CVE-2024-13944: Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Norton Utilities

Overview

The cybersecurity community has recently identified a significant vulnerability, CVE-2024-13944, in Norton Utilities Ultimate Version 24.2.16862.6344 running on Windows 10 Pro x64 systems. This vulnerability could lead to local privilege escalation, enabling local attackers to execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM. Given the widespread use of Norton Utilities in many businesses and homes worldwide, this vulnerability potentially exposes a large number of systems to compromise. This vulnerability matters because it could potentially lead to system compromise or data leakage, posing a significant risk to data confidentiality and integrity.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2024-13944
Severity: High (7.8 CVSS score)
Attack Vector: Local
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

Norton Utilities Ultimate | Version 24.2.16862.6344

How the Exploit Works

The exploit involves taking advantage of the NortonUtilitiesSvc in Norton Utilities Ultimate. This service has a flaw in its handling of symbolic links, which a local attacker can leverage to escalate their privileges. The attacker first creates a symbolic link and then exploits a TOCTTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) race condition to execute arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges.

Conceptual Example Code

This is a
conceptual
example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. The attacker would first create a symbolic link to a sensitive file, then manipulate the timing to exploit the TOCTTOU vulnerability.

# Attacker creates a symbolic link to a sensitive file
ln -s /path/to/sensitive/file /path/to/symlink
# Attacker exploits the TOCTTOU vulnerability
# to overwrite the sensitive file with arbitrary code
echo "arbitrary code" > /path/to/symlink

This example is simplified and may not represent the exact steps an attacker would take.

Mitigation Guidance

Users are strongly advised to apply the vendor patch as soon as possible to mitigate this vulnerability. If a patch cannot be immediately applied, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) may provide temporary mitigation. However, these are not long-term solutions and the system will remain vulnerable until the patch is applied. Regularly updating and patching software is a best practice in cybersecurity and can prevent many such vulnerabilities from being exploited.