CVE-2021-3187
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 · uneditedAn issue was discovered in BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Mac before 5.7. An authenticated, unprivileged user can elevate privileges by running a malicious script (that executes as root from a temporary directory) during install time. (This applies to macOS before 10.15.5, or Security Update 2020-003 on Mojave and High Sierra, Later versions of macOS are not vulnerable.)
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 confidenceAn authenticated but unprivileged user can exploit insecure temporary file handling during the installation of BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Mac (versions before 5.7) to execute arbitrary code as root by placing a malicious script in a temporary directory that gets executed with elevated privileges during the install process.
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< 5.7CVSS 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
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/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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Check if BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Mac is installedOpen Terminal and run: ls -la /Applications/ | grep -i 'BeyondTrust\|Privilege Management'Affected if No matching application folder is found means the product is not installed and therefore not affected by this CVE.
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Locate the application bundle and Info.plistRun: find /Applications -iname '*Privilege*Management*.app' -type d 2>/dev/null to find the app bundle, then inspect its Info.plist with: defaults read "/Applications/<AppName>.app/Contents/Info" CFBundleVersionAffected if The command returns a version number lower than 5.7 (e.g., 5.6.x, 5.5.x, etc.) indicating the installed version is within the vulnerable range.
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Verify the exact version using pkgutil (if installed via pkg)Run: pkgutil --info com.beyondtrust.pmmac or pkgutil --info com.beyondtrust.privilege-management-for-mac to retrieve package receipt information including versionAffected if The returned version string is less than 5.7, confirming the vulnerability is present in the installed version.
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Check for recent installation or upgrade activityReview install logs in /var/log/installation.log or run: ls -la /private/var/tmp/ | head -20 to inspect the temporary directory referenced in the vulnerabilityAffected if Unusual or unexpected scripts or files exist in /private/var/tmp/ that coincide with installation timestamps, potentially indicating exploitation attempts.
If BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Mac is installed and the version is confirmed to be below 5.7, the environment is affected by this CVE and could allow an authenticated unprivileged user to escalate to root privileges via insecure temporary file handling during installation.
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.
dbcve · scoped5.7
Upgrade BeyondTrust Privilege Management for Mac to version 5.7 or later, and ensure macOS systems are updated to 10.15.5 or Security Update 2020-003 for Mojave and High Sierra to eliminate the vulnerability.
Privilege Management for Mac 5.7
- Identify the currently installed Privilege Management for Mac version
- Download Privilege Management for Mac version 5.7 or later from BeyondTrust
- Review BeyondTrust upgrade documentation and release notes
- Deploy the upgrade following standard enterprise deployment procedures
- Verify the new version is 5.7 or later
- Confirm the vulnerability is remediated by checking the version number
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-3187 — 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-2021-3187 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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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- 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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