Privilege Escalation vulnerability through symbolic links in ENS for Windows

published 2020-05-08 6y ago modified 2026-06-17 4mo ago also EUVD-2020-28391

cvss: 8.8; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.3%; EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 17%
public exploits: 0; none known

Privilege Escalation vulnerability in McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) for Windows prior to 10.7.0 Hotfix 199847 allows local users to delete files the user would otherwise not have access to via manipulating symbolic links to redirect a McAfee delete action to an unintended file. This is achieved through running a malicious script or program on the target machine.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1

McAfee,LLC McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) for Windows 10.7.0 Hotfix 199847

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Exploit prediction

0.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 17% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	8.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	3.1	8.4	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	3.6	AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:P

Affected products

McAfee,LLC McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) for Windows

Classification

Weakness

CWE-274 Improper Handling of Insufficient Privileges
CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management

References

kc.mcafee.com /corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10316

Sources

CVE List CVE-2020-7264
NVD CVE-2020-7264

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