CVSS 3.1
7.3 highCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVE-2025-49144
High (7.3). EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.
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.
Severity
- EPSS
- 0.7% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days; higher than 51% of CVEs (scores of 2026-10-31)
- CWEs
- CWE-272, CWE-276, CWE-427
- Published
- Modified
- Record from
- the NVD, synced
References
- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11yeUSWgqHvt4Bz5jO3ilRRfcpQZ6Gvpn
- https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/commit/f2346ea00d5b4d907ed39d8726b38d77c8198f30
- https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/security/advisories/GHSA-9vx8-v79m-6m24
- https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/cve-2025-49144-detect-notepad-vulnerability
- https://www.vicarius.io/vsociety/posts/cve-2025-49144-detect-notepad-vulnerability-1