CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-7257 — Mcafee Endpoint Security security vulnerability

High CVSS 8.4

Privilege escalation vulnerability in McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) for Windows prior to 10.7.0 February 2020 Update allows local users to cause the deletion and creation of files they would not normally have permission to through altering the target of symbolic links whilst an anti-virus scan was in progress. This is timing dependent.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.4 (3.1)
Published
2020-04-15
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
windows/system
Weaknesses
CWE-264, CWE-269

Affected products

  • mcafee / endpoint_security / 10.5.0
  • mcafee / endpoint_security / 10.5.1
  • mcafee / endpoint_security / 10.5.2
  • mcafee / endpoint_security / 10.5.3
  • mcafee / endpoint_security / 10.5.4
  • mcafee / endpoint_security / 10.5.5

Showing 6 representative product identities from 7 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.