CVE-2026-78604
Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource (CWE-732) in Elastic Agent can lead to local privilege escalation via Replace Binaries (CAPEC-642).
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.15%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource (CWE-732) in Elastic Agent can lead to local privilege escalation via Replace Binaries (CAPEC-642). On Windows systems where Elastic Agent is installed in unprivileged mode, resources used by the agent service are created with access controls broader than required. A local user could take advantage of this to cause the service to execute code of their choosing, ultimately obtaining SYSTEM-level privileges on the host.
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS
- 0.15% probability · 4th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-732
- Affected
- elastic/elastic agent
- Source
- security@elastic.co
EPSS 0.1% since 27 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
References
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.