Elastic Agent prior 8.19.21/9.4.6/9.5.2 Agent Service permission assignment

CVSS Meta Temp Score
CVSS is a standardized scoring system to determine possibilities of attacks. The Temp Score considers temporal factors like disclosure, exploit and countermeasures. The unique Meta Score calculates the average score of different sources to provide a normalized scoring system.
Current Exploit Price (≈)
Our analysts are monitoring exploit markets and are in contact with vulnerability brokers. The range indicates the observed or calculated exploit price to be seen on exploit markets. A good indicator to understand the monetary effort required for and the popularity of an attack.
CTI Interest Score
Our Cyber Threat Intelligence team is monitoring different web sites, mailing lists, exploit markets and social media networks. The CTI Interest Score identifies the interest of attackers and the security community for this specific vulnerability in real-time. A high score indicates an elevated risk to be targeted for this vulnerability.
8.1$0-$5k3.76

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as very critical has been detected in Elastic Agent. Impacted is an unknown function of the component Agent Service. The manipulation leads to permission assignment. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2026-78604. The attack must be carried out locally. There is no available exploit.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Elastic Agent and classified as very critical. This issue affects some unknown functionality of the component Agent Service. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a permission assignment vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-732. The product specifies permissions for a security-critical resource in a way that allows that resource to be read or modified by unintended actors. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

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.

It is possible to read the advisory at discuss.elastic.co. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-78604 since 08/24/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. Attacking locally is a requirement. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/02/2026).

Upgrading to version 8.19.21, 9.4.6 or 9.5.2 eliminates this vulnerability.

Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Vendor

Name

CPE 2.3info

CPE 2.2info

CVSSv4info

VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv3info

VulDB Meta Base Score: 8.3
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 8.1

VulDB Base Score: 8.8
VulDB Temp Score: 8.4
VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CNA Base Score: 7.8
CNA Vector (elastic): 🔒

CVSSv2info

AVACAuCIA
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VectorComplexityAuthenticationConfidentialityIntegrityAvailability
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VulDB Base Score: 🔒
VulDB Temp Score: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

Exploitinginfo

Class: Permission assignment
CWE: CWE-732 / CWE-275 / CWE-266
CAPEC: 🔒
ATT&CK: 🔒

Physical: Partially
Local: Yes
Remote: No

Availability: 🔒
Status: Not defined
Price Prediction: 🔍
Current Price Estimation: 🔒

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Threat Intelligenceinfo

Interest: 🔍
Active Actors: 🔍
Active APT Groups: 🔍

Countermeasuresinfo

Recommended: Upgrade
Status: 🔍

0-Day Time: 🔒

Upgrade: Agent 8.19.21/9.4.6/9.5.2

Timelineinfo

08/24/2026 CVE reserved
09/02/2026 +9 days Advisory disclosed
09/02/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
09/02/2026 +0 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Advisory: discuss.elastic.co
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2026-78604 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2026-78604
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-398183

Entryinfo

Created: 09/02/2026 17:05
Changes: 09/02/2026 17:05 (62)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Discussion

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