CVE-2026-21983
Published: 20 January 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-21983 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Oracle Vm Virtualbox. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 8.3th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Likely Mitigating ControlsAI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Policy addresses roles, responsibilities, and privilege management to prevent improper privilege assignments.
Access supervision ensures privileges are assigned and managed without improper escalation or retention.
Assigning group/role memberships and access authorizations (privileges) while reviewing accounts addresses improper privilege management.
Enforces proper privilege management by requiring all decisions through the verified reference monitor.
By mandating division of duties across roles, the control enforces proper privilege management and prevents a single entity from controlling an entire sensitive process.
Implements core proper privilege management by restricting to only required rights.
Policy requires training on privilege management and least privilege, making it harder to exploit improper privilege management weaknesses.
Training covers proper privilege management practices, making incorrect privilege assignments less likely.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
CWE-269 improper privilege management in VirtualBox core with local high-priv access enables host-side exploitation for privilege escalation and hypervisor takeover (scope change).
NVD Description
Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox product of Oracle Virtualization (component: Core). Supported versions that are affected are 7.1.14 and 7.2.4. Difficult to exploit vulnerability allows high privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle VM VirtualBox executes to…
more
compromise Oracle VM VirtualBox. While the vulnerability is in Oracle VM VirtualBox, attacks may significantly impact additional products (scope change). Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in takeover of Oracle VM VirtualBox. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 7.5 (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H).
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2026-21983 is a vulnerability in the Core component of Oracle VM VirtualBox, a product within Oracle Virtualization. The supported versions affected are 7.1.14 and 7.2.4. It is classified under CWE-269 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5, with the vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H, indicating high impacts to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
The vulnerability is difficult to exploit and requires a high-privileged attacker (PR:H) with local logon access (AV:L) to the infrastructure hosting Oracle VM VirtualBox, along with high attack complexity (AC:H) and no user interaction (UI:N). Successful exploitation enables compromise and takeover of Oracle VM VirtualBox. Although the flaw resides in VirtualBox, the changed scope (S:C) means attacks may significantly impact additional products.
Oracle has issued a security alert in its Critical Patch Update for January 2026, available at https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2026.html, which provides details on mitigation and patches.
Details
- CWE(s)