CVE-2025-49144High· 7.3▾ MidnightPoC availableNotepad++ is a free and open-source source code editor. In versions 8.8.1 and prior, a privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the Notepad++ v8.8.1 installer that allows unprivileged users to gain SYSTEM-level privileges through ins…
▾ Midnight zone — Critical, or high with PoC / in-the-wild
impact 40.2 · likelihood 0.1 · exploitation 12
A public proof-of-concept already exists for this vulnerability — see Exploit availability below.
Public exploit / PoC code seen in 1 source. Availability, not in-the-wild use.
Stakeholder-Specific Vulnerability Categorization from CISA's ADP record at CVE.org: whether exploitation is observed, whether an attack can be automated, and how much of the system is at stake. The CVSS score shown above comes from the assigning CNA record, not NVD.
Disclosure to exploitation, from the record and what we observed since indexing it.
Disclosed via CVEORG
Last analysed / modified upstream
0.7%
8 GitHub repos (last check)
Notepad++ is a free and open-source source code editor. In versions 8.8.1 and prior, a privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the Notepad++ v8.8.1 installer that allows unprivileged users to gain SYSTEM-level privileges through insecure executable search paths. An attacker could use social engineering or clickjacking to trick users into downloading both the legitimate installer and a malicious executable to the same directory (typically Downloads folder - which is known as Vulnerable directory). Upon running the installer, the attack executes automatically with SYSTEM privileges. This issue has been fixed and will be released in version 8.8.2.
notepad-plus-plus < 8.8.2Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.
Connected by shared product, vendor, weakness, or advisory.
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