Photoshop Elements 2025.0: Temp File Permission Escalation via Malicious File
CVE-2025-21162 Published on February 11, 2025
Photoshop Elements | Creation of Temporary File in Directory with Incorrect Permissions (CWE-379)
Photoshop Elements versions 2025.0 and earlier are affected by a Creation of Temporary File in Directory with Incorrect Permissions vulnerability that could result in privilege escalation in the context of the current user. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction in that a victim must open a malicious file.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2025-21162 is exploitable with local system access, requires user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have no impact on confidentiality, a high impact on integrity, and no impact on availability.
Weakness Type
Creation of Temporary File in Directory with Insecure Permissions
The software creates a temporary file in a directory whose permissions allow unintended actors to determine the file's existence or otherwise access that file. On some operating systems, the fact that the temporary file exists may be apparent to any user with sufficient privileges to access that directory. Since the file is visible, the application that is using the temporary file could be known. If one has access to list the processes on the system, the attacker has gained information about what the user is doing at that time. By correlating this with the applications the user is running, an attacker could potentially discover what a user's actions are. From this, higher levels of security could be breached.
Products Associated with CVE-2025-21162
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Affected Versions
Adobe Photoshop Elements:- Before and including 2025.0 is affected.
Exploit Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.