CVE-2021-23893: Privilege Escalation vulnerability in McAfee Drive Encryption (MDE)

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2021-10-01 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-269

Description

Privilege Escalation vulnerability in a Windows system driver of McAfee Drive Encryption (DE) prior to 7.3.0 could allow a local non-admin user to gain elevated system privileges via exploiting an unutilized memory buffer.

Affected products

McAfee,LLC McAfee Drive Encryption (MDE): before 7.3.0; 7.3.0 — fixed in 7.3.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: McAfee,LLC McAfee Drive Encryption (MDE) 7.3.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10361
https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10361

Get alerted when CVE-2021-23893 or the next vulnerability affects your stack