CVE-2026-23988 HIGH

CVE-2026-23988: Rufus has Local Privilege Escalation via TOCTOU Race Condition in Fido Script Handling

Vendor Pbatard
Product rufus
Weakness CWE-367
Published January 22, 2026
Last update January 23, 2026

CVSS base score

7.3/10
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction Required
Confidentiality High
Integrity High

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives. Versions 4.11 and below contain a race condition (TOCTOU) in src/net.c during the creation, validation, and execution of the Fido PowerShell script. Since Rufus runs with elevated privileges (Administrator) but writes the script to the %TEMP% directory (writeable by standard users) without locking the file, a local attacker can replace the legitimate script with a malicious one between the file write operation and the execution step. This allows arbitrary code execution with Administrator privileges. This issue has been fixed in version 4.12_BETA.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

January 22, 2026 CVE published
January 23, 2026 Record updated