What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-41091: Microsoft Defender Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: yes — in CISA KEV since 2026-05-20
• EPSS: 8.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-05-20 · updated 2026-08-10
• Weakness: CWE-59

Description

Improper link resolution before file access ('link following') in Microsoft Defender allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

Affected products

• Microsoft Malware Protection Engine: from 1.1.26030.3008 before 1.1.26040.8 — fixed in 1.1.26040.8
• Microsoft Malware Protection Engine: from 1.1.0.0 before 1.1.26040.8 — fixed in 1.1.26040.8

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Microsoft Malware Protection Engine 1.1.26040.8; Microsoft Malware Protection Engine 1.1.26040.8. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-41091
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-41091

Get alerted when CVE-2026-41091 or the next vulnerability affects your stack