CVE-2026-33711Incus vulnerable to local privilege escalation through VM screenshot path
- 4.7MediumCVSS base score
- 0.37%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 68% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
Description
Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Incus provides an API to retrieve VM screenshots. That API relies on the use of a temporary file for QEMU to write the screenshot to which is then picked up and sent to the user prior to deletion. As versions prior to 6.23.0 use predictable paths under /tmp for this, an attacker with local access to the system can abuse this mechanism by creating their own symlinks ahead of time. On the vast majority of Linux systems, this will result in a "Permission denied" error when requesting a screenshot. That's because the Linux kernel has a security feature designed to block such attacks, `protected_symlinks`. On the rare systems with this purposefully disabled, it's then possible to trick Incus intro truncating and altering the mode and permissions of arbitrary files on the filesystem, leading to a potential denial of service or possible local privilege escalation. Version 6.23.0 fixes the issue.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. A reference of the record is tagged as an exploit. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Show the exploits1
References tagged exploit1 reference
- https://github.com/lxc/incus/security/advisories/GHSA-q9vp-3wcg-8p4x (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMexploit
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 3 days later
· 3 days later
Published
- 1 day later
· 1 day later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 4.0 | Medium4.7 | CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 4.0 | Medium4.7 | CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.37% · top 68% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 4.7.
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- Gogithub.com/lxc/incus/v6GHSA-q9vp-3wcg-8p4x (opens in a new tab)
References
References1
- https://github.com/lxc/incus/security/advisories/GHSA-q9vp-3wcg-8p4x (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMexploit
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-16462 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-q9vp-3wcg-8p4x (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-33711)Record last updated .