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High severity7.8NVD Advisory· Published Jul 15, 2021· Updated Jun 17, 2026

CVE-2021-3042

CVE-2021-3042

Description

A local privilege escalation (PE) vulnerability exists in the Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR agent on Windows platforms that enables an authenticated local Windows user to execute programs with SYSTEM privileges. Exploiting this vulnerability requires the user to have file creation privilege in the Windows root directory (such as C:\). This issue impacts: All versions of Cortex XDR agent 6.1 without content update 181 or a later version; All versions of Cortex XDR agent 7.2 without content update 181 or a later version; All versions of Cortex XDR agent 7.3 without content update 181 or a later version. Cortex XDR agent 5.0 versions are not impacted by this issue. Content updates are required to resolve this issue and are automatically applied for the agent.

AI Insight

LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.

Affected products

7
  • Paloaltonetworks/Cortex Xdr Agent7 versions
    cpe:2.3:a:paloaltonetworks:cortex_xdr_agent:6.1:-:*:*:*:*:*:*+ 6 more
    • cpe:2.3:a:paloaltonetworks:cortex_xdr_agent:6.1:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
    • cpe:2.3:a:paloaltonetworks:cortex_xdr_agent:7.2:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
    • cpe:2.3:a:paloaltonetworks:cortex_xdr_agent:7.2:content_update149:*:*:*:*:*:*
    • cpe:2.3:a:paloaltonetworks:cortex_xdr_agent:7.2:content_update150:*:*:*:*:*:*
    • cpe:2.3:a:paloaltonetworks:cortex_xdr_agent:7.3:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
    • (no CPE)range: versions of Cortex XDR agent 6.1 without content update 181 or later; All versions of Cortex XDR agent 7.2 without content update 181 or later; All versions of Cortex XDR agent 7.3 without content update 181 or later
    • (no CPE)range: 7.3.* without content update 181 or later

Patches

Vulnerability mechanics

References

1

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