Description

The GC-AGENTS-SERVICE running as part of Akamai´s Guardicore Platform Agent for Windows versions prior to v49.20.1, v50.15.0, v51.12.0, v52.2.0 is affected by a local privilege escalation vulnerability. The service will attempt to read an OpenSSL configuration file from a non-existent location that standard Windows users have default write access to. This allows an unprivileged local user to create a crafted "openssl.cnf" file in that location and, by specifying the path to a custom DLL file in a custom OpenSSL engine definition, execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the Guardicore Agent process. Since Guardicore Agent runs with SYSTEM privileges, this permits an unprivileged user to fully elevate privileges to SYSTEM level in this manner.

Weaknesses 1

References 4

• community.akamai.com https://community.akamai.com/customers/s/article/Windows-Agent-Vulnerability-Summary-and-Resolution
• techdocs.akamai.com https://techdocs.akamai.com/guardicore-platform-agent/changelog
• akamai.com https://www.akamai.com/blog/security/advisory-cve-2025-53841-guardicore-local-privilege-escalation
• tuv.com https://www.tuv.com/landingpage/en/vulnerability-disclosure/

Remediation