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🛡️ CVE-2026-6970 — authd

🟠 CVSS 8.0 — High ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-842 NVD
8.0
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

authd: Primary group ID is incorrectly set to value of UID

authd 0.6.0 contains [a bug](https://github.com/canonical/authd/issues/1482) which can lead to an incorrect primary group ID.

It affects users whose primary group ID (i.e. the GID in the user record) differs from their UID. There are two ways which can lead to this:

1. The user was created with authd < 0.5.4 (released June 2025). Those users were created with UID != GID.

2. The primary group of the user was modified manually with the authctl utility that is shipped with authd (authctl group set-gid).

Another condition is that some user information must have changed in the identity provider (else the user record is not updated upon login). If that is the case, the next time an affected user logs in, authd will set their primary group ID to their UID.

This could lead to local privileges escalation. Also, files and directories created by those users will be owned by that incorrect primary group, which may grant other local users access to those files which they shouldn't have.

Users who are affected by the issue can run this script to fix the primary group ID of all authd users and the file ownership of files in the home directory created with the incorrect GID:

```bash

authd_users=$(getent passwd --service authd | cut -d: -f1)

for user in $authd_users; do

OLD_GID=$(id -g "$user")

GID=$(getent group "$user" | cut -d: -f3)

if [ -z "$GID" ]; then

echo "Warning: could not determine GID for $user, skipping" >&2

continue

fi

if [ "$OLD_GID" = "$GID" ]; then

continue # user not affected

fi

USER_HOME=$(getent passwd "$user" | cut -d: -f6)

echo "Fixing $user: resetting GID from $OLD_GID to $GID"

sudo authctl group set-gid "$user" "$OLD_GID"

sudo authctl group set-gid "$user" "$GID"

sudo chown -R --from=":$OLD_GID" ":$GID" "$USER_HOME"

done

```

After applying the fix, affected users must log out and log back in for id, groups, and new file GID stamping to reflect the corrected primary group. You may also optionally terminate a user's active session with:

```bash

sudo loginctl terminate-user "$user"

```

If the users also own files outside their home directory, the ownership of those files might have to be updated as well.

Fixed by: https://github.com/canonical/authd/commit/154b428305cb1a7a19c897626fefd09d6dde8b9f

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity high, availability high.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

  • Attack vector: Local — a local account, shell or session on the host is needed.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Attack requirements: Present — the target has to be in a particular state for the attack to work.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Confidentiality impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Integrity impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Availability impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.

Weakness class

CVE-2026-6970 is classified as CWE-842: Placement of User into Incorrect Group. The product or the administrator places a user into an incorrect group.

Affected software

CVE-2026-6970 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • github.com/canonical/authd
  • unknown

Timeline and source

Published on 25 June 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. A vendor advisory or fix has been published. Record sourced from NVD.

References

github.com (Advisory)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
github.com (Fix)

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-842: Placement of User into Incorrect Group) in other software:

CVE-2026-6970 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity HIGH
CVSS Score 8.0
CVSS Vector CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CWE CWE-842
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2026-06-25
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-06-25

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
github.com/canonical/authd
unknown

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