CVE-2020-24356: Local Privilege Escalation in cloudflared

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-10-02 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-427

Description

`cloudflared` versions prior to 2020.8.1 contain a local privilege escalation vulnerability on Windows systems. When run on a Windows system, `cloudflared` searches for configuration files which could be abused by a malicious entity to execute commands as a privileged user. Version 2020.8.1 fixes this issue.

Affected products

cloudflared: before 2020.8.1 — fixed in 2020.8.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: cloudflared 2020.8.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/security/advisories/GHSA-hgwp-4vp4-qmm2
https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/security/advisories/GHSA-hgwp-4vp4-qmm2

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