APM Java Agent Local Privilege Escalation

published 2021-12-08 4 y ago modified 2026-07-06 4 mo ago also GHSA-r562-m862-63w3 , PYSEC-2026-634 , EUVD-2021-2577

cvss: 7.8; version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.2%; EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 11%
public exploits: 0; none known

A local privilege escalation issue was found with the APM Java agent, where a user on the system could attach a malicious file to an application running with the APM Java agent. Using this vector, a malicious or compromised user account could use the agent to run commands at a higher level of permissions than they possess. This vulnerability affects users that have set up the agent via the attacher cli 3, the attach API 2, as well as users that have enabled the profiling_inferred_spans_enabled option

Patch / fix

fixed in 1

pypi elastic-apm 1.27.0

Exploit prediction

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	4.4	AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
OSV	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
GitHub	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
pypi	elastic-apm	>=1.10.0, <1.27.0	1.27.0

Affected products

Elastic APM Java Agent

Classification

Weakness

CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management

References

discuss.elastic.co /t/apm-java-agent-security-update/289627
web, vendor-advisory
nvd.nist.gov /vuln/detail/CVE-2021-37941
advisory
github.com /elastic/apm-agent-python
package
pypi.org /project/elastic-apm
package
github.com /advisories/GHSA-r562-m862-63w3
advisory

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary