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No exploitation reportedFix availableAwaiting NVD analysis

CVE-2026-19079

Policycoreutils: policycoreutils: toctou race condition in fixfiles allows arbitrary selinux label manipulation

No exploitation reported by the sources we read.

  • Published2026-08-07
  • WeaknessCWE-367

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

A TOCTOU (Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use) race condition vulnerability was found in the fixfiles script in policycoreutils. When running fixfiles relabel or fixfiles restore, the script used find and chcon commands to locate and relabel unlabeled files under /tmp and other directories. A local attacker could exploit a race window between the file discovery and the label change operation by swapping directory components with symlinks, causing chcon to follow the symlink and modify SELinux labels on arbitrary system files. This could undermine SELinux mandatory access control protections on critical files such as /etc/shadow.

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2026-08-0707:21CVE publishedCNA

Versions per branch

Products declared by the CNA9 products

As redhat, the CNA that assigned this CVE, declared them in the CVE record; versions as written.

3 more products in the CVE record.

Source: the CNA record (CVE Program), © The MITRE Corporation,CVE Terms of UseCVE recordupdated 2026-11-05

Distribution builds and vendor advisories

Packages from OSV.dev and products from the vendors' CSAF advisories.

version not verifiedVersions not verified: read as OSV.dev and the vendors publish them, not checked against each vendor's release list.

Packages

  • policycoreutilsUbuntu:26.10all versions · no fixed version listed
  • policycoreutilsUbuntu:26.04:LTSall versions · no fixed version listed
  • policycoreutilsUbuntu:24.04:LTSall versions · no fixed version listed
  • policycoreutilsUbuntu:22.04:LTSall versions · no fixed version listed
  • policycoreutilsUbuntu:20.04:LTSall versions · no fixed version listed
  • policycoreutilsUbuntu:18.04:LTSall versions · no fixed version listed
  • policycoreutilsUbuntu:16.04:LTSall versions · no fixed version listed
  • policycoreutilsUbuntu:14.04:LTSall versions · no fixed version listed

4 more package ranges on OSV.dev

Vendor advisories

  • CVE-2026-19079 Red Hat Product Security4 products fixed · 43 known affected

    policycoreutils: policycoreutils: TOCTOU race condition in fixfiles allows arbitrary SELinux label manipulation

    policycoreutils-dbus as a component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · policycoreutils-devel as a component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · policycoreutils-gui as a component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · +40 more

  • RHSA-2026:51861 Red Hat Product Security19 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: Red Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update

Full record on NVD

Fix

  1. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2026:51861 · 19 productsFor details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes described in this advisory, refer to: https://images.redhat.com/
  2. Workaround from the vendor Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2026:51861 · 19 productsAs a workaround, use 'restorecon -R /' directly instead of 'fixfiles relabel' or 'fixfiles restore' to perform filesystem relabeling. This avoids the vulnerable /tmp-specific find+chcon code path entirely. Note that this skips the /tmp cleanup logic, but on modern systems where /tmp is mounted as t…
  3. No fix available, says the vendor Red Hat Product Security CVE-2026-19079 · 37 productsFix deferred
  4. No fix planned, says the vendor Red Hat Product Security CVE-2026-19079 · 6 productsOut of support scope

Detection

Nuclei template
none so far
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
no entry
Exploit-DB
Proof of concept
Metasploit modules
none listed
Metasploit Framework

Sources

Identifiers

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Published
2026-08-07
Last Modified
2026-11-05
NVD status
Awaiting Analysis
GitHub Advisory
GHSA-8hc6-8f5m-vmq3

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-19079?

A TOCTOU (Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use) race condition vulnerability was found in the fixfiles script in policycoreutils. When running fixfiles relabel or fixfiles restore, the script used find and chcon commands to locate and relabel unlabeled files under /tmp and other directories. A local attacker could exploit a race window between the file discovery and the label change operation by swapping directory components with symlinks, causing chcon to follow the symlink and modify SELinux labels on arbitrary system files. This could undermine SELinux mandatory access control protections on critical files such as /etc/shadow.

Is CVE-2026-19079 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2026-19079 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 0.1% on 2026-11-09, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2026-19079?

CVE-2026-19079 has a CVSS v3 base score of 4.4 (MEDIUM severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N.

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