CVE-2026-12080

A flaw was found in the QEMU Guest Agent (qga). A local unprivileged user can exploit a vulnerability in the guest-ssh-add-authorized-keys command handler by manipulating symbolic links. This can occur either through a deterministic directory-symlink bypass or a Time-of-Check to Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) file-symlink race. Successful exploitation allows the attacker to gain ownership of arbitrary root-owned files or directories, leading to root access. This vulnerability requires an external management layer (e.g., libvirt) to trigger the affected code path.

CVSS 3.1

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

EPSS

0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days; higher than 3% of CVEs (scores of 2026-10-25)

CWE

CWE-61

Published

2026-07-20

Modified

2026-10-22

Record from

the NVD, synced 2026-10-23

References

• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:88421
• https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-12080
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2499603
• https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/work_items/3929

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