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Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2019-12572 json

A vulnerability in the London Trust Media Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN Client 1.0.2 (build 02363) for Windows could allow an authentic…

published 7y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2019-4166

cvss
7.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.9%
EPSS 0.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 61%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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.

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Exploit prediction

0.93% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 61% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/mirchr/security-research/blob/master/vulnerabilities/PIA/CVE-2019-12572.txt referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • blog.mirch.io https://blog.mirch.io/2019/06/10/cve-2019-12572-pia-windows-privilege-escalation-malicious-openssl-engine/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-427 Uncontrolled Search Path Element

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.