CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-23878

Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information

Published: Feb 10, 2021 | Modified: Feb 16, 2021
CVSS 3.x
5
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CVSS 2.x
4.3 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

Clear text storage of sensitive Information in memory vulnerability in McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) for Windows prior to 10.7.0 February 2021 Update allows a local user to view ENS settings and credentials via accessing process memory after the ENS administrator has performed specific actions. To exploit this, the local user has to access the relevant memory location immediately after an ENS administrator has made a configuration change through the console on their machine

Weakness

The product stores sensitive information in cleartext within a resource that might be accessible to another control sphere.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Endpoint_security Mcafee * *

Extended Description

Because the information is stored in cleartext (i.e., unencrypted), attackers could potentially read it. Even if the information is encoded in a way that is not human-readable, certain techniques could determine which encoding is being used, then decode the information. When organizations adopt cloud services, it can be easier for attackers to access the data from anywhere on the Internet. In some systems/environments such as cloud, the use of “double encryption” (at both the software and hardware layer) might be required, and the developer might be solely responsible for both layers, instead of shared responsibility with the administrator of the broader system/environment.

Potential Mitigations

References