CVE-2022-46868
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 · uneditedLocal privilege escalation during recovery due to improper soft link handling. The following products are affected: Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office (Windows) before build 40173.
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 · high confidenceA local privilege escalation vulnerability in Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office for Windows allows an attacker to gain elevated privileges during recovery operations due to improper handling of symbolic links (soft links). The vulnerability stems from the application not properly validating symlink paths during recovery processes, potentially allowing an attacker to manipulate filesystem links to escalate from a standard user to administrator or system privileges.
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< 40173CVSS 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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Confirm Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office is installedOpen Windows Control Panel > Programs and Features, or run 'Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Select-Object DisplayName, DisplayVersion' in PowerShell to list installed softwareAffected if Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office appears in the installed programs list
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Identify the installed build versionRun 'Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Where-Object {$_.DisplayName -like "*Acronis*"} | Select-Object DisplayName, DisplayVersion, Build' or check the About section in the application GUIAffected if The build version displayed is less than 40173
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Verify recovery feature accessibilityCheck if the recovery or backup restore functionality is exposed to standard users by examining the service configuration: run 'Get-Service -Name *Acronis*' in PowerShell and check the account running the serviceAffected if The Acronis service runs with elevated privileges and the application recovery features are accessible to standard user accounts on the system
The system is affected if Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office is installed with a build version lower than 40173 and recovery features are accessible to standard users.
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.
dbcve · scoped40173
Update Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office to build 40173 or later. Organizations should prioritize patching systems where standard users have access, as the vulnerability requires local system access to exploit.
Cyber Protect Home Office (Windows) build 40173 or later
- 1. Open Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office (Windows)
- 2. Navigate to Help > Check for updates to download the latest version
- 3. Alternatively, download the installer for build 40173 or later from the official Acronis website
- 4. Run the installer and follow the on-screen prompts to upgrade
- 5. Restart the system if prompted
- 6. Verify the installed version is build 40173 or later by checking Help > About
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2022-46868 — 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-2022-46868 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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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data