CVE-2021-23879
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedUnquoted service path vulnerability in McAfee Endpoint Product Removal (EPR) Tool prior to 21.2 allows local administrators to execute arbitrary code, with higher-level privileges, via execution from a compromised folder. The tool did not enforce and protect the execution path. Local admin privileges are required to place the files in the required location.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceUnquoted service path vulnerability in McAfee Endpoint Product Removal (EPR) Tool prior to version 21.2. The tool's service executable path lacks proper quotation marks, allowing Windows to search for executables in intermediate directories containing spaces. A local administrator can place a malicious executable in one of these paths to achieve execution with elevated privileges.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data< 21.2CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify if McAfee EPR service is installedRun 'sc query' or use PowerShell Get-Service cmdlet to enumerate services containing 'McAfee' or 'EPR' in the nameAffected if The McAfee Endpoint Product Removal service is present on the system
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Determine EPR Tool installed versionLocate the EPR Tool executable in Program Files or McAfee directories, right-click to view Properties, or use 'Get-ItemProperty' on the executable to read the FileVersion attributeAffected if The installed version is lower than 21.2
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Query the service binPath configurationRun 'sc qc <service_name>' or use 'Get-WmiObject Win32_Service -Filter "Name='<service_name>'" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty PathName'Affected if The displayed executable path is not enclosed in quotation marks
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Analyze the service path for spacesExamine the binPath output for directory names containing spaces that would be interpreted as path separators if unquotedAffected if The unquoted path contains one or more spaces in directory names
The system is affected if McAfee EPR Tool version is below 21.2 AND the service executable path is unquoted AND contains spaces in intermediate directories.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor data21.2
Upgrade McAfee Endpoint Product Removal Tool to version 21.2 or later, which enforces proper path quoting. Verify that no malicious executables exist in intermediate directories along the service path.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-23879 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-23879 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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