CVE-2021-3042

Cortex XDR Agent: Improper Control of User-Controlled File Leads to Local Privilege Escalation

State
Published
Severity
7.8 High
Published
Jul 15, 2021
Updated
Sep 17, 2024
Reserved
Jan 6, 2021

Read the record on cve.org

Description

A local privilege escalation (PE) vulnerability exists in the Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR agent on Windows platforms that enables an authenticated local Windows user to execute programs with SYSTEM privileges. Exploiting this vulnerability requires the user to have file creation privilege in the Windows root directory (such as C:\). This issue impacts: All versions of Cortex XDR agent 6.1 without content update 181 or a later version; All versions of Cortex XDR agent 7.2 without content update 181 or a later version; All versions of Cortex XDR agent 7.3 without content update 181 or a later version. Cortex XDR agent 5.0 versions are not impacted by this issue. Content updates are required to resolve this issue and are automatically applied for the agent.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.17.8 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:Hpalo_alto

Weaknesses

  • CWE-427 Uncontrolled Search Path Element

Affected Products

ProductVersions
Cortex XDR AgentPalo Alto Networks
  • 5.0 allNot affected
Cortex XDR AgentPalo Alto Networks
  • 6.1.* without content update 181 or laterAffected
  • 6.1.* with content update 181 or laterNot affected
  • 7.2.* without content update 181 or laterAffected
Cortex XDR AgentPalo Alto Networks
  • 7.2.* with content update 181 or laterNot affected
  • 7.3.* with content update 181 or laterNot affected
  • 7.3.* without content update 181 or laterAffected

References

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