CVE-2020-12612

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.

Published: 2023-12-12 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2020-12612 is rated Moderate Risk (45.7/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.19%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-12612

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-11-21 0.05% 0.19% +0.14%
2 2025-11-18 0.19% 0.05% -0.14%
3 2025-05-02 — 0.19% —

Full EPSS history (5 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2020-12612

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2020-12612

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2020-12612

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
beyondtrust privilege_management_for_windows < 5.6 cpe:2.3:a:beyondtrust:privilege_management_for_windows:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
beyondtrust privilege_management_for_windows 5.6 cpe:2.3:a:beyondtrust:privilege_management_for_windows:5.6:-:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2020-12612

cvelogic Threat Intelligence