CVE-2026-6970

authd Denial of Service and Local Privilege Escalation

HIGH
7.3
CVSS Score
Published: April 27, 2026 at 03:28 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 11:01 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorAuthd

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Severity
HIGH7.3
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.1%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

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.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

0.6.0 ≤ v < 0.6.40.6.1 ≤ v < 0.6.1ubuntu0.10.6.00.6.1
Affected range stops below 0.6.1ubuntu0.1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 0.6.4, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

7.3HIGHcanonical
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusDEFERRED
CWE
CWE-842

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