What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-53798: rsync < 3.5.0 Privilege Confusion via name-converter uid/gid mapping

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.3 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.4% 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-704

Description

rsync before 3.5.0 contains a privilege confusion vulnerability in the name-converter subprocess uid/gid mapping that allows local attackers to cause transferred files to be owned by root by influencing name-converter responses to return empty values. When the name-converter subprocess returns an empty response for a uid or gid lookup, rsync incorrectly interprets it as a successful resolution to uid/gid 0 (root) rather than a lookup failure, and if the name-converter also signals fake super-user status, rsync proceeds with root ownership assignments for transferred files.

Affected products

• RsyncProject rsync: before 3.5.0 — fixed in 3.5.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: RsyncProject rsync 3.5.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/releases/tag/v3.5.0
• https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/security/advisories/GHSA-hx7p-3gvv-pqgv
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/rsync-privilege-confusion-via-name-converter-uid-gid-mapping

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