Summary
Impact: Security Feature Bypass. 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 add and start a specially crafted sandboxed MCP server alongside another sandboxed server in Visual Studio Code. Successful exploitation could allow the attacker-controlled server to write into the other server's directory, bypassing the per-server sandbox policy and potentially executing code under the other server's permissions. User interaction is required to add and start the servers.
According to the CVSS metric, the attack complexity is high (AC:H). What does this mean for this vulnerability?
An attacker would need specific conditions to be in place (i.e. particular protocol settings, or configurations, etc.) before an attack could succeed, which reduces the likelihood of widespread or opportunistic exploitation.
Security updates
1.141.3 — https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_143
Vulnerabilities 1
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Medium 6.1
Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
Incorrect privilege assignment in Visual Studio Code allows an authorized attacker to bypass a security feature locally.
Revision history
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#1
Information published.
References
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CVE-2026-102851 Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability - HTML
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-102851
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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