CVE-2025-24828 is a local privilege escalation vulnerability identified in the Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud Agent for Windows, affecting versions before build 39378. The root cause is a DLL hijacking flaw categorized under CWE-426, where the agent improperly loads DLLs from untrusted directories, allowing an attacker with limited user privileges to execute malicious DLLs. This can lead to escalation of privileges, enabling the attacker to gain higher-level access on the system. The vulnerability requires local access, has a high attack complexity, and does not require user interaction, making exploitation somewhat challenging but feasible in environments where an attacker already has limited access. The vulnerability impacts the confidentiality and integrity of the system by potentially allowing unauthorized access to sensitive data and modification of system processes. Availability is not affected. No public exploits or active exploitation in the wild have been reported to date. The vulnerability was reserved and published in January 2025, with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 6.3, indicating medium severity. The affected product is widely used in enterprise environments for backup, disaster recovery, and cybersecurity management, making it a significant concern for organizations relying on Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud Agent. The lack of an official patch link suggests that remediation may require vendor updates or workarounds such as restricting DLL search paths and permissions.

This vulnerability could allow an attacker with local access to escalate privileges, potentially gaining administrative rights on affected systems. This can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data, modification or disabling of security controls, and persistence on critical infrastructure. Organizations relying on Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud Agent for backup and cybersecurity management may face increased risk of internal compromise or lateral movement by attackers who have gained initial foothold. While exploitation requires local access and is complex, insider threats or attackers who have compromised low-privilege accounts could leverage this flaw to deepen their control. The impact is significant in environments where the agent is deployed on critical servers or endpoints, potentially affecting confidentiality and integrity of data and system operations. However, the absence of known exploits in the wild and the requirement for local access somewhat limit the immediacy of the threat.

Organizations should monitor Acronis communications for official patches addressing this vulnerability and apply them promptly once available. Until patches are released, restrict write permissions on directories from which the Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud Agent loads DLLs to prevent unauthorized DLL placement. Implement application whitelisting and DLL integrity monitoring to detect and block unauthorized DLLs. Limit local user privileges to the minimum necessary to reduce the risk of privilege escalation. Conduct regular audits of installed software versions and configurations to identify vulnerable instances. Employ endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions to monitor for suspicious DLL loading behavior and privilege escalation attempts. Additionally, educate system administrators and users about the risks of local privilege escalation and enforce strict access controls on systems running the affected agent.