CVE-2026-5958Race Condition in GNU Sed
Updated under an hour ago ()
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It affects GNU Sed. Add what you run to find out whether that includes you.
No exploitation reported and no EPSS estimate yet.
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When sed is invoked with both -i (in-place edit) and --follow-symlinks, the function open_next_file() performs two separate, non-atomic filesystem operations on the same path: 1. resolves symlink to its target and stores the resolved path for determining when output is written, 2. opens the original symlink path (not the resolved one) to read the file. Between these two calls there is a race window. If an attacker atomically replaces the symlink with a different target during that window, sed will: read content from the new (attacker-chosen) symlink target and write the processed result to the path recorded in step 1. This can lead to arbitrary file overwrite with attacker-controlled content in the context of the sed process. This issue was fixed in version 4.10.
- CVSS
- 2.1 LOW (v4.0, CNA)CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
- Weakness (CWE)
- CWE-367
- Known exploited
- Not in CISA's KEV catalog
- EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)
- Not loaded for this CVE
- Assigned by
- CERT-PL
- NVD analysis
- Deferred
- Record last updated
- May 13, 2026
- First seen by InfoSec Signals
- Oct 9, 2026
The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry
The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.