CVE-2014-9456

There is a vulnerability in the Notepad app related to improper permission control. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may lead to privilege escalation, affecting availability and confidentiality.

Notepad++ is a free and open-source source code editor. Prior to 8.9.7, macros loaded from an attacker-controlled shortcuts.xml bypass the HMAC validation applied to UserDefinedCommands and can invoke Scintilla actions and the internal Open in Default Viewer command in an elevated Notepad++ process, allowing protected file modification and conditional elevated command execution when a local attacker influences settingsDir and a user triggers the macro. This issue is fixed in version 8.9.7.

Notepad++ is a free and open-source source code editor. Prior to 8.9.7, the WinGup decompress function joins untrusted ZIP entry names to unzipDestTo without canonical containment validation, allowing an entry such as ../mimeTools/mimeTools.dll to overwrite a DLL in a sibling plugin directory and execute attacker-controlled code when Notepad++ next loads that plugin. This issue is fixed in version 8.9.7.

Notepad++ is a free and open-source source code editor. Prior to 8.9.7, the expandNppEnvironmentStrs function in PowerEditor/src/WinControls/StaticDialog/RunDlg/RunDlg.cpp copies a Notepad++ variable name between $( and ) into the fixed-size wchar_t str[MAX_PATH] stack buffer without bounding the m loop index, allowing a name of 260 or more characters to corrupt adjacent stack data, terminate the process through __report_gsfailure, and potentially execute code. This issue is fixed in version 8.9.7.

Notepad++ before 8.9.7 validates the backupFilePath attribute from session.xml with std::wstring::starts_with against the expected backup directory without path normalization, allowing parent-directory sequences during snapshot-mode restoration to read an arbitrary user-readable file outside the backup directory into an editor tab.

A vulnerability in the Notepad++ installer for Windows 11 x64 and ARM64 prior to 8.9.7 allows PowerShell command execution in the installer's security context via subexpression syntax in the installation path when the context menu component is selected.

In Notepad++ prior to 8.9.6.4, a TOCTOU vulnerability exists in handling shortcuts.xml. The HMAC check occurs at command execution time, but the command payload is taken from memory that is not synchronized with the disk file. An attacker can swap the file before launch and restore it afterward, allowing malicious commands to execute.

Notepad++ version 8.9.6.1 has a vulnerability where the isInTrustedDirectory() function does not canonicalize the path before checking. It uses a prefix-based check that can be bypassed with a path containing ..\..\ after a trusted directory prefix, resolving to an untrusted location. This issue is fixed in version 8.9.6.2.

Notepad++ prior to version 8.9.6.1 contains a vulnerability due to missing validation of the <Command> tag content in shortcuts.xml. An attacker can inject arbitrary commands that execute when the user clicks the corresponding entry in the Run menu.

Notepad++ prior to version 8.9.6.1 has a vulnerability due to missing validation of the <GUIConfig name="commandLineInterpreter"> tag in config.xml. An attacker can modify this file to execute arbitrary commands with user privileges when the console is opened via File → Open Containing Folder → cmd.