What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2022-4149: Local privilege escalation using log file

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.0 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2023-06-15 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-367

Description

The Netskope client service (prior to R96) on Windows runs as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM which writes log files to a writable directory (C:\Users\Public\netSkope) for a standard user. The files are created and written with a SYSTEM account except one file (logplaceholder) which inherits permission giving all users full access control list. Netskope client restricts access to this file by allowing only read permissions as a standard user. Whenever the Netskope client service restarts, it deletes the logplaceholder and recreates, creating a race condition, which can be exploited by a malicious local user to create the file and set ACL permissions on the file. Once the file is created by a malicious user with proper ACL permissions, all files within C:\Users\Public\netSkope\ becomes modifiable by the unprivileged user. By using Windows pseudo-symlink, these files can be pointed to other places in the system and thus malicious users will be able to elevate privileges.

Affected products

• Netskope Client: before 100 — fixed in 100

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Netskope Client 100. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://www.netskope.com/company/security-compliance-and-assurance/security-advisories-and-disclosures/netskope-security-advisory-nskpsa-2023-002
• https://www.netskope.com/company/security-compliance-and-assurance/security-advisories-and-disclosures/netskope-security-advisory-nskpsa-2023-002

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