!!link!! | Nssm-2.24 Exploit

<EventID>1</EventID> <Data name="Image" condition="end with">nssm.exe</Data> <Data name="CommandLine" condition="contains">install</Data> Run PowerShell to audit services installed by NSSM:

A sysadmin runs:

Get-WmiObject Win32_Service | Where-Object $_.PathName -like "*nssm*" | ForEach-Object sc.exe sdshow $_.Name

C:\Program Files\NSSM\nssm.exe install BadService C:\My Tools\app.exe If C:\My.exe exists, Windows will execute it before C:\My Tools\app.exe . This is a classic unquoted service path vulnerability.

The "exploit" is often a reference to older NSSM versions or general DLL side-loading techniques, not a 2.24-specific memory corruption. Claim 3: Unquoted Service Path Vulnerability Reality: Like any service created with CreateService() , if the path to the executable contains spaces and is not enclosed in quotes, Windows will try to interpret each space-separated token as an executable. For example:

—it is a configuration weakness inherited from Windows service security models. Any service installer (sc, PowerShell) faces the same risk. Claim 2: DLL Hijacking in NSSM 2.24 Reality: Older versions of NSSM (pre-2.24) had a potential DLL search-order hijacking issue. When NSSM starts, it loads certain system DLLs. If an attacker places a malicious version.dll or winmm.dll in the same directory as nssm.exe and a privileged user runs NSSM, code execution could occur.