Local privilege escalation via virtual registry provider
Published Mar 11, 2021 · Updated Aug 19, 2026
Elevation of privilege in Microsoft Windows Virtual Registry Provider before the fixed builds allows local users to gain higher privileges. The provider mishandles registry virtualization across a security boundary, permitting a low-privileged process to operate with privileges outside its container context. Exploitation requires local access and no user interaction; impact is integrity and availability, with no confidentiality impact in Microsoft's assessment.
Summary
What happened
Elevation of privilege in Microsoft Windows Virtual Registry Provider before the fixed builds allows local users to gain higher privileges. The provider mishandles registry virtualization across a security boundary, permitting a low-privileged process to operate with privileges outside its container context. Exploitation requires local access and no user interaction; impact is integrity and availability, with no confidentiality impact in Microsoft's assessment.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2021-26864
- Published
- Mar 11, 2021
- Updated
- Aug 19, 2026
- Vendor
- Microsoft
- Product
- Windows Server 2019
- Classifications
- CWE-269, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Mar 11, 2021CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 19, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=10.0.17763.0 <10.0.17763.1817
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo