This vulnerability in the QEMU Guest Agent (qga) affects Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 and involves improper handling of symbolic links in the guest-ssh-add-authorized-keys command handler. A local unprivileged attacker can exploit either a deterministic directory symlink bypass or a time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) file symlink race to gain ownership of root-owned files or directories. This can lead to escalation to root privileges. The attack requires interaction with an external management layer such as libvirt to reach the vulnerable code path. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 7.3, indicating high severity with local attack vector, low complexity, low privileges required, user interaction needed, and high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Successful exploitation allows a local unprivileged user to gain ownership of arbitrary root-owned files or directories, which can lead to full root access on the affected system. This compromises system confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the vendor advisory at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-12080 for current remediation guidance. Until an official fix is available, restrict local user access and control the use of external management layers such as libvirt that can trigger the vulnerable code path.