CVE-2016-3943

high
Published 2016-04-18 ยท Modified 2026-05-06
CVSS v3
7.8
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS v4 NEW
โ€”
not yet in upstream
VIR risk
8.8

Description

Panda Endpoint Administration Agent before 7.50.00, as used in Panda Security for Business products for Windows, uses a weak ACL for the Panda Security/WaAgent directory and sub-directories, which allows local users to gain SYSTEM privileges by modifying an executable module.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
75%
Patch ETA
โ€”

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or โ€” if you've already worked around this in production โ€” publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

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Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Exploit-DB

EDB-39671 local windows text ยท 2 KB
Kyriakos Economou ยท 2016-04-06

Panda Endpoint Administration Agent < 7.50.00 - Local Privilege Escalation

text exploit Source: Exploit-DB
* CVE: CVE-2016-3943
* Vendor: Panda Security
* Reported by: Kyriakos Economou
* Date of Release: 05/04/2016
* Affected Products: Multiple
* Affected Version: Panda Endpoint Administration Agent < v7.50.00
* Fixed Version: Panda Endpoint Administration Agent v7.50.00


Description:
Panda Endpoint Administration Agent v7.30.2 allows a local attacker to elevate his privileges from any account type (Guest included) and execute code as SYSTEM, thus completely compromising the affected host.


Affected Products:

Any Panda Security For Business products for Windows using this Agent service are vulnerable.


Technical Details:

Upon installing some Panda Security for Business products for Windows, such as Panda Endpoint Protection/Plus, a service named as 'Panda Endpoint Administration Agent' is installed in the host. This service runs  under the SYSTEM account. However, due to weak ACLs set to the installation directory ("C:\Program Files\Panda Security\WaAgent") of this application and its subdirectories, any user can modify or overwrite any executable module (dynamic link libraries and executables) installed in those directories.


Impact:

A local attacker can elevate his privileges from any user account and execute code as SYSTEM.


Disclosure Log:
Vendor Contacted: 12/01/2016
Public Disclosure: 05/04/2016

Copyright:
Copyright (c) Nettitude Limited 2016, All rights reserved worldwide.

Disclaimer:
The information herein contained may change without notice. Any use of this information is at the user's risk and discretion and is provided with no warranties. Nettitude and the author cannot be held liable for any impact resulting from the use of this information.

Kyriakos Economou
Vulnerability Researcher

Application impact

VendorProductVersionsFixed
watchguardpanda_endpoint_administration_agent{"endIncluding":"7.49"}

References

CWEs

CWE-276

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.