VulnerabilityPublished 3 Apr 2026Updated 6 Apr 2026

CVE-2026-34978: OpenPrinting cups · Path Traversal

Affects OpenPrinting cupsSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium.

Data as of 29 Oct 2026, 19:04 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 34% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 3 Apr 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by 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), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 29 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
OpenPrintingcups	Affected <=2.4.16	Fixed in–
GitHubopenprinting/cups`pkg:github/openprinting/cups`Other threats	Affected <=2.4.16	Fixed in–

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

AI-suggested

At the time of publication, no official patches or fixes are available for this vulnerability. Users should monitor the OpenPrinting project for updates and advisories. Until a fix is released, consider restricting network access to the CUPS IPP service to trusted clients only and applying compensating controls to limit exposure.

Description

OpenPrinting CUPS is an open source printing system for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. In versions 2.4.16 and prior, the RSS notifier allows .. path traversal in notify-recipient-uri (e.g., rss:///../job.cache), letting a remote IPP client write RSS XML bytes outside CacheDir/rss (anywhere that is lp-writable). In particular, because CacheDir is group-writable by default (typically root:lp and mode 0770), the notifier (running as lp) can replace root-managed state files via temp-file + rename(). This PoC clobbers CacheDir/job.cache with RSS XML, and after restarting cupsd the scheduler fails to parse the job cache and previously queued jobs disappear. At time of publication, there are no publicly available patches.

Impact

The vulnerability allows remote unauthenticated attackers to overwrite critical print system files, specifically the job cache, leading to denial of service by causing the print scheduler to fail and lose queued print jobs. There is no indication of confidentiality or direct code execution impact. The CVSS score of 6.5 (medium severity) reflects the network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges required, and impact on integrity and availability.

Summary

OpenPrinting CUPS (<= 2.4.16) contains a CWE-22 path traversal vulnerability in the RSS notifier component. The notify-recipient-uri parameter accepts path traversal sequences (e.g., rss:///../job.cache), enabling a remote IPP client to write RSS XML bytes outside the restricted CacheDir/rss directory to any location writable by the lp user. Since CacheDir is group-writable (root:lp, mode 0770), the notifier running as lp can overwrite root-managed state files via a temporary file and rename operation. This can corrupt the job cache file, causing the scheduler to fail to parse it and lose previously queued jobs. No public patches or vendor advisories with fixes are available as of the publication date.

CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory (Path Traversal) (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #6OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks…
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Path Traversal (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls (opens in a new tab)
Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

github.com/OpenPrinting/cups/security/advisories/GHSA-f53q-7mxp-9gcr (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 11 Apr 2026, 09:24 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-22

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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