CVE-2021-3042

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.

• CWE-427
• CWE-427

• https://security.paloaltonetworks.com/CVE-2021-3042Vendor Advisory
• https://security.paloaltonetworks.com/CVE-2021-3042Vendor Advisory

Published

Jul 15, 2021

Last Modified

Jun 17, 2026

Status

Modified

• How Strix found a critical auth bypass in etcdStrix autonomously discovered a critical authentication bypass in etcd, later designated CVE-2026-33413.
• Autonomous PentestingAI agents that find and validate exploitable vulnerabilities like this one across your applications.
• PR ReviewsPentest every pull request so vulnerable code is caught before it ships to production.
• AI Penetration TestingHow AI-driven penetration testing continuously covers your attack surface.

• CVE-2021-30369Rejected reason: Was determined not a vulnerability.
• CVE-2021-3037An information exposure through log file vulnerability exist…2.3
• CVE-2021-3038A denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability in Palo Alto Network…5.5
• CVE-2021-3039An information exposure through log file vulnerability exist…3.8
• CVE-2021-3040An unsafe deserialization vulnerability in Bridgecrew Checko…7.2
• CVE-2021-3041A local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the Pal…7.8
• CVE-2021-3043A reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability exists …4.8
• CVE-2021-3044An improper authorization vulnerability in Palo Alto Network…9.8
• CVE-2021-3045An OS command argument injection vulnerability in the Palo A…4.9
• CVE-2021-30454An issue was discovered in the outer_cgi crate before 0.2.1 …9.8
• CVE-2021-30455An issue was discovered in the id-map crate through 2021-02-…9.8
• CVE-2021-30456An issue was discovered in the id-map crate through 2021-02-…9.8