to the log file, the target of the symlink is renamed. This defect can be exploited to rename a critical product file (e.g., AvastSvc.exe), causing the product to fail to start on the next system restart.

Avast Free Antivirus Link Following Denial-of-Service Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to create a denial-of-service condition on affected installations of Avast Free Antivirus. 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 Service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to create a folder. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to create a denial-of-service condition on the system. Was ZDI-CAN-22806.

(1) oo-analytics-export and (2) oo-analytics-import in the openshift-origin-broker-util package in Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 1 and 2 allow local users to have unspecified impact via a symlink attack on an unspecified file in /tmp.

G DATA Total Security GDBackupSvc Service 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 GDBackupSvc service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to create a file with a permissive DACL. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-20694.

Improper link resolution before file access in the Nomad module of the 1E Client, in versions prior to 25.3, enables an attacker with local unprivileged access on a Windows system to delete arbitrary files on the device by exploiting symbolic links.

Tanium addressed a local privilege escalation vulnerability in Patch Endpoint Tools.

A vulnerability was detected in ermig1979 AntiDupl up to 2.3.12. Impacted is an unknown function of the file AntiDupl.NET.WinForms.exe of the component Delete Duplicate Image Handler. The manipulation results in link following. The attack is only possible with local access. The vendor was contacted early about this disclosure but did not respond in any way.

A link following privilege escalation vulnerability in Trend Micro Apex One (on-prem and SaaS) and Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security (10.0 SP1 and Services) could allow a local attacker to create a specially crafted file with arbitrary content which could grant local privilege escalation on the affected system. Please note: an attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.

Exim 4 before 4.94.2 allows Execution with Unnecessary Privileges. Because Exim operates as root in the log directory (owned by a non-root user), a symlink or hard link attack allows overwriting critical root-owned files anywhere on the filesystem.

Improper Link Resolution Before File Access in the AWS VPN Client for macOS versions 1.3.2- 5.2.0 allows a local user to execute code with elevated privileges. Insufficient validation checks on the log destination directory during log rotation could allow a non-administrator user to create a symlink from a client log file to a privileged location. On log rotation, this could lead to code execution with root privileges if the user made crafted API calls which injected arbitrary code into the log file. We recommend users upgrade to AWS VPN Client for macOS 5.2.1 or the latest version.

Windows Remote Access Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

kwallet-pam in KDE KWallet before 5.12.6 allows local users to obtain ownership of arbitrary files via a symlink attack.

Symbolic link manipulation vulnerability in McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) for Windows prior to 10.7.0 February 2020 Update allows authenticated local user to potentially gain an escalation of privileges by pointing the link to files which the user which not normally have permission to alter via carefully creating symbolic links from the ENS log file directory.

Windows Setup Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Parallels Desktop Technical Data Reporter Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Parallels Desktop. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target host system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the Technical Data Reporter component. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to change the permissions of arbitrary files. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of root. Was ZDI-CAN-25014.

An issue was discovered in Quagga through 1.2.4. Unsafe chown/chmod operations in the suggested spec file allow users (with control of the non-root-owned directory /etc/quagga) to escalate their privileges to root upon package installation or update.

In Cylance CylancePROTECT before 1470, an unprivileged local user can obtain SYSTEM privileges because users have Modify access to the %PROGRAMFILES%\Cylance\Desktop\log folder, the CyUpdate process grants users Modify access to new files created in this folder, and a new file can be a symlink chain to a pathname of an arbitrary DLL that CyUpdate uses.

Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in System Speedup Service in Avira Operations GmbH Avira Prime Version 1.1.96.2 on Windows 10 x64 allows local attackers to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM via creating a symbolic link and leveraging a TOCTTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) attack.

Wacom Center WTabletServicePro Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Wacom Center. 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 WTabletServicePro process. 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-24304.

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.

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.

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.

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 delete arbitrary files. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-23402.

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.

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.

VIPRE Advanced Security 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-22314.

NVIDIA Windows GPU Display Driver (all versions) contains a vulnerability in the user mode video driver trace logger component. When an attacker has access to the system and creates a hard link, the software does not check for hard link attacks. This behavior may lead to code execution, denial of service, or escalation of privileges.

Check Point ZoneAlarm Extreme Security Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of Check Point ZoneAlarm Extreme 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 Forensic Recorder service. By creating a symbolic link, an attacker can abuse the service to overwrite arbitrary files. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Was ZDI-CAN-21677.