An issue was discovered in Veritas InfoScale 7.x through 7.4.2 on Windows, Storage Foundation through 6.1 on Windows, Storage Foundation HA through 6.1 on Windows, and InfoScale Operations Manager (aka VIOM) Windows Management Server 7.x through 7.4.2. On start-up, it loads the OpenSSL library from \usr\local\ssl. This library attempts to load the \usr\local\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file, which may not exist.

On Windows systems, this path could translate to <drive>:\usr\local\ssl\openssl.cnf, where <drive> could be the default Windows installation drive such as C:\ or the drive where a Veritas product is installed. By default, on Windows systems, users can create directories under any top-level directory. A low privileged user can create a <drive>:\usr\local\ssl\openssl.cnf configuration file to load a malicious OpenSSL engine, resulting in arbitrary code execution as SYSTEM when the service starts.

This gives the attacker administrator access on the system, allowing the attacker (by default) to access all data, access all installed applications, etc.