DLL search order hijacking in Host IPS

published 2020-06-10 6y ago modified 2026-06-17 4mo ago also EUVD-2020-28406

cvss: 4.6; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.4%; EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 36%
public exploits: 0; none known

DLL Search Order Hijacking Vulnerability in the installer component of McAfee Host Intrusion Prevention System (Host IPS) for Windows prior to 8.0.0 Patch 15 Update allows attackers with local access to execute arbitrary code via execution from a compromised folder.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1

McAfee, LLC McAfee Host Intrusion Prevention System (Host IPS) for Windows 8.0.0 Patch 15 update

Is CVE-2020-7279 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Exploit prediction

0.42% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 36% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	4.6	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N
NVD	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	4.4	AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected products

McAfee, LLC McAfee Host Intrusion Prevention System (Host IPS) for Windows

Classification

Weakness

CWE-426 Untrusted Search Path

References

kc.mcafee.com /corporate/index?page=content&id=SB10320

Sources

CVE List CVE-2020-7279
NVD CVE-2020-7279

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.