CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-45492 — Sage Sage 300 security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.8

In Sage 300 ERP (formerly accpac) through 6.8.x, the installer configures the C:\Sage\Sage300\Runtime directory to be the first entry in the system-wide PATH environment variable. However, this directory is writable by unprivileged users because the Sage installer fails to set explicit permissions and therefore inherits weak permissions from the C:\ folder. Because entries in the system-wide PATH variable are included in the search order for DLLs, an attacker could perform DLL search-order hijacking to escalate their privileges to SYSTEM. Furthermore, if the Global Search or Web Screens functionality is enabled, then privilege escalation is possible via the GlobalSearchService and Sage.CNA.WindowsService services, again via DLL search-order hijacking because unprivileged users would have modify permissions on the application directory. Note that while older versions of the software default to installing in %PROGRAMFILES(X86)% (which would allow the Sage folder to inherit strong permissions, making the installation not vulnerable), the official Sage 300 installation guides for those versions recommend installing in C:\Sage, which would make the installation vulnerable.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.8 (3.1)
Published
2022-07-14
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-732

Affected products

  • sage / sage_300

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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