An issue was discovered in Canonical Multipass for macOS before version 1.16.3 due to an incomplete fix for CVE-2025-5199. While the patch in version 1.16.0 updated the ownership of the multipassd daemon binary to root:wheel, five co-located binaries (multipass, qemu-img, qemu-system-aarch64, qemu-system-x86_64, and sshfs_server) in /Library/Application Support/com.canonical.multipass/bin/ retain ownership by the installing user and remain writable. Because the root LaunchDaemon (com.canonical.multipassd.plist) configures a PATH environment variable that prioritizes this user-writable directory and invokes these auxiliary binaries by their bare names, a local attacker can replace an auxiliary binary (such as qemu-img) with a malicious wrapper. When the root daemon subsequently triggers the binary during routine execution (e.g., via multipass launch), the malicious code executes with root privileges, leading to local privilege escalation.

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History

Thu, 28 May 2026 16:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'total'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}


Thu, 28 May 2026 14:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description An issue was discovered in Canonical Multipass for macOS before version 1.16.3 due to an incomplete fix for CVE-2025-5199. While the patch in version 1.16.0 updated the ownership of the multipassd daemon binary to root:wheel, five co-located binaries (multipass, qemu-img, qemu-system-aarch64, qemu-system-x86_64, and sshfs_server) in /Library/Application Support/com.canonical.multipass/bin/ retain ownership by the installing user and remain writable. Because the root LaunchDaemon (com.canonical.multipassd.plist) configures a PATH environment variable that prioritizes this user-writable directory and invokes these auxiliary binaries by their bare names, a local attacker can replace an auxiliary binary (such as qemu-img) with a malicious wrapper. When the root daemon subsequently triggers the binary during routine execution (e.g., via multipass launch), the malicious code executes with root privileges, leading to local privilege escalation.
Title Local Privilege Escalation in Canonical Multipass
Weaknesses CWE-276
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.8, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'}


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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: canonical

Published:

Updated: 2026-05-28T15:15:27.077Z

Reserved: 2026-05-28T12:03:02.295Z

Link: CVE-2026-49237

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2026-05-28T15:15:23.629Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-05-28T14:16:24.270

Modified: 2026-05-28T14:16:24.270

Link: CVE-2026-49237

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-05-28T15:45:19Z

Weaknesses