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HIGH severity

CVE-2021-37942 — apm-agent-parent

HIGH

CVE-2021-37942 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in co.elastic.apm:apm-agent-parent. A fix is available for co.elastic.apm:apm-agent-parent — see the affected versions and patch details below.

APM Java Agent Local Privilege Escalation issue

Also known asGHSA-5xqm-hc45-f2g2
Published
Updated
Affected
2 pkgs
Patched
2 / 2
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Nov 10, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.2%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs16th percentile — riskier than 16% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.25%0.50%0.75%0.1%0.2%May 26Sep 26Nov 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

2 pkgs affected
☕co.elastic.apm:apm-agent-parent☕co.elastic.apm:elastic-apm-agent

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

A local privilege escalation issue was found with the APM Java agent, where a user on the system could attach a malicious plugin to an application running the APM Java agent. By using this vulnerability, an attacker could execute code at a potentially higher level of permissions than their user typically has access to.

Affected Packages

2 total 2 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
☕Mavenco.elastic.apm:apm-agent-parent≥ 1.18.0&&< 1.27.11.27.1co.elastic.apm:apm-agent-parent:1.27.1
☕Mavenco.elastic.apm:elastic-apm-agent≥ 1.18.0&&< 1.27.11.27.1co.elastic.apm:elastic-apm-agent:1.27.1

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
apm java agentelastic
≥ 1.18.0 && ≤ 1.27.0
range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for co.elastic.apm:apm-agent-parent, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update co.elastic.apm:apm-agent-parent to 1.27.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-37942 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Close the privilege gap rather than the entry point: audit which accounts, roles and service identities can reach the affected operation, drop the component to the least privilege it actually needs, and review file and directory permissions created by earlier installs — a default left in place is what makes this reachable.

Frequently Asked Questions

A local privilege escalation issue was found with the APM Java agent, where a user on the system could attach a malicious plugin to an application running the APM Java agent. By using this vulnerability, an attacker could execute code at a potentially higher level of permissions than their user typically has access to.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2021-37942: apm-agent PrivEsc — Fixed in 1.27.1