A vulnerability in the London Trust Media Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN Client 1.0.2 (build 02363) for Windows could allow an authenticated, local attacker to run arbitrary code with elevated privileges. On startup, the PIA Windows service (pia-service.exe) loads the OpenSSL library from %PROGRAMFILES%\Private Internet Access\libeay32.dll. This library attempts to load the C:\etc\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file which does not exist. By default on Windows systems, authenticated users can create directories under C:\. A low privileged user can create a C:\etc\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file to load a malicious OpenSSL engine library resulting in arbitrary code execution as SYSTEM when the service starts.
CVE-2019-12572
This high-severity CVE scores 7.8 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 0.2%, top 65% of all CVEs by exploit prediction. GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).
- High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
No vendor fix yet — apply a workaround or compensating control (WAF / firewall / segmentation) and watch for a patch.
- CVSS v3
- 7.8
- EG Score
- 7.8(medium)
- EPSS
- 56.4%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
June 21, 2019
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
References (4)
- cve@mitrehttps://blog.mirch.io/2019/06/10/cve-2019-12572-pia-windows-privilege-escalation-malicious-openssl-engine/
- cve@mitrehttps://github.com/mirchr/security-research/blob/master/vulnerabilities/PIA/CVE-2019-12572.txt
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://blog.mirch.io/2019/06/10/cve-2019-12572-pia-windows-privilege-escalation-malicious-openssl-engine/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://github.com/mirchr/security-research/blob/master/vulnerabilities/PIA/CVE-2019-12572.txt
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 7× in last 7d / 42× in last 30d)
Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.
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Related CVEs(same CWE)
Same CWE
10 shownCWE-427
Frequently asked(5)
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Dependency Blast Radius
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