CVE-2026-20898
NVD analysis in progress
Improper access control in the firmware for some in Alias Checking Trusted Module for some Intel(R) Xeon(R) processors may allow an escalation of privilege. Startup code and SMM adversary with a privileged user combined with a high complexity attack may enable escalation of privilege. This result may potentially occur via local access when attack requirements are not present without special internal knowledge and requires no user interaction. The potential vulnerability may impact the confidentiality (high), integrity (high) and availability (none) of the vulnerable system, resulting in subsequent system confidentiality (high), integrity (high) and availability (none) impacts.
What this means
- Exposure
- Exploitable with local access to the machine, with a privileged account and with no action from the victim. The attack does require particular conditions, which makes it less systematic.
- Impact
- An attacker can read sensitive data and modify or destroy data. The impact spreads beyond the vulnerable component into other parts of the system.
- Weakness
- Access control is applied incorrectly, leaving a protected resource reachable without the required rights.
- Likelihood
- Its EPSS score stays low: nothing points to imminent exploitation, which is no reason to leave it unpatched.
What to doFold into the next patch cycle.
Read automatically from the CVSS vector, the weakness type (CWE) and the EPSS score. The technical description above remains the one published by NIST.