CVE-2026-19072 Velociraptor Investigator reaches SuperUser via hunt EffectivePrincipal
An investigator can escalate privileges to administrator by injecting VQL into hunt objects, enabling arbitrary code execution on the server.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-19072?
CVE-2026-19072 is a critical vulnerability in Rapid7 Velociraptor, published on 24 Sep 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Velociraptor stores the compiled VQL in the hunt object internally to avoid having to recompile the artifacts for each endpoint in the hunt. Although the field "compiled_collector_args" is an internal field, Velociraptor allowed the field to be set from a user API call. This allows another user who can schedule a hunt (minimal role of "investigator" ) to set the compiled VQL statements for the hunt bypassing any ACL checks that would normally be applied.
This flaw can then be escalated to allow the "investigator" user to run arbitrary VQL statements as an administrator user on the Velociraptor server.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-19072?
How do I fix CVE-2026-19072?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-19072 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-19072 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-19072 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-5856-3m26-mvm4.