CVE-2021-36934
Microsoft Windows SAM Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
What is affected
| Vendor | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Product | Windows |
| Weakness | CWE-1220 |
The vulnerability
If a Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) shadow copy of the system drive is available, users can read the SAM file which would allow any user to escalate privileges to SYSTEM level.
Required action
Apply updates per vendor instructions.
US federal civilian agencies were required to act by 24 February 2022 under BOD 22-01. The deadline is a compliance date, not a measure of severity — it says nothing about how dangerous the flaw is to anyone else.
Where this comes from
Every field on this page is taken from the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, last synced 12 Nov 2026, 00:29. Nothing here is our own assessment. For the technical scoring, see the NVD record below.
More from Microsoft
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office Outlook Missing User Interaction for Potentially Unsafe Action Vulnerability
CVE-2026-96951Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows Command Injection Vulnerability
CVE-2026-65660Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint Code Injection Vulnerability
CVE-2026-81963Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows Link Following Vulnerability