Vulnerability · Published Jul 2, 2026 · Assigned by mitre
CVE-2026-38972
High 7.8
In plain English
A high-severity uncontrolled search path in the affected software. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 9% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
Notepad3 through 6.25.822.1 contains a DLL search-order hijacking vulnerability in the About-dialog code path in src/Notepad3.c. The application calls LoadLibrary(L"MSFTEDIT.DLL") with a bare DLL name, which allows a local attacker to place a malicious MSFTEDIT.DLL in the application directory or another preferred DLL search location and achieve arbitrary code execution in the context of the user when the About dialog is opened.
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-427 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H