CVE-2020-36165

Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2021-01-06 · updated 2026-06-17

Description

An issue was discovered in Veritas Desktop and Laptop Option (DLO) before 9.4. On start-up, it loads the OpenSSL library from /ReleaseX64/ssl. This library attempts to load the /ReleaseX64/ssl/openssl.cnf configuration file, which does not exist. By default, on Windows systems, users can create directories under C:\. A low privileged user can create a C:/ReleaseX64/ssl/openssl.cnf configuration file to load a malicious OpenSSL engine, resulting in arbitrary code execution as SYSTEM when the service starts. This gives the attacker administrator access on the system, allowing the attacker (by default) to access all data, access all installed applications, etc. This impacts DLO server and client installations.

Affected products

Veritas Desktop And Laptop Option: before 9.4 — fixed in 9.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Veritas Desktop And Laptop Option 9.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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