CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-44230 — Portswigger Burp Suite security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 6.5

PortSwigger Burp Suite Enterprise Edition before 2021.11 on Windows has weak file permissions for the embedded H2 database, which might lead to privilege escalation. This issue can be exploited by an adversary who has already compromised a valid Windows account on the server via separate means. In this scenario, the compromised account may have inherited read access to sensitive configuration, database, and log files.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
6.5 (3.1)
Published
2021-11-30
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
windows/system
Weaknesses
CWE-732

Affected products

  • portswigger / burp_suite

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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