Sudo Priv Esc via non-fatal setuid failure pre-3e474c2 before 1.9.17p2
CVE-2026-35535 Published on April 3, 2026

In Sudo through 1.9.17p2 before 3e474c2, a failure of a setuid, setgid, or setgroups call, during a privilege drop before running the mailer, is not a fatal error and can lead to privilege escalation.

NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2026-35535 can be exploited with local system access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is consided to have a high level of attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to be very high.

Attack Vector:
LOCAL
Attack Complexity:
HIGH
Privileges Required:
NONE
User Interaction:
NONE
Scope:
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
HIGH
Integrity Impact:
HIGH
Availability Impact:
HIGH

Weakness Type

Privilege Dropping / Lowering Errors

The software does not drop privileges before passing control of a resource to an actor that does not have those privileges. In some contexts, a system executing with elevated permissions will hand off a process/file/etc. to another process or user. If the privileges of an entity are not reduced, then elevated privileges are spread throughout a system and possibly to an attacker.


Affected Versions

Sudo project Sudo:

Exploit Probability

EPSS
0.00%
Percentile
0.18%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.