U.S. flag   An official website of the United States government
Dot gov

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Https

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (Dot gov) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

National Vulnerability Database

National Vulnerability Database

NVD

National Vulnerability Database
  1. Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-16552 Detail

Description

A flaw was found in systemd-tmpfiles. When processing a tmpfiles.d configuration entry that writes to a file, systemd-tmpfiles can follow a symbolic link placed by an unprivileged local user, and an existing safety check does not detect this specific case because it always treats transitions away from the root user as safe. On systems where a tmpfiles.d configuration targets a path an unprivileged user can influence, this could allow that user to redirect a privileged systemd-tmpfiles write to a file of their choosing, though the content written remains determined by the existing configuration rather than by the unprivileged user. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to integrity.


Metrics

 
NVD enrichment efforts reference publicly available information to associate vector strings. CVSS information contributed by other sources is also displayed.
CVSS 4.0 Severity and Vector Strings:

NIST CVSS score
NIST: NVD
N/A
NVD assessment not yet provided.

References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools

By selecting these links, you will be leaving NIST webspace. We have provided these links to other web sites because they may have information that would be of interest to you. No inferences should be drawn on account of other sites being referenced, or not, from this page. There may be other web sites that are more appropriate for your purpose. NIST does not necessarily endorse the views expressed, or concur with the facts presented on these sites. Further, NIST does not endorse any commercial products that may be mentioned on these sites. Please address comments about this page to [email protected].

URL Source(s) Tag(s)
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-16552 Red Hat, Inc.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2506073 Red Hat, Inc.
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/b9ef5951f8f9e156479494fdb9ca6274cb3d3c53/src/basic/chase.c Red Hat, Inc.
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/b9ef5951f8f9e156479494fdb9ca6274cb3d3c53/src/tmpfiles/tmpfiles.c Red Hat, Inc.

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-ID CWE Name Source
CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access ('Link Following') Red Hat, Inc.  

Change History

2 change records found show changes

Quick Info

CVE Dictionary Entry:
CVE-2026-16552
NVD Published Date:
07/22/2026
NVD Last Modified:
07/22/2026
Source:
Red Hat, Inc.