Vulnerability · Published Nov 10, 2025 · Assigned by Qualys
CVE-2025-43079Local Privilege Escalation via qagent_uninstall.sh Qualys Cloud Agents
Medium 6.3
In plain English
A medium-severity security flaw in Qualys Agent from Qualys Inc. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 7% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
The Qualys Cloud Agent included a bundled uninstall script (qagent_uninstall.sh), specific to Mac and Linux supported versions that invoked multiple system commands without using absolute paths and without sanitizing the $PATH environment. If the uninstall script is executed with elevated privileges (e.g., via sudo) in an environment where $PATH has been manipulated, an attacker with root/sudo privileges could cause malicious executables to be run in place of the intended system binaries. This behavior can be leveraged for local privilege escalation and arbitrary command execution under elevated privileges.
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 5.0 – before 7.2.3 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 3.12 – before 7.1.0 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 4.17 – before 6.0.0 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 0 – before 6.2.1 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 0 – before 6.3.1 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 0 – before 3.31.1-8 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 0 – before 3.21.1-6 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 0 – before 4.2.6 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 0 – before 5.0.3 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 0 – before 5.0.2 |
| Qualys Inc | Qualys Agent | 0 – before 6.0.3 |
Weakness: CWE-426 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H