High [CVE-2026-63622] swtpm privilege escalation via symlink following
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-63622 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 Extended Update Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 Update Services for SAP Solutions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Update Services for SAP Solutions.
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Summary
A flaw was found in libvirt. A local attacker, specifically a process running as the confined `swtpm` user, could exploit a symlink-following vulnerability in the `virFileChownFiles()` function.
By planting a symbolic link within the `swtpm` state directory, the attacker could trick the root-level libvirt daemon into changing the ownership of an arbitrary file to the `swtpm` user. This allows for privilege escalation from the `swtpm` sandbox to root-level file ownership control.
Red Hat severity: Important — CVSS 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). Weakness: CWE-59.
Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 Extended Update Support; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 Update Services for SAP Solutions; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Update Services for SAP Solutions; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6 Extended Update Support; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9; Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26.
Red Hat lists Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 as not affected. Will not fix / out of support: Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26.
Red Hat fixing advisory: RHSA-2026:64773, RHSA-2026:65516, RHSA-2026:65803, RHSA-2026:65515.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat package: libvirt.
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 26 days ago·verify at source
- libvirt-0:10.10.0-8.11.el10_0
- libvirt-0:9.0.0-10.16.el9_2
- libvirt-0:10.0.0-6.23.el9_4
- libvirt-0:10.10.0-7.18.el9_6
- RHSA-2026:64773
- RHSA-2026:65516
- RHSA-2026:65803
- RHSA-2026:65515
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 26 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- If virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) functionality is not required, remove the <tpm> device definition from the domain XML configuration to prevent the vulnerable code path from being reached. To check if a domain uses vTPM: ``` virsh dumpxml <domain> | grep -A5 '<tpm' ``` To remove it, edit the domain XML and delete the <tpm> block. This prevents libvirt from spawning swtpm processes and from calling virFileChownFiles() on the swtpm state directory during domain startup. Domains that require vTPM for guest OS functionality cannot use this mitigation and should prioritize applying the upstream fix.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 26 days ago·verify at source
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