A privilege escalation vulnerability was found in CUPS when used with the cups-filters serial backend. A local user who is a member of the lpadmin group can configure a printer that uses a privileged serial backend. The CUPS scheduler does not restrict the path component of non-file device URIs, so the root-privileged backend can write attacker-controlled print data to an arbitrary file. This can be used to change security-sensitive CUPS configuration and ultimately achieve root code execution. Exploitation requires local lpadmin group membership and a serial backend binary installed with root-only permissions.

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Fixes

Solution

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Workaround

There is no complete mitigation while the serial backend remains installed as a root backend. The following steps reduce risk: 1. If serial printers are not required, remove the serial backend package file or change its permissions so cupsd no longer runs it as root, for example: chmod 0755 /usr/lib/cups/backend/serial (path may be /usr/libexec/cups/backend/serial). 2. Restrict lpadmin (and other SystemGroup) membership to users who are already trusted with root-equivalent access. 3. Leave FileDevice unset or set to No in /etc/cups/cups-files.conf. 4. Keep SELinux in enforcing mode. The cupsd_t domain may block some of the file writes used in this chain.

History

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description A privilege escalation vulnerability was found in CUPS when used with the cups-filters serial backend. A local user who is a member of the lpadmin group can configure a printer that uses a privileged serial backend. The CUPS scheduler does not restrict the path component of non-file device URIs, so the root-privileged backend can write attacker-controlled print data to an arbitrary file. This can be used to change security-sensitive CUPS configuration and ultimately achieve root code execution. Exploitation requires local lpadmin group membership and a serial backend binary installed with root-only permissions.
Title Cups: cups-filters: cups-filters: lpadmin can escalate to root via privileged serial backend (cups2root)
First Time appeared Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
Redhat hummingbird
Weaknesses CWE-269
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:hummingbird:1
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:10
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9
Vendors & Products Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
Redhat hummingbird
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 8.2, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H'}


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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: redhat

Published:

Updated: 2026-09-22T09:20:58.580Z

Reserved: 2026-09-22T07:58:16.551Z

Link: CVE-2026-95511

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-09-22T09:17:06.217

Modified: 2026-09-22T09:17:06.217

Link: CVE-2026-95511

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses