Privilege escalation in Pi-Hole

CVE-2026-33727

Pi-hole is a Linux network-level advertisement and Internet tracker blocking application. Version 6.4 has a local privilege-escalation vulnerability allows code execution as root from the low-privilege pihole account. Important context: the pihole account uses nologin, so this is not a direct interactive-login issue. However, nologin does not prevent code from running as UID pihole if a Pi-hole component is compromised. In that realistic post-compromise scenario, attacker-controlled content in /etc/pihole/versions is sourced by root-run Pi-hole scripts, leading to root code execution. This vulnerability is fixed in 6.4.1.

Vulnerability class: Privilege Escalation

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.4 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (9.0th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 9th percentile — 9.0% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-33727: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: -0.000

Affected products

  • Pi-Hole — versions >= 6.4, < 6.4.1, 6.4

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-33727?
CVE-2026-33727 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Pi-Hole, classified under Improper Privilege Management. CVSS score: 6.4/10. Published 2026-04-06.
How severe is CVE-2026-33727?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.4 out of 10.