Gvfs: gvfs-admin socket ownership race permits local root

MITRE NVD CVE.ORG JSON API

Summary

CVECVE-2026-88924
StatePUBLISHED
Assignerredhat
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-09-10 15:17:59 UTC
Updated2026-09-10 19:55:45 UTC
DescriptionA 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.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 7 HIGH from [email protected]

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Problem Types: CWE-367 | CWE-367 Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition

VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary7HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
3.1CNACVSS7HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
High
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Not specified Not specified
CNA Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Not specified Not specified
CNA Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Not specified Not specified
CNA Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Not specified Not specified
CNA Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Not specified Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-88924 [email protected] access.redhat.com
gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gvfs/-/issues/875 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 gitlab.gnome.org
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi [email protected] bugzilla.redhat.com
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

Vendor Comments And Credit

Discovery Credit

CNA: Red Hat would like to thank lain for reporting this issue. (en)

Additional Advisory Data

SourceTimeEvent
CNA2026-09-10T12:44:21.633ZReported to Red Hat.
CNA2026-09-09T00:00:00.000ZMade public.

Workarounds

CNA: To mitigate this issue, adjust Polkit rules to require password authentication to start gvfsd-admin or remove execute permissions of the gvfsd-admin binary to prevent execution.

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