PSIRT Advisory – INTEL-SA-00151

Intel® Quartus® Family of Tools Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Altera Security Advisory:	INTEL-SA-00151
Product family:	Intel® Quartus® family of tools
Impact of vulnerability:	Escalation of Privilege
Severity rating:	Moderate
Original release:	07/10/2018
Last revised:	05/06/2026

Summary

Summary:
Unquoted service paths in the Intel® Quartus® family of tools allows a local attacker to potentially execute arbitrary code.

Description:
The Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) server is vulnerable to replacement of required executables, which on reboot may be run with elevated privileges.

Affected products:

Quartus® II v11.0 – 15.0 (CVE-2018-3683)
Quartus® Prime v15.1 – 18.0 (CVE-2018-3684)
Intel® Quartus® II Programmer and Tools v11.0 – 15.0 (CVE-2018-3687)
Intel® Quartus® Prime Programmer and Tools v15.1 – 18.0 (CVE-2018-3688)

Recommendations:
Intel recommends for the affected products listed in this report, to run the patch found here: Vulnerability in JTAG Server patch.

Or install Quartus® Prime release v18.1 or later (check availability here: Quartus® development tools), which already includes the update.

Acknowledgements:
Intel would like to thank SaifAllah benMassaoud for reporting this issue and working with us on coordinated disclosure.

CVE Name: CVE-2018-3683, CVE-2018-3684, CVE-2018-3687, CVE-2018-3688

Revision	Date	Description
1.0	07/10/2018	Initial Release
1.1	10/10/2019	Acknowledgements update
1.2	05/06/2026	Transfer Advisory to Altera.

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