Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource in Elastic Agent Leading to Local Privilege Escalation to SYSTEM (CVE-2026-78604) | HOL Guard CVE

Unknown severity · Source severity not reportedCVE-2026-78604

Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource in Elastic Agent Leading to Local Privilege Escalation to SYSTEM

Answer in brief

CVE-2026-78604 records a Unknown severity vulnerability in Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource in Elastic Agent Leading to Local Privilege Escalation to SYSTEM. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps Elastic/Elastic Agent (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Analysis pending evidence review

HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.

Published Sep 2, 2026Updated Sep 2, 2026Source checked Sep 2, 2026First seen by HOL Sep 2, 2026Material review Sep 2, 2026

Upstream Advisory

Key facts

Risk: Unknown severitySource severity not reported
Exploitation: Not marked as known exploited
Affected software: 1 mapped package or product
Fix availability: Not reported

Why this deserves its current priority

A CVSS score is not reported in the current record. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.

Analysis status

Analysis pending evidence review

Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.

Affected scope and exposure questions

The current feed maps Elastic/Elastic Agent (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Mapped affected packages and fixed versions
Package	Affected range	Fixed version
Elastic/Elastic Agentgeneric	8.0.0 \|\| 9.0.0 \|\| 9.5.0	Not reported

Recommended response

Check inventory. Check lockfiles and deployed manifests for Elastic/Elastic Agent.
Review the reported fix. Monitor this advisory for an available fix and review any installs of the affected package.

Evidence timeline and material changes

Published upstream
Sep 2, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
Source modified
Sep 2, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
First seen by HOL
Sep 2, 2026

Sources and claim methodology

Source referencediscuss.elastic.co

Upstream source 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.

Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.