# CVE-2026-4869: Potential Privilege Escalation in InstallShield

> Local administrators launching compressed setups from insecure locations may inadvertently execute malicious prerequisites, leading to privilege escalation.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.4 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 13 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 13 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-g542-fwh7-jvc6

## What is CVE-2026-4869?

CVE-2026-4869 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Flexera InstallShield, published on 13 Oct 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

A potential privilege escalation issue was identified in InstallShield version 2025 R2 and earlier when running compressed Basic MSI setup with Prerequisites from an insecure location. If a local administrator launches a compressed Setup.exe with Prerequisites from an unsecured location, the Prerequisite installers also might load from an unsecured location, potentially leading to privilege escalation.

Weakness: CWE-426 (Untrusted Search Path)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-4869?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-4869?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-4869 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-4869 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-4869 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-4869 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-4869 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Flexera InstallShield, published on 13 Oct 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-4869 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Flexera InstallShield. 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-2026-4869/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-4869/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-4869
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-4869
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-4869

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-4869/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.