CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-43019 — Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application security vulnerability

High CVSS 9.3

Adobe Creative Cloud version 5.5 (and earlier) are affected by a privilege escalation vulnerability in the resources leveraged by the Setup.exe service. An unauthenticated attacker could leverage this vulnerability to remove files and escalate privileges under the context of SYSTEM . An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability on the product installer. User interaction is required before product installation to abuse this vulnerability.

Severity
High
CVSS
9.3 (2.0)
Published
2021-11-23
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-732

Affected products

  • adobe / creative_cloud_desktop_application

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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