Privilege escalation in Symantec Encryption Desktop and Symantec Endpoint Encryption - #VU9526
Published: December 4, 2017
Vulnerability identifier: #VU9526
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4: 8.5 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: N/A
CWE-ID: CWE-264
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a local attacker to gain elevated privileges on the target system.
The weakness exists due to boundary error in a kernel driver, PGPwded.sys, in Symantec Encryption Desktop when processing input/output control requests (IOCTLs). A local attacker can send specially crafted input/output control requests (IOCTLs), trigger memory corruption, attain arbitrary hard disk read and write access at sector level, subsequently infect the target, gain low level persistence (MBR/VBR) and execute arbitrary code in the context of the built-in SYSTEM user account, without requiring a reboot.
Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may result in system compromise.
The weakness exists due to boundary error in a kernel driver, PGPwded.sys, in Symantec Encryption Desktop when processing input/output control requests (IOCTLs). A local attacker can send specially crafted input/output control requests (IOCTLs), trigger memory corruption, attain arbitrary hard disk read and write access at sector level, subsequently infect the target, gain low level persistence (MBR/VBR) and execute arbitrary code in the context of the built-in SYSTEM user account, without requiring a reboot.
Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may result in system compromise.
Affected software
Symantec Encryption Desktop
Symantec Endpoint Encryption
Symantec Endpoint Encryption
Remediation
Cybersecurity Help is currently unaware of any solutions addressing the vulnerability.