Nssm-2.24 Privilege Escalation -

If using an older, pre-release, or 2.24-based binary, download the latest version from the official NSSM website. Later versions have improved handling of service configurations. 3. File Permissions

The Non-Sucking Service Manager (NSSM) is a lightweight, open-source utility designed to simplify the creation and management of Windows services. Unlike Microsoft's built-in sc command or legacy tools like srvany , NSSM offers a more robust solution, automatically handling restarts for crashed applications and providing detailed logging. It is particularly favored by developers and system administrators for wrapping any standard executable (console apps, scripts, Java JARs, Node.js servers) into a fully-fledged Windows service.

Perhaps the most famous NSSM-related vulnerability is , which affected Apache CouchDB version 2.0.0 on Windows. The vulnerability stemmed from the same fundamental issue: weak file permissions allowing non-privileged users to replace the nssm.exe binary used by the CouchDB service. nssm-2.24 privilege escalation

The for CVE-2025-41686 and CVE-2016-20033 reflects the ease of exploitation (Low Attack Complexity, Low Privileges Required) and the severe consequences. CVE-2024-51448, with a score of 6.7 (Medium), is less severe because it requires an attacker to already have "High" privileges to exploit it, though it still enables a jump to Administrator.

reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MyNSSMService\Parameters" /v Application /t REG_SZ /d "C:\temp\evil.exe" /f If using an older, pre-release, or 2

C:\> dir C:\Program Files\VulnerableApp\bin\nssm.exe C:\> cacls "C:\Program Files\VulnerableApp\bin\nssm.exe" C:\Program Files\VulnerableApp\bin\nssm.exe BUILTIN\Users:R NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users:C NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:F BUILTIN\Administrators:F

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The vulnerability arises from the fact that the nssm.exe binary does not have its file permissions secured properly. Under normal Windows security models, system files should be immutable to regular users. However, with vulnerable configurations, a low-privileged local user can overwrite or modify the nssm.exe binary. Once the attacker has tampered with the binary, they can wait for the NSSM service to restart. When the system executes the service again, it will run the attacker’s malicious executable, but crucially, it will do so under the high-privileged SYSTEM account or an administrative account. This allows the attacker to completely compromise the system.