CVE-2025-61667 Datadog Linux Host Agent affected by local privilege escalation due to insufficient pycache permissions
Local attackers can escalate privileges by modifying cached Python scripts executed during Datadog Agent upgrades.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2025-61667?
CVE-2025-61667 is a high-severity vulnerability in datadog-agent, published on 12 Nov 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
The Datadog Agent collects events and metrics from hosts and sends them to Datadog. A vulnerability within the Datadog Linux Host Agent versions 7.65.0 through 7.70.2 exists due to insufficient permissions being set on the `opt/datadog-agent/python-scripts/__pycache__` directory during installation. Code in this directory is only run by the Agent during Agent install/upgrades. This could allow an attacker with local access to modify files in this directory, which would then subsequently be run when the Agent is upgraded, resulting in local privilege escalation. This issue requires local access to the host and a valid low privilege account to be vulnerable. Note that this vulnerability only impacts the Linux Host Agent. Other variations of the Agent including the container, kubernetes, windows host and other agents are not impacted. Version 7.71.0 contains a patch for the issue.
Weakness: CWE-276
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-61667?
How do I fix CVE-2025-61667?
No fix has been published for CVE-2025-61667 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2025-61667 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-61667 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-6852-76c5-6cmg.