CVE-2026-41991 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Details

CVE-2026-41991
Vulnerability Scoring

Analysis In Progress
Analysis In Progress

Attack Complexity Details

  • Attack Complexity:
    Attack Complexity Analysis In Progress
  • Attack Vector:
    Attack Vector Under Analysis
  • Privileges Required: None
    No authentication is required for exploitation.
  • Scope:
    Impact is confined to the initially vulnerable component.
  • User Interaction: None
    No user interaction is necessary for exploitation.

CVE-2026-41991 Details

Status: Received on 29 Jun 2026, 12:16 UTC

Published on: 29 Jun 2026, 12:16 UTC

CVSS Release:

CVE-2026-41991 Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2026-41991: GNU gzip contains a vulnerability in the gzexe utility related to insecure temporary file handling. When the mktemp utility is not available in the user’s PATH, gzexe falls back to constructing a temporary file path based solely on the process ID (PID). This predictable filename is created without exclusive access or existence checks. A local attacker can pre‑create the predicted temporary file path as a symbolic link pointing to an arbitrary file writable by the victim. When gzexe runs, it follows the symlink and overwrites the target file, resulting in a time‑of‑check to time‑of‑use (TOCTOU) condition that allows arbitrary file overwrite. This issue has been fixed in the commit 4e6f8b24ab823146ab8776f0b7fe486ab34d4269

Assessing the Risk of CVE-2026-41991

Access Complexity Graph

The exploitability of CVE-2026-41991 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).

Exploitability Analysis for CVE-2026-41991

No exploitability data is available for CVE-2026-41991.

Understanding AC and PR

A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.

Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.

Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.

CVSS Score Breakdown Chart

Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2026-41991, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.

CIA Impact Analysis

Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2026-41991, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.

  • Confidentiality: None
    CVE-2026-41991 does not compromise confidentiality.
  • Integrity: None
    CVE-2026-41991 does not impact data integrity.
  • Availability: None
    CVE-2026-41991 does not affect system availability.

CVE-2026-41991 References

External References

CWE Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-377

CAPEC Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification

  • Explore for Predictable Temporary File Names CAPEC-149 An attacker explores a target to identify the names and locations of predictable temporary files for the purpose of launching further attacks against the target. This involves analyzing naming conventions and storage locations of the temporary files created by a target application. If an attacker can predict the names of temporary files they can use this information to mount other attacks, such as information gathering and symlink attacks.
  • Screen Temporary Files for Sensitive Information CAPEC-155 An adversary exploits the temporary, insecure storage of information by monitoring the content of files used to store temp data during an application's routine execution flow. Many applications use temporary files to accelerate processing or to provide records of state across multiple executions of the application. Sometimes, however, these temporary files may end up storing sensitive information. By screening an application's temporary files, an adversary might be able to discover such sensitive information. For example, web browsers often cache content to accelerate subsequent lookups. If the content contains sensitive information then the adversary could recover this from the web cache.

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