What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2022-0166: Privilege escalation vulnerability in McAfee Agent

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 2.9% 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-427

Description

A privilege escalation vulnerability in the McAfee Agent prior to 5.7.5. McAfee Agent uses openssl.cnf during the build process to specify the OPENSSLDIR variable as a subdirectory within the installation directory. A low privilege user could have created subdirectories and executed arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges by creating the appropriate pathway to the specifically created malicious openssl.cnf file.

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://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/287178
• https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10378
• https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/287178

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