CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2024-54131 — The Kolide Agent (aka: Launcher) is the lightweight agent designed to work with Kolide's service

High CVSS 7.3

The Kolide Agent (aka: Launcher) is the lightweight agent designed to work with Kolide's service. An implementation bug in the Kolide Agent (known as `launcher`) allows for local privilege escalation to the SYSTEM user on Windows 10 and 11. The bug was introduced in version 1.5.3 when launcher started storing upgraded binaries in the ProgramData directory. This move to the new directory meant the launcher root directory inherited default permissions that are not as strict as the previous location. These incorrect default permissions in conjunction with an omitted SystemDrive environmental variable (when launcher starts osqueryd), allows a malicious actor with access to the local Windows device to successfully place an arbitrary DLL into the osqueryd process's search path. Under some circumstances, this DLL will be executed when osqueryd performs a WMI query. This combination of events could then allow the attacker to escalate their privileges to SYSTEM. Impacted versions include versions >= 1.5.3 and the fix has been released in 1.12.3.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.3 (4.0)
Published
2024-12-03
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
windows/system
Weaknesses
CWE-276, CWE-456

Affected products

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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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