CVE-2026-52885
Published: 26 June 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-52885 is a high-severity Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition (CWE-367) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, ranked at the 6.0th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-39906
Vulnerability details
Notepad++ is a free and open-source source code editor. Prior to 8.9.6.4, NppCommands.cpp checks the HMAC of the on-disk shortcuts.xml at the moment a user command fires (Time-of-Check). However, the command payload is taken from the in-memory _userCommands vector, which…
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is populated at application startup and never re-synchronized with the on-disk file (Time-of-Use). Swapping shortcuts.xml between startup and command execution causes the HMAC check to validate a clean file while a malicious command runs. An attacker with write access to shortcuts.xml places a malicious version on disk before launch, then immediately restores the legitimate file. The HMAC check at execution time validates the restored legitimate file (check passes), while the malicious payload executes from memory. This vulnerability is fixed in 8.9.6.4.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
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.
Timestamps meeting UTC or offset standards help identify TOCTOU issues through precise chronological reconstruction of check/use operations.