CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-23882 — Mcafee Endpoint Security security vulnerability

High CVSS 8.2

Improper Access Control vulnerability in McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) for Windows prior to 10.7.0 February 2021 Update allows local administrators to prevent the installation of some ENS files by placing carefully crafted files where ENS will be installed. This is only applicable to clean installations of ENS as the Access Control rules will prevent modification prior to up an upgrade.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.2 (3.1)
Published
2021-02-10
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
windows/system
Weaknesses
CWE-269

Affected products

  • mcafee / endpoint_security

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

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