# CVE-2026-78413: Velociraptor privilege escalation via SysmonLogForward client monitoring artifact

> Attackers with Investigator role can execute arbitrary binaries on endpoints by exploiting missing permission checks in the SysmonLogForward artifact.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 5 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 5 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-9q45-6cc2-4qjv

## What is CVE-2026-78413?

CVE-2026-78413 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Rapid7 Velociraptor, published on 5 Oct 2026. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Velociraptor allows collection of VQL queries packaged into Artifacts from endpoints. These artifacts can be used to do anything and usually run with elevated permissions. To limit access to some dangerous artifact, Velociraptor allows for those to require high permissions like EXECVE to launch.

The `Windows.Sysinternals.SysmonLogForward` is a monitoring artifact used to forward sysmon events to the server. The artifact allows the user to specify an arbitrary binary path as a parameter, and did not enforce an additional required permission, allowing users with COLLECT_CLIENT permissions (normally given by the "Investigator" role) to collect it from endpoints and run a different binary program than the installed sysmon binary.
To successfully exploit this vulnerability the user must already have access to collect artifacts from the endpoint (i.e. have the COLLECT_CLIENT given typically by the "Investigator" role).

Weakness: CWE-276 (Incorrect Default Permissions)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-78413?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-78413?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-78413 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-78413 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-78413 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-78413 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-78413 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Rapid7 Velociraptor, published on 5 Oct 2026. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-78413 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Rapid7 Velociraptor. 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-2026-78413/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-78413/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-78413
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-78413
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-78413

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-78413/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.