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Fencer Vulns
high 8.8

CVE-2021-45337 json

Privilege escalation vulnerability in the Self-Defense driver of Avast Antivirus prior to 20.8 allows a local user with SYSTEM privileges t…

published 2021-12-27 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-32110

cvss
8.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 39%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Privilege escalation vulnerability in the Self-Defense driver of Avast Antivirus prior to 20.8 allows a local user with SYSTEM privileges to gain elevated privileges by "hollowing" process wsc_proxy.exe which could lead to acquire antimalware (AM-PPL) protection.

Patch / fix

  • avast antivirus 20.8

Exploit prediction

0.45% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 39% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/the-deniss/Vulnerability-Disclosures/tree/main/CVE-2021-AVST3%20%26%20CVE-2021-AVST4%20%26%20CVE-2021-AVST5 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

References

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.