CVE-2026-8933: Snap-confine Local Priv Escalation via set-capabilities
CVE-2026-8933 Published on July 21, 2026

snap-confine Local Privilege Escalation via Capabilities Misconfiguration or Flaw in Execution Environment Setup
A local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in snap-confine, a set-capabilities core component used internally by Canonical snapd to construct the secure execution environment for snap applications. This vulnerability uniquely affects versions of snap-confine configured with set-capabilities (rather than standard set-uid-root installations). Due to a flaw in how privilege boundaries or security sandboxes are initialized when the binary runs under limited ambient capabilities, a local, unprivileged attacker can exploit this behavior to bypass intended restrictions and execute arbitrary code. Successful exploitation allows the local user to elevate their privileges to full root authority.

NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2026-8933 can be exploited 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.

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

Weakness Type

Execution with Unnecessary Privileges

The software performs an operation at a privilege level that is higher than the minimum level required, which creates new weaknesses or amplifies the consequences of other weaknesses.