CVE-2026-46710 PUBLISHED

Notepad++: Privilege Escalation in the Installer via Uncontrolled Executable Search Path

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 15.05.2026 Published: 26.06.2026 Updated: 26.06.2026

Notepad++ is a free and open-source source code editor. From 8.9.4 until 8.9.6, Notepad++ contains a local privilege escalation vulnerability in the installer. During installation, the installer invokes powershell.exe without using an absolute path after setting the working directory to the installation contextMenu directory. If an attacker can pre-place a malicious powershell.exe in a user-writable custom installation directory, and a privileged user later runs the installer and selects that directory, the attacker-controlled executable is launched with the elevated privileges of the installer. This vulnerability is fixed in 8.9.6.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CVSS Score: 7.5

Product Status

Vendor notepad-plus-plus
Product notepad-plus-plus
Versions
  • Version >= 8.9.4, < 8.9.6 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-426: Untrusted Search Path CWE