CVE-2021-28098An issue was discovered in Forescout CounterACT before 8.1.4. A local privilege escalation vulnerability is present in the logging…
- 7.8HighCVSS base score
- 0.42%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 63% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
An issue was discovered in Forescout CounterACT before 8.1.4. A local privilege escalation vulnerability is present in the logging function. SecureConnector runs with administrative privileges and writes logs entries to a file in %PROGRAMDATA%\ForeScout SecureConnector\ that has full permissions for the Everyone group. Using a symbolic link allows an attacker to point the log file to a privileged location such as %WINDIR%\System32. The resulting log file adopts the file permissions of the source of the symbolic link (in this case, the Everyone group). The log file in System32 can be replaced and renamed with a malicious DLL for DLL hijacking.
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
- 37 days later
· 37 days later
Published
- 3 years later
· 3 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.42% · top 63% of all CVEs (14 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.8.
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
References
References3
- https://docs.forescout.com (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://www.adversis.io/research/2021/3/30/forescout-secure-connector-local-privilege-escalation (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://jordanpotti.com/2021/03/30/forescout-priv-esc-folder-permissions/ (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2021-14802 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2021-28098)Record last updated .