CVE-2026-56178: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Mac Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Time-of-check time-of-use (toctou) race condition in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.

CSIRTS triage

What: A time-of-check time-of-use (toctou) race condition allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally.
Who is affected: Authorized users of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Mac.
Urgency: Remediation is medium urgency due to the potential for local privilege escalation.
Action: Apply the latest security updates from Microsoft.

AI-assisted analysis generated from the source advisory — verify against the original.

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EPSS (FIRST.org) estimates each CVE’s probability of exploitation in the next 30 days — here is the CSIRTS.com read on those numbers.

Low exploitation riskCVE-2026-561780.17% 30-day exploitation probability — currently an unlikely target, but scores change as exploit code circulates. Riskier than 6% of all scored CVEs.

CVE	CSIRTS overview	External
CVE-2026-56178	coverage & exploitation status	NVD · CVE.org

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