GOG Galaxy any version

GOG Galaxy GalaxyClientService Privilege Escalation

An exploitable local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the GalaxyClientService installed by GOG Galaxy. Due to Improper Access Control, an attacker can send unauthenticated local TCP packets to the service to gain SYSTEM privileges in Windows system where GOG Galaxy software is installed. All GOG Galaxy versions before 1.2.60 and all corresponding versions of GOG Galaxy 2.0 Beta are affected.

The client (aka GalaxyClientService.exe) in GOG GALAXY through 2.0.41 (as of 12:58 AM Eastern, 9/26/21) allows local privilege escalation from any authenticated user to SYSTEM by instructing the Windows service to execute arbitrary commands. This occurs because the attacker can inject a DLL into GalaxyClient.exe, defeating the TCP-based "trusted client" protection mechanism.

An exploitable local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in GOG Galaxy 2.0.46. Due to insufficient folder permissions, an attacker can hijack the %ProgramData%\GOG.com folder structure and change the GalaxyCommunication service executable to a malicious file, resulting in code execution as SYSTEM.

In GOG Galaxy 1.2.67, there is a service that is vulnerable to weak file/service permissions: GalaxyClientService.exe. An attacker can put malicious code in a Trojan horse GalaxyClientService.exe. After that, the attacker can re-start this service as an unprivileged user to escalate his/her privileges and run commands on the machine with SYSTEM rights.