CVE-2018-10170

CRITICAL

NordVPN 6.12.7.0 for Windows suffers from a SYSTEM privilege escalation vulnerability through the "nordvpn-service" service. This service establishes an NetNamedPipe endpoint that allows arbitrary ...

Affects 1 product across 1 vendor.

CVSS 3.09.8
EPSS2.6%
Percentile85th
PatchUnknown
CVSS Vector — Plain English Remotely exploitable over the network, low complexity, no authentication required, no user interaction needed, impact contained to the vulnerable component, full confidentiality impact, full integrity impact, full availability impact.
CWE Weakness Definitions
CWE-732: Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource

Software sets permissions on critical resources allowing unintended actors to read or modify them.

Related Attack Patterns (CAPEC)
CAPEC-60 Reusing Session IDs (aka Session Replay)
via CWE-732
CAPEC-61 Session Fixation
via CWE-732
CAPEC-127 Directory Indexing
via CWE-732
CAPEC-206 Signing Malicious Code
via CWE-732
CAPEC-642 Replace Binaries
via CWE-732
Show all 11

Mapping is CWE-to-CAPEC per MITRE CAPEC 3.9.

◆ AI Analysis — automated analysis, not human-reviewed

This vulnerability was disclosed in 2018. A critical vulnerability affects Nordvpn systems (CVE-2018-10170). No public exploit code is currently available. Isolate affected systems if patching is not feasible.

BSID: BS-2018-GLOBAL-123348-C • Model: rule-based-v1 • Confidence: MEDIUM

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Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2018-10170?
This vulnerability was disclosed in 2018. A critical vulnerability affects Nordvpn systems (CVE-2018-10170). No public exploit code is currently available. Isolate affected systems if patching is not feasible.
What is the CVSS score for CVE-2018-10170?
CVE-2018-10170 has CVSS 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H. EPSS: 2.6%.
Is CVE-2018-10170 actively exploited?
No confirmed active exploitation of CVE-2018-10170 as of 2026-05-30.
How do I remediate CVE-2018-10170?
Priority: MEDIUM.
What systems are affected by CVE-2018-10170?
CVE-2018-10170 affects Nordvpn Nordvpn.
Vulnerability Details
CVE IDCVE-2018-10170
BSIDBS-2018-GLOBAL-123348-C BreachSpider Global ID
CVSS VectorCVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Published2018-04-16
Last Modified2024-11-21
ICS Relevance0%
Weakness (CWE)
SourceNVD
Official Description

NordVPN 6.12.7.0 for Windows suffers from a SYSTEM privilege escalation vulnerability through the "nordvpn-service" service. This service establishes an NetNamedPipe endpoint that allows arbitrary installed applications to connect and call publicly exposed methods. The "Connect" method accepts a class instance argument that provides attacker control of the OpenVPN command line. An attacker can specify a dynamic library plugin that should run for every new VPN connection attempt. This plugin will execute code in the context of the SYSTEM user.

Source: NIST NVD / MITRE CVE Database

Attack Vector Analysis — CITED Relevance

Vulnerability details: NordVPN 6.12.7.0 for Windows suffers from a SYSTEM privilege escalation vulnerability through the "nordvpn-service" service. This service establishes an NetNamedPipe endpoint that allows arbitrary installed applications to connect and call publicly exposed methods. The "Connect" method accepts a class instance argument that provides attacker control of the OpenVPN command line. An attacker can specify a dynamic library plugin that should run for every new VPN connection attempt. This plugin will CVSS vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

Exploitation Likelihood: LOW

Affected Products
VendorProductAffected Versions
Nordvpn Nordvpn 6.12.7.0
Remediation

No official vendor advisory link on record. See the CVE record →

Threat Intelligence
● Threat Intelligence Validated: October 2026 | Threat Age: 3104 Days
CISA known-exploitedNot in KEV catalog
Public ExploitNot confirmed
PoC CodeNot confirmed
AI Enrichment Record — provenance & audit hash
Modelrule-based-v1
ConfidenceMEDIUM
Enriched At2026-05-24
SHA-512 Audit Hash091f013299617775f27374b0343b8be9eb9b838f7cebd1b1155097dffae475423f29c83c121aca392c3d61aefb0ff3c192869b42d01f1e6553ce0bc5201f03a0
Related CVEs affecting Nordvpn
CVE-2018-9105 8.8 NordVPN 3.3.10 for macOS suffers from a root privilege escalation vulnerabili... CVE-2018-3952 8.8 An exploitable code execution vulnerability exists in the connect functionali... CVE-2020-36992 7.8 Nord VPN 6.31.13.0 contains an unquoted service path vulnerability in its nor... CVE-2018-25368 7.5 Nord VPN 6.14.31 contains a denial of service vulnerability that allows unaut... CVE-2019-25572 5.5 NordVPN 6.19.6 contains a denial of service vulnerability that allows local a...
View all Nordvpn CVEs →

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