CVE-2026-90616
In Flatpak before 1.18.1, a malicious sandboxed app can obtain arbitrary read and write access to files on the host, which can be escalated to arbitrary code execution on the host, a different vulnerability than CVE-2026-76925. Flatpak creates a few app data directories (e.g., /var/cache, /var/data, /var/config, and /var/tmp) in every sandbox on every app launch where, in some cases, components of the path are attacker-controlled. Missing symlink protection can redirect the directories. Some of these directories are bind-mounted by Flatpak by passing the path (e.g., /home/user/.var/app/APP_ID/cache/tmp), which contains attacker-controlled directories (tmp) to bwrap --bind SRC DST. bwrap passes the path on to the kernel, which then follows symlinks. A malicious symlink can point to arbitrary locations on the host and it will become mounted inside the sandbox.
Scoring
- Severity
- HIGH
- CVSS base score
- 7.4
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS probability
- 0.17%
- CWE
- CWE-61
- Published
- 2026-09-12
- Last modified
- 2026-09-14
Affected products
- Flatpak Flatpak
Weakness type
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