Authenticated privilege retention via unchecked seteuid failure
Published May 21, 2026 · Updated May 21, 2026
Improper privilege-drop handling in Netatalk 1.5.0 through 4.4.2 allows remote authenticated users to retain elevated process privileges. The authentication modules log a failed seteuid() call but continue processing instead of aborting, leaving the process at its prior effective user ID. Exploitation requires a low-privileged authenticated session and an unusual privilege-change failure that upstream says attackers generally cannot force in normal deployments; successful triggering permits limited access to protected operations and data.
Summary
What happened
Improper privilege-drop handling in Netatalk 1.5.0 through 4.4.2 allows remote authenticated users to retain elevated process privileges. The authentication modules log a failed seteuid() call but continue processing instead of aborting, leaving the process at its prior effective user ID. Exploitation requires a low-privileged authenticated session and an unusual privilege-change failure that upstream says attackers generally cannot force in normal deployments; successful triggering permits limited access to protected operations and data.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-44073
- Published
- May 21, 2026
- Updated
- May 21, 2026
- Vendor
- Netatalk
- Product
- Netatalk
- Classifications
- CWE-273, T1068
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 21, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 21, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=1.5.0 <=4.4.2
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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