Guest root escalation via world-writable agent socket
Published Jul 10, 2026 · Updated Jul 10, 2026
Privilege escalation in Lima 2.1.2 and earlier allows local users in QEMU guests to execute arbitrary commands as root within the VM. The Linux guest agent creates /run/lima-guestagent.sock with mode 0777, allowing any guest user to invoke its unrestricted address-tunneling service toward privileged Unix sockets such as D-Bus. Exploitation requires a QEMU-backed instance with the guest agent enabled; VZ instances are unaffected, and the privilege gain does not extend to the host.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in Lima 2.1.2 and earlier allows local users in QEMU guests to execute arbitrary commands as root within the VM. The Linux guest agent creates /run/lima-guestagent.sock with mode 0777, allowing any guest user to invoke its unrestricted address-tunneling service toward privileged Unix sockets such as D-Bus. Exploitation requires a QEMU-backed instance with the guest agent enabled; VZ instances are unaffected, and the privilege gain does not extend to the host.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-53657
- Published
- Jul 10, 2026
- Updated
- Jul 10, 2026
- Vendor
- Lima
- Product
- Lima
- Classifications
- CWE-276, CWE-668, T1548
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jul 10, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Jul 10, 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=< 2.1.3
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
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
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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