CVE-2018-4873
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 · uneditedAdobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application versions 4.4.1.298 and earlier have an exploitable Unquoted Search Path vulnerability. Successful exploitation could lead to local privilege escalation.
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 confidenceAdobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application versions 4.4.1.298 and earlier contain an Unquoted Search Path vulnerability, which allows local privilege escalation. The application uses file paths without proper quotation marks, enabling an attacker to place a malicious executable in an intermediate directory along the path that gets executed before the intended application.
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<= 4.4.1.298CVSS 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:3.0/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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Identify installed Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application versionLocate the Adobe Creative Cloud executable (typically in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\) and view its file properties to see the version, or query the Windows Registry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall for an entry named Adobe Creative Cloud and read the DisplayVersion valueAffected if The displayed version is 4.4.1.298 or earlier
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Identify the vulnerable service or scheduled taskOpen Command Prompt as administrator and run: sc queryex type= service state= all | findstr /i "adobe" and also run schtasks /query /fo LIST /v | findstr /i "adobe" to list any Adobe services or scheduled tasks that launch the Creative Cloud applicationAffected if A service or scheduled task exists that calls the Adobe Creative Cloud executable without quoted path arguments
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Verify unquoted service executable pathFor each Adobe service found, run: sc qc <service_name> (replace with actual service name) and examine the BINARY_PATH_NAME field; if the path contains spaces and is not enclosed in quotation marks, it is vulnerableAffected if The BINARY_PATH_NAME shows a path with spaces that is not quoted (e.g., C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\Adobe Creative Cloud.exe instead of "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\Adobe Creative Cloud.exe")
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Check directory permissions along the executable pathNavigate to each directory in the unquoted path (e.g., C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\) and right-click each folder, select Properties, then Security tab to view permissions; verify that non-admin users cannot write to these directoriesAffected if Users with low privileges (such as standard users) have Write or Create permissions on any directory in the path preceding the executable name, allowing them to place a malicious executable
A user is affected if Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application version is 4.4.1.298 or earlier AND a service or scheduled task uses an unquoted path to launch the application AND low-privilege users have write access to directories in that path.
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 dataUpdate Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application to a version newer than 4.4.1.298. As a compensating control, restrict write permissions on directories in the application's path to prevent placement of malicious executables.
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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-2018-4873 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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