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CVE Record

CVE-2021-22517: A potential unauthorized privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in Micro Focus Data Protector.

A potential unauthorized privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in Micro Focus Data Protector. The vulnerability affects versions 10.10, 10.20, 10.30, 10.40, 10.50, 10.60, 10.70, 10.80, 10.0 and 10.91. A privileged user may potentially misuse this feature and thus allow unintended and unauthorized access of data.

UnknownCVSS not scoredNot KEV-listedUpdated
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Glexia's TakeAutomated analysisunknown

Security readout for executives and security teams

Plain-English summary

CVE-2021-22517 is a privilege-escalation issue in Micro Focus Data Protector. A user who already has privileged access may be able to misuse a feature to gain unintended, unauthorized access to data. The public record does not provide a CVSS score, CWE, exploit details, or confirmed patch information.

Executive priority

Treat this as a governance and privileged-access risk until vendor guidance is confirmed. Prioritize environments where Data Protector protects sensitive, regulated, or business-critical data, because backup platforms often contain broad copies of enterprise information.

Technical view

The CVE affects Data Protector versions 10.0, 10.10 through 10.80, and 10.91. The described failure mode is unauthorized privilege escalation by a privileged user, potentially exposing data beyond intended authorization. Severity is not scored in the provided sources, and technical root cause details are not disclosed.

Likely exposure

Exposure is limited to organizations running the listed Micro Focus Data Protector versions, especially environments where backup administrators or other privileged users can interact with affected features. Systems outside those versions are not identified as affected in the supplied sources.

Exploitation context

The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or any cited evidence of active exploitation. The CVE describes potential misuse by a privileged user, so the concern is insider misuse, compromised privileged accounts, or excessive administrative access.

Researcher notes

The public CVE text is sparse: no CVSS, CWE, attack vector, root cause, or patch version is included in the supplied bundle. Analysis should stay bounded to privileged-user escalation and unauthorized data access in the named Data Protector versions.

Mitigation direction

  • Check Micro Focus advisory KM000001460 for supported remediation guidance.
  • Inventory Data Protector deployments and identify listed affected versions.
  • Restrict Data Protector privileged access to required administrators only.
  • Review backup-related roles, permissions, and account ownership.
  • Monitor for unusual privileged access to protected backup data.

Validation and detection

  • Confirm whether any deployment runs Data Protector 10.0 through 10.91 as listed.
  • Verify Data Protector privileged user membership and recent changes.
  • Review vendor advisory status before selecting patch or configuration actions.
  • Check audit logs for unexpected access to sensitive backup data.
Prepared
Confidence
medium
Sources
3

Public sources used

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Potential ATT&CK relevance

Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context

These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.

ATT&CK lookup starting points

Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.

description · low confidence lookup

Privilege behavior lookup

The CVE wording references privilege impact, so privilege escalation and authorization behavior review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.

Open ATT&CK lookup
cve · low confidence lookup

CVE-2021-22517 mapping review

Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.

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Vulnerability profileCVE Program record
Severity
Unknown
CVSS
Not scored
Known Exploited
No
Published
Official CVE source material

CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5

These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.

0CVSS vectors
0Timeline events
0ADP providers
2Source links

CVSS and timeline data

No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.

Source materials

Affected products

Products and packages named in the record

VendorProductVersion / packageStatus
n/aData Protector10.10, 10.20, 10.30, 10.40, 10.50, 10.60, 10.70, 10.80, 10.0 and 10.91Listed
Weakness

CWE details

No CWE listed

CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.