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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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.

History

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 15:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Title Gvfs: gvfs admin socket ownership race permits local root Gvfs: gvfs-admin socket ownership race permits local root

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

{'score': 7, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'}


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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: redhat

Published:

Updated: 2026-09-10T14:53:20.256Z

Reserved: 2026-09-10T14:04:13.603Z

Link: CVE-2026-88924

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-09-10T15:17:59.253

Modified: 2026-09-10T15:17:59.253

Link: CVE-2026-88924

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses