CVE-2026-88924
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).
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.17%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
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.
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.0 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS
- 0.17% probability · 7th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-367
- Source
- secalert@redhat.com
References
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.