{"id":252975,"date":"2026-05-22T21:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T01:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/another-major-linux-security-flaw-revealed-nine-year-old-issue-could-spell-disaster-for-users\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T00:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:30:10","slug":"another-major-linux-security-flaw-revealed-nine-year-old-issue-could-spell-disaster-for-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/another-major-linux-security-flaw-revealed-nine-year-old-issue-could-spell-disaster-for-users\/","title":{"rendered":"Another major Linux security flaw revealed \u2014 nine-year old issue could spell disaster for users"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/security\/another-major-linux-security-flaw-revealed-nine-year-old-issue-could-spell-disaster-for-users\">Another major Linux security flaw revealed \u2014 nine-year old issue could spell disaster for users<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/security\/another-major-linux-security-flaw-revealed-nine-year-old-issue-could-spell-disaster-for-users\">https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/security\/another-major-linux-security-flaw-revealed-nine-year-old-issue-could-spell-disaster-for-users<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-22 21:22:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.techradar.com\">www.techradar.com<\/a><\/p>\n<ul id=\"elk-37371436-2def-4ae7-9aa8-8a83bddecc16\">\n<li><strong>Qualys discloses CVE\u20112026\u201146333, a Linux flaw present since 2016 which lets unprivileged users briefly hijack privileged processes to gain admin access<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Exploits were confirmed on default installs of Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Admins should apply updates immediately<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p id=\"elk-89c0b648-03f6-49c6-8191-1d03c5b8b6df\">Security researchers Qualys discovered a major flaw in the Linux operating system (OS) that could let any ordinary user, or malicious actor, gain full admin access on vulnerable endpoints.<\/p>\n<p>This bug lingered in Linux systems since 2016, and affects the default installations of several major distributions, including Red Hat, SUSE, Debian, Fedora, AlmaLinux, CloudLinux, and others.<\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-89c0b648-03f6-49c6-8191-1d03c5b8b6df-2\">Qualys says attackers could use it to view sensitive files or run commands with the highest level of system control.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"inline-flex items-center gap-1.5 text-sm font-article-heading capitalize leading-5 text-white whitespace-nowrap\"><span class=\"jwp-carousel-title-mobile\"\/><span class=\"jwp-carousel-title-desktop\">Latest Videos From<\/span><span class=\"jwp-carousel-brand inline-flex items-center\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/media\/img\/techradar_logo_v2.svg\" alt=\"\" class=\"max-h-12 w-auto\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><br \/>\n        <span class=\"\n            flex\n            after:content-[''] after:flex-1 after:ml-4 after:my-[0.7rem] after:border-t after:border-solid after:border-t-[#ccc]\n            before:content-[''] before:flex-1 before:mr-4 before:my-[0.7rem] before:border-t before:border-solid before:border-t-[#ccc]\n            font-article-heading pb-0 text-[length:var(--article-river-title--font-size,1em)] uppercase sm:text-[length:var(--article-river-title--font-size,0.875em)] font-bold\n        \"><br \/>\n            You may like<br \/>\n        <\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"working-exploits-3\">Working exploits<\/h2>\n<p id=\"elk-5c28a411-fdb4-4a55-ac70-48e3056654bf\">The vulnerability is now tracked as CVE-2026-46333 and has a severity score of 5.5\/10 (medium). It works by exploiting a narrow window in which a privileged process dropping its credentials remains reachable.<\/p>\n<p>When a program with admin-level privileges is in the process of shutting down, Linux is supposed to immediately cut off other programs from peeking into it. CVE-2026-46333 means that cut-off happens a fraction of a second too late, allowing normal, unprivileged users to exploit that tiny gap.<\/p>\n<p>During that window, the attacker can use a feature to grab a copy of the dying privileged program\u2019s open connections and files before they disappear.<\/p>\n<p>Qualys built four working exploits demonstrating the practical danger, confirming they work on default installs of Debian 13, Ubuntu 24.04\/26.04, Fedora 43, and Fedora 44.<\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!<\/p>\n<p>The researchers reported the flaw privately to the Linux kernel security team on May 11, 2026, and the team came back with a patch three days later, on May 14. Shortly after, an independent&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/pro\/security\/another-major-linux-security-flaw-revealed-nine-year-old-issue-could-spell-disaster-for-users\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another major Linux security flaw revealed \u2014 nine-year old issue could spell disaster for users&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/MRcAF4wnJU8Qb7Bv7Lb9yd-1920-80.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[143,177,90,91,31,97,89,71,94,57,79,27],"class_list":["post-252975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-almalinux","tag-cloudlinux","tag-cve","tag-debian","tag-exploit","tag-fedora","tag-flaw","tag-linux","tag-red-hat-enterprise-linux","tag-security","tag-ubuntu","tag-vulnerability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252979,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252975\/revisions\/252979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}