CVE-2024-6151 in Virtual Apps and Desktops
Summary
by MITRE • 07/11/2024
Local Privilege escalation allows a low-privileged user to gain SYSTEM privileges in Virtual Delivery Agent for Windows used by Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and Citrix DaaS
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/25/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-6151 represents a critical local privilege escalation flaw within Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent for Windows systems. This vulnerability specifically affects Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops environments as well as Citrix DaaS platforms, creating a significant security risk for organizations relying on these virtualization solutions. The flaw allows a low-privileged user to escalate their privileges to SYSTEM level access, which constitutes a severe compromise of the system's security model and could enable attackers to gain complete control over affected virtual desktops and applications.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from improper privilege handling within the Virtual Delivery Agent component of Citrix products. When a user with limited privileges executes certain operations within the virtualized environment, the system fails to properly validate or restrict access to privileged system resources. This design flaw creates an exploitable path where unauthorized code execution can occur with elevated privileges, effectively bypassing the normal security boundaries that should protect system-level resources from user-space processes. The vulnerability likely involves insufficient access control checks or improper privilege separation mechanisms within the agent's code execution paths.
The operational impact of CVE-2024-6151 is substantial for organizations using Citrix virtualization solutions, as it provides a direct pathway to SYSTEM-level compromise from a low-privileged account. Attackers could leverage this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code with the highest system privileges, potentially enabling them to install malware, modify system configurations, access sensitive data, or establish persistent backdoors within the virtual environment. This escalation capability undermines the fundamental security assumptions of virtual desktop infrastructure and could lead to widespread compromise across multiple virtual machines within an organization's Citrix deployment. The vulnerability affects the core delivery agent functionality, making it particularly dangerous as it operates at the heart of the virtualization stack.
Organizations should immediately implement mitigations including applying the latest security patches from Citrix, which are expected to address the privilege escalation mechanism through proper access control enforcement and privilege validation checks. Network segmentation and access controls should be enhanced to limit user access to virtual desktop environments, while monitoring systems should be configured to detect suspicious privilege escalation activities. Security teams should also consider implementing additional controls such as mandatory access controls, privilege monitoring, and regular security assessments of virtual desktop environments. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-276, which addresses improper privilege management, and maps to ATT&CK technique T1068, which covers privilege escalation through local exploits. Organizations should also review their incident response procedures to ensure they can quickly detect and respond to potential exploitation attempts targeting this specific vulnerability.