CVE-2026-21533
Improper privilege management in Windows Remote Desktop allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
High
Known exploited
- Severity
- 7.8 / 10
- High · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 4.18%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 90.92% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- Yes
- In CISA's catalog since Feb 10, 2026
- Weakness
- CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management
- Fix
- None yet
- No fixed version published
Exploited in the wild. Microsoft Windows Improper Privilege Management Vulnerability (Microsoft Windows). Required action: Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. Due for U.S. federal agencies by Mar 3, 2026.
Description
Improper privilege management in Windows Remote Desktop allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
How to fix
No fixed version has been published yet. Until one is, remove or replace the package, or turn off or isolate the affected feature. This page updates when a fix ships.
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 7.8
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack vector
- Local
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
Weakness
CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management
The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design, Operation: Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
- Architecture and Design: Follow the principle of least privilege when assigning access rights to entities in a software system.
- Architecture and Design: Consider following the principle of separation of privilege. Require multiple conditions to be met before permitting access to a system resource.
References
Advisories
Other links
Timeline
- Added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
- Published
- Remediation due for U.S. federal agencies
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-7hp6-4w63-5g45 LiteLLM: Privilege Escalation to Proxy Admin via Cross-Domain Reuse of the Salt Key | Critical | Same weakness, CWE-269 |
| GO-2026-6791 containerd CRI plugin: Checkpoint restore bypasses destination security context | High | Same weakness, CWE-269 |
| GHSA-pjr3-86v4-5p7w Vikunja: Explicit lower-permission share on a sub-project is silently overridden by an inherited parent permission (broken access control / privilege-management regression in v2.6.0) | Medium | Same weakness, CWE-269 |
| GHSA-v3p6-34mc-hj7v Vikunja: Scoped API token can mint unrestricted OAuth session credentials | High | Same weakness, CWE-269 |
| GHSA-4pvx-fwjj-8gpc Ghost: Editors Could Promote Staff Users to Their Own Role | Medium | Same weakness, CWE-269 |
| CVE-2026-102490 Local privilege escalation in Zammad v1.5.0 to v7.2.2 installed via DEB or RPM package | High Known exploited | Same weakness, CWE-269 |
| GHSA-9qh4-3jw8-366w Electron: <webview> can enable Node.js integration in Web Workers despite embedder restrictions | Critical | Same weakness, CWE-269 |
| GHSA-3w57-8xmc-8v26 AnyIO run_process/open_process ignores extra_groups and can retain parent supplementary groups | High | Same weakness, CWE-269 |
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