SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2026-21262 is an elevation-of-privilege vulnerability in Microsoft SQL Server caused by improper access control. The issue affects SQL Server 2016 and later, including versions 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022, and 2025. According to the provided reporting, the flaw is in how SQL Server validates authorization requests, allowing an authorized or authenticated attacker to execute specially crafted commands over the network and elevate privileges within the SQL Server instance. Successful exploitation can promote a low-privileged SQL user to the SQL Server sysadmin role. Microsoft and multiple secondary sources describe the vulnerability as publicly disclosed prior to patch release, with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.8, and not known to be actively exploited at the time of disclosure.
Are you exposed to this one?
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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
67 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
An actively exploited improper access control vulnerability affecting Microsoft SQL Server versions 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025.
An SQL Server elevation-of-privilege vulnerability disclosed in Microsoft's Patch Tuesday release.
An elevation-of-privilege vulnerability in Microsoft SQL Server that could allow an authenticated attacker to gain SQLAdmin privileges over a network.
An elevation-of-privilege vulnerability in Microsoft SQL Server that could allow an authenticated attacker to gain SQLAdmin privileges over a network.
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.