Description
A flaw was found in the admin backend of gvfs. The privileged gvfsd-admin daemon changes the ownership of newly created private D-Bus sockets by calling the link-following chown() function on a pathname inside a user-controlled directory. A local attacker can exploit this via a Time-of-Check Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) race condition and exchange the socket pathname with a symbolic link pointing to an arbitrary root-owned file (such as /etc/pam.d/su). The daemon subsequently follows the symlink and changes the ownership of the targeted root-owned file to the attacker's user ID. This allows an authenticated local attacker to modify critical system files, leading to a full local privilege escalation to root.
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Remediation
Vendor Workaround
To mitigate this issue, adjust Polkit rules to require password authentication to start gvfsd-admin or remove execute permissions of the gvfsd-admin binary to prevent execution.
Tracking
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References
History
Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:45:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| Description | A flaw was found in the admin backend of gvfs. The privileged gvfsd-admin daemon changes the ownership of newly created private D-Bus sockets by calling the link-following chown() function on a pathname inside a user-controlled directory. A local attacker can exploit this via a Time-of-Check Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) race condition and exchange the socket pathname with a symbolic link pointing to an arbitrary root-owned file (such as /etc/pam.d/su). The daemon subsequently follows the symlink and changes the ownership of the targeted root-owned file to the attacker's user ID. This allows an authenticated local attacker to modify critical system files, leading to a full local privilege escalation to root. | |
| Title | Gvfs: gvfs admin socket ownership race permits local root | |
| First Time appeared |
Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux |
|
| Weaknesses | CWE-367 | |
| CPEs | cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:10 cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6 cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7 cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8 cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9 |
|
| Vendors & Products |
Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux |
|
| References |
| |
| Metrics |
cvssV3_1
|
Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: redhat
Published:
Updated: 2026-09-10T14:53:20.256Z
Reserved: 2026-09-10T14:04:13.603Z
Link: CVE-2026-88924
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Weaknesses