CVE-2026-6970 HIGH

CVE-2026-6970: authd Denial of Service and Local Privilege Escalation

Vendor Canonical
Product authd
Weakness CWE-842
Published April 27, 2026
Last update April 27, 2026

CVSS base score

7.3/10
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

authd prior to version 0.6.4 contains a logic error in primary group ID assignment that can lead to local privilege escalation. When a user's primary group ID (GID) differs from their UID, either because the account was created with authd prior to version 0.5.4 or because the primary group was manually changed via the `authctl group set-gid` command, and the user's identity provider record is updated, authd incorrectly resets the user's primary group ID to their UID upon next login. This causes newly created files and directories to be owned by the wrong group, causing denial of service issues, and potentially granting unintended access to other local users and allowing local privilege escalation.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

April 27, 2026 CVE published
April 27, 2026 Record updated