Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-55543

High

Published: 02 January 2025

Published
02 January 2025
Modified
06 March 2025
KEV Added
—
Patch
—
CVSS Score v3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0016 5.8th percentile
Risk Priority 55 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2024-55543 is a high-severity Uncontrolled Search Path Element (CWE-427) vulnerability in Acronis Cyber Protect. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique DLL (T1574.001); ranked at the 5.8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).

Deeper analysis

CVE-2024-55543 is a local privilege escalation vulnerability stemming from DLL hijacking, classified under CWE-427. It affects Acronis Cyber Protect 16 for Windows in versions prior to build 39169. The vulnerability received a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.8 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) and was published on 2025-01-02.

A local attacker requires no privileges (PR:N) but needs low-complexity attack steps (AC:L) and user interaction (UI:R), such as tricking a user into executing a specific action. Successful exploitation allows elevation to higher privileges, granting high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H) without changing scope (S:U).

The Acronis security advisory SEC-6418 at https://security-advisory.acronis.com/advisories/SEC-6418 provides details on mitigation, including patching to build 39169 or later for affected Acronis Cyber Protect 16 installations on Windows.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A08:2025 Software or Data Integrity Failures

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Local privilege escalation due to DLL hijacking vulnerability. The following products are affected: Acronis Cyber Protect 16 (Windows) before build 39169.

CWE(s)
CWE-427

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1574.001 DLL Stealth
Adversaries may abuse dynamic-link library files (DLLs) in order to achieve persistence, escalate privileges, and evade defenses.
attack.mitre.org →
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
attack.mitre.org →
Why these techniques?

Direct DLL hijacking (CWE-427) enables local privilege escalation via search order/side-loading abuse.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-55540Same product: Acronis Cyber Protect
CVE-2022-28339Same product: Microsoft Windows
CVE-2025-57836Same product: Microsoft Windows
CVE-2025-33229Same product: Microsoft Windows
CVE-2025-21206Same vendor: Microsoft
CVE-2025-15558Same product: Microsoft Windows
CVE-2025-21127Same product: Microsoft Windows
CVE-2026-2713Same product: Microsoft Windows
CVE-2026-3775Same product: Microsoft Windows
CVE-2026-28710Same product: Acronis Cyber Protect

Affected Assets

acronis
cyber protect
16 · ≤ 15

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SI-2 Flaw Remediation good match
prevent

Directly remediates the DLL hijacking vulnerability by requiring timely application of the vendor patch to Acronis Cyber Protect build 39169 or later.

CM-6 Configuration Settings partial match
prevent

Enforces secure configuration settings such as Windows safe DLL search order to prevent loading of malicious DLLs from untrusted paths.

AC-6 Least Privilege partial match
prevent

Limits the privileges of Acronis Cyber Protect processes to the minimum necessary, reducing the impact and feasibility of privilege escalation via DLL hijacking.

References