Summary
Impact: Remote Code Execution. Microsoft rating: Important. Not known to be exploited — Exploitation More Likely. Customer action: Required.
Details
According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is local (AV:L). Why does the CVE title indicate that this is a remote code execution?
The word Remote in the title refers to the location of the attacker. This type of exploit is sometimes referred to as Arbitrary Code Execution (ACE). The attack itself is carried out locally. This means an attacker or victim needs to execute code from the local machine to exploit the vulnerability.
According to the CVSS metric, privileges required is low (PR:L). What does that mean for this vulnerability?
Any authenticated attacker could trigger this vulnerability. It does not require admin or other elevated privileges.
Security updates
10.0.17763.8276 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073723
10.0.20348.4648 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073457
10.0.19044.6809 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073724
10.0.26100.32230 — https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/a6021fd2-b3b7-45a7-b68e-35c28a2a77da
10.0.26200.7623 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5074109
10.0.22631.6491 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073455
10.0.25398.2092 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073450
10.0.14393.8783 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073722
6.0.6003.23717 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073697
6.0.6003.23717 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073700
6.1.7601.28117 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073695
6.1.7601.28117 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073699
6.2.9200.25868 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073698
6.3.9600.22968 — https://support.microsoft.com/help/5073696
Vulnerabilities 1
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High 7.8
Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Heap-based buffer overflow in Windows NTFS allows an authorized attacker to execute code locally.
Revision history
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#1
Information published.
References
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CVE-2026-20840 Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability - HTML
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-20840
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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