Improper Privilege ManagementWeakness · CWE-269

CVE-2024-36586

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-06-13
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
90/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
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
An issue in AdGuardHome v0.93 to latest allows unprivileged attackers to escalate privileges via overwriting the AdGuardHome binary.

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

AdGuardHome versions v0.93 through latest contain a privilege escalation vulnerability where unprivileged attackers can overwrite the AdGuardHome binary file on the filesystem. Since the service typically runs with elevated privileges, an attacker with write access to the binary can replace it with a malicious version that executes with elevated privileges upon next service restart or execution.

MitigationRestrict file permissions on the AdGuardHome binary to prevent write access by unprivileged users; ensure the binary is owned by root with appropriate restrictive permissions (e.g., 755 or 700) and verify no unprivileged users have write access to the parent directory.

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
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/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 AdGuardHome installation and version
    Locate the AdGuardHome binary (common paths: /usr/bin/adguardhome, /usr/local/bin/adguardhome, /opt/adguardhome/adguardhome) and run 'adguardhome --version' to get the installed version number
    Affected if Version is v0.93 or any later version (including latest)
  2. Check AdGuardHome binary ownership
    Run 'ls -la <path_to_adguardhome_binary>' to see the owner and group. The owner should typically be root
    Affected if Owner is not root or is an unprivileged user/service account
  3. Check AdGuardHome binary permissions
    Run 'ls -la <path_to_adguardhome_binary>' and examine the permission bits (e.g., -rwxr-xr-x). The binary should not be writable by group or others
    Affected if Permissions include write bit for group (g+w) or others (o+w); ideally should be 755 or more restrictive
  4. Check parent directory permissions
    Run 'ls -la' on the directory containing the AdGuardHome binary (e.g., /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, /opt/adguardhome) to check if unprivileged users have write access
    Affected if Parent directory is writable by non-root users (permissions include w for group or others)
  5. Verify service account privileges
    Check which user account runs the AdGuardHome service (e.g., 'systemctl status adguardhome' or 'ps aux | grep adguardhome') and determine if that user has write access to the binary file
    Affected if The service runs with elevated privileges AND an unprivileged user or process has write access to the binary

A user is affected if AdGuardHome v0.93 or later is installed AND the binary or its parent directory is writable by unprivileged users, allowing potential replacement with malicious code that would execute with elevated privileges.

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

Restrict file permissions on the AdGuardHome binary to prevent write access by unprivileged users; ensure the binary is owned by root with appropriate restrictive permissions (e.g., 755 or 700) and verify no unprivileged users have write access to the parent directory.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
7.0 hours of engineering $1,240
Get help mitigating

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,984.

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-2024-36586 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

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.

What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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