CVE-2026-18485: Local Privilege Escalation in NI-PAL

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-08-05 · updated 2026-10-23
Weakness: CWE-1285

Description

There is a local privilege escalation vulnerability recently discovered in the NI-PAL kernel driver. This may allow a local, authenticated user to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code. This vulnerability affects NI-PAL 26.3.1 and prior versions running on Microsoft Windows.

Affected products

NI-PAL: through 26.3.1

References

https://www.ni.com/en/support/security/available-critical-and-security-updates-for-ni-software/2026/local-privilege-escalation-in-ni-pal.html

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