High severity · published Jan 27, 2020
CVE-2019-17190
A Local Privilege Escalation issue was discovered in Avast Secure Browser 76.0.1659.101
7.8
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
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.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 44% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
SB
Secure Browser · Avast
76.0.1659.101 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-17190
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-17190
Third Party Advisory
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/156844/Avast-Secure-Browser-76.0.1659.101-Local-Privilege-Escalation.html
Mailing List
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2020/Mar/25
Vendor Advisory
https://www.avast.com/bug-bounty-credits/en/a-tribute-to-our-security-research-community
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