CVE-2023-0242 — velociraptor
HIGHCVE-2023-0242 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor. A fix is available for www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Insufficient permission check in the VQL copy() function
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-0242 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 376,715 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptorReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Rapid7 Velociraptor allows users to be created with different privileges on the server. Administrators are generally allowed to run any command on the server including writing arbitrary files. However, lower privilege users are generally forbidden from writing or modifying files on the server.
The VQL copy() function applies permission checks for reading files but does not check for permission to write files. This allows a low privilege user (usually, users with the Velociraptor "investigator" role) to overwrite files on the server, including Velociraptor configuration files.
To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must already have a Velociraptor user account at a low privilege level (at least "analyst") and be able to log into the GUI and create a notebook where they can run the VQL query invoking the copy() VQL function. Typically, most users deploy Velociraptor with limited access to a trusted group (most users will be administrators within the GUI). This vulnerability is associated with program files https://github.Com/Velocidex/velociraptor/blob/master/vql/filesystem/copy.go https://github.Com/Velocidex/velociraptor/blob/master/vql/filesystem/copy.go and program routines copy().
This issue affects Velociraptor versions before 0.6.7-5. Version 0.6.7-5, released January 16, 2023, fixes the issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor | all versions | 0.6.7-5go get www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor@v0.6.7-5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update www.velocidex.com/golang/velociraptor to 0.6.7-5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-0242 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2023-0242 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-0242. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-0242 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-0242 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.