# CVE-2021-36002: Privilege escalation in Captivate

> An attacker can escalate privileges by planting a malicious file in a specific directory, requiring the victim to launch the Captivate Installer.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/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:** 1 Sep 2021
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-p4pq-252w-q8gg

## What is CVE-2021-36002?

CVE-2021-36002 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Adobe Captivate, published on 1 Sep 2021. 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

Adobe Captivate version 11.5.5 (and earlier) is affected by an Creation of Temporary File In Directory With Incorrect Permissions vulnerability that could result in privilege escalation in the context of the current user. The attacker must plant a malicious file in a particular location of the victim's machine. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that a victim must launch the Captivate Installer.

Weakness: CWE-668 (Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere), CWE-379 (Creation of Temporary File in Directory with Insecure Permissions)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-36002?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Adobe Captivate.

## How do I fix CVE-2021-36002?

No fix has been published for CVE-2021-36002 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2021-36002 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-36002 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Adobe Captivate

- [CVE-2017-3098](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-3098/): Path traversal in Adobe Captivate 9 and earlier. (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2010-3191](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-3191/): Path traversal in n/a (critical 9.3)
- [CVE-2017-3087](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-3087/): Information disclosure in Adobe Captivate 9 and earlier. (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2005-4708](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2005-4708/): Privilege escalation in n/a (high 7.2)
- [CVE-2021-21011](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-21011/): Uncontrolled Search Path Element in Adobe Captivate 2019 (high 7.0)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2021-36002 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2021-36002 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Adobe Captivate, published on 1 Sep 2021. 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-2021-36002 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Adobe Captivate. 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-2021-36002/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-36002/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-36002
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-36002
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-36002

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-36002/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.