High
mrtg — security advisory
A flaw was found in MRTG. When the MRTG daemon is started as a root user and subsequently drops privileges, a local, low-privileged attacker can exploit a symbolic link (symlink) following vulnerability. By influencing or pre-placing a symlink in the process ID (PID) file path, the attacker can trick the root process into changing the ownership of an arbitrary existing file to the daemon user. This can lead to local privilege escalation, allowing unauthorized access to or modification of sensitive files.
- Products
- mrtg
- Affected versions
- 2.17.10-1, 2.17.10-12, 2.17.10-13, 2.17.10-14, 2.17.10-15, 2.17.10-16, 2.17.10-2, 2.17.10-3, 2.17.10-9, 2.17.4-2ubuntu2, 2.17.4-3ubuntu1, 2.17.4-4.1ubuntu1, 2.17.4-4ubuntu1, 2.17.7-1ubuntu1, 2.17.7-3ubuntu1, 2.17.8+git20211026.912afc5-4, 2.17.8+git20211026.912afc5-5, 2.17.8+git20211109.9205d1d-1, 2.17.8+git20211109.9205d1d-2, 2.17.8+git20211109.9205d1d-3, 2.17.9-1
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2026-72694
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 31 Oct 2026, 03:15 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
A flaw was found in MRTG. When the MRTG daemon is started as a root user and subsequently drops privileges, a local, low-privileged attacker can exploit a symbolic link (symlink) following vulnerability. By influencing or pre-placing a symlink in the process ID (PID) file path, the attacker can trick the root process into changing the ownership of an arbitrary existing file to the daemon user. This can lead to local privilege escalation, allowing unauthorized access to or modification of sensitive files.
osv:UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72694
mrtg
Fixed versions: Not specified
mrtg
Fixed versions: Not specified
mrtg
Fixed versions: Not specified
mrtg
Fixed versions: Not specified
mrtg
Fixed versions: Not specified
mrtg
Fixed versions: Not specified
mrtg
Fixed versions: Not specified
Complete source record
{
"id": "84ec7cad87013a523d5632cbbbb61781635a06c3962ffab0bd200210401efeb7",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72694",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72694",
"summary": "A flaw was found in MRTG. When the MRTG daemon is started as a root user and subsequently drops privileges, a local, low-privileged attacker can exploit a symbolic link (symlink) following vulnerability. By influencing or pre-placing a symlink in the process ID (PID) file path, the attacker can trick the root process into changing the ownership of an arbitrary existing file to the daemon user. This can lead to local privilege escalation, allowing unauthorized access to or modification of sensitive files.",
"evidence": "osv:UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72694",
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{
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],
"severity": "high",
"structured": {
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"aliases": [
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"metrics": [
{
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"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N"
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},
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],
"modified": "2026-10-17T13:00:49.132481059Z",
"provider": "osv",
"upstream": [
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],
"references": [
"https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-72694",
"https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-72694",
"https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2460973",
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"security_relevant": true,
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"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 360851,
"published_at": "2026-08-11T09:17:00+00:00"
}