CVE-2020-13386

In SmartDraw 2020 27.0.0.0, the installer gives inherited write permissions to the Authenticated Users group on the SmartDraw 2020 installation folder. Additionally, when the product is installed, two scheduled tasks are created on the machine, SDMsgUpdate (Local) and SDMsgUpdate (TE). The scheduled tasks run in the context of the user who installed the product. Both scheduled tasks attempt to run the same binary, C:\SmartDraw 2020\Messages\SDNotify.exe. The folder Messages doesn’t exist by default and (by extension) neither does SDNotify.exe. Due to the weak folder permissions, these can be created by any user. A malicious actor can therefore create a malicious SDNotify.exe binary, and have it automatically run, whenever the user who installed the product logs on to the machine. The malicious SDNotify.exe could, for example, create a new local administrator account on the machine.

Recent assessments:

zeroSteiner at May 27, 2020 4:08pm UTC reported:

This particular vulnerability is related to insecure permissions created on the install location of the SmartDraw application. This can be leveraged for privilege escalation (or persistence) by dropping an executable within this directory. A scheduled task will run the executable as the user who installed SmartDraw. While it’s possible to install SmartDraw as a non-Admin user, it is most likely to be installed with administrative privileges, allowing the attacker to run within this context.

It should be noted that this vulnerability has been patched, however installations that were installed before the patch was released will remain vulnerable after upgrading. In order to remediate the vulnerability and correct the permissions issue, the application must first be uninstalled and then the patched version must be reinstalled in it’s place.

See the original disclosure here.

Assessed Attacker Value: 2
Assessed Attacker Value: 2Assessed Attacker Value: 4