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Fencer Intel
medium 4.7

CVE-2026-53800 json

rsync < 3.5.0 Symlink Race Condition via --remove-source-files

published 2mo ago modified 18d ago also EUVD-2026-58038 , GHSA-v3vw-pvpg-chwh

Unreviewed: the maintainers' own advisory

Published by the maintainers on their GitHub repository RsyncProject/rsync. GitHub has not reviewed it into the GitHub Advisory Database, so the affected packages and versions are the maintainers' word. Read the full advisory on GitHub.

cvss
4.7
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 3%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

rsync before 3.5.0 contains a symlink race condition vulnerability in the --remove-source-files feature that allows attackers with symlink creation access to cause arbitrary file deletion. Attackers can atomically substitute a symlink for a source file between transfer completion and the unlink() call, causing rsync to delete the symlink target rather than the intended source file.

Patch / fix

  • RsyncProject rsync 3.5.0
  • rsync Debian 12 3.5.0+ds1-0+deb12u1
  • rsync Debian 13 3.5.0+ds1-0+deb13u1
  • rsync Debian 14 3.5.0+ds1-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53800

  • rsync SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 3.4.1-160000.6.1
  • rsync Linux Micro 6.0 3.2.7-8.1
  • rsync Linux Micro 6.1 3.3.0-slfo.1.1_7.1
  • rsync SLES for SAP 15 SP6, SLES 15 SP6-LTSS, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 3.2.7-150600.3.24.1
  • rsync SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS +8 more 3.2.3-150400.3.34.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:23289-1SUSE-SU-2026:23323-1SUSE-SU-2026:23253-1SUSE-SU-2026:23254-1SUSE-SU-2026:3657-1SUSE-SU-2026:3634-1

  • rsync openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.5.1-1.1
  • rsync openSUSE Leap 16.0 3.4.1-160000.6.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:11869-1openSUSE-SU-2026:21650-1

  • rsync Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +1 more 3.5.0-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2026-53800

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • rsync Azure Linux 3.0 3.5.0-1

azure linux advisories AZL-95768

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-53800 updated cvss 4.7

rsync: Rsync: Arbitrary file deletion via symlink race condition in --remove-source-files

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 rsync Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 rsync
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 rsync, rsync-daemon Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rsync, rsync-daemon, rsync-rrsync Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 rsync Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-dashboard-rhel9
    under investigation

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.14% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 3% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 5.7 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 3.1 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 4.0 5.7 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Affected products

  • RsyncProject rsync

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
  • CWE-367 Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

The maintainers of RsyncProject/rsync published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.