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Linux vulnerability allows privilege escalation
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1 min read
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Briefly Editorial Team

Linux vulnerability allows privilege escalation

TL;DR

  • •CVE-2026-46333 has a medium severity level
  • •The issue has existed in Linux code since 2016

Why it matters

The vulnerability enables attackers to access the machine and execute commands with elevated privileges.

Linux Vulnerability

A serious vulnerability has been discovered in the Linux operating system, allowing any user to gain administrative access to a machine. The bug has existed in the Linux code since 2016 and affects popular distributions, including Red Hat, SUSE, Debian, Fedora, AlmaLinux, and CloudLinux.

Technical Details

The vulnerability, CVE-2026-46333, has a medium severity level (5.5 out of 10). When a program running with administrative privileges transitions to a shutdown mode, Linux should immediately interrupt access to it from other programs. However, due to the bug, this occurs a fraction of a second later than it should, allowing regular, unprivileged users to exploit this short time frame.

Industry Impact

Experts from Qualys have created four working exploits demonstrating the practical danger of the vulnerability. System administrators are advised to update the kernel immediately; if this is not possible, they should increase the value of the «kernel.yama.ptrace_scope» parameter to «2», which will block public exploits.