What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-53796: rsync < 3.5.0 TOCTOU Race Condition via Destination Directory Handling

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.3 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-08-13 · updated 2026-10-24
• Weakness: CWE-59

Description

rsync before 3.5.0 contains a time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition vulnerability in the non-daemon receiver's destination directory handling that allows an attacker who can manipulate destination path parent components to redirect file writes to unintended locations. Attackers can substitute a symlink for a component of the destination path between the path resolution and chdir() call, causing the receiver's working directory to be established outside the intended destination tree so that subsequent relative-path file writes land in unintended filesystem locations.

Affected products

• RsyncProject rsync: through 3.4.4

References

• https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.5.0
• https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/security/advisories/GHSA-w75h-ccff-w53m
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/rsync-toctou-race-condition-via-destination-directory-handling

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