CVE-2026-11837

Publication date 10 June 2026

Last updated 18 June 2026

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

A local privilege escalation vulnerability was found in the ansible.posix authorized_key module. The module's keyfile() function uses os.chown() instead of os.lchown() and opens files without O_NOFOLLOW when managing SSH authorized keys. An unprivileged local user can pre-stage symbolic links in their ~/.ssh directory to redirect file ownership changes to arbitrary system paths when an operator runs the authorized_key task as root, leading to local privilege escalation.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
ansible	26.04 LTS resolute	Needs evaluation
	25.10 questing	Needs evaluation
	24.04 LTS noble	Needs evaluation
	22.04 LTS jammy	Needs evaluation
	20.04 LTS focal	Needs evaluation
	18.04 LTS bionic	Needs evaluation
	14.04 LTS trusty	Needs evaluation
ansible-core	26.04 LTS resolute	Needs evaluation
	25.10 questing	Needs evaluation
	24.04 LTS noble	Needs evaluation
	22.04 LTS jammy	Needs evaluation

Notes

sbeattie

core ansible binaries were split into ansible-base, which got renamed to ansible-core

Severity score breakdown

CVSS version: CVSS v3.0

Base score 7.3 · High

Base metrics

Parameter	Value
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	Low
User interaction	Required
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality impact	High
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High

Scores

Parameter	Value
Base score	7.3 · High
Exploitability score	-
Impact score	-

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H