A flaw was found in the admin backend of gvfs. (CVE-2026-88924)
A local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the admin backend of gvfs due to a race condition in the gvfsd-admin daemon. The daemon improperly changes ownership of newly created private D-Bus sockets by following symbolic links in user-controlled directories. An authenticated local attacker can exploit this TOCTOU race condition to change ownership of arbitrary root-owned files, potentially leading to full root privileges.
AI Analysis
Technical Summary
CVE-2026-88924 describes a TOCTOU race condition vulnerability in the gvfsd-admin daemon of GVFS. The daemon changes ownership of private D-Bus sockets using a link-following chown() call on a pathname inside a user-controlled directory. An attacker can replace the socket pathname with a symbolic link to a root-owned file, causing the daemon to change ownership of that file to the attacker's user ID. This flaw allows an authenticated local attacker to modify critical system files and escalate privileges to root. The vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.0, indicating high severity.
Potential Impact
The vulnerability allows an authenticated local attacker to gain full root privileges by exploiting a race condition that changes ownership of arbitrary root-owned files. This can lead to unauthorized modification of critical system files and complete system compromise.
Mitigation Recommendations
Official patches are available from Red Hat for affected Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 9 and 10. Users should apply the security updates referenced in Red Hat advisories RHSA-2026:73998 and RHSA-2026:74370 to remediate this vulnerability. No additional mitigation steps are required beyond applying these updates.
A flaw was found in the admin backend of gvfs. (CVE-2026-88924)
Description
A local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the admin backend of gvfs due to a race condition in the gvfsd-admin daemon. The daemon improperly changes ownership of newly created private D-Bus sockets by following symbolic links in user-controlled directories. An authenticated local attacker can exploit this TOCTOU race condition to change ownership of arbitrary root-owned files, potentially leading to full root privileges.
CVSS v3.1
Score 7.0high
Affected software
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Weaknesses
AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
CVE-2026-88924 describes a TOCTOU race condition vulnerability in the gvfsd-admin daemon of GVFS. The daemon changes ownership of private D-Bus sockets using a link-following chown() call on a pathname inside a user-controlled directory. An attacker can replace the socket pathname with a symbolic link to a root-owned file, causing the daemon to change ownership of that file to the attacker's user ID. This flaw allows an authenticated local attacker to modify critical system files and escalate privileges to root. The vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.0, indicating high severity.
Potential Impact
The vulnerability allows an authenticated local attacker to gain full root privileges by exploiting a race condition that changes ownership of arbitrary root-owned files. This can lead to unauthorized modification of critical system files and complete system compromise.
Mitigation Recommendations
Official patches are available from Red Hat for affected Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 9 and 10. Users should apply the security updates referenced in Red Hat advisories RHSA-2026:73998 and RHSA-2026:74370 to remediate this vulnerability. No additional mitigation steps are required beyond applying these updates.
Technical Details
- Gcve Source
- db.gcve.eu
- Osv Id
- GHSA-8w8m-36rw-gg63
- Osv Schema Version
- 1.4.0
- Aliases
- ["CVE-2026-88924"]
- Database Specific Severity
- HIGH
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
Patch Information
Threat ID: 6abeb3efa43b0b3b89ed4721
Added to database: 10/01/2026, 19:26:39 UTC
Last enriched: 10/01/2026, 19:32:13 UTC
Last updated: 10/01/2026, 20:26:15 UTC
Views: 3
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