CVE-2018-6856
Sophos SafeGuard Enterprise before 8.00.5, SafeGuard Easy before 7.00.3, and SafeGuard LAN Crypt before 3.95.2 are vulnerable to Local Privilege Escalation via IOCTL 0x8020601C.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.61%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
Sophos SafeGuard Enterprise before 8.00.5, SafeGuard Easy before 7.00.3, and SafeGuard LAN Crypt before 3.95.2 are vulnerable to Local Privilege Escalation via IOCTL 0x8020601C. By crafting an input buffer we can control the execution path to the point where a global variable will be written to a user controlled address. We can take advantage of this condition to zero-out the pointer to the security descriptor in the object header of a privileged process or modify the security descriptor itself and run code in the context of a process running as SYSTEM.
- CVSS 3.0
- 7.8 HIGHCVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS
- 0.61% probability · 49th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-119
- Affected
- sophos/safeguard easy device encryption client · sophos/safeguard enterprise client · sophos/safeguard lan crypt client
- Source
- cve@mitre.org
EPSS 0.6% since 27 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
References
- http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2018/Jul/20Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/131934Patch, Vendor Advisory
- https://labs.nettitude.com/blog/cve-2018-6851-to-cve-2018-6857-sophos-privilege-escalation-vulnerabilities/Exploit, Technical Description, Third Party Advisory
- http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2018/Jul/20Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/131934Patch, Vendor Advisory
- https://labs.nettitude.com/blog/cve-2018-6851-to-cve-2018-6857-sophos-privilege-escalation-vulnerabilities/Exploit, Technical Description, Third Party Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.