{"id":"CVE-2020-12612","aliases":["EUVD-2020-4913","GHSA-j69j-38vv-w2h9"],"status":"published","title":"An issue was discovered in BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Windows through 5.6. When...","description":"An issue was discovered in BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Windows through 5.6. When specifying a program to elevate, it can typically be found within the Program Files (x86) folder and therefore uses the %ProgramFiles(x86)% environment variable. However, when this same policy gets pushed to a 32bit machine, this environment variable does not exist. Therefore, since the standard user can create a user level environment variable, they can repoint this variable to any folder the user has full control of. Then, the folder structure can be created in such a way that a rule matches and arbitrary code runs elevated.","severity":{"version":"3.1","score":7.8,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H","level":"high","assessor":"primary","from":"nvd"},"epss":{"day":"2026-11-11","score":0.00256,"percentile":0.17448,"model":"v2026.06.15"},"facts":{"in_kev":false,"known_exploited":false,"public_exploit":false,"fix_available":false},"published":"2023-12-12T00:00:00Z","modified":"2026-06-17T02:52:01Z","products":[{"vendor":"beyondtrust","product":"privilege_management_for_windows"}],"references":[{"url":"https://www.beyondtrust.com/support/changelog/privilege-management-for-windows-5-6-sr1","tags":["x_transferred","Release Notes"]},{"url":"https://www.beyondtrust.com/trust-center/security-advisories/bt22-09","tags":["x_transferred","Vendor Advisory"]},{"url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-12612"},{"url":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-j69j-38vv-w2h9"}],"sources":{"cve":[{"id":"CVE-2020-12612","description":"An issue was discovered in BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Windows through 5.6. When specifying a program to elevate, it can typically be found within the Program Files (x86) folder and therefore uses the %ProgramFiles(x86)% environment variable. However, when this same policy gets pushed to a 32bit machine, this environment variable does not exist. Therefore, since the standard user can create a user level environment variable, they can repoint this variable to any folder the user has full control of. Then, the folder structure can be created in such a way that a rule matches and arbitrary code runs elevated.","status":"published","published":"2023-12-12T00:00:00Z","modified":"2024-08-04T12:04:21.637Z","updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:35:53.236501Z"}],"euvd":[{"id":"EUVD-2020-4913","description":"An issue was discovered in BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Windows through 5.6. When specifying a program to elevate, it can typically be found within the Program Files (x86) folder and therefore uses the %ProgramFiles(x86)% environment variable. However, when this same policy gets pushed to a 32bit machine, this environment variable does not exist. Therefore, since the standard user can create a user level environment variable, they can repoint this variable to any folder the user has full control of. Then, the folder structure can be created in such a way that a rule matches and arbitrary code runs elevated.","status":"published","published":"2023-12-12T00:00:00Z","modified":"2024-08-04T12:04:21Z","updated_at":"2026-11-03T03:07:39.896975Z"}],"ghsa":[{"id":"GHSA-j69j-38vv-w2h9","title":"An issue was discovered in BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Windows through 5.6. When...","description":"An issue was discovered in BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Windows through 5.6. When specifying a program to elevate, it can typically be found within the Program Files (x86) folder and therefore uses the %ProgramFiles(x86)% environment variable. However, when this same policy gets pushed to a 32bit machine, this environment variable does not exist. Therefore, since the standard user can create a user level environment variable, they can repoint this variable to any folder the user has full control of. Then, the folder structure can be created in such a way that a rule matches and arbitrary code runs elevated.","status":"published","published":"2023-12-12T15:30:58Z","modified":"2023-12-24T05:05:27Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":7.8,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H","level":"high"}],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:55:16.928981Z"}],"nvd":[{"id":"CVE-2020-12612","description":"An issue was discovered in BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Windows through 5.6. When specifying a program to elevate, it can typically be found within the Program Files (x86) folder and therefore uses the %ProgramFiles(x86)% environment variable. However, when this same policy gets pushed to a 32bit machine, this environment variable does not exist. Therefore, since the standard user can create a user level environment variable, they can repoint this variable to any folder the user has full control of. Then, the folder structure can be created in such a way that a rule matches and arbitrary code runs elevated.","status":"published","published":"2023-12-12T14:15:07.327Z","modified":"2026-06-17T02:52:01.043Z","cvss":[{"version":"3.1","score":7.8,"vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H","level":"high","assessor":"primary"}],"updated_at":"2026-11-02T14:06:47.910346Z"}]}}