CVE-2026-84838: Rpm: command injection in rpmuncompress via unescaped filenames passed to popen()

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-09-02 · updated 2026-10-14
Weakness: CWE-78

Description

A flaw was found in rpmuncompress. This command injection vulnerability allows a local attacker to execute arbitrary commands. This occurs when rpmuncompress processes a specially crafted archive filename containing shell metacharacters, which are not properly escaped before being passed to shell command strings. Successful exploitation requires user interaction, where a user or automated workflow invokes rpmuncompress on the malicious file, leading to high impact on the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data accessible to the invoking user.

Affected products

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10: all versions
Red Hat Hardened Images: all versions — fixed in 6.1.0-1.3.hum1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Red Hat Hardened Images 6.1.0-1.3.hum1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2026-84838 or the next vulnerability affects your stack