Summary
Impact: Elevation of Privilege. Microsoft rating: Important. Not known to be exploited — Exploitation Less Likely. Customer action: Required.
Details
According to the CVSS metric, the attack complexity is high (AC:H). What does that mean for this vulnerability?
Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected.
What privileges could be gained by an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability?
An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain local admin privileges on targeted WAC-managed machines within a tenant.
According to the CVSS metric, successful exploitation could lead to a scope change (S:C). What does this mean for this vulnerability?
This vulnerability could lead to the attacker gaining the ability to interact with other tenant’s applications and content.
How could an attacker exploit this vulnerability?
An attacker with local administrator privileges could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted HTTPS request to the targeted head node.
How do I get the update for Windows Admin Center (WAC) in Azure?
You can upgrade WAC in the Portal extension on your VM on Azure Portal by:
In Settings + extensions see 'AdminCenter'. If an update is available use the Update button next to "Update available' to install the update for your WAC extension.
For more information see Manage a Windows VM using Windows Admin Center in Azure
Security updates
0.70.0.0 — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/azure/manage-vm
Vulnerabilities 1
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High 7.5
Windows Admin Center Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
Improper verification of cryptographic signature in Windows Admin Center allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
Revision history
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#1
Information published.
References
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CVE-2026-20965 Windows Admin Center Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability - HTML
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-20965
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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