CVE-2026-54370

acl before version 2.4.0 contains a time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition vulnerability that allows local attackers to escalate privileges by replacing a pathname component with a symbolic link between an lstat() check and subsequent symlink-following operations such as stat(), chown(), chmod(), acl_get_file(), and acl_set_file(). Attackers who control a pathname component can redirect file access control list operations to arbitrary files when getfacl, setfacl, or chacl is invoked by a privileged process over an attacker-controlled path, resulting in local privilege escalation.

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

Potential Mitigations

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/27.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/29.html

References

• https://cgit.git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/acl.git/commit/?id=24a227d0ab8576612194f8a56c2314389adc74a5
• https://cgit.git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/acl.git/commit/?id=3589787cd589b34bdd9265936e17190b6d3f17d1
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/acl-toctou-symlink-traversal-via-getfacl-setfacl-chacl