CVE-2018-10169
9.8 · CRITICALOverview
CVE-2018-10169 is a critical-severity vulnerability affecting protonmail protonvpn. It was published on April 16, 2018 and has a CVSS 3.0 base score of 9.8 (CRITICAL).
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.0 base score of 9.8, rated CRITICAL. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
Technical Description
ProtonVPN 1.3.3 for Windows suffers from a SYSTEM privilege escalation vulnerability through the "ProtonVPN Service" service. This service establishes an NetNamedPipe endpoint that allows arbitrary installed applications to connect and call publicly exposed methods. The "Connect" method accepts a class instance argument that provides attacker control of the OpenVPN command line. An attacker can specify a dynamic library plugin that should run for every new VPN connection. This plugin will execute code in the context of the SYSTEM user.
Remediation
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from protonmail. Update protonvpn to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
Affected Products
| Vendor | Product | Versions | Status |
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2018-10169?
CVE-2018-10169 is a critical-severity vulnerability affecting protonmail protonvpn. It was published on April 16, 2018 and has a CVSS 3.0 base score of 9.8 (CRITICAL).
How severe is CVE-2018-10169?
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.0 base score of 9.8, rated CRITICAL. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
How do I fix or remediate CVE-2018-10169?
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from protonmail. Update protonvpn to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
How can CyberStrike help with CVE-2018-10169?
CyberStrike's AI-powered security agents can automatically detect CVE-2018-10169 across your infrastructure using autonomous pentesting, DAST scanning, and HackBrowser. The platform continuously monitors for known vulnerabilities and provides actionable remediation guidance prioritized by real-world exploitability.
How CyberStrike Helps
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