CVE-2026-54228
abrt: TOCTOU race condition in abrt-dbus SetElement allows arbitrary file writes to dump directories
Severity
ImportantRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · May 4, 2026
Updated · August 13, 2026
Description
A time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition was found in the abrt-dbus D-Bus service's SetElement method. Between dump directory creation and post-create event execution, any local user can call SetElement to write arbitrary text files into the root-owned dump directory, bypassing package validation and allowing crashes of unpackaged binaries to survive post-create processing.
Statement
Red Hat is aware of this vulnerability affecting ABRT (Automatic Bug Reporting Tool). ABRT was deprecated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and is not available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 or later. Users of RHEL 8 who have ABRT installed are encouraged to disable or remove it. Fedora users are affected on Fedora 43 and Fedora 44 where ABRT is still shipped.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
The following practices would help for avoiding exposure and mitigate this flaw:
- Disable or remove ABRT if it is not required. On RHEL 8 systems where ABRT is installed, it can be disabled with: systemctl disable --now abrtd.service abrt-journal-core.service abrt-oops.service abrt-xorg.service
- On Fedora systems, consider using systemd-coredump instead of ABRT for crash handling, as ABRT is being phased out in favor of systemd-coredump
- Restrict local user access to systems running ABRT, as this vulnerability requires local access
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 7.8CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE-367 · Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition