CVE-2026-45393: Local privilege escalation to SYSTEM in Cribl Edge for Windows

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: 2026-05-12 · updated 2026-10-26
Weakness: CWE-78

Description

A vulnerability chain in Cribl Edge for Windows before 4.17.1 allows a local authenticated user to escalate privileges to NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. Incorrect default permissions on the Windows installer's authentication directory (CWE-276) expose a cryptographic secret used for JWT signing and password-hash derivation, enabling forgery of administrative API tokens. The forged token can then be used to invoke a pipeline function that reaches an OS command sink (CWE-78) running in the SYSTEM context.

Affected products

Cribl Edge: before 4.17.1 — fixed in 4.17.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Cribl Edge 4.17.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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