# CVE-2018-5349: Privilege escalation in n/a

> Local attackers can escalate privileges to SYSTEM by placing a malicious DLL in a world-writable directory loaded by the Heimdal agent.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 22 Mar 2018
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-jxhq-c35p-v59f

## What is CVE-2018-5349?

CVE-2018-5349 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 22 Mar 2018. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability has been found in Heimdal PRO v2.2.190, but it is most likely also present in Heimdal FREE and Heimdal CORP. Faulty permissions on the directory "C:\ProgramData\Heimdal Security\Heimdal Agent" allow BUILTIN\Users to write new files to the directory. On startup, the process Heimdal.MonitorServices.exe running as SYSTEM will attempt to load version.dll from this directory. Placing a malicious version.dll in this directory will result in privilege escalation. NOTE: any affected Heimdal products are completely unrelated to the Heimdal vendor of a Kerberos 5 product on the h5l.org web site.

Weakness: CWE-732 (Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-5349?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Heimdalsecurity Heimdal.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-5349?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-5349 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-5349 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-5349 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2018-5731](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5731/): Race condition in n/a (high 7.0)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-5349 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-5349 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 22 Mar 2018. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-5349 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5349/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5349/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-5349
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-5349
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-5349

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-5349/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.