CVE-2026-88252: Sssd: sssd: denial of service via responder connection retry loop during file descriptor exhaustion

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 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: yes
Published: 2026-10-06 · updated 2026-10-20
Weakness: CWE-835

Description

A flaw was found in sssd. A local user can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by exhausting the responder service's available file descriptors (system handles used for open connections). By opening and maintaining many concurrent connections to a responder socket while continuing to queue new connection attempts, an attacker can trigger an unthrottled retry loop. This condition leads to high CPU utilization and stalls the service, preventing legitimate identity and authentication requests from being processed.

Affected products

[UNKNOWN] sssd: 2.12.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux: 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, 10.0
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.18: 4.0

References

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