Local administrator-to-SYSTEM escalation via repair popup
Published Dec 12, 2022 · Updated Apr 23, 2025
Improper privilege handling in Amazon CloudWatch Agent for Windows before 1.247355 allows local users to gain SYSTEM via repair. The Windows repair process opens a pop-up with SYSTEM permissions, enabling an administrative user who can access the host and install required tools to launch a command prompt as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. The issue requires local administrative access and does not affect macOS or Linux; impact is host privilege escalation.
Summary
What happened
Improper privilege handling in Amazon CloudWatch Agent for Windows before 1.247355 allows local users to gain SYSTEM via repair. The Windows repair process opens a pop-up with SYSTEM permissions, enabling an administrative user who can access the host and install required tools to launch a command prompt as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. The issue requires local administrative access and does not affect macOS or Linux; impact is host privilege escalation.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-23511
- Published
- Dec 12, 2022
- Updated
- Apr 23, 2025
- Vendor
- Amazon Web Services
- Product
- Amazon CloudWatch Agent
- Classifications
- CWE-274, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Dec 12, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 23, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=< 1.247355
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo