CVE-2021-28570
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 · uneditedAdobe After Effects version 18.1 (and earlier) is affected by an Uncontrolled Search Path element vulnerability. An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this to to plant custom binaries and execute them with System permissions. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction.
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 confidenceAdobe After Effects versions 18.1 and earlier contain an Uncontrolled Search Path vulnerability that allows an unauthenticated attacker to place malicious custom binaries in a directory the application searches when loading libraries or executables. Since the application runs with System privileges, the planted binaries execute with elevated permissions, enabling full system compromise.
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<= 18.1CVSS 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
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/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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Check Adobe After Effects installed versionOpen After Effects and go to Help > About After Effects, or check Windows Registry at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Adobe\After Effects\InstallKey for the Version valueAffected if Version is 18.1 or earlier (any version number <= 18.1)
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Confirm installation folder locationRight-click the After Effects shortcut, select Properties, and check the 'Start in' path or use Task Manager to find the process pathAffected if Application runs from or loads resources from a user-writable directory (e.g., Downloads, Desktop, or untrusted network paths)
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Verify installation folder permissionsRight-click the After Effects installation folder (typically C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2021), select Properties > Security, and check that Users and Authenticated Users have only Read & Execute permissionsAffected if Non-privileged users have Write or Modify permissions to the installation folder
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Check for suspicious custom binaries in search pathsUse Process Monitor (from Sysinternals) to monitor After Effects startup and filter by Path including common user-writable locations like %USERPROFILE%, %TEMP%, and %APPDATA%Affected if Unexpected .exe or .dll files from user-writable directories are being loaded by After Effects processes
The environment is affected if After Effects version is 18.1 or earlier AND the installation folder or any directory in the application search path is writable by non-privileged users, allowing potential binary planting for privilege escalation.
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 dataUpdate Adobe After Effects to version 18.2 or later. Until patched, avoid running After Effects in or from untrusted directories and ensure the application installation folder is not writable by non-privileged users.
- 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-2021-28570 — 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-2021-28570 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data