Privilege escalation and file deletion via symlink race
Published Mar 10, 2022 · Updated Aug 2, 2024
Race condition in QuickClean in McAfee Total Protection for Windows before 16.0.43 allows local users to delete arbitrary files. QuickClean checks a path and later deletes it, while a symbolic-link substitution during the race redirects the privileged deletion to a different file. A low-privileged local account and a successful race are required; the resulting deletion can remove sensitive files and cause an unspecified denial-of-service condition.
Summary
What happened
Race condition in QuickClean in McAfee Total Protection for Windows before 16.0.43 allows local users to delete arbitrary files. QuickClean checks a path and later deletes it, while a symbolic-link substitution during the race redirects the privileged deletion to a different file. A low-privileged local account and a successful race are required; the resulting deletion can remove sensitive files and cause an unspecified denial-of-service condition.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-0280
- Published
- Mar 10, 2022
- Updated
- Aug 2, 2024
- Vendor
- McAfee
- Product
- McAfee Total Protection
- Classifications
- CWE-367, T1070.004
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Mar 10, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 2, 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?
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- Affected versionversion=unspecified <=16.0.42
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
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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