A flaw in Argus Surveillance DVR 4.0’s DVRWatchdog service stems from an unquoted service path that allows a local attacker to place a malicious executable in the Program Files directory. When the service starts, Windows interprets the unquoted path as a command line and runs the attacker’s file with LocalSystem privileges, thereby granting full administrative control. This vulnerability is identified as a classic privilege‑escalation weakness (CWE‑428).

Argus Surveillance DVR, version 4.0, is the only product listed as affected. No additional vendor or product versions are specified in the available data.

The CVSS score of 8.5 denotes high severity, but the exploit requires local access to the target machine since the attacker must write a file to a protected directory. The EPSS score is not available, and the vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog, reducing evidence of widespread exploitation. Nonetheless, once an attacker has local access, this flaw gives them the ability to run code with the highest privileges on the system.