Uncontrolled Search Path (DLL Hijack)Weakness · CWE-427

CVE-2024-33580

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-10-11
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
80/100
Remediation priority · High
Zero-click

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 · unedited
A DLL hijack vulnerability was reported in Lenovo Personal Cloud that could allow a local attacker to execute code with elevated 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 confidence

Lenovo Personal Cloud loads DLL files without using fully qualified paths, allowing an attacker with local access to place a malicious DLL in a location where the application will load it instead of the legitimate library. This enables privilege escalation from a standard user to elevated (SYSTEM) privileges.

MitigationApply the vendor patch from Lenovo when available. As a temporary workaround, restrict write access to directories in the application's DLL search path to prevent untrusted users from placing malicious DLLs.

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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify if Lenovo Personal Cloud is installed
    Search for the application executable - typically in Program Files or AppData folders. Common paths include C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Personal Cloud or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Lenovo\Personal Cloud. Use 'dir /s LenovoPersonalCloud.exe' or check Add/Remove Programs.
    Affected if Lenovo Personal Cloud executable is found on the system
  2. Check if the application runs or can be started
    Look for the process 'LenovoPersonalCloud.exe' in Task Manager, or attempt to locate the main executable and verify it exists. Check the application directory structure for DLL files.
    Affected if The application executable exists and would load DLLs during operation
  3. Identify DLL search paths used by the application
    Use Sysinternals Process Monitor (procmon) with a filter for the Lenovo Personal Cloud process to observe which DLLs it attempts to load and from which paths. Alternatively, examine the application directory for DLL files that ship with it.
    Affected if The application loads DLLs from directories that may be writable by standard users
  4. Verify write permissions on application directories
    Check file system permissions on the Lenovo Personal Cloud installation directory and subdirectories. Use 'icacls' command or Right-click > Properties > Security to see if standard users or the 'Users' group have Write or Modify permissions.
    Affected if Standard users have Write or Modify access to any directory in the application's DLL search path, allowing them to place a malicious DLL
  5. Check for vulnerable DLL loading behavior
    Review which DLLs the application attempts to load by running Process Monitor during application startup. Look for DLL load attempts where the path is not fully qualified (e.g., loading 'avicap.dll' instead of 'C:\Windows\System32\avicap.dll').
    Affected if The application loads DLLs without fully qualified paths and those paths are writable by standard users

A user is affected if Lenovo Personal Cloud is installed and standard user accounts have write access to any directory in the application's DLL search path, enabling privilege escalation to SYSTEM.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Apply the vendor patch from Lenovo when available. As a temporary workaround, restrict write access to directories in the application's DLL search path to prevent untrusted users from placing malicious DLLs.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation1.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
8.0 hours of engineering $1,390
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

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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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-33580 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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