CVE-2026-32158
Published: 14 April 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-32158 is a high-severity Race Condition (CWE-362) vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10 21H2. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 12.4th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SC-4 (Information in Shared System Resources) and SI-16 (Memory Protection).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Directly remediates the race condition and use-after-free flaw in Windows Push Notifications through timely identification, reporting, and application of vendor-provided patches.
Prevents unauthorized and unintended information transfer via shared system resources, directly mitigating the concurrent execution race condition on improperly synchronized shared resources.
Implements memory protection safeguards such as address space layout randomization and stack canaries to prevent exploitation of the use-after-free component enabling privilege escalation.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Local race condition/use-after-free in Windows Push Notifications directly enables exploitation for privilege escalation from low to high privileges (T1068).
NVD Description
Concurrent execution using shared resource with improper synchronization ('race condition') in Windows Push Notifications allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2026-32158 is a race condition vulnerability stemming from concurrent execution using a shared resource with improper synchronization (CWE-362) and use-after-free (CWE-416) in the Windows Push Notifications component of Microsoft Windows operating systems. Published on 2026-04-14, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.8 (High), reflecting local attack vector (AV:L), high attack complexity (AC:H), low privileges required (PR:L), no user interaction (UI:N), changed scope (S:C), and high impacts to confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H).
A local attacker possessing low-level privileges can exploit this vulnerability by triggering the race condition in Windows Push Notifications, enabling privilege escalation on the affected system. The high complexity requirement stems from the need to precisely time concurrent operations on the shared resource, but successful exploitation grants the attacker elevated access, potentially allowing full control over the system.
Mitigation details are outlined in the Microsoft Security Response Center advisory at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-32158.
Details
- CWE(s)