Summary
Impact: Security Feature Bypass. Microsoft rating: Important. Not known to be exploited — Exploitation Less Likely. Customer action: Required.
Details
What kind of security feature could be bypassed by successfully exploiting this vulnerability?
An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could bypass Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) enforcement. This could lead to the ability to run unauthorized applications on target systems.
How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?
An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by launching any executable that is allowed to launch by a per process rule. Once that executable is validly launched by the correct process, any restrictions on the executable are lifted; and it can be executed outside of the correct process. This bypasses the application control policy entirely
Security updates
10.0.17763.7136 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5055519
10.0.20348.3453 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5055526
10.0.19044.5737 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5055518
10.0.22621.5189 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5055528
10.0.26100.3775 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5055523
10.0.25398.1551 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5055527
Vulnerabilities 1
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High 8.4
Windows Defender Application Control Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
Improper access control in Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) allows an unauthorized attacker to bypass a security feature locally.
Revision history
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#1
Information published.
References
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CVE-2025-26678 Windows Defender Application Control Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability - HTML
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2025-26678
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Microsoft Exploitability Index
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/exploitability-index?rtc=1
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Microsoft Support Lifecycle
https://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle
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Common Vulnerability Scoring System
https://www.first.org/cvss