CVE-2024-13962
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 · uneditedLink Following Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in TuneupSvc in Gen Digital Inc. Avast Cleanup Premium Version 24.2.16593.17810 on Windows 10 Pro x64 allows local attackers to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of SYSTEM via creating a symbolic link and leveraging a TOCTTOU (time-of-check to time-of-use) attack.
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 link following vulnerability exists in the TuneupSvc component of Avast Cleanup Premium where the service fails to properly validate file operations before use, allowing a local attacker to exploit a TOCTTOU race condition by creating a malicious symbolic link. This enables privilege escalation from a low-privileged user context to SYSTEM-level code execution.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
CVSS 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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Verify Avast Cleanup Premium is installedOpen Programs and Features (appwiz.cpl) or check C:\Program Files\Avast\Cleanup for the presence of Avast Cleanup PremiumAffected if Avast Cleanup Premium is listed as installed on the system
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Identify installed version of Avast Cleanup PremiumRight-click the installed program, select Properties, and check the Version field, or run: wmic product where "name like 'Avast Cleanup'" get name,versionAffected if The installed version falls within the unpatched version range for this CVE (check vendor documentation for specific affected versions)
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Check if TuneupSvc Windows service existsOpen Services (services.msc) and look for a service named TuneupSvc, or run: sc queryex type= service state= all | findstr /i "tuneup"Affected if The TuneupSvc service exists and is present on the system
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Verify TuneupSvc service configurationRun: sc qc TuneupSvc to query the service configuration, noting the binary path and startup typeAffected if The service is configured to run (even if currently stopped) and executes from a path under the Avast installation directory
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Audit for suspicious symbolic link creationUse Sysmon Event ID 11 (FileCreate) or enable auditing on directories writable by low-privileged users (check recent .symlink or reparse point creations), run: Get-ChildItem -Path C:\ -Recurse -Include *.symlink -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Where-Object { $_.CreationTime -gt (Get-Date).AddDays(-7) }Affected if New symbolic link files exist in locations writable by non-privileged users, particularly in Temp or user-writable directories
A system is affected if it runs an unpatched version of Avast Cleanup Premium with the TuneupSvc component present and accessible to low-privileged 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.
From vendor dataApply the vendor-supplied patch or update to Avast Cleanup Premium to the latest version. Until patched, limit local non-privileged user access to the system and monitor for suspicious symbolic link creation in writable directories.
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- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-13962 — 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-2024-13962 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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