What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-31847: Improper privilege management in repair process of MA for Windows

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2021-09-22 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-269

Description

Improper access control vulnerability in the repair process for McAfee Agent for Windows prior to 5.7.4 could allow a local attacker to perform a DLL preloading attack using unsigned DLLs. This would result in elevation of privileges and the ability to execute arbitrary code as the system user, through not correctly protecting a temporary directory used in the repair process and not checking the DLL signature.

Affected products

• McAfee,LLC McAfee Agent for Windows: before 5.7.4 — fixed in 5.7.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: McAfee,LLC McAfee Agent for Windows 5.7.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10369
• https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-21-1104/
• https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10369
• https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-21-1104/

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