NordVPN 6.12.7.0 for Windows suffers from a SYSTEM privilege escalation vulnerability through the "nordvpn-service" service. This service establishes an NetNamedPipe endpoint that allows arbitrary installed applications to connect and call publicly exposed methods. The "Connect" method accepts a class instance argument that provides attacker control of the OpenVPN command line. An attacker can specify a dynamic library plugin that should run for every new VPN connection attempt. This plugin will execute code in the context of the SYSTEM user.
Severity
CVSS 3.0
9.8 critical
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
2.6% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days; higher than 85% of CVEs (scores of 2026-10-31)