CVE-2025-20298: Incorrect permission assignment on Universal Forwarder for Windows during new installation or upgrade

8.0 CVSS

Description

In Universal Forwarder for Windows versions below 9.4.2, 9.3.4, 9.2.6, and 9.1.9, a new installation of or an upgrade to an affected version can result in incorrect permissions assignment in the Universal Forwarder for Windows Installation directory (by default, C:\Program Files\SplunkUniversalForwarder). This lets non-administrator users on the machine access the directory and all its contents.

Classification

CVE ID: CVE-2025-20298

CVSS Base Severity: HIGH

CVSS Base Score: 8.0

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Problem Types

The product specifies permissions for a security-critical resource in a way that allows that resource to be read or modified by unintended actors.

Affected Products

Vendor: Splunk

Product: Splunk/UniversalForwarder for Windows

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

EPSS Score: 0.03% (probability of being exploited)

EPSS Percentile: 6.62% (scored less or equal to compared to others)

EPSS Date: 2025-06-03 (when was this score calculated)

Stakeholder-Specific Vulnerability Categorization (SSVC)

SSVC Exploitation: none

SSVC Technical Impact: total

SSVC Automatable: false

References

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-20298
https://advisory.splunk.com/advisories/SVD-2025-0602

Timeline