CVE-2019-12572

A vulnerability in the London Trust Media Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN Client 1.0.2 (build 02363) for Windows could allow an authenticated, local attacker to run arbitrary code with elevated privileges. On startup, the PIA Windows service (pia-service.exe) loads the OpenSSL library from %PROGRAMFILES%\Private Internet Access\libeay32.dll. This library attempts to load the C:\etc\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file which does not exist. By default on Windows systems, authenticated users can create directories under C:\. A low privileged user can create a C:\etc\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file to load a malicious OpenSSL engine library resulting in arbitrary code execution as SYSTEM when the service starts.

• CWE-427

• https://blog.mirch.io/2019/06/10/cve-2019-12572-pia-windows-privilege-escalation-malicious-openssl-engine/Exploit, Third Party Advisory
• https://github.com/mirchr/security-research/blob/master/vulnerabilities/PIA/CVE-2019-12572.txtExploit, Third Party Advisory
• https://blog.mirch.io/2019/06/10/cve-2019-12572-pia-windows-privilege-escalation-malicious-openssl-engine/Exploit, Third Party Advisory
• https://github.com/mirchr/security-research/blob/master/vulnerabilities/PIA/CVE-2019-12572.txtExploit, Third Party Advisory

Published

Jun 21, 2019

Last Modified

Jun 17, 2026

Status

Modified