systemd up to 257.10/258.4/259.1 API Call privileges management

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in systemd up to 257.10/258.4/259.1. It has been classified as critical. This issue affects some unknown processing of the component API Call Handler. This manipulation causes privileges management. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-29111. The attack can only be executed locally. There is no exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in systemd up to 257.10/258.4/259.1. It has been declared as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown code block of the component API Call Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a privileges management vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-269. The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor. As an impact it is known to affect availability. The summary by CVE is:

systemd, a system and service manager, (as PID 1) hits an assert and freezes execution when an unprivileged IPC API call is made with spurious data. On version v249 and older the effect is not an assert, but stack overwriting, with the attacker controlled content. From version v250 and newer this is not possible as the safety check causes an assert instead. This IPC call was added in v239, so versions older than that are not affected. Versions 260-rc1, 259.2, 258.5, and 257.11 contain patches. No known workarounds are available.

The advisory is shared at github.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-29111 since 03/03/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. An attack has to be approached locally. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 06/23/2026). MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1068 for this issue.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 303456 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-29111), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 257.11, 258.5, 259.2 or 260-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 1d22f706bd04f45f8422e17fbde3f56ece17758a is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (303456) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-0831). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• IBM MQ
• SUSE openSUSE
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Open Source systemd

Productinfo

Name

• systemd

Version

• 257.0
• 257.1
• 257.2
• 257.3
• 257.4
• 257.5
• 257.6
• 257.7
• 257.8
• 257.9
• 257.10
• 258.0
• 258.1
• 258.2
• 258.3
• 258.4
• 259.0
• 259.1

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Discussion