Microsoft Windows 10/11 Windows Recovery Environment improper authorization

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as very critical has been found in Microsoft Windows 10/11. This affects an unknown part of the component Windows Recovery Environment. The manipulation leads to improper authorization. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2026-116638. The attack must be carried out locally. There is no available exploit.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as very critical, has been found in Microsoft Windows 10/11. This issue affects some unknown processing of the component Windows Recovery Environment. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a improper authorization vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-285. The product does not perform or incorrectly performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

The Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) in Windows 10 and 11 may allow an attacker to bypass firmware security controls, including administrator-configured UEFI/BIOS passwords. An attacker with physical or administrative access to a device may be able to leverage WinRE-related boot mechanisms to circumvent firmware protections and gain unauthorized access to system resources.

The advisory is shared at kb.cert.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-116638 since 10/26/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. An attack has to be approached locally. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $25k-$100k at the moment (estimation calculated on 10/26/2026). MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1548.002 for this issue.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Microsoft

Name

• Windows

Version

• 10
• 11

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.microsoft.com/
• Product: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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