Winlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2026-25187 is a local elevation-of-privilege vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Winlogon caused by improper link resolution before file access (link following). The flaw occurs when Winlogon follows a link during file access in a way that can be abused by an authorized local attacker, enabling privilege escalation. Microsoft and third-party reporting describe the issue as affecting the Winlogon process and classify it under CWE-59. Public reporting also notes a CVSS score of 7.8 and that the issue was discovered by Google Project Zero.
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Impact, mitigation & remediation
What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.
Impact
What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.
Mitigation
If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.
Remediation
Patch, then assume compromise.
Exploits
No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.
No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.
Affected products & vendors
Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.
Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.
Recent activity
15 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
An actively exploited link following vulnerability in Microsoft Windows.
A Microsoft vulnerability mentioned as one of several privilege escalation flaws rated 'exploited more likely.'
A Microsoft vulnerability rated as 'exploited more likely' in the March 2026 Patch Tuesday release; the specific technical details are not provided in the content.
A Winlogon local elevation-of-privilege vulnerability flagged as 'Exploitation More Likely' by Microsoft.
The version that knows your environment.
Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.
Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.
Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.
Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.