CVE-2024-55957
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 · uneditedIn Thermo Fisher Scientific Xcalibur before 4.7 SP1 and Thermo Foundation Instrument Control Software (ICSW) before 3.1 SP10, the driver packages have a local privilege escalation vulnerability due to improper access control permissions on Windows systems.
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 confidenceThe driver packages for Thermo Fisher Scientific Xcalibur (before 4.7 SP1) and Thermo Foundation ICSW (before 3.1 SP10) contain improper Windows access control permissions that allow a local authenticated attacker to escalate privileges, likely to SYSTEM level.
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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Identify installed Thermo Fisher productsCheck the Windows registry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Thermo Instruments for Xcalibur and under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Thermo Fisher Scientific for ICSW, or look for installation folders such as C:\Program Files\Thermo\Xcalibur and C:\Program Files\Thermo\FoundationAffected if Either Thermo Fisher Xcalibur or Thermo Foundation ICSW is installed on the system
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Determine Xcalibur versionCheck the version of xcalibur.exe in the Xcalibur installation directory, or look at the Uninstall registry entry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall for Xcalibur to find the installed versionAffected if The installed version is lower than 4.7 SP1 (for example, 4.6, 4.5, or earlier)
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Determine ICSW versionCheck the version of Foundation ICSW executables, or look at the Uninstall registry entry for Thermo Foundation to find the installed versionAffected if The installed version is lower than 3.1 SP10 (for example, 3.1 SP9, 3.1 SP8, or earlier)
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Locate driver package filesSearch for driver-related files in the Xcalibur or ICSW installation directories, typically in subfolders named Drivers, Instruments, or similar, or look for .sys or .dll files related to instrument control driversAffected if Driver files from the Thermo Fisher software are present on the system
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Inspect access control permissions on driver filesUse icacls or PowerShell Get-Acl to examine the permissions on the driver files found in the installation directories. Check if non-privileged users or the Users group have Modify or Full Control permissions instead of restricted Read-only permissionsAffected if Authenticated users or the Users group have Write, Modify, or Full Control permissions on the driver files, allowing them to overwrite or replace system driver files
A system is affected if it runs Thermo Fisher Xcalibur before version 4.7 SP1 or Thermo Foundation ICSW before version 3.1 SP10, and the driver package files have overly permissive ACLs that allow low-privilege users to modify critical files.
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 vendor-provided patches: upgrade Xcalibur to 4.7 SP1 or later and ICSW to 3.1 SP10 or later to remediate the improper file system permissions in the driver packages.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-55957 — 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-2024-55957 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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