# CVE-2018-6854: Privilege escalation in n/a

> Local attackers can exploit unsafe IOCTL handling in Sophos SafeGuard drivers to write to kernel memory, gaining SYSTEM privileges and executing arbitrary code.

- **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:** 9 Jul 2018
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-37qj-c4g3-9xvj

## What is CVE-2018-6854?

CVE-2018-6854 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 9 Jul 2018. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Sophos SafeGuard Enterprise before 8.00.5, SafeGuard Easy before 7.00.3, and SafeGuard LAN Crypt before 3.95.2 are vulnerable to Local Privilege Escalation via multiple IOCTLs, e.g., 0x8810200B, 0x8810200F, 0x8810201B, 0x8810201F, 0x8810202B, 0x8810202F, 0x8810203F, 0x8810204B, 0x88102003, 0x88102007, 0x88102013, 0x88102017, 0x88102027, 0x88102033, 0x88102037, 0x88102043, and 0x88102047. When some conditions in the user-controlled input buffer are not met, the driver writes an error code (0x2000001A) to a user-controlled address. Also, note that all the aforementioned IOCTLs use transfer type METHOD_NEITHER, which means that the I/O manager does not validate any of the supplied pointers and buffer sizes. So, even though the driver checks for input/output buffer sizes, it doesn't validate if the pointers to those buffers are actually valid. So, we can supply a pointer for the output buffer to a kernel address space address, and the error code will be written there. We can take advantage of this condition to modify the SEP_TOKEN_PRIVILEGES structure of the Token object belonging to the exploit process and grant SE_DEBUG_NAME privilege. This allows the exploit process to interact with higher privileged processes running as SYSTEM and execute code in their security context.

Weakness: CWE-119 (Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-6854?

It affects 3 products.


Products: Sophos Safeguard Easy Device Encryption Client, Sophos Safeguard Enterprise Client, Sophos Safeguard Lan Crypt Client.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-6854?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-6854 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-6854 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-6854 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2018-6851](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6851/): Privilege escalation in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2018-6852](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6852/): Privilege escalation in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2018-6853](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6853/): Privilege escalation in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2018-6855](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6855/): Privilege escalation in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2018-6856](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6856/): Privilege escalation in n/a (high 7.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-6854 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-6854 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 9 Jul 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-2018-6854 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-2018-6854/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6854/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-6854
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-6854
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-6854

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6854/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.