CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-10204 — PureVPN 6.0.1 for Windows suffers from a SYSTEM privilege escalation vulnerability in its "sevpnclient" service

High CVSS 9

PureVPN 6.0.1 for Windows suffers from a SYSTEM privilege escalation vulnerability in its "sevpnclient" service. When configured to use the OpenVPN protocol, the "sevpnclient" service executes "openvpn.exe" using the OpenVPN config file located at %PROGRAMDATA%\purevpn\config\config.ovpn. This file allows "Write" permissions to users in the "Everyone" group. An authenticated attacker may modify this file to specify a dynamic library plugin that should run for every new VPN connection attempt. This plugin will execute code in the context of the SYSTEM account.

Severity
High
CVSS
9 (2.0)
Published
2018-04-18
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
windows/system
Weaknesses
CWE-732

Affected products

  • purevpn / purevpn / 6.0.1

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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