Sudo: sudo: tz environment variable allows bypass of notbefore/notafter time-based authorization
41Vexday Risk Score
No sign of exploitation. It has a public proof of concept.
ssvc Attendcvss 7.8epss 0.1%
from disclosure to weapon2 days
Published on NVDSep 23
1st PoC+2d
exploitation probability
0.1%top 98% of all CVEs
observed exploitation
nono source reports it
2 public exploit(s)
A flaw was found in sudo. When sudoers rules use NOTBEFORE or NOTAFTER time-based access restrictions with timestamps that omit the trailing 'Z' timezone indicator, the time evaluation relies on the TZ environment variable inherited from the calling user. Because sudo is a setuid-root program, an unprivileged local user can set TZ to an extreme timezone offset to shift the authorization window by up to approximately 25 hours, causing expired rules to be treated as valid. This allows the user to execute commands outside the intended time window. Authentication is not bypassed; only the time-based authorization check is affected.
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 7Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9Red Hat · Red Hat Hardened Imagespublic PoCs found — 2
githubgithub.com/Ermensonx/sudotimewarp-cve-2026-96512-★ 1githubgithub.com/abraxas/CVE-2026-96512★ 0⚠ Public resources, to assess the exposure of systems you control or are authorized to test. Test only with authorization.
References
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:71609https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-96512https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2539327https://github.com/sudo-project/sudo/commit/1820a349687522f51023d1ae5925125f59679a8chttp://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/09/24/4