CVE-2026-109518
On Debian, Ubuntu, and derivative Linux distributions, an on-path attacker who can manipulate the…
- Risk score
- 51/100
- CVSS
- 7.7 v4.0
- Published
- 4 Nov 2026
Open in the live forecast Today's forecast
What to know
- What it is
- On Debian, Ubuntu, and derivative Linux distributions, an on-path attacker who can manipulate the HTTP traffic (including a malicious mirror or proxy) between an APT client and an archive server triggered by a package install can trick the client into installing an attacker-controlled unverified package and achieve re…
- Affected
- See advisory
- Fix
- Apply the vendor's security update; see the linked advisory.
- Exploitation
- No known exploitation
Why it is Yellow
- CVSS 7.7 high
- Remotely exploitable without logging in
References
Original description
On Debian, Ubuntu, and derivative Linux distributions, an on-path attacker who can manipulate the HTTP traffic (including a malicious mirror or proxy) between an APT client and an archive server triggered by a package install can trick the client into installing an attacker-controlled unverified package and achieve remote code execution with root privileges. The vulnerability is caused by the reuse of hard links and requires the client to follow redirects and retry the download of package files. It requires the client to have a non-zero Acquire::Retries configuration setting; the value 3 is the default starting with Debian 12 (bookworm) and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish), so older releases are unaffected in a default configuration
Last activity 4 Nov 2026. Patch Forecast updates every hour.