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CVE-2026-86805: CWE-367 Time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition in The GNU C Library glibc

0
High
VulnerabilityCVE-2026-86805cvecve-2026-86805cwe-367
Published: 09/22/2026 (09/22/2026, 15:55:17 UTC)
Source: CVE Database V5
Vendor/Project: The GNU C Library
Product: glibc

Description

A time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition in the dynamic loader (ld.so) of the GNU C Library (glibc) versions 2.14 through 2.44 allows a local attacker to escalate privileges. When expanding $ORIGIN in DT_RPATH for setuid/setgid (AT_SECURE) programs, glibc validates the lexically normalized search path against the trusted directories but then opens the raw, un-normalized path. On systems where the Linux fs.protected_hardlinks sysctl is disabled, a local attacker who hard-links such a program into an attacker-controlled directory and wins a race to replace an intermediate path component with a symbolic link can direct the loader outside the trusted directory, causing it to load an attacker-controlled shared object and execute arbitrary code with the elevated privileges of the program. Exploitation requires an installed setuid or setgid binary whose DT_RPATH uses $ORIGIN followed by ".." traversal that normalizes into a trusted directory, and the ability to hard-link that binary and win the race by swapping a path component for a symbolic link. Major Linux-based OS distributions ship with fs.protected_hardlinks enabled by default and mitigate the vulnerability.

CVSS v3.1

Score 7.0high

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
High
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected software

The GNU C Library

glibc

Affected versions
>=2.14 <2.45

Technical Details

Data Version
5.2
Assigner Short Name
glibc
Date Reserved
2026-09-08T12:56:00.982Z
Cvss Version
3.1
State
PUBLISHED

Threat ID: 6ab2a6c5f7a7c54106658e06

Added to database: 09/22/2026, 16:03:17 UTC

Last updated: 09/22/2026, 16:03:17 UTC

Views: 1

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