High [CVE-2026-12080] Local privilege escalation via symlink attack in guest-ssh-add-authorized-keys
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-12080 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.
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Summary
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. Red Hat severity: Important — CVSS 7.3 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).
Weakness: CWE-61. Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9; Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26; Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.
Red Hat lists Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 as not affected. Will not fix / out of support: Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26.
Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat package: qemu-kvm.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 10 days ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 10 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- If the `guest-ssh-add-authorized-keys` command is not required, it can be disabled by adding it to the qemu-guest-agent block list (qemu-ga --block-rpcs). This prevents the vulnerable code path from being reached while preserving all other guest-agent functionality.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 10 days ago·verify at source
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