Kbd: local privilege escalation in openvt via incorrect process owner verification allowing passwordless root login
21Vexday Risk Score
No sign of exploitation. No public exploitation artifact known so far.
ssvc Trackcvss 7.8epss 0.1%
exploitation probability
0.1%top 99% of all CVEs
observed exploitation
nono source reports it
`openvt -u` is intended to identify the owner of the current VT and then execute `login` as that user from a privileged context. In the documented `kbrequest`/init usage, the ownership test in `authenticate_user()` relies on `stat("/proc/<pid>/fd/0")`. `stat()` on `/proc/<pid>/fd/0` follows the symlink to the underlying TTY device node. As a result, `buf.st_uid` reflects the owner of the TTY node rather than the owner of the process holding the file descriptor. If the TTY owner returns to `root` or the getty owner after logout while an unprivileged process still has `fd 0` attached to that TTY, the check can incorrectly treat that process as belonging to the privileged console owner. Once that check succeeds, the `-u` path executes a passwordless login as the selected user. In the documented `kbrequest`/init deployment using `openvt -us`, this can result in passwordless `login -f root` on the spawned VT. This report establishes that privilege escalation path for that documented deployment; it does not claim equivalent reachability for deployments that do not use `openvt -u` from a privileged `kbrequest`/init path.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Affected products
Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9Red Hat · Red Hat Hardened ImagesRed Hat · Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4Red Hat · Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.22References
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:41136https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:57597https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:57610https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:60440https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:66357https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-72693https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2462115