MSRC-CVE-2026-102238 — Visual Studio Code Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Summary

Impact: Remote Code Execution. Microsoft rating: Important. Not known to be exploited — Exploitation Less Likely. Customer action: Required.

Details

How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?
An attacker could convince a user to import a specially crafted Visual Studio Code profile or open specially crafted content or links. Successful exploitation could bypass path-containment checks, allowing access outside intended locations and potentially resulting in code execution in the context of the user.

Security updates
1.141.3 — https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_143

Vulnerabilities 1

Critical 9.6

CVE-2026-102238

Visual Studio Code Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Improper limitation of a pathname to a restricted directory ('path traversal') in Visual Studio Code allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code over a network.

Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Oct 13, 2026

Revision history

2026-10-13 #1
Information published.

References

CVE-2026-102238 Visual Studio Code Remote Code Execution Vulnerability - HTML
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-102238
Microsoft Exploitability Index
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/exploitability-index?rtc=1
Microsoft Support Lifecycle
https://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle
Common Vulnerability Scoring System
https://www.first.org/cvss