# CVE-2025-37735: Privilege escalation in Kibana

> Local attackers can delete arbitrary files via Elastic Defend on Windows, potentially leading to privilege escalation.

- **Severity:** High 7.0 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 6 Nov 2025
- **Updated:** 26 Feb 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-j5h3-g7ch-42qf

## What is CVE-2025-37735?

CVE-2025-37735 is a high-severity vulnerability in Elastic Kibana, published on 6 Nov 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Improper preservation of permissions in Elastic Defend on Windows hosts can lead to arbitrary files on the system being deleted by the Defend service running as SYSTEM. In some cases, this could result in local privilege escalation.

Weakness: CWE-281 (Improper Preservation of Permissions)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-37735?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-37735?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-37735 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2025-37735 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-37735 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-37735 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-37735 is a high-severity vulnerability in Elastic Kibana, published on 6 Nov 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-37735 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Elastic Kibana. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-37735/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-37735/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-37735
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-37735
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-37735

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-37735/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.