sed 4.9-: In-Place Edit + --follow-symlinks Race -> Arbitrary File Overwrite (CVE-2026-5958)
CVE-2026-5958 Published on April 20, 2026
Race Condition in GNU Sed
When sed is invoked with both -i (in-place edit) and --follow-symlinks, the function open_next_file() performs two separate, non-atomic filesystem operations on the same path:
1. resolves symlink to its target and stores the resolved path for determining when output is written,
2. opens the original symlink path (not the resolved one) to read the file.
Between these two calls there is a race window. If an attacker atomically replaces the symlink with a different target during that window, sed will: read content from the new (attacker-chosen) symlink target and write the processed result to the path recorded in step 1. This can lead to arbitrary file overwrite with attacker-controlled content in the context of the sed process.
This issue was fixed in version 4.10.
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-2026-5958 has been classified to as a TOCTTOU vulnerability or weakness.
Affected Versions
GNU Sed:- Version 4.1e and below 4.10 is affected.