CVE-2026-11837

A local privilege escalation vulnerability was found in the ansible.posix authorized_key module. The module's keyfile() function uses os.chown() instead of os.lchown() and opens files without O_NOFOLLOW when managing SSH authorized keys. An unprivileged local user can pre-stage symbolic links in their ~/.ssh directory to redirect file ownership changes to arbitrary system paths when an operator runs the authorized_key task as root, leading to local privilege escalation.

CVSS 3.1

7.3CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS

0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days; higher than 5% of CVEs (scores of 2026-10-25)

CWE

CWE-59

Published

2026-06-10

Modified

2026-10-13

Record from

the NVD, synced 2026-10-19

References

• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:79112
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:80508
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:82339
• https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-11837
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2487424

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