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VulnerabilityPublished

CVE-2026-33711: lxc incus · UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following

Affects lxc incusSource CVE Database V5

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Public exploit available · CVSS 4.7 Medium : upgrade to 6.23.0 as a priority.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 06:59 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score
4.7Medium
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
EPSS
0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 30% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch
Available – fixed in 6.23.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 26 Mar 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponized: evidence found.

    CVSS exploit maturity: proof of concept public

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq Mirage: no evidence on record.

    No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), CVSS vector, the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 29 Oct 2026.

What to do

Upgrade incus and lxc/incus to 6.23.0.

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
lxcincusAffected
  • <6.23.0
Fixed in
  • 6.23.0
GitHublxc/incuspkg:github/lxc/incusOther threatsAffected
  • <6.23.0
Fixed in
  • 6.23.0

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

Upgrade Incus to version 6.23.0 or later, where this vulnerability is fixed. Systems relying on the Linux kernel's protected_symlinks feature are generally protected, but disabling this feature increases risk. No other mitigations are indicated by the vendor advisory. Patch status is not explicitly stated in patchLinks but the description confirms the fix is in version 6.23.0.

Description

CVE-2026-33711 is a medium severity vulnerability in Incus, a system container and VM manager, affecting versions prior to 6.23.0. The vulnerability arises from the use of predictable temporary file paths under /tmp for VM screenshots, allowing a local attacker to create symlinks that can be abused. On most Linux systems, a kernel security feature called protected_symlinks prevents exploitation, resulting in a permission denied error. However, on systems where this feature is disabled, an attacker can cause Incus to truncate and modify arbitrary files, potentially leading to denial of service or local privilege escalation. The issue is fixed in version 6.23.0.

References

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