Privilege escalation via planted cleanup executable
Published Jan 19, 2022 · Updated Aug 3, 2024
Command injection in McAfee Agent for Windows before 5.7.5 allows local users to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges. The deployment cleanup path executes a locally planted clean.exe without ensuring that it is the intended trusted cleanup program. Local access and invocation of the System Tree deployment feature are required; successful exploitation can open a reverse shell and elevate privileges.
Summary
What happened
Command injection in McAfee Agent for Windows before 5.7.5 allows local users to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges. The deployment cleanup path executes a locally planted clean.exe without ensuring that it is the intended trusted cleanup program. Local access and invocation of the System Tree deployment feature are required; successful exploitation can open a reverse shell and elevate privileges.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2021-31854
- Published
- Jan 19, 2022
- Updated
- Aug 3, 2024
- Vendor
- McAfee
- Product
- McAfee Agent
- Classifications
- CWE-78, T1574.008, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- admin
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jan 19, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 3, 2024Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=unspecified <5.7.5
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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