CVE-2026-42989 Winlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
An authorized local attacker can elevate privileges by exploiting improper link resolution in Winlogon.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-42989?
CVE-2026-42989 is a high-severity path traversal vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10 1607, published on 9 Jun 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Improper link resolution before file access ('link following') in Winlogon allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
Weakness: CWE-59
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-42989?
It affects 13 products.
Products include Microsoft Windows 10 1607, Microsoft Windows 10 1809, Microsoft Windows 10 21h2, Microsoft Windows 10 22h2, Microsoft Windows 11 23h2, Microsoft Windows 11 24h2 and 7 more.
How do I fix CVE-2026-42989?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-42989 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Upgrade, and resolve every user-supplied path against an allowed base folder before opening it. More about Path traversal.
Is CVE-2026-42989 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-42989 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows 10 1607
- CVE-2026-33824 Microsoft Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Service Extensions Double Free
- CVE-2026-21510 Microsoft Windows Shell Protection Mechanism Failure
- CVE-2026-21513 Microsoft MSHTML Framework Protection Mechanism Failure
- CVE-2023-32049 Microsoft Windows Defender SmartScreen Security Feature Bypass
- CVE-2023-29360 Microsoft Streaming Service Untrusted Pointer Dereference
Sources
Also known as GHSA-2m3h-x8jm-fmwh.