# CVE-2020-11081: osquery susceptible to DLL search order hijacking of zlib1.dll

> Local attackers can escalate privileges by placing a malicious DLL in a user-writable PATH directory, exploiting osquery's DLL search order.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 10 Jul 2020
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-2xwp-8fv7-c5pm

## What is CVE-2020-11081?

CVE-2020-11081 is a medium-severity vulnerability in osquery, published on 10 Jul 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

osquery before version 4.4.0 enables a privilege escalation vulnerability. If a Window system is configured with a PATH that contains a user-writable directory then a local user may write a zlib1.dll DLL, which osquery will attempt to load. Since osquery runs with elevated privileges this enables local escalation. This is fixed in version 4.4.0.

Weakness: CWE-426 (Untrusted Search Path), CWE-114 (Process Control)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-11081?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linuxfoundation Osquery.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-11081?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-11081 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-11081 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-11081 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in osquery

- [CVE-2020-1887](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-1887/): Weak cryptography in Osquery (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2019-3567](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-3567/): Path traversal in osquery (high 8.1)
- [CVE-2018-6336](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6336/): Security feature bypass in osquery (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2020-26273](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-26273/): sqlite ATTACH allows some filesystem access (medium 5.2)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-11081 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-11081 is a medium-severity vulnerability in osquery, published on 10 Jul 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-11081 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: osquery. 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-2020-11081/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-11081/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-11081
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-11081
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-11081

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-11081/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.