{"id":"CVE-2026-49237","summary":"Local Privilege Escalation in Canonical Multipass","details":"An issue was discovered in Canonical Multipass for macOS before version 1.16.3 due to an incomplete fix for CVE-2025-5199. While the patch in version 1.16.0 updated the ownership of the multipassd daemon binary to root:wheel, five co-located binaries (multipass, qemu-img, qemu-system-aarch64, qemu-system-x86_64, and sshfs_server) in /Library/Application Support/com.canonical.multipass/bin/ retain ownership by the installing user and remain writable. Because the root LaunchDaemon (com.canonical.multipassd.plist) configures a PATH environment variable that prioritizes this user-writable directory and invokes these auxiliary binaries by their bare names, a local attacker can replace an auxiliary binary (such as qemu-img) with a malicious wrapper. When the root daemon subsequently triggers the binary during routine execution (e.g., via multipass launch), the malicious code executes with root privileges, leading to local privilege escalation.","aliases":["GHSA-r2xg-x32f-23c5"],"modified":"2026-07-08T08:13:55.198835659Z","published":"2026-05-28T13:22:42.840Z","database_specific":{"cna_assigner":"canonical","cwe_ids":["CWE-276"],"osv_generated_from":"https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/49xxx/CVE-2026-49237.json"},"references":[{"type":"ADVISORY","url":"https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/49xxx/CVE-2026-49237.json"},{"type":"ADVISORY","url":"https://github.com/canonical/multipass/security/advisories/GHSA-r2xg-x32f-23c5"},{"type":"ADVISORY","url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-49237"}],"affected":[{"ranges":[{"type":"GIT","repo":"https://github.com/canonical/multipass","events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"fixed":"c8ab690c06ee555de4f5d8659d606d160d29f91e"}],"database_specific":{"source":["AFFECTED_FIELD","CPE_RANGE"],"extracted_events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"fixed":"1.16.3"}],"cpe":"cpe:2.3:a:canonical:multipass:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"}}],"versions":["v1.16.3-rc1","v1.16.2-rc3","v1.16.2","v1.16.2-rc2","v1.16.2-rc1","v1.16.1-rc3","v1.16.1","v1.16.1-rc2","v1.16.1-rc1","v1.16.0","v1.16.0-rc5","v1.16.0-rc4","v1.16.0-rc3","v1.16.0-rc2","v1.16.0-rc1","v1.15.0-rc1","v1.16.0-dev","v1.14.0-rc1","v1.14.0-rc","v1.15.0-dev","v1.14.0-dev","v1.13.0-rc","v1.12.0-rc","v1.13.0-dev","v1.11.0-rc","v1.12.0-dev","v1.10.0-rc","v1.11.0-dev","v1.9.0-rc","v1.10.0-dev","v1.8.0-rc","v1.9.0-dev","v1.7.0-rc","v1.8.0-dev","v1.7.0-dev","v1.6.0-rc","v1.5.0-rc","v1.6.0-dev","v1.4.0-rc","v1.5.0-dev","v1.4.0-dev","v1.3.0-rc","v1.3.0-dev","v1.2.1","v1.2.0-rc","v1.2.0","v1.1.0-rc","v1.2.0-dev","v1.1.0-dev","v0.10.1-rc","v0.10.0-rc","v0.11.0-dev","v0.9.0-rc","v0.10.0-dev","v0.8.0","v0.9.0-dev","v0.8.0-rc","v0.7.0-rc","v0.8.0-dev","v0.7.0-dev2","v0.6.0-rc","v0.7.0-dev","v0.6.0-pre1","v0.5","2018.12.1-rc1","2018.11.1-pre3","2018.11.1-pre2","2018.11.1-pre1","2018.10.1","2018.4.2","2018.4.1","2017.2.3","2017.2.1"],"database_specific":{"source":"https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2026-49237.json"}}],"schema_version":"1.7.5","severity":[{"type":"CVSS_V3","score":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"}]}