Nssm-2.24 Privilege Escalation Updated -

: Misconfigured permissions on nssm.exe allowed local privilege escalation. Mitigation and Defense

: When the service resumes, the system executes the malicious binary under the context of the service's account—often LocalSystem , which possesses the highest level of privileges on the Windows operating system. The attacker can now perform any action restricted to system administrators, including altering system configurations, creating or modifying data, installing malware, or creating backdoor administrator accounts.

NSSM is a highly popular open-source utility designed to run any standard executable or script as a native Windows service. nssm-2.24 privilege escalation

Ensure that standard users do not have write access to directories in the service path (e.g., C:\Program Files\ , C:\Program Files (x86)\ ). 4. Implement Security Monitoring Monitor for the creation of new services.

: An attacker gains low-level interactive access to the target system (e.g., through a compromised user account, phishing, or remote access trojan). : Misconfigured permissions on nssm

: Vulnerable to LPE because standard users could substitute the service binary. Apache CouchDB

The attacker changes the binPath to point to a malicious executable they control: NSSM is a highly popular open-source utility designed

An attacker with low-privileged access (e.g., a standard user on a compromised workstation or via a reverse shell) first enumerates all services:

This is the most common vulnerability associated with NSSM-2.24 deployments.

The vulnerability in primarily stems from the Unquoted Service Path vulnerability. While not necessarily a flaw in the NSSM binary itself, the way NSSM was typically configured or installed in older setups (or within software bundled with NSSM 2.24) created a security hole. The Mechanism: Unquoted Service Paths