What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-31854: Code injection vulnerability in McAfee Agent

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 1.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2022-01-19 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-78

Description

A command Injection Vulnerability in McAfee Agent (MA) for Windows prior to 5.7.5 allows local users to inject arbitrary shell code into the file cleanup.exe. The malicious clean.exe file is placed into the relevant folder and executed by running the McAfee Agent deployment feature located in the System Tree. An attacker may exploit the vulnerability to obtain a reverse shell which can lead to privilege escalation to obtain root privileges.

Affected products

• McAfee,LLC McAfee Agent for Windows: before 5.7.5 — fixed in 5.7.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: McAfee,LLC McAfee Agent for Windows 5.7.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10378
• https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10378

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