Local privilege escalation through undisclosed ETW flaw
Published Mar 11, 2021 · Updated Aug 19, 2026
Elevation of privilege in Windows Event Tracing across affected Windows releases allows local users to gain elevated privileges. Microsoft has not published the vulnerable ETW locus or the operation it performs incorrectly on attacker-controlled input. Exploitation requires prior low-privilege local access and can compromise confidentiality, integrity, and availability at the elevated security context.
Summary
What happened
Elevation of privilege in Windows Event Tracing across affected Windows releases allows local users to gain elevated privileges. Microsoft has not published the vulnerable ETW locus or the operation it performs incorrectly on attacker-controlled input. Exploitation requires prior low-privilege local access and can compromise confidentiality, integrity, and availability at the elevated security context.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2021-26872
- Published
- Mar 11, 2021
- Updated
- Aug 19, 2026
- Vendor
- Microsoft
- Product
- Windows 10 Version 1507
- Classifications
- 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
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=10.0.10240.0 <10.0.10240.18874
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
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Your stack
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