# CVE-2021-25269: Privilege escalation in Intercept X Advanced

> A local administrator can prevent the HMPA service from starting via an unquoted service path, bypassing tamper protection in Sophos Intercept X.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.4 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 26 Nov 2021
- **Updated:** 3 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-cvpr-72qq-65cc

## What is CVE-2021-25269?

CVE-2021-25269 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Sophos Intercept X Advanced, published on 26 Nov 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A local administrator could prevent the HMPA service from starting despite tamper protection using an unquoted service path vulnerability in the HMPA component of Sophos Intercept X Advanced and Sophos Intercept X Advanced for Server before version 2.0.23, as well as Sophos Exploit Prevention before version 3.8.3.

Weakness: CWE-428 (Unquoted Search Path or Element)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-25269?

It affects 3 products.


Products: Sophos Exploit Prevention, Sophos Intercept X Endpoint, Sophos Intercept X for Server.

## How do I fix CVE-2021-25269?

No fix has been published for CVE-2021-25269 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2021-25269 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-25269 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2021-25269 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2021-25269 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Sophos Intercept X Advanced, published on 26 Nov 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-25269 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Sophos Intercept X Advanced. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-25269/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-25269/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-25269
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-25269
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-25269

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-25269/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.