Auth bypass in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10

CVE-2026-96512

A flaw was found in sudo. When sudoers rules use NOTBEFORE or NOTAFTER time-based access restrictions with timestamps that omit the trailing 'Z' timezone indicator, the time evaluation relies on the TZ environment variable inherited from the calling user. Because sudo is a setuid-root program, an unprivileged local user can set TZ to an extreme timezone offset to shift the authorization window by up to approximately 25 hours, causing expired rules to be treated as valid. This allows the user to execute commands outside the intended time window. Authentication is not bypassed; only the time-based authorization check is affected.

Vulnerability class: Broken Access Control

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (25.1th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 25th percentile — 25.1% 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-2026-96512: held from 0.001 to 0.003.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.003 · change: +0.002

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-96512?
CVE-2026-96512 is a high-severity vulnerability in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, classified under Incorrect Authorization. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-09-23.
How severe is CVE-2026-96512?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2026-96512 known to be exploited?
2 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.