CVE-2017-3896 Mcafee CVE debrief

Who should care

Administrators and security teams responsible for McAfee Agent deployments, especially environments running 5.0.0 through 5.0.4, should review this issue and confirm they are on a remediated build.

Technical summary

The official CVE description says the remote log viewing function accepted unexpected parameters via a URL that was not fully validated. NVD classifies the weakness as CWE-20 and lists the CVSS v3.0 vector as AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, indicating network reachability with high attack complexity and an availability impact. The affected CPE entries in the NVD record include McAfee Agent 5.0.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.0.3, and 5.0.4; the vendor advisory reference identifies 5.0.4.449 as the fixed version.

Defensive priority

Medium

Recommended defensive actions

• Inventory McAfee Agent installations and identify any systems running versions 5.0.0 through 5.0.4.
• Upgrade affected deployments to McAfee Agent 5.0.4.449 or later, per the vendor advisory and NVD record.
• Review any exposed remote log viewing access paths and restrict them to trusted administrative networks where possible.
• Use vendor guidance and standard patch verification to confirm the updated agent version is installed across endpoints.
• Track this CVE as a non-KEV issue; prioritize it alongside other remotely reachable agent management flaws, but below actively exploited vulnerabilities.

Evidence notes

The CVE description states that remote attackers could supply unexpected input parameters through an incompletely validated URL in the remote log viewing capability. NVD identifies the weakness as CWE-20 and lists the vulnerable McAfee Agent versions 5.0.0 through 5.0.4. The record also provides the CVSS v3.0 vector AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H and references the McAfee vendor advisory, SecurityFocus BID 95903, and SecurityTracker 1037629. No Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) listing was provided in the source corpus.

Official resources