CVE-2020-17365 describes a privilege escalation vulnerability in the Hotspot Shield VPN client for Windows versions 10.3.0 and earlier, stemming from improper directory permissions. A local, authorized user can exploit this by creating a symbolic link to a critical system file, allowing them to overwrite it with the application's elevated privileges. Rated High with a CVSS score of 7.8, this vulnerability has a low attack complexity and can lead to high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. There is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or KEV listing, though it has received minimal community discussion.
| Vendor | Product | Version(s) | CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
<= 10.3.0CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:pango:hotspot_shield:*:*:*:*:*:windows:*:* |
CVSS version used by this source: 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.2 Bluesky, 0.1 Mastodon, and 0.2 GitHub mentions.
No media coverage found for this CVE.
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.
Remediation records are not available for this CVE.