CVE-2026-41091
Microsoft Defender Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
- Published
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Listed in CISA KEV
- Fix
- Fixed in 1.1.26040.8
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
Summary
Microsoft Defender, Microsoft's built-in antivirus and security software, is affected by this vulnerability. An attacker who already has authorized local access to a system could exploit it to gain higher privileges than they are supposed to have.
Summarized by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5. Verify details against the original sources.
Read the original description
Improper link resolution before file access ('link following') in Microsoft Defender allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
Timeline
- Added to CISA KEV
CISA has evidence of exploitation in the wild
- CVE published
- CISA remediation deadline
Due date for US federal agencies to patch
- Record last updated
Affected versions
- Microsoft Microsoft Malware Protection Engine
From 1.1.0.0 · fixed in 1.1.26040.8