CVE-2021-3042 Cortex XDR Agent: Improper Control of User-Controlled File Leads to Local Privilege Escalation

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.

Product Status

Severity: HIGH

CVSSv3.1 Base Score: 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Exploitation Status

Palo Alto Networks is not aware of any malicious exploitation of this issue.

Weakness Type

CWE-427 Uncontrolled Search Path Element

Solution

This issue is fixed in Cortex XDR agent 6.1, Cortex XDR agent 7.2, Cortex XDR agent 7.3, and all later Cortex XDR agent versions with content update 181 or later content updates.

Content updates are required to resolve this issue and are automatically applied for the agent.

Workarounds and Mitigations

This issue is mitigated by preventing local authenticated Windows users from creating files in the Windows root directory (such as C:\).

Acknowledgments

Timeline