Description
On Debian, Ubuntu, and derivative Linux distributions, an on-path attacker who can manipulate the HTTP traffic (including a malicious mirror or proxy) between an APT client and an archive server triggered by a package install can trick the client into installing an attacker-controlled unverified package and achieve remote code execution with root privileges.



The vulnerability is caused by the reuse of hard links and requires the client to follow redirects and retry the download of package files. It requires the client to have a non-zero Acquire::Retries configuration setting; the value 3 is the default starting with Debian 12 (bookworm) and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish), so older releases are unaffected in a default configuration
Published: 2026-11-04
Score: 7.7 High
EPSS: n/a
KEV: No
Impact: n/a
Action: n/a
AI Analysis

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Remediation

No vendor fix or workaround currently provided.

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Tracking

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Debian DLA Debian DLA DLA-4880-1 apt security update
History

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 16:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
References

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description On Debian, Ubuntu, and derivative Linux distributions, an on-path attacker who can manipulate the HTTP traffic (including a malicious mirror or proxy) between an APT client and an archive server triggered by a package install can trick the client into installing an attacker-controlled unverified package and achieve remote code execution with root privileges. The vulnerability is caused by the reuse of hard links and requires the client to follow redirects and retry the download of package files. It requires the client to have a non-zero Acquire::Retries configuration setting; the value 3 is the default starting with Debian 12 (bookworm) and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish), so older releases are unaffected in a default configuration
Title APT RCE via hard link reuse
Weaknesses CWE-367
CWE-62
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 7.7, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}

Subscriptions

No data.

cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: canonical

Published:

Updated: 2026-11-04T16:08:21.414Z

Reserved: 2026-10-12T18:44:13.619Z

Link: CVE-2026-109518

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-11-04T16:17:33.010

Modified: 2026-11-04T16:17:33.010

Link: CVE-2026-109518

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses