Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V5 - File Handling Symlink resolution safety
|
| Impact | CVSS 7.8 (High) reflects the severity: local attack vector (AV:L), low complexity (AC:L), low privileges required (PR:L), no user interaction (UI:N), and high impact (C:H, I:H, A:H). However, the prerequisite of obtaining low-privileged code execution on the target system is a significant gating factor—this is not a vulnerability an attacker can exploit remotely or without initial compromise. The attack complexity is low, meaning once an attacker has a foothold, exploitation is straightforward. Without confirmed EPSS data or KEV/active exploitation reports in the provided information, the real-world risk is moderate to high for environments where insider threats, supply chain compromises, or multi-stage attacks are concerns. Organizations with strong access controls limiting unprivileged user presence will see lower risk; those running Deep Security 20.0 on systems with high user churn or shared access should prioritize patching. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker gains low-privileged shell access to a Linux server running Deep Security Agent 20.0 (e.g., via a compromised web application or SSH account). The agent runs periodic file operations (log rotation, cache cleanup, configuration validation) with root privileges. The attacker creates a symlink in /tmp pointing from a filename the agent expects to write to (e.g., |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Mar 14, 2026
Link following vulnerability (symlink attack) in Trend Micro Deep Security 20.0 agents that enables local privilege escalation on affected systems. An attacker with low-privileged code execution capability can exploit this flaw to gain high-level system access. The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 7.8 with high impact across confidentiality, integrity, and availability; KEV and POC status are not confirmed in available data, but the low attack complexity and low privilege requirement indicate moderate real-world risk once initial code execution is obtained.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability stems from CWE-59 (Improper Link Resolution Before File Access), a classic link-following or symlink attack. The Deep Security agent likely fails to properly validate or resolve symbolic links before performing file operations with elevated privileges. When the agent accesses files or directories as root/SYSTEM, an unprivileged user can create malicious symlinks pointing to sensitive system files or directories. The agent then follows these links and modifies targets that the attacker could not directly access, achieving privilege escalation. This typically occurs in temporary directories, cache locations, or log file handling where agents write or read files without proper link validation. Affected: Trend Micro Deep Security agents version 20.0; CPE context would be cpe:2.3:a:trendmicro:deep_security_agent:20.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:* and related variants.
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Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionCVE.org
A link following vulnerability in Trend Micro Deep Security 20.0 agents could allow a local attacker to escalate privileges on affected installations.
Please note: an attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability.
Executive ViewAI
CVE-2025-30640 is a symlink-attack vulnerability in Trend Micro Deep Security 20.0 agents that allows attackers with low-privileged code execution to escalate to system-level access, potentially compromising endpoints protected by Deep Security. This directly impacts any organization using Deep Security 20.0 and represents a path-to-privilege-escalation risk for compromised endpoints; patching is critical to prevent lateral movement and full system compromise.
Within 24 hours: Inventory all Trend Micro Deep Security 20.0 agent deployments across your environment and verify current agent version. Within 7 days: Contact Trend Micro for the specific patched agent version and deploy to a pilot group of systems in a non-production environment to validate stability. Within 30 days: Deploy vendor-released patched Deep Security agents to all remaining affected 20.0 installations via your patch management or Trend Micro management console; prioritize systems running untrusted or third-party code.
Apply vendor patch. Pending patch deployment, implement application whitelisting and code execution policies to restrict low-privilege process spawning; monitor file system activity in /tmp and /var/tmp for symlink creation patterns; isolate Deep Security 20.0 agents from environments where untrusted code execution is possible.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Privilege escalation occurs when an attacker leverages flaws in access control mechanisms to gain permissions beyond what they were originally granted.
Path traversal exploits occur when applications use user-controlled input to construct file system paths without proper validation.
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EUVD-2025-27792
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB