VMware Fusion Privilege Escalation via TOCTOU on SETUID Binary
CVE-2026-41702 Published on May 15, 2026
TOCTOU local privilege escalation vulnerability
VMware Fusion contains a TOCTOU (Time-of-check Time-of-use) vulnerability that occurs during an operation performed by a SETUID binary. A malicious actor with local non-administrative user privileges may exploit this vulnerability to escalate privileges to root on the system where Fusion is installed.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2026-41702 is exploitable with local system access, and requires small amount of user privileges. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to be very high.
Weakness Type
What is a TOCTTOU Vulnerability?
The software checks the state of a resource before using that resource, but the resource's state can change between the check and the use in a way that invalidates the results of the check. This can cause the software to perform invalid actions when the resource is in an unexpected state. This weakness can be security-relevant when an attacker can influence the state of the resource between check and use. This can happen with shared resources such as files, memory, or even variables in multithreaded programs.
CVE-2026-41702 has been classified to as a TOCTTOU vulnerability or weakness.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-41702
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Affected Versions
VMware Fusion:- Version 2025H2 and below 2026H1 is affected.