Rsync < 3.4.3 TOCTOU Race Condition Allows Symlink-Based Arbitrary File Write
21Vexday Risk Score
No sign of exploitation. No public exploitation artifact known so far.
ssvc Trackcvss 7.3epss 0.2%
exploitation probability
0.2%top 95% of all CVEs
observed exploitation
nono source reports it
Rsync versions before 3.4.3 contain a time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition in daemon file handling that allows attackers to redirect file writes outside intended directories by replacing parent directory components with symbolic links. Attackers with write access to a module path can exploit this race condition to create or overwrite arbitrary files, potentially modifying sensitive system files and achieving privilege escalation when the daemon runs with elevated privileges. This vulnerability can only be triggered if the chroot setting is false.
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Affected products
RsyncProject · rsyncReferences
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:26332https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:26408https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:26410https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:29197https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-29518https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2469055https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/pull/895/changes/8471fdd1561049ef5f58df44a1811a50bd9a531dhttps://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.4.3https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2026-05-24-minimal-memory-safe-go-rsync-vulns/https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-29518.jsonhttps://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/rsync-toctou-race-condition-allows-symlink-based-arbitrary-file-write