CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-23988

Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition

Published: Jan 22, 2026 | Modified: Feb 27, 2026
CVSS 3.x
7
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
root.io logo minimus.io logo echo.ai logo

Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives. Versions 4.11 and below contain a race condition (TOCTOU) in src/net.c during the creation, validation, and execution of the Fido PowerShell script. Since Rufus runs with elevated privileges (Administrator) but writes the script to the %TEMP% directory (writeable by standard users) without locking the file, a local attacker can replace the legitimate script with a malicious one between the file write operation and the execution step. This allows arbitrary code execution with Administrator privileges. This issue has been fixed in version 4.12_BETA.

Weakness

The product checks the state of a resource before using that resource, but the resource’s state can change between the check and the use in a way that invalidates the results of the check.

Affected Software

NameVendorStart VersionEnd Version
RufusAkeo*4.12 (excluding)

Potential Mitigations

References