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VulnerabilityPublished Updated

CVE-2026-4878: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 libcap · Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition

Affects Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 libcapSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.7 Medium : upgrade the Red Hat redhat/libcap package to 10.2 or 9.8 when convenient.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 11:52 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score
6.7Medium
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
EPSS
0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 10% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch
Available – fixed in 10.2, 9.8
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 9 Apr 2026

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponized: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  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), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 30 Oct 2026.

What to do

Upgrade the Red Hat redhat/libcap package to 10.2 or 9.8.

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
Red Hatredhat/libcappkg:rpm/redhat/libcapOther threatsAffected
  • <9.8
  • <10.2
Fixed in
  • 9.8
  • 10.2

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

AI-suggested

Red Hat has released official security updates for libcap that fix this TOCTOU race condition vulnerability. Users should apply the updated libcap packages as per Red Hat advisories RHSA-2026:12423 (for RHEL 10) and RHSA-2026:12441 (for RHEL 9). Detailed update instructions are available at https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258. Applying these updates fully mitigates the vulnerability. No additional mitigation steps are required beyond installing the official patches.

Description

A flaw was found in libcap. A local unprivileged user can exploit a Time-of-check-to-time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition in the `cap_set_file()` function. This allows an attacker with write access to a parent directory to redirect file capability updates to an attacker-controlled file. By doing so, capabilities can be injected into or stripped from unintended executables, leading to privilege escalation.

References

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