← CVE index
Vulnerability record/PUBLISHED/Published Sep 10, 2026 14:32:30 UTC

CVE-2026-88924

A flaw was found in the admin backend of gvfs. The privileged gvfsd-admin daemon changes the ownership of newly created private D-Bus sockets by calling the link-following chown() function on a pathname inside a user-controlled directory. A local attacker can exploit this via a Time-of-Check Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) race condition and exchange the socket pathname with a symbolic link pointing to an arbitrary root-owned file (such as /etc/pam.d/su). The daemon subsequently follows the symlink and changes the ownership of the targeted root-owned file to the attacker's user ID. This allows an authenticated local attacker to modify critical system files, leading to a full local privilege escalation to root.

Base score7.0/ 10
SeverityHighCVSS 3.1

Exploitability / impact

CVSS metric breakdown

Vector-derived attributes
Base severityHigh
Attack vectorLocalAV
Attack complexityHighAC
Privileges requiredLowPR
User interactionNoneUI
ScopeUnchangedS
Confidentiality impactHighC
Integrity impactHighI
Availability impactHighA
CVSS vector stringCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS communicates standardized severity and impact characteristics. It does not establish whether a system is exploitable in your specific environment.

Record context

CVE Numbering Authorityredhat
Last updatedNov 11, 2026 18:26:19 UTC
PublishedSep 10, 2026 14:32:30 UTC
ReservedSep 10, 2026 14:04:13 UTC

Credits

  • Red Hat would like to thank lain for reporting this issue.