Cifs-utils: local privilege escalation via forged cifs.spnego key description in cifs.upcall
cve-program · CVE-2026-12505
PublishedA flaw was found in the cifs-utils package where the cifs.upcall helper fails to securely drop its root privileges before looking up user information inside a user-controlled environment. A local, low privileged attacker can exploit this by using a crafted request_key payload to trick the root-owned helper into entering a custom environment (namespace) containing a malicious NSS module. This forces the system to load the attacker's controlled NSS Module and configuration, allowing them to execute arbitrary commands as the root user, elevating their privileges and fully compromising the system.
Read the publisher's advisoryAffected versions, risk and source history
Related advisories and sources
Publishers link these advisories through the identifiers shown below. A shared identifier or date alone does not tell you whether your software is affected or whether the advisories describe the same cause.
CVE-2026-12505 · CVE overview and exploitation status
cve-program · CVE-2026-12505
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:32990
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:39575
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:39576
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:44232
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-12505
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2489805
- https://git.samba.org/?p=cifs-utils.git;a=commit;h=972c5b5ff95e3e812bc8daa72d0383654ab0dba7
Related changes
Linked by CVE identifier- Cifs-utils: local privilege escalation via forged cifs.spnego key description in cifs.upcall · Affected-version evidence changed · 4 Nov 2026
- Cifs-utils: local privilege escalation via forged cifs.spnego key description in cifs.upcall · Affected-version evidence changed · 3 Nov 2026