Vulnerability · Published Dec 3, 2025 · Assigned by mitre
CVE-2025-53841
High 7.8
In plain English
A high-severity security flaw in Guardicore Platform Agent from Akamai. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 5% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
The GC-AGENTS-SERVICE running as part of Akamai´s Guardicore Platform Agent for Windows versions prior to v49.20.1, v50.15.0, v51.12.0, v52.2.0 is affected by a local privilege escalation vulnerability. The service will attempt to read an OpenSSL configuration file from a non-existent location that standard Windows users have default write access to. This allows an unprivileged local user to create a crafted "openssl.cnf" file in that location and, by specifying the path to a custom DLL file in a custom OpenSSL engine definition, execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the Guardicore Agent process. Since Guardicore Agent runs with SYSTEM privileges, this permits an unprivileged user to fully elevate privileges to SYSTEM level in this manner.
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| Akamai | Guardicore Platform Agent | 0 – before 50.15.051 – before 51.12.052 – before 52.1.1 |
Weakness: CWE-829 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
References
- https://www.tuv.com/landingpage/en/vulnerability-disclosure/
- https://techdocs.akamai.com/guardicore-platform-agent/changelog
- https://community.akamai.com/customers/s/article/Windows-Agent-Vulnerability-Summary-and-Resolution
- https://www.akamai.com/blog/security/advisory-cve-2025-53841-guardicore-local-privilege-escalation