CVE-2026-12080 Details

A local unprivileged user can exploit a vulnerability in the QEMU Guest Agent (qga) by manipulating symbolic links. This issue arises in the guest-ssh-add-authorized-keys command handler, where the agent, running as root, follows symlinks in a way that can be exploited. The vulnerability can be triggered through a deterministic directory-symlink bypass or a Time-of-Check to Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) file-symlink race. Successful exploitation allows the attacker to gain ownership of arbitrary root-owned files or directories, leading to root access. This vulnerability requires an external management layer, such as libvirt, to activate the affected code path.

If the guest-ssh-add-authorized-keys command is not needed, it can be disabled by adding it to the QEMU Guest Agent block list. This will prevent the vulnerable code path from being executed while maintaining other guest-agent functionalities.