CVE-2026-16526 is a privilege escalation vulnerability in the PCP linux_sockets module. It exposes an unsecured internal connection that allows an attacker with initial code execution to escalate privileges from the pcp user to root and execute arbitrary commands. Exploitation requires a non-default configuration where the linux_sockets PMDA is loaded as a Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) in PMCD. The default daemon mode configuration is not affected.