CVE-2026-26177 is an elevation-of-privilege vulnerability in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock caused by a use-after-free condition. The flaw can be triggered by a locally authenticated attacker and requires successful exploitation of a race condition. Microsoft rated the issue Important and assigned CVSS 3.1 7.0. If exploited, the vulnerability allows escalation from low privileges to SYSTEM in the affected Windows component.
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What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.
What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.
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Patch, then assume compromise.
No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.
No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.
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.
2 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
A Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock elevation of privilege vulnerability.
A local elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock caused by a use-after-free condition. Successful exploitation can allow an authorized attacker to gain SYSTEM privileges, though exploitation is considered less likely due to high attack complexity and a required race condition.
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.