Local Privilege Escalation in Elastic Agent by Elastic
CVE-2026-78604

7.8HIGH

Key Information:

Vendor

Elastic
Status
Elastic Agent
Vendor
CVE Published:
2 September 2026

What is CVE-2026-78604?

The Elastic Agent, when installed in unprivileged mode on Windows systems, misconfigures permissions for critical resources. This oversight allows local users to exploit the permissions, enabling them to execute arbitrary code within the agent service. Such exploitation can result in the elevation of privileges to SYSTEM level, thereby compromising the overall security of the affected host.

Affected Version(s)

Elastic Agent 8.0.0 <= 8.19.20

Elastic Agent 9.0.0 <= 9.4.5

Elastic Agent 9.5.0 <= 9.5.1

References

https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-agent-8-19-21-9-4-6-...

CVSS V3.1

Score:
7.8
Severity:
HIGH
Confidentiality:
High
Integrity:
High
Availability:
High
Attack Vector:
Local
Attack Complexity:
Low
Privileges Required:
Low
User Interaction:
None
Scope:
Unchanged

Timeline

  • Vulnerability published

  • Vulnerability Reserved

.