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 unauthenticated attacker could convince a user with an active, previously authenticated Visual Studio Code web-server session to open a specially crafted link. If a vulnerable older server version remains available, successful exploitation could cause that version to run and allow the attacker to execute code with the server account's permissions.
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
1.145.3 — https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_145
Vulnerabilities 1
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High 8.3
Visual Studio Code Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Improper access control in Visual Studio Code allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code over a network.
Revision history
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#1
Information published.
References
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CVE-2026-120780 Visual Studio Code Remote Code Execution Vulnerability - HTML
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-120780
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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