CVE-2021-43768
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 · uneditedIn Malwarebytes For Teams v.1.0.990 and before and fixed in v.1.0.1003 and later a privilege escalation can occur via the COM interface running in mbamservice.exe.
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 · moderate confidenceA privilege escalation vulnerability exists in Malwarebytes For Teams via the COM interface in mbamservice.exe. The COM interface improperly exposes privileged operations without adequate authorization checks, allowing an authenticated local user to invoke methods that execute with the elevated privileges of the mbamservice process.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
CVSS 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
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
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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Verify Malwarebytes For Teams installationCheck for the presence of Malwarebytes For Teams by looking in Program Files or Program Files (x86) for a Malwarebytes folder, or query the Windows registry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall for an entry named MalwarebytesAffected if Malwarebytes For Teams is installed on the system
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Identify installed versionLocate the version information in the registry key found above, or right-click mbamservice.exe in the installation directory and view Properties > Details for the Product Version fieldAffected if The version shown is lower than 1.0.1003 (the fixed version)
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Confirm mbamservice.exe is runningOpen Task Manager or run 'tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq mbamservice.exe"' via command prompt to check if the service process is activeAffected if mbamservice.exe is running and the version is below 1.0.1003
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Check for vulnerable COM interface exposureInspect running services via 'sc query mbamservice' to confirm the Malwarebytes service is registered and running with elevated privilegesAffected if The service is running and the installed version is below 1.0.1003
If Malwarebytes For Teams is installed with a version lower than 1.0.1003 and the mbamservice.exe process is active, the system is affected by this privilege escalation vulnerability.
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 · scopedUpgrade Malwarebytes For Teams to version 1.0.1003 or later to obtain the security fix that addresses the COM interface authorization vulnerability.
v.1.0.1003 or later
- Verify current Malwarebytes For Teams version by opening the application and checking About/Preferences
- Download and install Malwarebytes For Teams v.1.0.1003 or later from the official Malwarebytes website or your organization's software distribution channel
- Restart the mbamservice.exe service if required after the update
- Verify the updated version is now running by checking the application version information
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,984.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-43768 — 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-2021-43768 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