An issue was discovered in BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Windows through 5.6. When specifying a program to elevate, it can typically be found within the Program Files (x86) folder and therefore uses the %ProgramFiles(x86)% environment variable. However, when this same policy gets pushed to a 32bit machine, this environment variable does not exist. Therefore, since the standard user can create a user level environment variable, they can repoint this variable to any folder the user has full control of. Then, the folder structure can be created in such a way that a rule matches and arbitrary code runs elevated.
CVSS v4.0 Metrics
Exploitability
Attack VectorLocal
ComplexityLow
RequirementsPresent
PrivilegesLow
User InteractionNone
Threat
Exploit MaturityUnreported
Vulnerable System
ConfidentialityHigh
IntegrityHigh
AvailabilityHigh
Subsequent System
ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityNone
AvailabilityNone
Supplemental
SafetyNegligible
AutomatableYes
RecoveryAutomatic
Value DensityConcentrated
UrgencyMedium
Change Log
| Date | Source | Changes | Score |
|---|
| 2026-07-21 | nvd | AV: P→L, AC: H→L, PR: H→L, UI: A→N, VC: N→H, VI: N→H, VA: N→H | 0.0 → 4.4 |
| 2026-07-21 | cve.org | initial, patch: Unavailable | 0.0 |
Affected Software
| Vendor | Product | Version |
|---|
| beyondtrust | privilege_management_for_windows | ≤ 5.6 |
| beyondtrust | privilege_management_for_windows | 5.6 |
Published: 2023-12-12