CVE-2013-6773
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedSplunk 5.0.3 has an Unquoted Service Path in Windows for Universal Forwarder which can allow an attacker to escalate privileges
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceSplunk Universal Forwarder 5.0.3 for Windows registers a service with an executable path that is not enclosed in quotation marks. Because the path contains spaces, Windows will attempt to locate and execute programs in intermediate directories before the actual executable, allowing an attacker with write access to those paths to achieve privilege escalation by placing a malicious executable.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data>= 5.0, < 5.0.3CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check if Splunk Universal Forwarder is installedOpen Windows Control Panel > Programs and Features, or run 'wmic product get name,version' in command prompt, and look for Splunk Universal ForwarderAffected if Splunk Universal Forwarder is not present on the system
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Verify the installed version is within affected rangeNote the version from the previous check. Compare it to the affected versions: 5.0.x where x is less than 3 (5.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2)Affected if Version is 5.0, 5.0.1, or 5.0.2
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Identify the Splunk Forwarder service nameOpen Services (services.msc) and locate the Splunk Universal Forwarder service, or run 'sc query type= service' to list services and find one containing 'splunk' in the nameAffected if A service with 'splunk' in its name exists
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Inspect the service executable path in the registryRun 'regedit', navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\<splunk_service_name>', and check the value of the 'ImagePath' key. Alternatively, run 'sc qc <service_name>'Affected if The ImagePath value contains a path with spaces and is NOT enclosed in quotation marks
The environment is affected if Splunk Universal Forwarder version 5.0, 5.0.1, or 5.0.2 is installed and its Windows service registration shows an unquoted executable path containing spaces.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor data5.0.3
Enclose the service's executable path in quotes in the Windows registry under HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\, or reinstall the application ensuring the path is quoted or does not contain spaces.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2013-6773 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2013-6773 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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